BOE 2021-06-15

001what stands between us but what stands before us we close the Divide because we know to put our future first we must first put our differences aside we lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another we see harm to none and harmony for all Let The Globe if nothing else say this is true that even as we grieved we grew that even as we hurt we hoped that even as we tired we tried that will forever be tied together Victorious not because we will never again no defeat but because we will never again sow division while once we asked how could we possibly Prevail over catastrophe now we assert how could catastrophe possibly Prevail over us we will not March back to what was but move to what shall

002be a country that is bruised but whole benevolent but bold Fierce and free when day comes we shall step out of the shade of flame and unafraid the new dawn balloons as we free it there is always light if only we're brave enough to see it if only we were brave enough to be it this is happy pride month Columbus and Columbus City School family um thank you so much for putting that video together that is actually our submission for the stone wall uh Pride Celebration that's going on since there is no marks this year um every organization was asked to put a video together and that is ours so thank you to everyone that participated and thank you to our communication team for having the idea and really executing such a beautiful uh video

003um and there'll be more more details about all of that I want to brag far and wide about that and uh make sure that we get that shown everywhere so happy pride month everyone um and I'm gonna go ahead and officially call our meeting to order today is June 15th and this is a regular business meeting of the Board of Education please call the roll president Adair president MS beckerly present Mr Brown I'm here Mr Cole I am here Dr Pierce present Mr Ragland here vice president Reyes here you have a core Madam president thank you so much uh we are going to have the Pledge of Allegiance this evening uh and I'm just gonna randomly pick one of you because we don't have students with us this evening uh so let's see how about

004uh internal auditor Smith would you be willing to lead us in the pledge certainly I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so much for that all right four members uh tonight's agenda we have no board recognitions we have nine individuals here to speak for public comment we will have a superintendent's report we are not expecting a report from internal auditor but are expecting one from the treasurer's office we have three items in board matters we have our consent agenda um we will then have our public or I'm sorry our uh announcements board announcements and then we will have executive session are there any is there a motion to approve

005the agenda our motion to approve the agenda is there a second are there any thank you are there any comments or questions additions seeing then please call the roll president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes Mr Ragland huh did we lose Mr Ragland there he is yes thank you and vice president yes that motion carried four minutes to address the board I will be keeping time um because just to remind everyone we do have a lot of speakers this evening public comment is also limited to 40 minutes um that is per board policy so four minutes per speaker 40 minutes as a total time so our first Speaker this evening is James Nguyen topic restorative process sort of processes and funding board action listen to a statement

006about restorative processes and funding for it so Dr Rausch is standing in for Miss Nichols this evening we'll join us I I have the speaker on the line thank you so much good evening Mr Wynn you have four minutes to address the board committee but I'm happy to be here with you all tonight and simply last met of course A lot has changed with children out of the classroom Our concern now is that teachers and staff at the restorative practices training or a chance to keep up relationships with students through virtual learning our committee is understanding of the pressure that was put on teachers and staff we want to commend you all for the work the district has done to adapt to the pandemic especially getting those students who did not have who didn't have

007resources you got them access to computers and the internet and that's commendable so now as a pandemic eases and children teachers and staff return to schools our our committee is still committed to us to ensuring those environments are both safe and restorative given the events of the past year we know that kids are going to be returning to the classroom with high levels of stress anxiety and Trauma which may lead to behavior problems restorative practices is a proactive way to not only prevent disruptions in the classroom but also strengthen relationships between children teachers and staff along with the family unit of the students we want all schools to form these habits and relationship buildings over their students teachers and staff can drive Brad has met with many school board members in the past month and

008we know that many of you share this vision and that is also embedded in your goals and guardrails Five-Year Plan for the district in that plan it speaks to increasing restorative practices throughout the district and and bread is supportive of working with you to get all teachers and staff within the entire District trained to Fidelity and restorative practices we really would like to celebrate these steps forward and really support the district in this adulterers change if you are able to respond tonight we have a few bread leaders on the call listening tonight now I'm going to end with these three questions we would like to formally invite all of you attend Branch celebration on Zoom going to be held to January 28th at 7 pm so that we can celebrate your commitment of increasing restorative

009practices within the district if you're able to respond at night will you be able to join us if not we can always follow up in the future my second question is this will restore to practice this training start this summer before teachers and students return in the fall foreign go ahead and ask all three of your questions because of the timing and then I will stop your time and then let the board respond now if training will start this summer before teachers and students return in the fall how much funding being allocated for the upcoming school year regarding restorative practices training so those are the three questions okay thank you Mr Winn um I I will go ahead and let board members uh respond and ask clarifying questions but remember Brown I think you want

010to say something yes I just uh if you could State the date and time again 28th at 7 pm it will be on Zoom thank you are there additional clarifying questions uh Mr Wen as for your other two questions we will get them addressed and administration will respond to you our superintendent is shaking her head I know you cannot see her so we will get a response back to you okay thank you so much Mr Winn for uh continuing to Advocate on behalf of Fred and um for our students especially around this uh very important topic of restorative practices which you identified as part of our long-term goals all right thank you thank you all right our next speaker will be Kahari andaharo and the topic is student code of conduct action requested enhanced support

011and Implement a code of conduct for students and citizens of the community we will wait for Dr Roush to get uh Kahari on the phone president Adair I have the next speaker in the line go ahead and let him know when you're ready thank you so much uh you have four minutes to address the board you may begin vice president raid and distinguished members of the Columbus City School Board and superintendent Dr Dixon my name is Kahari and Haro 33 Linwood Avenue Columbus Ohio I'm here today as the developer and organizer of the Columbus civilian community board which convened his first meeting on Saturday October 17 2015. the Columbus civilian community board Hereafter is called the triple CD is the Grassroots community-based organization created to find ways to produce stated communities 50 year 2004 I

012and other community members have been working to develop language Concepts and programs that reduce conflict in our community in 2007 this led to the establishment of the black anti-definition Council which was created which created a stop 10 list consisting of 10 words that we thought were War language words that should not be spoken in or out of our community over the years I have noticed that many of our communities had what I call an ineffective response to the conditions imposed by racial and social injustice by ineffective response I mean instead of 4 and all problems out of our frustrations too many of us engage in community conflicts that often had tragic outcomes what is needed now is an effective response to the conditions of racism and social injustice by effective response I mean thought speech

013and action that stimulates and enables people to address problems in a constructive manner in a productive manner in December 2015 proposed to the triple CBA Community code of conduct that would serve as an effective response to establish standards in our community and promote constructive behavior in our community uh for example if you see trash on the street pick it up those kinds of behaviors at that time I was chair of the Triple C uh B and I set up and served on the community code of conduct committee the committee work diligently on the development of the code for about two years after the committee completed the first draft we held three focus group meetings six Regional neighborhood meetings and numerous group sessions to give feedback to determine if we were on the correct path with

014the code of conduct in May of 2017 the community approved the community code of conduct in June 2017 we held a major presentation of it at the downtown public library the code of conduct is a system of constructive thought speech and action designed to solve problems the code of conduct is released a 12 and it's a behavior and based on our feedback the community believes that if this code is followed it would dramatically reduce conflict violence and disorder the philosophy of the code is that we must minimize conflict maximize cooperation to have constructive outcomes that solve black problems the community code of conduct while designed to minimize conflict in our community and this is largely due to the disproportionately high levels of shooting physical balance and homicide the standards of the code however can and

015should be shared in a great universally and we believe that the good comportment starts in the home and travels abroad teaching the communal code of conduct in the community in schools is an effective way to show students parents and adults how to minimize conflict and maximize cooperation at home in the neighborhood coming going to school and being in school but such a time is this we need a code of conduct where there are no Community a code of conduct where there are no Community standards or a code of conduct chaos and disorder is guaranteed 11 Charles wheeler who is currently the chair of the Triple C the Roman his remarks talk about why we need your support thank you for your work and thank you for this time thank you so much that was perfectly

016timed at four minutes uh are there any clarifying questions for the speaker well board member Cole thank you madam president uh thank you Mr inaharo um for your request and for uh this evening's participation in our meeting um my question to you is is uh should this be something that the board is interested in doing um would it does it make sense for us to do this by resolution uh to make it a little more formalized for you all I'm certainly in support of this uh symbolic piece that I think is really important that encourages again that sense of Peace in this community in order um but is this something that uh your organization wants to entertain as a resolution uh from from the board and I certainly asked that also for my colleagues if

017if you all were interested okay yes uh I would say that what we want is a partnership with the school board in this effort of course our chair will say a little bit more about that but we believe that it's important that we get this message and this campaign out city-wide especially inside of places where our children are in schools which often young people are the most vulnerable to all kinds of things it you know it's it's a re-establish in our community when we had culture by which we follow over the years we have somehow in many communities not at all many of the communities those standards have either disappeared or they've gone into some form of a bad what we're trying to do is to re-establish those and we want to work on the

018major institutions to help us get that going and to be a part of what we're trying to do so I would say yes uh if the resolution is the strongest a way to get it done yes sir I thank you for that my last question is you mentioned partnership have you had any conversation with the administration's office of uh engagement and strategic Partnerships have you had any comments again I'm sorry have you had any conversation with our department of Engagement um those folks in that portion of our Administration that could very well help and direct and and help even us identify what what type of partnership this would entail and what what are the expected outcomes because if you haven't I certainly recommend the administration reach out to you through that office yes yes and

019that's our hope that we would be able to sit down with the administration and begin that process of moving forward with this thank you so much I don't are there any other clarifying questions a board member beckerly uh not really a clarifying question I just love that this is a community wide focus and I hope that we are able to um come up with some sort of a plan or joint effort because I I like the concept and Mr Kari and I had a nice conversation yesterday so I'm kind of excited about this thank you I I'm looking forward to working with you I really am the whole board is we're very excited about what we believe can come from this thank you foreign I do have a clarifying question is it is it your

020intention uh being a part of the the process in uh helping you to bring the community code of conduct uh to fruition is it your intention to have the community code of conduct or at least uh some sort of Honor Code literally be implemented with the students within the district uh a resolution is one thing but having an honor code uh district-wide uh that resembles some of the values that are expressed in the community code of conduct is something entirely different and I wanted to just clarify uh you know what your what your intention is is it is it I mean or is that something that you feel should be a product of the discussion with the administration well I think it should be part of the discussions of the administration and also I believe

021that the community code of conduct is like an overarching thing because the community of code of conduct not only impacts the student at home it also impacts the community that the student lives in so while we will support the I mean we believe in the honor code while the student is in school once that child leaves the school then on the way home in home and coming back to school there's the community so what we have to do is rebuild it is to reconstruct the whole system in which the child is involved in and so therefore yes we would see the community called conduct as being a part not replacing necessarily but being a part of where where it would be effective being a part of what goes on inside the schools we definitely see

022that part of it but also how the infrastructure of the child going to improm school yes and in the neighborhoods yes sir yes sir thank you Mr Haro and thank you madam president oh thank you thank you for the question appreciate it thank you board member Raglan um and thank you so much uh Mr Carl for bringing this uh to our attention um we have several other speakers to talk to us on this very topic so we will go ahead and move on to the next one if that is okay with you that's fine thank you very much for your time I really appreciate it thank you so much our next speaker is attorney Byron Cox his topic student code of conduct action requested support and Implement a code of conduct for students citizens to

023work collaboratively together and we will wait for attorney Potts president here I have the speaker on the line thank you so much Dr Rose sorry um attorney Potts you have four minutes to address the board you may begin Madam president board members superintendent I'm coming as legal counsel for the community the Columbus civilian community board and I just want to talk about how it is affecting the students and the young people in our community legally as we as everyone knows that we had eight children that were attending Columbus schools to have been killed but how many of them have been affected in the legal system in juvenile court with the Department of Youth Services and when I'm told by one of the judges down there that 98 percent of the young people that are housed

024in the juvenile detention center 98 percent are from our community they're African-Americans and mostly males I have some issues with how we can reach these young people did every day I've represented people young people on murder cases or people that are young people that have been uh held with guns and shooting people for longest and strong cases and it troubles me when we don't have things in place so we can start retraining the young people with our community but the community code of conduct to me is a start in that direction and I know the uh Columbus City Schools have named James trying to help with this violence that we have in our community but one of the things that I think we need to do is to start focusing on some criteria for these

025young people to start promoting at a young age almost like the Ten Commandments that we have that we can start teaching them things that are very important to our community that will stop this violence in our community and uh as having to deal with all these I'm really it really bothers me to continue to have these young people I just got called from a case today that I represented a young man he's out of school but well he's he's dead now that the family now has another generation of people that are brought in the system that we have this recurring cycle that we need to do something about this and we have to have some type of intervention and we can't just put the onus on the school board but but that's where we see

026a lot of the young people that we can get their attention at least start talking about this code of conduct and how we should act not only in school but when they come out to the community because what I'm saying is a lot of people are scared of the young people not communicating with them won't talk to them and if we can come and talk to them about how to ask how to rest how to take care of their communities and what to do I think it's a starting point where we can stop this going on so if we form a partnership with the is the Columbus civilian community board forms a partnership with Columbus City Schools to promote the community code of conduct I think it will go a long way to stop our

027health stocks some of this violence that we have in the community thank you so much attorney for addressing the board are there any clarifying questions I can hear you remember Cole did you have your hand up no the Raglan thank you madam president thank you uh returning Potts uh and I really appreciate you uh coming from the standpoint of the legal system uh I often speak from uh the board floor about how our conversations should occur uh with a view of what is happening at the Franklin County Courthouse as we make decisions regarding our young people uh here uh my question to you is uh through this process do you think that there would be a place for um some of our juvenile judicial folks to join in to this conversation as board member Cole

028has suggested uh I believe uh the best place for us to start is with our engagement office but um if if you do you feel like our Juvenile Justice folks would be willing uh to be a part of this conversation as well um my speaking with um the some of the other judges that are down there it's a it's frustrating and how we we are searching for answers repeated it is imperative to get them involved yeah thank you uh thank you your attorney pots and that concludes my questions Madam president thank you thank you so much other clarifying questions thank you so much attorney Potts for bringing your perspective we have again several other speakers to talk about the same topic so we are going to go ahead and move on to the next one

029we appreciate you speaking before the board our next our next speaker is Tyrone Thomas topic code of conduct action requested allow a presentation of contact for students and citizens of the community president there I have the speaker on the line thank you hey Fox all right I want to thank the president of the board and the board members and all the people that work to put this together I really appreciate the opportunity and talk to you about the about the Columbus civilians community board and our code ascender code of conductively work we've worked for the last few years to come out wet and we're looking to partnership with the school board to make um more viable so one of the things I wanted to talk about tonight Kings Island who was going through a tremendous

030amount of problems a few weeks ago recently had members of me up the paper and accept this paper along with the chicken that said if it's a certain way and do certain things in the park they could be removed with no response so I don't know if you heard the news this weekend but they had problems but on the outside in the drop-off area which we know in in the city when school's not in or guys take the young ones to the library to have a tendency to drop them all and so one of the things uh and if we partnership with the school board we get that through the entire community which uh uh and and push and promoting and do uh training for the people so people would understand it for example which

031is perkerson who ordinance and that young people couldn't be in certain uh about putting up the metal sign on Coast throughout those areas notifying parents and and young people get that couldn't be there and it um when a young person comes in often they will say where's your parents or you can't be in here so and country we're at uh we're at a time where everybody said we're gonna go back to normal we're never going back to normal This Is The New Normal we we have to develop the new normal and and putting a code of conduct in place in such a large school district with 49 I believe 49 000 apply spring forward and as we Spring Forward to get back on our streets and become normal you guys go back into the classroom

032this would be a wonderful uh way of uh [Music] you're interested in letting us make the presentation but I would hope that we can bind as a team here's another example I'm kind of beautiful Express to the community like the octopus has got all these antennas those people the one at all then they gotta take it home to the past and it passes on to Uncle and I and then when the octopus starts to rise because all the antennas come together to form a power that we've never seen before and uh so that's one of the things that uh uh that excite me tonight so we do have a website it's triple City before um Midwest the code that we have the codes will grow as we participate started with this project thank you so

033much Mr Thompson you actually are at your four minutes I just wanted you to get that website in there so that we could hear that but you're actually over your four minutes so uh we appreciate you coming to talk with us are there any clarifying questions by board members uh Mr Cole can we have him share that website once more please Mr Thompson will you please share the website yeah and that's g-r-i-p -l-e-cb.org [Applause] thank you so much uh Mr Thomas we have several other speakers to continue to speak about this so we're going to go ahead and move on to the next one we appreciate you uh taking some time out of your evening to address the board thank you our next speaker is Barbara Clark to speak about the student code of conduct

034action requested improved conditions for students and citizens of our community president Adair I have the speaker on the line thank you so much you have four minutes to address the board you may begin thank you so much good evening Columbus City Schools my name uh Miss clerk will you turn off the feed so that you are just talking to us the feed is delayed so it's going to cause some feedback I'll restart your time okay go ahead my name is Barbara my name is Barbara Clark and I am part of the Columbus civilian community board I wanted to talk a little bit about tonight about community I want to talk about community and how our families are affected about what's going on so it trickles down to children go ahead and turn off your either

035Facebook or YouTube feed because they're getting feedback uh it's a delay so you can't listen to that and talk to us you have to just talk to us right can you hear me yes go ahead okay so my name is Barbara Clark and I am with the Columbus community board I want to talk a little bit tonight about Community Family schools and how that connects together um we have to get the families back involved when I'm knocking on the door talking to families they're hurting they don't know what to do so I think if we all come together working with the children who come in there and we can tell which children are being affected sometimes you can a lot of times you can but sometimes you can't but the ones that we do build

036relationships with those moms and dads so that they understand that they're not alone and we're working with them get them involved in something in the schools invite them to things and I know you guys do the talk of getting them involved with the resources in your city that's going to count them understand first their responsibility and that's what a community code of conduct comes in because they're understanding their behavior [Applause] then in their behaviors will get responsible to do but also what we are responsible to do as a community and I think the community code of conduct is you know a sense of if I want to use for a better word responsibility and um uh commitment to raising your children be in their form we work with some Community families and the children begin

037to go to school and dress better they go they went to school already who had eaten because the parents get up with them and I think if we get prepared some exposure to just some other things going on in the community like having fairs in school things that used to be Cake Walk having things like that you get your families involved I think they'll be better [Music] are you finished yeah okay thank you so much for addressing the board are there any clarifying questions um I don't see any we very much appreciate you continuing to share your thoughts on this topic and we have several older speakers to get through um so again thank you for taking some time this evening to address the board all right thank you our next speaker will be Dr

038Vanita Kelly topic student code of conduct action improved conditions for students and citizens of our community and work collaboratively president Adair I have the speaker on the line thank you so much Madam president Adair superintendent Dr Dixon Treasurer baharik auditor Smith and other distinguished members of the school board thank you for your time and deepest attention implementation of the Columbus Community civilian board code of conduct into the Columbus City Schools I am Dr Vanita Kelly a member of the Columbus Coalition community board triple CB my belief is that the code of conduct will provide a meaningful frame of reference for all students staff and administrators of the district as a place safe from violence and instability for the 49 000 students of the district here are some of the major reasons why I urge you

039to support the proposal to implement a code of conduct within district schools briefly I am in Ohio because in 2007 I was recruited to help the state design and Implement as the governor's closing the achievement Gap initiative in 2007 68 of African-American males were not graduating high school petite percent of Latino males 50 of European American males and the governor said we will have no more throwaway children and he was tired of the pipeline into the prisons into the prison and the children's defense fund reported that 75 of state prison inmates and 69 of federal inmates are high school dropouts we are interested in affecting the lives of those who have experienced adverse excuse me who have experienced adverse childhood experiences Aces Aces result in trauma to the person that experiences them one in six

040adults have at least one adverse childhood experience problems arise to people when they have four or more adverse childhood experiences without appropriate intervention that helps people develop reference points for positive and effective conducts young people carry the results of emotional psychological and physical trauma with them into their adult lives that trauma is linked to chronic depression self-medicating violence offender Behavior swapping out of school self-sabotaging and being paralyzed in place or not being able to navigate anxiety raising situations as an adult Dr James T Comer of Yale University is likely the country's leading expert on Child Development and education and many of you know his name and his work when he used Dr Comer's research and approach we find that youth are often passing properly according to their level of emotional development when they strike out

041at others as they experience trauma in short they react according to the level of trauma they are feeling internally in situations that threaten them excellently besides being social emotional needs Dr coma's work makes clear his medicine to provide to youth in schools content the child needs a reference point but what is expected that it's clear that it's equally expected of each person in a situation of violence or conflict or even Good Conduct and that she or he is able to follow the moments of stress or when the violence again is external I was part of the team that designed the model that was implemented in the 17 worst performing education districts in Ohio later legislated for K-12 schools as House Bill 1 in 2009. each class of high school dropouts cost the U.S economy more

042than eight billion dollars in incarceration expenses in 2021 according to the American action forums we know that costs are cumulative at 1.2 trillion dollars my doctor is an Intercultural communication my contribution to the model resulting in the cultural sufficiency pillar of the school model and I'm applying that lend to speak from this evening in support of the implementation of the code of conduct in the schools Kaiser Permanente in the Center for Disease Control control collected data that data resulted in Aces course schools in the major schools are the major social contexts that use K-12 having the majority of the school day and school year it particularly applies this summer as Columbus City Schools has 8 000 youth in the summer experience program in a climate that is post-covered and posts several high-profile public deaths out

043of Columbus there is a trauma-inducing conduct context for students to pursue their education in the district and it's something that we are all aware of so we have diplomatic situations such as a highly public death of black people and of 11 children in the district quote from the National Education Association thank you so much Dr Kelly maybe you can um if you have this in writing if you could submit it to the board because I do feel like you have a lot of great citation and um information there that would be great but to our past year or when she I would I let you go a little bit further but you're past your four minutes uh board member Raglan I see you might have a clarifying question yes thank you madam president and uh

044thank you Dr Kelly it is good to hear your voice again and I thank you for all of the work that you have been doing for a number of years here in our state uh on behalf of disenfranchised children um yes I would if you could submit your testimony uh to Dr Rausch and um maybe links to the data that you have uh that you have talked about this evening uh that would be very very beneficial uh to me I have recently spoken with the superintendent about my desire to have every one of our 49 000 students assessed for a wellness exam uh you know and hope with the hope that following that that we would have you know essentially an intervention plan for each and every student regarding their Wellness their social and emotional

045health um that we could Implement with a lot of our Community Partners and you spoke a little bit to that today I'd be interested in seeing the the rest of your testimony as well as that data do you have the means by which to send that data through email if not I would suggest that you would go to the district website you will be able to find all of our email addresses there and I would hope that Dr Rausch would be able to share his email with you so that we could again so that we could get that daily as well and thank you for your comments and thank you for all of the work that you have been doing on behalf of our young people thank you madam president thank you Ragland additional clarifying

046the information and we look forward to receiving hopefully the your testimony and resources we have three more speakers on this topic so we will continue on this next speaker is detective Anthony Johnson to speak on violence and homicide among teens the action requested is to work collaboratively for a code of conduct for students and citizens of our community president Adair the speaker's on the line thank you so much detective Johnson my name is uh detective Johnson with Columbus Police homicide I just wanted to say that during the course uh our homicides when we're dealing with our youth um a lot of the tendencies that we see is uh the parents are not around a lot of the the juveniles are um which other juveniles regards if it's in the house or on the street a

047couple ones that stick out uh the house was completely ran by um I think the oldest was about 16 and younger since 13 they're kind of using as their Clubhouse and they're hanged out we had at least 20 or 30 runs to that house and when we eventually went there because of uh wow Dental shooting everyone in the neighborhood says that no parents was there on a consistent basis uh looks like clue wasn't there on a consistent basis and no type of supervision whatsoever and that seems when especially when it's dealing with our use 13 through 18 is a common thing then when parents do come I know during a course of an interview on with the juvenile you know her whole attention span was either Facebooking or phone regardless of the severity of the

048crime that we're interviewing or you know receiving trying to get information out of the kids this lack of lack of male lack of activity for them to do we see that most of them are Gang Related uh affiliated with them if they're not fully uh gang members they're they're using them as Associates uh eating to go places to gank up on other stuff I mean that tends to be the uh the violence when it comes to a lot of our 13 to 18 years old when it comes to Serious violent crimes and homicides wow and I tell you that's all I kind of have to say I didn't know if we had any questions or [Music] any other topics that you guys kind of wanted to get information on well thank you so much detective

049Johnson I will open the floor then to members of the board for clarifying questions a board member Cole thank you madam president thank you lieutenant for joining us this evening my question to you is is and then um there was a parent uh some weeks ago who lost her daughter I believe this young lady was 16 I was a shooting downtown at the commons um yes that parent shouted uh and I'll just paraphrase for parents to collect their children to get their children to essentially see uh responsibly to their livelihood to what they're raised with and to raise their their children um given what you experienced on the day-to-day and certainly as of recent do you have any suggestions for us um in terms of what the district canops do be above and beyond if

050needed above and beyond um if possible above and beyond the uh adoption of the code of conduct that partnering piece thank you well I think um first of all the violence is it's us problem and not just uh of them or they or I mean the solution to the problem comes from in my opinion of rare things um the parents need to parent schools need to you know education and provide you know things for and to learn to know better I mean the policing we have to be able to interact with both of those aspects uh mental health Physicians issue so when it comes to doing better I think we all we have to provide things for them to do uh and places to go that also involves education and learning to to do better

051and learning to to be better when it comes to all aspects even with the policing in law enforcement the home life and the the school so whatever program it is I think it has to Encompass you know couple things and not just one aspect I thank you for that my last question Madam president thank you again Lieutenant um my last question is is for some time now I've been very interested in figuring out how we create uh very Progressive productive means of community policing and how Columbus City Schools can actually explore that kind of opportunity and partnership with the police department do you have any ideas around where we can connect the dots collectively uh to that effect to that endeavor thank you the first bridge I think we have to cross is realizing that

052you know police officers are human just like everyone else I mean throughout the school board I mean throughout the school district you have a lot of police officers that are coaches that are mentors that do a lot of things within the school board that I do not believe or I would which I don't believe that are known throughout the police department or the school board that we could use to connect and to let them know that there's resources out there right in your own building to help units get over you know issues that they be having or problems that they may have regardless if it's at home or school you know or just in general so I think we have to connect those dots as far as first starting with the resources that you already

053have right there in your building and in your uh in your District I mean I coach basketball and Columbus public schools for probably 10 years you know I don't know if that helps you or answered your question but I did thank you very much thank you very much for program he's so much detective for joining us uh and sharing your perspective uh we appreciate you spending some time with us this evening but we have two more speakers on this topic so we're going to go ahead and continue on uh our next speaker is Judge Jameson and she is here to talk about the student code of conduct the action support and Implement a code of conduct for students and work collaboratively together president Adair I have the caller on the line thank you good evening

054church Jameson you have four minutes to address the board he may begin thank you president Adair and to superintendent and all the other members of the board I'm here to just speak on behalf of our community and for myself I'm not speaking as a member of the court today but I do want to say that a code of conduct has been influential in developing civilization and because it has clear expectations for higher standards our children will know exactly what is expected of them the code of conduct is the oldest known law code is that of King means of Egypt we also know of many are very familiar with the Code of Hammurabi and we know that he implemented that about 3750 years ago but wherever civilization has been there has been a code of conduct

055and in fact the Code of Hammurabi was packed up and shipped from Paris to the U.S Supreme Court building where it is featured today on the Marvel carvings of historic law givers and it lines the South Wall of the courtroom in the United States Supreme Court among the many ingredients for successful schools is a student body that is not only eager to learn but also well-behaved children are taught the difference between good and poor behavior from an early age and that training should go with them to the classroom student codes of conduct are designed to serve both the classroom and the individual by outlining the students rights ensuring that no student will be penalized or singled out based on anything but a violation that they established rules when you have a code of conduct it

056also deters uh over discipline of any particular group rather than following the violations of the rules it outlines also the students responsibility letting the student know that they need to meet certain standards to their own stake and that of the entire class and because conduct covers such a wide variety of behaviors that establishing a formal code within the school system should not be a very complicated matter but it should be something that's very simplistic something that the children can easily learn even if it's something that is repeated of each day as the school day begins code of conduct has also been linked with restorative justice practices and as you know the Franklin County Domestic Relations and juvenile court is a detention alternative initiative court and part of the code of conduct gives a set of

057rules or um outlines behaviors that should be followed and when those behaviors are broken and it affects a member of the community the really be a person can come and be reconciled to the youth that has committed the violation of the code of conduct it teaches respect for yourself respect for your brothers and sisters respect for appropriate dress respect to keep the community clean to not engage in Gossip lives or rumors um it also has a link that will ask the children to report crimes that they witness to family friends and law enforcement so that the community can be a safer place for them it also teaches a respect for all people's religions for uh gender or non-gender specific behaviors it restores and repairs any breaches between the child and the family it's really critical

058that children know exactly what is expected of them and how they can behave and what they should expect when the teachers also are able to do their job without distractions I thank you so much thank you so much to Jamison um you are past your four minutes but I'm going to open the Florida phone numbers for clarifying uh questions or comments phone numbers thank you madam president thank you judge uh honored to have you join us tonight uh the same as with Dr Kelly if you could submit your testimony to Dr Rausch uh I I am definitely interested in the shifts in Behavior Uh I've spoken as we have had discussions around um what safety looks like within our buildings I have always advocated for uh something that formalizes a shift in the behaviors that

059we see in our building as we discuss uh what our relationship will be with our school resource officers moving forward and so I think you really laid that out for us and I'd like to hear or see the rest of your testimony so if you could please alert Dr Rausch uh that he may be able to give you his email so that we could see everything that you've had to say uh I would really really appreciate that thank you again we're honored to have you tonight that concludes my remarks thank you remember board member Brown hello judge Jamison it's nice to hear from you um even uh remotely uh I I especially liked and see a lot of potential to gain some momentum with the connection between the code and restorative practices and the parts

060of the community within the judicial system where we already have some restorative practice occurring as well as in our schools and it's a priority for our strategic plan and I in my way of thinking and this is what I love about this this presentation you all are making is that and to some extent what we need to do is become a community that Embraces restorative practices across um the board whether it's at Rec Centers within the police department within the court system within the schools you know within our businesses even I you know but so I love that it all ties together and um and and just sharing that because I think it's those are important dots to keep connected and um look forward to continuing the conversation thank you Brown there it is um

061good evening uh good to hear from you judge Jameson uh and I've got a number of questions um and I probably could have asked these to any of the speakers that have uh come before us this evening but uh since uh you're a friend and I know you best uh I've known you for a long time I figured I'll pick on you um and and I'm hoping that the others uh get to hear it as well uh first I really want to commend you and the group and all the speakers that have come before us uh for taking the initiative to get organized and to focus on what is a very important problem a very serious threat to all of us and uh something that we absolutely must address and uh you know the schools

062too must play a part in that uh I appreciate your coming before us uh to talk about this um and see if we can figure out a solution together uh my questions and you know you may not be able to answer them all or certainly not right now but uh What uh let me ask um how much diversity is there within your organization the Columbus civilian community board because from this pardon me do we have any diverse numbers is the board itself um diverse um or is it primarily or only uh African-American I I just can't tell that from being here online and not seeing anybody well I can uh let me just say that I am not an actual member of the board okay of I am speaking on the code of conduct because

063I feel that it is something that is necessary to give children and teachers see guidelines of conduct um so that there is no wiggle room for misinterpretation um I think it's important because I think it links with our restorative justice model by getting the community involved so that children can understand the impact of that the crime they have been charged with has on other members of the community so that is the reason that I am here tonight okay and I appreciate that and uh I certainly appreciate um all of the stickers tonight uh for having an interest and wanting to be part of the solution to this problem um and you may not be the best representative of that organization uh to speak to some of these other questions that I have um we're never

064Brown just so you know the next speaker is the president huh why did I hold some of these and talk with uh that's Reverend wheeler coming up um and let me ask you one last thing uh judge uh is the juvenile court uh going to uh step up and participate in some fashion with the schools and with uh this uh Triple C B um to help get at this problem and create a solution and I know you're not hearing your official capacity you said that but do you have some sense of that or let me just say uh when Dr Dixon came we invited her to the court we've met with uh various members of the school board we have met with law enforcement uh chief of police for um many of the Suburban areas

065we as the court are very engaged in what is happening in the community our administrative judge judge Kim Brown is the Statewide chair of the juvenile detention alternative initiative we are an alternative initiative Court we invest um let me say the County Commissioners uh d-y-n and and the court invest a large amount of money in seeking out Community Resources rather than using detention currently our attention facility houses only have 60 children in incarceration at this time males and four females so at this time so we are diverting children away we're also partnering with um job and family services to do assessments as soon as a child makes impact with the court to see if there are other services that the family needs in the household so we are meeting the needs of not just the

066child that comes to court but um attempting to have an assessment so that they can be linked to services for any member of the household that needs those Services We are continuing to use um a zoom um so that parents don't have to take off from work they can attend the court hearings virtually because we understand the impact of every day that a parent has to take off from work and gain a point toward tardy or late or being off and putting their employment at risk so our court has um we have Team Court we have not only recovery court for children but we have recovery drug court for parents we have program that helps men and women that owe child support to become gainfully employed and to gain their uh education certifications for employment

067we have uh mediation we have just a number of programs that are active within the court as well as links to many Community Partners outside so when I'm standing here and speaking of why the code of conduct is going to be important for the community it's because the court is so engaged in the community already okay thank you uh that was all helpful uh let me ask one final question and that is um I agree with you that a code of conduct is very important and it's very important that um it'd be uh that we have buy-in from the entire community um my question is uh it keeps I keep seeing student code of conduct is this a code of conduct for students who live in the district to practice all the time or only

068while they're in school the total found out the importance of it is that if they have the code of conduct that they will not only practice it within the school but also within the community as I was stating the code of conduct says I will respect myself so if you're going to respect yourself you can't just respect yourself at school you have to respect yourself in your community it says I'm going to respect my brothers and sisters that doesn't mean you're natural household but that means anyone in the community that you come in contact with it says I Will Do no harm I will not steal I'll keep my community clean I won't spread gossip lies of rumors I will report crimes that I witnessed to family friends and law enforcement so we're even encouraging

069our children to report crimes that they witness and to respect all people's religions to respect all people regardless of rape sex color religion disability or national origin or sexual orientation so it is not anticipated that if you get the code of conduct within your mind and in your actions that you won't carry it wherever you go wonderful that's what I was hoping to hear from you thank you very much uh and uh good to hear from you tonight your honor thank you so much board member Brad we have one more speaker on this topic uh and we are nearing our 40 minutes the past 40 minutes really on uh the speakers so we are going to uh go ahead and take that last speaker so thank you so so much judge Jameson uh for sharing

070and sharing all the things that Ford is doing as well uh our next speaker is Reverend Charles wheeler let me mute remember Brown yes they muted in my room all right um Reverend Charles a Wheeler here to talk about the code of conduct um action requested work with us to improve conditions for students and citizens in our community president Adair I have the caller on the line thank you so much Reverend wheeler you have four minutes to address the board you may begin uh to the the Standish board members and to the superintendent of the board Dr Dixon it's my honor and privilege to come before you this evening know that you have the opportunity to hear from several of the community members and members of the cccb on our code of conduct a code

071of conduct that is written based upon the premise of honesty trustworthiness Integrity loyalty accountability and with humility of quality that in the state of not thinking you're better than anyone else it is all-encompassing it covers every race uh and nationality that makes up our community uh it is completely uh non-bias in in any manner it is just for the good of the community having served as the president of the neighborhood house for several years working within the community day in and day out to see the problems that occurred and were occurring and also the things that we were that were being done to uplift the individuals in the community the gang leaders coming in and beginning to work with the children and us working with them connecting all of us up making our community a

072safe and wonderful place to live and that is the goal of what this uh code of conduct is all about we're excited about it uh because we're excited about our community and I think I just want to just make a comment that the school system itself is a tremendous asset because the school system has a captive audience of the most vulnerable population of our community and if we can get the information to our young people and have them subscribe to the conduct that we build makes our community what our community should be for all of us to live in it would be a wonderful thing and I'm excited to have the privilege to be with you tonight since most of our people have covered I think most of the detail I'll leave myself open at

073this point for any questions that the board may have thank you so much Reverend wheeler we do have some questions of Dr Pierce and then I think we'll remember Brown Dr Pierce thank you so much and thank you to you and all of your members for um speaking tonight and and really just leaning in on this important issue for our community for our young people and our thoughts as well um so as we think about the code of conduct it's really collaborating for change change that results in less violence in our community whether it's related to young people or dogs we need to decrease the level of violence in our community and um based upon everyone's presentations and remarks the schools play a central part in that and we completely understand that my question then

074is have you talked to other neighborhood organizations faith-based community-based that are also willing to partner with us to collaborate with us to advance and and really bring about the change that's needed in our community uh yes that is one of the uh the goals our goal is to bring in everyone that wants to be a part of it to give them the opportunity to have input because all of us make up the community not one organization or or anything like that as we all know so to to your point yes uh we're working with the police department we uh as a matter of fact give you a good example of that just recently uh we held a quorum uh where we brought in uh the police the judges uh the ministers uh the NAACP and

075other organizations to talk about what to do when you're stopped by the police because our young people from our community uh were being you know uh having difficulty and even death as a result of police stops and we want to get to the root cause of it what is the root cause is it our reaction our young people's reaction our people's reaction what is it and what should we be doing when something like that occurs it was phenomenal and it may have saved one life if it saves one life is worth it to us and to all of us because we don't want any lies lost within our community thank you I appreciate that so my request then is if you could send us a list of the organizations both Community faith-based non-profit other governmental

076agencies that have signed on for this effort so we can see you know how we can leverage maybe our position to get more people to sign on because in essence um what I'm hoping will happen is that this is just a community Norm that is established for our community um you know sometimes code of the conduct I was one of those kids when it came to rules and it just felt stuffy and restricted but if you tell me that this is my normal behavior then I embrace that because that's who I am as a person so we want this to become a Norm just how we carry ourselves in Columbus that's how our young people behave how our adults behave um so it would be great to have that list of um again organizations that

077have already said we're going to partner so then we're able to individually and collectively leverage and influence other people to join us in this effort excellent thank you thank you Dr Pierce board member Brown and board member Raglan I'm sorry let me start again uh Dr Pierce uh thank you for asking that question I really appreciate it it was precisely one of the questions that I had and realized that uh judge Jameson was probably not the person to address that uh so I'm glad that you uh got to that um I too I commend you I commend uh the formation and organization of this group and I'm happy to hear uh an answer to Dr Pierce's question that uh you know that you're talking about uh been as inclusive of all in the community as

078possible um and part of the reason you know that I asked that and and ask for that uh is that uh I think to be successful we need Community buying we need uh input and participation from all of the various groups that are uh here in Columbus and in Columbus schools uh and we do need participation from all of the uh adult organizations and and groups uh that are out there as well whether non-profit or government or neighborhood groups uh and we need to make sure that uh with that participation from all we can have this code apply to all and uh you know my question about diversity was really um getting at much the same thing and probably not as Artful as I should have but uh you know we've got in the school

079district itself uh 53 of our students are black the other 47 percent are a variety of other uh things and just we need for all to be represented and included and have participation in developing the code of conduct uh some well let me ask first does that make sense to you is that where you're headed Dr Reverend wheeler well let me just say this uh I believe that um I believe in God obviously and I believe in one breath one breath created us all so we're all the same and what's good for me is good for you in most instances at least if it's good it should be for you as well as for me Justice should be equal for me like it should be equal for you so with that Concept in mind that's

080what the CC our community is made up of all different uh uh nationalities and and things of that racial uh groups but they're human beings and what we're focusing on is how human beings should be treated within the community we happen to be in that in that group I happen to be a black uh given the title black in America so I'm in that black room uh many different nationalities make me up but I'm in that black group because I've been identified that way but most importantly I'm in the human group and that's God's group and that's the group we're working to deliver all the the things that we do and I that's why I'm proud to serve I appreciate that and uh you know I I like that answer uh I think it's important

081um and and as I say it's equally important that we uh are fully inclusive which means that you know uh the Asian American Community the uh Latin latinx Community uh we've got you know a lot of groups and uh having everybody's participation um and involvement and acceptance of a code is so important uh yeah let me uh last question is no everybody's talked about this code as if it already exists is there a code already developed or is this something that yeah everybody's yes the court already developed uh it has been developed over the course of the last six years I know that uh Kahari had talked about some of the things that were implemented from some of the other groups that went as far back as 2004. I wasn't a part of that at

082that aspect at all I have been a part of it since 2015. and um uh yes it does incorporate uh uh the rules or the the code uh they're right now a total of I think of 12 and it's open it's a it's a work in progress it continues you know continues to develop itself based upon things that we encounter in our community and that we're exposed to well great thank you would you be uh uh able to provide us with a copy of that code it's on the website and they did share it yeah they did share that website it's on our website no it's on their website they shared the website all with us earlier so we can uh make sure that we all see it so board members if you are really

083yeah really interested you should take the time to research and connect with this group as well um we do want to uh move forward in the agenda I think remember Raglan uh we'll make you the final comment here on this about a president thank you Dr Wheeler uh for your remarks and and for bringing uh the triple CB before us today uh a couple of things um I I want to make it known uh because Eric I consider you a friend and I feel that it's important that I express to you um my disappointment with the question about diversity uh that you asked of this group um I consider that to be a microaggression um from my perspective um I have not seen any other group come before this board of education and be asked

084about the makeup of their leadership structure um when you felt like this was an all-african-american leadership structure you brought up uh the diversity of their leadership structure when they were very specific about this code of conduct being for the entire community they were not exclusive to our African-American students they were not exclusive to any subgroup uh within our school community and typically um these are the types of things that only happen to African Americans um I have not witnessed um remember Raglan I think that your plant has been taken well taken um briefly oh no no no no no no no no no I just so I know four member Brown women for brown did did already articulate he did not ask that question as artfully as he wanted to um and he you know

085I don't think that this is a time to uh get into this in a public meeting a public setting uh I think we can have a different conversation I think that these conversations are important and critical we are a Equity implicit bias my progressions all of this is in our vocabulary um it is something we are learning so we're Raglan your point and your the impact of his statement on you is well taken I just want to constructively handle this in a different Forum um and take it off argue Madam president IU okay thank you um so we're gonna go ahead and move on and thank you so much Reverend wheeler for addressing and and all of the members of the community uh for bringing this topic uh to the board and definitely giving us

086a lot to think about and uh figuring out how to continue our work in collaboration with you through our goals uh as we move forward so appreciate all of you coming this evening and Madam president I simply wanted to say the same thing you did that James and I can talk offline and I want to have that conversation and I want to give some thought to his comments and his perception of what I had to say so thank you both we'll talk this is a very good example of cultural responsiveness and being able to work through um our difference so uh we're modeling good behavior for our our students um okay so thank you everyone and thank you public for uh that long public comment with great information so we're gonna actually move on now

087in our agenda to our superintendent's report so Madam superintendent and we'll turn it over to you um thank you president Adair into the board I first would like to start with the introduction of our newest member of our executive team um and that is our new Deputy superintendent of operations who is here with us tonight I would like to introduce um Dr David James um David Dr James is the newly um uh retired superintendent of Akron City Schools where he spent the last 13 years as a superintendent um Akron City Schools is a district of 000 students prior to that he has served as Executive Director of Business Affairs for six years and he is also served in numerous other positions in the operation field Dr James has a bachelor's degree in economics a bachelor's

088I'm sorry a master's degree in public education and also a doctorate degree we're so excited to have him an expertise that he is going to bring to this organization and to the team as we are now um having conversations about the facility master plan and other important Endeavors that this district is going to be looking at in the field of operations his expertise uh was is needed and I am really excited that he's going to be a part of this team so I introduce you to uh Dr David James and Dr James feel free to um bring any comments please and and you're on mute foreign you know after this whole pandemic that's something we still can't seem to get get right um thank you Dr Dixon and distinguished members of the board board president

089Adair um I I welcome the opportunity and and and really to work in a supportive role to Dr Dixon and all the things that are going on in Columbus City Schools and also making sure that you know I can work with the executive team and then the operations team to meet the strategies the goals and guard rails the portrait of a graduate um I've always said that our you know smooth running operations you know help uh the academic work of the district and that's what the operational side of a district is there to support to make sure we're running efficiently effectively um I know there's some work to be done on the facilities uh plan I've had a lot of experience with that and background and a lot of the other operational areas and even

090some of the topics that were just recently discussed such as police in schools restorative practices I've had a good relationship with judgment theodosio of summit County's juvenile court so um you know all of those things certainly I I believe will help you know our team be very effective and again just very happy to work for uh Dr Dixon and to support her and the work she's doing with Columbus Public Schools well thank you thank you so much Dr James and welcome to ccs and part of the family we look forward to working with you I believe you are starting uh after we get back from break uh our little break in August from July I'm sorry July coming back in August um and so we definitely look forward to working with you board members any

091hellos or anything you'd like to say to Dr James they're waving remember welcome welcome to Columbus sir and uh glad to have you here looking forward to working with you thank you welcome Dr James it's a pleasure to see you again it's been way too long um it's going to be a pleasure to work with you I look forward to the ways in which you'll bring your expertise to health Advanced student learning in our district thank you okay oh so thank you so Dr thanks for starts September 1st um is when he will officially start with the team so uh thank you um Dr James for being here we're really excited to have you uh on the team okay so next we know a lot has happened in the district since the last uh board

092meeting um we've had and I've talked about the 19th graduation ceremonies awarded diplomas to over two 2200 students over the course of four days we finished the school year for staff and students on a traditional calendar on June 3rd and then wrapped up our year-round school year at Woodcrest last week on June 10th and yesterday we welcomed more than 8 000 students for our um our in-person CCS summer experience program so it is shaping up to be an exciting summer as we continue to serve students in all grade levels with enrichment and learning recovery opportunities we're looking forward to celebrating our summer graduates on August 14th to cap off the season so tonight you will hear two important presentations one of our end of the year data related to the board goals and another in

093updated guidance on our plans for the start of the 2021-22 school year before we get to our presentations we want to take some time to express our deepest gratitude and appreciations to our partners in a year like none other we could not have succeeded without the dedicated support and ongoing efforts of our partner organizations and the individuals who led them we succeeded this year because we had partners unbelievable Partners who made sure Columbus City school students and their families receive the basic needs and essential support during the global pandemic and made sure our students had access to technology and a safe learning spaces to continue their education even when the classrooms were shut down thank you to the partners that provided everything from Chromebooks to Wi-Fi hotspots to meals and learning extension centers in everything

094in between throughout the school year we enlisted our ever growing number of Partners to support our mission and our families the engagement team kept the work of these Partners aligned and informed with virtual meetings and email updates reaching hundreds of Partners across our city every week I joined several of those sessions to thank our partners in person and to hear feedback in the district's 175 year history never have our partners risen to such Heights and provided such unprecedented support the power Partnerships make this an unparalleled year for Columbus City Schools and we are set to harness that power again as we move into the next school year with an intentional focus on engaging strengthening and aligning our Partnerships in new ways under a restructured department of communications and engagement tonight I'd like to ask the

095board to join me in recognizing and thanking the historic and heroic efforts of our partners our chief engagement officer Alicia gillison and executive director Scott Varner are joined by some of our Community Partners here tonight for a special partnership appreciation I'll turn it over to Mrs gillison to tell you more thank you so much Dr Dixon and um you said it all this year was a very hard year but when you think of Partnerships partnership is a cooperative and a collaborative relationship between people and groups who agree to share the responsibility for achieving goals and our goals our students were at the center of each and every one of those goals Scott here we go all right so we want to welcome and show appreciation to our partners and talk about the partnership strategy with

096four basic tenets and the first is keeping the students at the center of everything we do our partners and we were committed to authentic engagement and to enlisting Partners to take action on true needs not just sitting and meeting and admiring issues we had a partnership and action team and the focus of that team was to get into action to support students and families and we did it constantly and consistently engaging our entire community and we thank all of our partners for that we know there's an ecosystem of support that's our school home and engagement but we know that Center that convergence area is a student's best opportunity for success and we are working with the national network of partnership schools and you'll see more about that next year that is the Joyce Epstein model

097and the importance of partnership which Dr Dixon has made that one of the priorities for us this year we had new initiatives our partners leaning in on everything from learning extension centers virtual engagement sessions knocking on doors meeting with our El families uh here we go all right now learning extension centers for those of you that that aren't familiar with those we have Partners who opened up their doors to provide safe adult supervised spaces welcoming spaces for our students to connect to broadband if they didn't have Broadband at home if they didn't have technology at home if they didn't have a caring adult at home if they didn't have a meal at home we had over at one point we had over a hundred and fifty learning extension centers across the city from faith-based organizations

098open up opening their doors community centers opening their doors YMCA YWCA opening their doors and for what our students because that who was centered to what we needed bilingual engagement Liaisons if you think about the barriers of our immigrants new American and refugees families face is to one of the major barriers is to be actively engaged with their school and with their teachers because of that language barrier we went into partnership with etss and Hispanic Ohio Hispanic coalition to work with our families to partner with our families more than just phone calls oh no our bilingual engagement Liaisons actually went out to homes working with those families every in every language let's see Somali Spanish my my Arabic Nepali and Kenya Wanda are bilingual engagement Liaisons were there and we have data to show that

099it helped close the attendance Gap especially during that pandemic take period authentic engagement starts with partners that don't stand back and wait for families to come to us we have Partners National Center for Urban Solutions we even partnered with our Safety and Security teams to go out to families meet them where they are if they are at home then you meet them at home if they want to meet at the library you meet them there and what were they doing they were helping our families and our students to re-engage with the district We Care Wednesday and I love this picture because when you talk about engagement and Partnerships it's not only partnering with organizations it's partnering inside our own organization and our We Care Wednesday those check and connect phone calls where we had actual

100board members and a plethora of volunteers calling we reached approximately 29 000 homes and that's folks volunteering wanting to partner with us as we partnered with Lutheran Social Services and we weren't calling to say why aren't why isn't your child at school today we were calling to let you know we care we're calling to check on you to make sure you and your family are in a good social emotional space and then you have to this K-12 Continuum that we talk about it ends with this culmination that we call graduation and that's something very very exciting and they're going to share some numbers a little bit later but we had learning extension centers opening up their doors for senior success centers we kept our seniors engaged with senior Fest 21 which was a celebration that

101started in April and ran all the way through graduation with door sign I mean yard signs here's Dr Dixon giving a young lady a prize for being on task and doing what she should be doing College Signing Day getting our young people motivated and letting them know that we care about them and then you can't talk about all of those partners and not talk about the partners at home talk about the families those families partnering with us with our virtual family engagement session every Tuesday and Thursday we've actually had some parents on every session and those Thursday super sessions with our superintendent when you talk about 360 degrees of partnership and you talk about that convergence that school Home and Community are Partners stepped up to the challenge and we're so very very thankful for

102you stepping up to the challenge we knew that once the pandemic hit that it was going to be a very long road sometimes it was dark and we didn't know how we were going to do everything we needed to do to support our kids but our partners you were there with us every step of the way foreign [Music] Darkness [Music] but I'm gonna walk [Music] to all of our amazing Partners out there it was a long road but you walked every step of the way with us when times got hard you lifted our children up and that's what it's all about and this was our tribute to you I have a couple of Partners on the line that were both in the partnership and action team and also ran lec's and Nancy Brody do you

103want to talk a little and it has to be brief because we kind of went long but I just wanted you to give give you an opportunity to share for a moment so I have to tell you just watching that presentation I got very emotional because they're in front of me I saw all the community agencies that came together um you know under the leadership of Miss gillison and Mr Varner I feel like we really came together as a community looked and saw that the kids in Columbus City Schools are all of our children and we each came with our different Niche and we worked together to help everyone get through this pandemic and um this is my 23rd year at the YMCA and I have never seen Community Partnership with the district come to

104this level so really a special thanks to miss gillison and Mr Varner for helping us do this together and I look forward to all of our momentum continuing into the next year with further Partnerships together also one other thing I wanted to add uh Miss gillison talked about the virtual family engagement opportunities and I tried to listen in to as many as I could just so the board and everyone knows there were over 70 different virtual family opportunities that's a ton meeting lots of different needs so just happy to be here celebrating and to be at your board meeting all right thank you and we appreciate and celebrate you and I think you heard of our superintendent Dr Dixon talked about how the engagement is going to continue next year and she said bigger and

105better right so you know what hold on because stay right there with us all right thank you for that Nettie I mean thank you for that Nancy now um I'm not sure if Nettie is here from Adam H hello yes Nettie okay I'm sorry um I got disconnected yeah I'm here I'm the community prevention manager from from the Adam board and as all of you know um you joined us in passing the levy last year and our partners really stepped up our providers and they reimagined actually revisioned their work in such a way that they could do all of the things that Nancy talked about uh the community engagement I mean they went to families they went to Green spaces um they delivered their services whether it was online and platforms as everybody talked about

106in LEC centers and and then they found other ways care packages is going in the homes uh really so that the families had all the resources they need and I I thought about a couple of quotes and one quote that um that really stuck with me was uh as a collective we really advertised the Nigerian Proverbs and the moment of Crisis the wise Bill Bridges and then I thought about what Desmond Bishop Desmond Tutu said that our humanity is bound up in yours for we can only be human together and I think that the engagement uh Center that was what our our mission and our passion our goal was is that the humanity of all of our young people their families and the whole community and that fits with the Adam Boyce mission and vision

107in terms of promoting health and mental health and so the Prevention Services uh was able to connect our communities ensuring that four out of five students could benefit from Prevention Services receive them and at the same time that one in five students who needed Treatment Services could have access to them so I believe that the partnership in action really propels us to engage in the Coalition world for the benefit of the community today and also to optimize the the student's future and I just want to thank Mrs gillison and Scott and all the other partners who really uh did exceedingly above all anyone in order to to actualize Hope in the community this year that's it all right thank you all if everyone can turn on your uh camera so uh you can see Dr

108Dixon Dr Dixon and our board can see you because this is your opportunity we appreciate you and we thank you so very very much also in the room of course Katina fullen from I know I can T Street um the Ohio State University and I know I can Abby Fisher from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Ohio Kim Robinson Kingdom power Baptist Church Tommy my neighbor Tommy Ferguson from St Stephens Community House William West chosen to live Outreach Ministries in their LEC he and his wife actually cooked for the students hot meals for the young people and uh Rick studer Columbus rotary uh Mary Margaritas direction of Youth and Family Aaron Upchurch hi Aaron Amanda hello and Dr Selassie from etss Emanuel from etss Amy Gordon Ben Rosen and Christina and Jerome Holloway from National

109Center for Urban solution a plethora of you all we wouldn't be where we are today if it wasn't for you walking right with us on that long road thank you thank you thank you foreign Alicia and Scott for uh Varner many of you guys we know Alicia is leaving um going to another opportunity and as I've stated before meetings before um this you know leadership matters and we know that this work could not have been possible without her leadership and you would definitely be missed as I stated before Alicia when I ask you to lead this strategy I knew what I was doing and I knew that you would take this work to unprecedented measures and you did and the community stepped up and rallied behind your you in the district and for us to

110make this work possible and my commitment to the district again as we give Alicia a round of applause I saw the board members laughing yes let's give her a round of applause um and we you know my commitment was that when my community is and that we will find another leader but we know we will not replace you um and so the leader of this strategy moving forward would be an executive director and um that would be working with Communications but you have done a great job and I know that Scott Varner is going to continue with the family engagement piece um and we're going to find new ways to engage Partners more partners and more people in the city of Columbus because city of Columbus has shown as I stated before the powers partnership

111and this dedication to the students and the families of Columbus City Schools so thank you so much for for your efforts okay and thank you again Partners we look forward to more engagement and more conversations um this summer as we prepare for for next year for next school year thank you all so now next I would like to introduce our chief academic officer Dr Terry Breeden and our chief accountability officer Dr Michelle Klein to present the end of your data related to board goals one and three and an update on the status of board goal 2. now that the board of education has officially adopted its goals and guardrails we will be transitioning the structure of our reports and presentations to align with each of the goals and guardrails throughout the school year we will

112be monitoring monitoring our progress on each and Reporting out to the board on a regular basis with deeper Dives on data on the data tonight's presentation is the first of those important updates I will turn it over to Dr Terry Breeden and to Dr Klein to begin the presentation good evening everyone it is my honor and privilege to do report one on your board goals and end of the year data um as uh Dr James was introduced I thought you're right here at the beginning so we're we're also happy to have you join us as we discuss this with our school board so let's get started there are three goals that we as a group decided would be the things that we would report to to the board these were your top priorities one was

113strengthening reading proficiency two develop portrait ready graduates and number three close opportunity gaps so let's take a look at Reading uh the for the board goal focuses on the Ohio state test and third grade students proficiency we set a goal but we are unable to report on that tonight because the state does not release their data until June 28th for our third graders and then the other state data comes in around June 30th however we do have some cautionary early indicators that we want to share with you when I looked at this slide today I thought when you see that many asterisks you know that we do have to look at this with a little bit of caution but I am so excited to have this because it is very hard to plan and to

114forecast ahead when you really have nothing which has been the case over the last two years so let me just talk you through this just a little bit let's start with kindergarten um if you'll notice the first asterisk by 2018 and uh 2019 you will see that that was just a pilot year where we had I ready one of the really nice things about being in Columbus schools is that we're not just dependent on state data we have uh uh partnered with I ready and we give three of their assessments each year the beginning of the year the middle of the year and the end of the year and this data are to be predictive of the Ohio state test sometimes it's at real predictive and sometimes it's not quite as predictive but we had

11546 schools that were in the pilot with I ready and so this is not the entire Kindergarten group in 2018 and 19. but their level of proficiency there were 33 percent of The Kindergartners in that year that were proficient in 2019 and 20 we were not able to give this assessment this assessment is to be done in school settings and we were not able to do that and then this year just recently we gave the end of the year test and we were very pleased to see that uh the number of students who were proficient did not decrease as predicted by national studies but it in fact went up by two percent we were ready for the data to drop six to ten percent is what national experts were telling us so we were pleased

116to see that we did not suffer such a devastating blow due to the pandemic and I'll talk a little bit more about that after we go through the other grade levels in first grade in 2018 and 19 we were at 24 just recently when we looked at our data this year it is 20 so we had a four percent decline second grade in 1819 it was 21 it is now 18 percent and then third grade was at 15 and we were very pleased to see that it went up four percent to 19 now we are certainly not satisfied with 35 20 18 or 19 but it at least gives us some guidance to the impact of what happened during the pandemic I I was very excited to see this I think it helps us as

117we plan and I thought well why didn't we suffer what we predicted in the National expert's thought and I think it really ties in nicely to what we just talked about with our Partnerships and our learning extension centers I also want to thank all the parents and the grandparents and the aunts and uncles and big brothers and sisters who worked with our students at home and and lastly I really want to thank all the see all the teachers and ccs and the hard hard work that they have done so that we are just not another National statistic of losing 10 percent of our students on the proficiency data report so I am glad to report this data as I said we do have to take it with a cautionary note but I think also another

118thing that we had was our curriculum you all have approved many many items that we have purchased and teacher time that we have also asked for to work on our curriculum and I think if we hadn't done all those things we would have fallen in line with the statistics that we were hearing from National organizations all right so let's talk a little bit about gold two uh you know we are putting the finishing touches on the Strategic plan and we have been out with the public and talking about it and socializing it and one of the things no matter which group that we've talked to that we continually hear is they love the attributes they think where they are spot on they can see why we decided on those and that really reinforces to me

119that we got it right as we think about the attributes that we want in our graduates last time I was here talking about this I talked about that we want a pre-k through 12 Continuum so that we're not just waiting till the students are in high school to begin talking about these attributes but we're starting the first day of our preschool program and I just want to tell you a little bit there's lots of things that we are working on but I just wanted to highlight how we're dealing with the changes that we want to bring about in our curriculum and we'd like to go to the next slide and that we are not finalized what the seal will be but we are doing a lot of the pre-work and that is on the next

120slide when we look at our pre-k through 2 and our three through five Continuum on the portrait of a graduate one understanding the vocabulary so you're building your artist's palette or becoming self-aware of our attributes we assembled a team and Dr Betty Hill is leading those teachers and I'd like her just to tell a little bit about the work they're doing and how we're beginning to bring the portrait of a graduate into our new revised curriculum in our canvas learning management system so Betty if you're on would you like to tell us a little bit what you've been up to absolutely Dr Breeden thank you so um for the portrait of a graduate curriculum writing we have brought together a diverse group of Educators and they range from the Fine Arts to physical education intervention

121and Pre-K and in our initial meeting we met in a large group to discuss the pre-k through 12 Continuum visioning and a timeline for our work from this larger group of curriculum writers we developed three teams and those teams will work on specific tasks um we developed the pre-k through one the first grade um and they'll develop lessons and activities to help students understand what the portrait of a graduate attribute is what it looks like and what it sounds like and and as you said um develop vocabulary the third grade team uh they'll the third grade team will develop curriculum that will enable students to design their student surveys for the portion of a graduate and finally uh there will be a team that works on lessons and activities for the fourth grade student rubric

122all of our curriculum writers will be writing um uh all of the writing teams will work to develop uh professional development uh so that each of our teams each of our teachers will be able to um work put professional development activities into our uh District canvas platform one thing that I did want to mention also is that the curriculum writing teams meet weekly and share ideas and provide collaborative feedback to each other on their progress thank you very much so let's talk about 6 through 12. in the six through eight curriculum as we mentioned we want to really partner with Columbus State as we're developing our portrait of a graduate and so we were just having a conversation with them last week and they have two wonderful courses that they can bring to our middle

123schools really that focus on information technology and I think that will be a very exciting project to involve ourselves in so we're very excited about moving that step forward and then in grades 9 through 12 . one of the things that we have seen a need for all along is that some of our high schools do not have at least one complete CTE pathway they have a lot of a la carte type courses but we also want to make that a goal because we want these students to be prepared as they look to their future and exhibit their portrait of a graduate so this is a very exciting project and we're glad to have some of these things underway on our next slide that we'll look at I'm going to turn it over to Dr

124Klein to take us through board goal number three foreign thank you so much Dr Breeden it is such a pleasure to be here this evening you'll remember the Board of Education goal number three states that the percentage of four-year graduation cohort students who complete State and District graduation requirements will increase from 81.2 percent in June of 2021 to 86 percent in June of 2026. please remember that graduation rates are one year in the rears let's take a look at our four-year longitudinal graduation rates as well as our 2021 preliminary rate quickly our four-year graduation rates have ranged from 74.1 percent to 82.1 percent over the last five years remember that we also have a five-year graduation rate which includes those students who need an additional year to complete requirements The Five-Year graduation rate has spanned

125from 81.2 percent to 86.5 over the last five years this five-year rate measures all students who graduate within five years of their original entry into ninth grade our current preliminary rate is 73.27 percent this will increase due to our stem schools reporting their data and our summer school graduates that we look forward to telling you about from cohort 2021 who will graduate in August as of June 14th our four-year graduation rate for cohort 2021 students is 73.27 percent this illustration shows you the percentage of graduates and non-graduates per region please keep in mind that stem schools within our attendance area such as Metro Ohio School for the Blind and Ohio School for the Deaf do count toward our graduation rate these are labeled as non-region schools in this diagram at this time the Metro OSD

126and OSB school graduates have not been reported to the Ohio Department of Education historically we see an increase when these graduates are reported in addition all summer graduates who are part of the cohort 2021 will count towards our four-year graduation rate so how does this data break down by student groups illustration of our cohort 2020 and 2021 graduates by the student group of race ethnicity you can see our current preliminary graduation rate at the 73.27 percent please note that we will need to give some additional support and resources to the student groups with the lowest graduation rates Although our Hispanic students have increased in graduation rate percentages from last year 61.47 percent up to 63.75 percent this year so far the graduation Gap to our district graduation rate is approximately 10 percent for those students

127this is the largest gap among any race ethnicity group the graduation rate increase of Hispanic students is not representative of the change realized in all other student race ethnicity groups where decreases factored as high as 14.37 percent the decrease of graduation rates of students with IEPs and English Learners of approximately five percent is less than that of all students decreases of 7.98 indicating that we continue to close the gap even while being affected by a pandemic congratulations to those IEP and English learner students one statistic that we may not readily realize or have even thought possible is that our gifted students actually decreased greater than our all students at a rate of 8.88 percent a statistic we need to dive deeper into so how did our IEP and LEP teams do this the IEP and

128LEP teams have been working to reduce the gaps between student groups and performance the three strategies used most frequently are targeted and rigorous instruction the use of inclusive practices and scheduling as well as IEP and LEP teams access to transition and planning to benefit all of our students administration of our cohort 2020 and 2021 graduates by gender the discrepancy between our male and female student graduation percent has gone from 11.71 for 2019-20 to just over 10 percent this school year so although the Gap has narrowed we need to shift the Gap upward in a positive direction there are also inactive students from cohort 2021 who have been withdrawn or who are no longer on our active rosters these students are no longer enrolled but they have a negative impact on our graduation denominator an example

129of this is a student who enrolled in 2018-19 school year transferred out with a records request but failed to attend the new school district in instances such as these Columbus City Schools is charged with the dropout another example would be a student who is 18 years of age and decides to withdraw there are also students in this inactive cohort category which will help our graduation rate for example a student who is an early graduate a student of this nature who graduates in 2021 but has a four-year cohort of 2022 will count toward the 2022 graduation rate therefore they show as inactive now since they have met all graduation requirements our largest population of inactive students are students that were withdrawn due to unable to locate over the last four years despite our intense unable to

130locate checklist which includes phone calls letters emails house checks at times we still cannot locate students this is not just a problem for Columbus City Schools but it's a problem for all districts all hands on deck was our theme for getting active cohort 2021 students into summer school so that credits toward graduation could be earned our superintendent made sure of that a total of 326 Scholars have enrolled out of 411 active cohort 2021 students who have yet to earn their diploma in this group of 85 students there are 40 students who have earned 18 or more credits and who have a likely opportunity to earn their diploma this summer it is important to note that we also have 22 or 5.4 percent students who are returning with us for an additional year of Education to

131meet their individual education plan goals or IEP goals they will continue their education by participating in on-site job training into a fifth year this is in the best interest of the students long-term success in becoming active and participating members in our community lifelong and specialized learning is supportive of the whole child approach that places the students development and growth over reporting of the graduation rate other students in the non-region category are students who are in the juvenile intervention Center Ohio School for the Blind Ohio School for the Deaf and the board of developmental disabilities thank you so kindly for allowing us to update you on the board of education goals we hope this data has been useful and we would be happy to answer any questions that you may have Dr Dixon yeah thank you

132Dr Conway while we wait for any questions I would like to say um as we talk about our partners that if we were missed if we didn't um give thanks to the city of Columbus um and their efforts I thought it would go nicely to come after the academic data because they were able to support us with our iPads for our special needs students and also our Chromebooks for all of our other students so thank you to the city of Columbus the mayor's office and city council for your support of Columbus City Schools your efforts to provide those devices for our students made a difference and I just wanted to um say thank you for those efforts that I thought they would vote nicely after the academic because those four materials that was directly related

133to our students being able to have those access to continue their work by having those devices so thank you and I agree on Matt smidel with the comment you put in the chat um all of that work that the council and the city provided for us from lec's to our devices um I want to thank you and say that publicly back to you board member um sorry president of the day for any questions um I I have a couple of questions and a couple of comments um if we wouldn't could go back to Dr Hill and some of the discussion about the beginning to build out the portrait um of The Graduate curriculum um you mentioned student surveys was that like surveys to figure out what their competencies were or what were we talking about

134there uh yes the stir as the surveys are to um enable the students to discover which one of the attributes the six attributes um that they identify with themselves so the students will yes develop an understanding exploring the attributes getting comfortable with the attributes because it sounds like that that early stuff is to sort of ingrain it into the culture the being or the you know the DNA of the of the whole student yes and the great part about that is that they will they will understand the attributes and then they will also collect data uh um from the surveys that they give about learn about themselves collect data and then also analyze and interpret that data as well but yeah okay very cool then the next question I think I heard something about a

135fourth grade rubric or Mastery is that like a place where you're you're doing a um a Mastery test or a skills based like is there there's a sandwich meal like there's certain points where you're building in a are how are they doing are they there have they mastered up until now and that kind of thing was that what that was I overheard or I think I heard so all of the all of these activities are student-led so all all of the um curriculum and activities that we are uh developing um as a part of this curriculum is to enable students to have um the ability to lead their own um uh learning and so it's all about student opportunities to be the Architects and um creators of their own learning opportunities so those surveys is

136to help are to help them understand the attributes and which one that they may identify with and then the rubrics are then for them to develop um the to move toward developing their uh learning opportunities as they move on into the upper the secondary levels and build that trajectory of learning as they move into the SEC secondary um part of their education okay um then just uh and I don't think this was necessarily your area Dr Hill but the info technology stuff is great um and uh from talking to Educators and people who are sort of on this Cutting Edge of technology and education and all of that um so I was really happy to see it my sense of it is and I can't really I don't understand this as well as I can

137just parrot it but um the great equalizer and hence the great Equity Gap closer is um they distinguish between your ability to use the technology like everybody can use their phone and blah blah blah and your technology literacy kind of understanding a deeper maybe I I don't think it's as simple as writing code or not writing code but there's like a a facility with technology so to the extent this is tying into that I think that's really wonderful um that that's the focus and then one question that um about the CTA Pathways in each High School um CTE rather that strikes me as something that the facilities Master planning process is dealing with as well wrestling with you know do we like our centralized um there's pros and cons between centralized CTE and you know

138uh diffused I guess or or decentralized um and just I think that uh I just want to make sure we're all sort of checking in with each other as these processes are going forward because for the portrait curriculum to conclude or or no I guess this was the last I don't know if it was a portrait thing now that I had but I have a note I just wanted to make a mental note that if we're deciding on the academic curriculum instruction side of the house that CTE in every building or Ace and established CTE path in every building is what we value we got to make sure that that we're tying that back with facilities Master planning I I think um most importantly uh the the most important point to make here is that

139we are connecting with uh many of our Community Partners and we talk a lot about this this evening but we are making connections in a greater way with many of our Community Partners uh many of uh our business uh businesses in the community we're connecting students and teachers with uh those uh partners and enabling uh students to have opportunities increased opportunities that will also support the portrait of a graduate but also um ultimately support their learning as they move forward and create the their vision of their um their opportunity to create and and um uh like create an uh a plan for their learning as they create that six year plan once they get past the elementary portion of the portrait of a graduate so I think more it speaks to to how we're creating

140opportunities in the community and connecting the community to us not just uh uh changing what's happening with CTE and make it more centralized right yeah so CTE need not only be a career program it could be um local businesses or something I just want to I just my radar started pinging about let's make sure we're all on the same time um all right that's all pretty exciting stuff um I think that's that's really all I had thank you um we were I love focusing on this stuff and I think that it's really good to exercise our muscles we're focusing on outcomes and um the uh the goals and guard rails so we're getting in shape thank you board member beckerly uh Dr Pierce um thank you so much president Adair uh first and foremost um

141let me um thank our Administration um in particular uh chief gillison for providing an opportunity to thank Our Community Partners often the work that our Community Partners and volunteers do is really thankless and um it was heartwarming to see the ways that um again the administration and chief Ellison came together to to thank them um while we can never thank them enough it meant a lot to to take that time to appreciate them for everything that they've done so so thank you to everybody for that and to Our Community Partners those named and those unnamed um Dr Breeden thank you so much also for your vulnerability and when you gave your report um because you know that that kindergarten uh kindergarten number had me a bit struck there when when I saw that 35 and

142how it went up and my initial question was how can we attribute that to our district how can we attribute that to our teachers and I appreciate you for being vulnerable transparent enough to say hey there were Community Partners who stepped in there were parents that were helping there were siblings that were helping we came together to ensure that our students in in that particular uh group were were proficient and doing so thank you for that um the the real question that I have relates to our graduation rate and if it is it possible to pull up that first lie um Dr Klein where you were reviewing those graduation percentages for me absolutely ma'am I think it was the one where we gave the overall um graduation rates that that's that first slide yeah I'm

143trying to get there it's coming Dr Pierce just hold on one second ma'am foreign how about that one ma'am yes that's it so with our um with this rate this is their cohort graduation rate correct yes ma'am okay um so I guess as we started to break down um the demographics and start to look at particular student groups and populations we lost the cohort factor and so I wonder as we continue to present this data in in future presentations that we're able to maybe in a bullet point or in parentheses always keep that cohort Factor um present and visible um to me that's important because people need to know the context in which the graduation rate is occurring so when you got to and I'll just pick the one that was by race right when

144we started to look at race and ethnicity um we took it as a whole 100 of the complete student population by how much that population was but I think there's value to still remind people that we're looking at these numbers in the context of cohorts right so when we're looking at that 80 81.25 right that's the graduates also put that indicator in there so we know how many were expected to graduate from that class right how how large that class kind of started out as opposed to this complete 100 percent does that make sense to you so the numbers are here on the left so 2582 graduated so you would just add the 596 that would be well I wonder if in that that 200 2 582 yes ma'am right that's just lumping together the

145100 of the students that we have in that particular category but when you do a chart like this I still think there's value in that blue space of providing context for how many of that 81 percent how am I saying this how are you capturing the students that aren't graduating that are still in that senior class 5.96. no because at 596 is your entire is that your entire population because it followed over in the next two slides so you're just you're just asking for an additional data point is that correct I just think there's value in providing that context for that data point yeah sure yeah it's not presented maybe that it's just a bullet point at the bottom yeah thank you for the suggestion Dr Pierce I can tell you that um we we

146took a lot of time and effort to try to make these um as readable as possible but at the same time to give everyone enough information but I I truly appreciate your your comment and thoughts because we can always get better no and so so one this is excellent I appreciate the data presentation all the data that's in here and the points what I don't want us to lose sight of is the fact that in our district we're working really hard to improve our graduation rates and I don't want people to Simply focus on that one you know lower graduation rate instead of looking at the entire context of the situation and I think that September will bring us even better news but I think that we also need to realize that as an entire

147District being the largest district and the best District in the state of Ohio I think we need to realize that our graduation rate right now even though it isn't where we want it to be it is extremely higher than that of our counterparts at this particular time and so I'm very proud of not just our community members and our teachers and our parents and everybody but our students most importantly because they have come together to make this happen you know it was only two months ago that Alicia brought together a group and we were in the 50s Dr Pierce we were in the 50 percent that were on track to graduate so um I'm very proud of all that have contributed to this effort uh no I I agree with you couldn't agree more and

148and again this data point is what the request is just that we're providing additional context and and maybe the region one is the better slide to look at because I can only think of when I stood at high school graduations and heard how what the percentage of the actual class was graduating from each school right and I heard some 70s and I heard some 100s and I heard some 80s so again just to have that that additional context in with it would be great Dr Pierce thank you so much for mentioning that I do want to I do want to explain something that is important to all of us and that is the students that are active those are students that are currently enrolled our graduation rates are an extremely um larger number for students

149that are enrolled versus the students that have actually withdrawn over the last four years and that is one of the difficulties as I mentioned in my presentation with our system of reporting if a student enrolls as a freshman fails all their classes and then um transfers out to another District but never attends we are still charged with that student and if we cannot find he or she that student is charged against us in our denominator and that is really tough sometimes for us to find them so I just wanted to make sure that you knew that awesome thank you I appreciate it if we could add that in that would be great just a little bullet point or something yeah absolutely that's why I put it in my comments it's really important to me but

150thank you so kindly those were all my questions oh okay thank you I was waiting let's make sure all right I will move to board member Cole sorry I was trying to find my unmute button um my question overall is where are those critical areas where we're looking at making a pivot you explain one of them as CTE and the incorporation of CTE into Middle School which is very exciting um I think that there's opportunity particularly with things in the information technology sector um coding and those things relevant that could even possibly even count as a language credit um all of these things are all language based interestingly so I love the fact that we're looking at the middle school incorporation of CTE I think I was a little perplexed by seeing the growth of

151Elementary or excuse me kindergarten student in terms of their reading but seeing those four point decreases uh in the slightly higher grades up to third grade um do we have any idea of of what could have possibly accounted for that and uh you know if there were any gaps on our end as a district and provision of opportunities resources for students that's my first question I have been looking at the data and I have got I'm like you I have a million thoughts of what this could be but I've kind of made myself not do that for example with the kindergarten I thought you know one we've increased our preschool and that has probably helped us some with kindergarten we have really improved our curriculum and I thought about that but then I also thought

152well kindergarten students haven't been in school two years they've only probably been in school one year if they did not go to our you know preschool thing so I thought of a million things and then I told myself you know I'm I think I pride myself in statistics as an area I'm very comfortable with and I thought yeah but I don't have hard evidence to make decisions but I do know that um I you know we are not following the national trend of falling behind and being an urban District I was very afraid that we would follow that term so I think we've done a lot of things right I I think where I am living is what if we hadn't had a pandemic and we'd had this community support and we had this curriculum

153where would we be now and I'm really ready to get that Synergy and move forward because we've got some things if we survived this and did better than the national statistics and also uh what Dr Klein just said about our graduation we have got some things in place and I think we will move forward uh and make some great strides but I appreciate your comments and I think you're like me We ought to have you know just think about what all this could be I brought in several staff members today and we just dialogued around the data okay awesome um is around how can I say um I've lost my thought I'm trying to it's kind of a big complex kind of question but I'm I'm trying to just kind of piece it together in

154my um certainly if it doesn't come to mind five minutes I'll definitely Circle back uh at a later time but I I again I just think that uh I'm encouraged by where we're on track where we're not that far off track um I heard a lot of graduation numbers per school like Lyndon McKinley for example that was in the 80th mid 80 percentile for graduation rate um other schools that were in the 90 uh percentile like the East Moore Academy um I was very very pleased to see how well our students are doing and progressing and encourage those you know families watching to see how well we're doing and bring your youngster back to us to finish what they started thank you a board member I'll go back to board member back early for one

155quick statement okay that's what she wrote wait a minute um I think that um yes I couldn't agree more proud of how many people how many students were able to cross that stage in this pandemic and I just having been in that role of you know that final push uh many years ago and knowing what went into that in terms of staff and support and everyone like uber focused on how do we get these kids you know that the ones that are on the cusp to get over it um we cannot acknowledge or be grateful enough to what went into making that happen I mean these and and one thing that um I know we we had this year I don't know if we had Years Gone by but or maybe it's like the second

156year and I think she told me our um I think they were called graduation coaches um whose job it was to to focus on that I'm sure earlier than the last few months who literally were knocking on doors and doing those sorts of things and dragging the kids in and so much of it at that point is like coaxing the kids like it's and and I think that um we need to be doing that every year and our graduate graduation rate will go way up and I think we will because we've done it once and we know how and I think it's going to just happen again I'm hopeful um and so I I think that's probably a real uh distinct uh explanatory Factor anyway that wasn't as quick as I thought sorry but really

157the debt of gratitude and also now that we know how to do it we need to keep doing it this thank you board member referee I do not believe there are any additional questions but I cannot see all of you oh there you are um so I think I'm turning it back over to superintendent right now because I'm not sure I don't think there's any more questions no one's waving at me so go ahead okay thank you and again as has been stated thank you again to all the teachers and administrators all that played a part in getting our students across the uh the the graduation stage I mean they have earned their diplomas and who did a great job as a district doing a pandemic so um when we start next year and we've

158already started with summer school just engage in our students differently and I think that's where the rubber meets the road hot Road how do we make sure that our students come to school ready to be engaged loving learning doing something different and um we've seen that happen yesterday when they started the summer experience so I believe we're going to see more students um across the stage with their diplomas with their portrait seals um and really engaged in in learning across the district so we're excited we're on our way and to thank you to all who have helped lead and facilitate this this great work that we're doing in our district and in our community so um our final presentation tonight is an update on our planning and preparations for the 2021-22 school year the team

159originally presented to the board of education on May 5th with our preliminary plans for the new school year since that first presentation much of the covid-19 health and safety guidance and mandates have changed at the local state and National levels throughout the pandemic we have been accustomed to changing courses to changing course rather based on the data and our guidance at hand as we prepare for the next school year this needs to be nimble in our planning has not changed it is Our intention to safely open our schools five days a week for in-person learning for the next school year this includes our year-round school at Woodcrest Elementary which began classes on July 29th and our traditional calendar schools which begin classes on August 26th we will also be offering a mostly remote learning option

160through our blend ad program which was presented to the board last month tonight you will hear updates on our reopening plans from our team as they continue to consider all of the latest health and safety guidance we received now I will turn it over to Deputy superintendent Dr John Stanford to begin the presentation thank you Dr Stanford you're a mute Dr Stanford sorry about that uh thank you superintendent good evening Madam president Madam vice president and members of the board as you know we presented a summary of our mitigation strategies and transportation plans for the new school year on May the 5th we are back this evening as a superintendent indicator to give an update on those strategies and plans given uh the new covet announcements made after the May 5th meeting again please note

161that tonight's recommendations reflect our current knowledge and predictions for the fall if the situation changes with covid-19 between now and the start for school we may have to revisit the recommendations again I will start tonight's presentation with a quick overview of the mitigation strategies presented on May the 5th I will then begin I would then bring on Dr Rausch to review the new covet announcements made in May and in June Dr clano and Dr Hill are here this evening to give a quick update on the status of fall and non-sport extracurricular activities due to the announcements made Mr Weinheimer with Transportation will provide you an update on the transportation assumptions and concerns for our traditional Transportation model he will then present a summary of our traditional service model and a recommended service model for the

162new school year he will then conclude his Transportation presentation with a list of the simultaneous strategies that the team will Implement to get us ready for the fall he will then turn the presentation over to miss Trigg on our HR team to share some of our bus driver recruitment strategies that we are using to build our driver capacity uh in in preparation for the fall uh school year I will return after Miss Triggs overview to summarize the presentation okay let's get started with the review of the May mitigation strategies uh on May the 5th uh we presented to you that we were going to continue the the three W's of wearing a mask watching washing our hands and watching our distance we would continue the cats monitoring and that is still the plan uh based

163on our conversations with the cats team at OSU we will also continue to contact tracing and family and caregiver notifications because that is still the one order that is still in place from the state uh in order for school districts to uh to continue and then we will we will start conversations with Nationwide Children's Hospital uh on the student covert testing and student vaccine programs that we had this year uh they've been very busy with the county-wide vaccination programs and so we will have those conversations with them uh and plenty of time to be ready for the new school year start uh in July at Woodcrest and in August with the rest of the district uh to give us a quick overview of the May and June covet announcements uh is Dr Rausch Dr Rausch

164I'll turn it over to you you're on mute also Dr House we'll all eventually get there I guess tonight I um as you're aware the State Health orders have been rescinded as of June 2nd the only requirement that we continue to report cases to cph remaining in effect the CDC has also updated its masking and distancing guidance that now only recommends mass for unvaccinated individuals Additionally the city repealed its mass ordinance on June the 7th at this time Columbus Public Health has shared that any decisions pertaining to masks and distancing or a district decision I will now turn it back to Dr Stanford thank you Dr Rausch uh now we will go over the revised reopening mitigation strategies as a result of the the May and June covet announcements the district is recommending I'm sorry

165the administration is recommending that we eliminate the pandemic requirements for Mass Social distancing sneeze guards and covert restrictions for our lunchrooms restrooms and staff break rooms it is our recommendation that we permit Mass but they not be required we're also recommending that we eliminate the restrictions on entering and exiting a district building so in essence we will be back to pre-covered protocols for the most part we will however continue to implement best practice protocols like encouraging hand washing respiratory etiquette and regular cleaning and disinfecting of hard surfaces and our buildings because we are still dealing with covet 19. I will now turn the presentation over to Dr clano to briefly highlight our fall Readiness for uh for the for the for the our fall Readiness for Sports in the fall uh Dr klano yes hey

166good evening everyone um as shared you know this fall we're looking forward to obviously an exciting opportunity to return to a level of um pre-covered noise there were a number of as Dr Stanford shared best practices but also best reminders as we would like to call them because there were some things that we just practically knew that we should always be doing like you know washing our hands and not and not sharing water bottles but those will be things that we will emphasize as we return to full schedules and full activity in the fall for all of our athletic opportunities we're excited for our kids to get out there and have an opportunity to play and um we will be ready to go in the fall for our season starting uh The Fall season begins

167on August the 1st so thank you very much and we're looking forward to it I'm not sure Dr Stanford do you mean yeah there we go I'm sorry I didn't know if you wanted me to transition or not I'll let you transition my apologies now we will turn it over to uh Dr Hill to give us a quick uh overview of the non-sport extracurricular activities uh status for the fall thank you Dr Stanford um so the um non-sport extracurricular activities will resume to full season schedules that includes marching band and drill team um our students will be able to participate in those full seasons uh they'll have in-person rehearsals and be able to attend all Home and Away football games um this will also return to a full schedule of in-person student Club activities and

168Student Art enrichment initiatives um in addition act these activities will include live Spectators and these will all be with following the district's mitigation guidelines and as Dr Stanford mentioned we have learned from um this past year here in the pandemic we've learned some strategies or some things that we want to keep and what some of those things for the Arts are we want to continue to use limited sharing of resources to support our students in the Arts programs clubs and non-sport extracurricular activities and that's it for um the Arts and clubs and I will turn it over to Robert Weinheimer and transportation good evening everybody it is a pleasure and honor to present tonight on behalf of the transportation department we're here tonight to discuss the FY 22 2122 school year Transportation model and our

169recommendation for the upcoming school year so before we get started I do want to lead in with a positive affirmation that it is our goal to get all of our traditional general education students who are eligible for transportation on a yellow school bus however our capacity to do so is limited by our staffing and we are going to get we're going to dig into it a little bit later just some things we need to assume before before getting to that point and one of those is with our sped Ed complex needs students as long as a child has uh an IEP a federal uh document that says transportation is um in their program then they ride a yellow bus K-12 so for the sake of our discussion tonight K-12 students who are in the sped

170um IEP program will get a yellow bus currently we have 612 active bus drivers who are qualified and ready to drive a bus 33 drivers right now are on some sort of leave of absence and then we have to factor in a 10 on a low end and a 20 on a high end bus driver call off rate that can impact service levels on any given day we need an additional 150 or more drivers to be uh available to uh handle the capacity and address off address the call off rate each day and finally at the end we will request or recommend to adopt a model to provide Equitable efficient and effective service for the next school year some concerns that have uh presented themselves as a potential hurdle for the upcoming school year and

171as anyone can do a simple Google search on uh bus driver shortages Across the Nation in our industry bus driver shortages are a real thing we are not immune to that unfortunately but we have some mitigations in place to make our job and our district um more competitive in the overall labor market a lot of districts are also looking at changing their service models as well the hiring process for CDL versus non-cdl drivers is a hurdle for example a typical non-cdl driver or a CDL job maybe take a week at most to onboard a new employee whereas a CDL employee takes up to seven weeks to come on board and be a certified school bus driver so the entire process from application to passing the road test and driving school children by themselves could take

172up to seven weeks which is a real a real hurdle for us and finally House Bill 110 does pose some future considerations whereas uh K-8 charting on public students are will be put on a yellow bus if this passes so we have to be mindful of of the house bill and also um we would have to deliver and pick up children within 30 minutes of the end or beginning of that school's uh school day next slide please so our first option is obviously our our traditional Premier Service option which is uh servicing all of our children who are eligible for a yellow school bus and that includes Columbus City Schools in our Charter non-public students K-12 general education that model takes approximately 704 routes but currently we have 612 drivers so it would be very

173difficult to cover 704 routes with 612 active drivers and when you factor in a 10 to 20 daily call off rate on any given day you can see that that 612 number drops drastically and now we're we're in need of 100 to 150 qualified school bus drivers to fulfill this model so our recommendation from the Transportation Office is option two for the upcoming school year and that model includes Columbus City school children K-8 Charter non-public children K-8 on a yellow school bus high schoolers 912 for both public and Charter non-public students on coda so we've had a lot of discussions with Coda they we are working through an agreeable solution for for a ridership program and with this option it also takes 600 yellow bus school routes from Columbus City Schools with our current active

174driver list of 612. um we have a recruiting plan that we'll touch on here a little bit later but the numbers are going to grow with our active drivers and I'm hopeful that our numbers will grow enough that we can fulfill a a model that requires 600 routes and incorporate the call off rate as well and something to be mindful of is the additional cost of Coda which is outlined here on this PowerPoint slide like this thank you so just as uh we we transition out of uh covid we want to keep the things that we learned to be more efficient through covet as a as a best practice uh going forward in some of those um are outlined here um obviously need to hire more drivers that's our number one but we also want

175to get creative Innovative and aggressive in our other business operations of our department for example a new pilot routing consultant partnership to look at what we're doing currently with our routing so if our our staffing model is is is hard to hit 600 let's look at the routing and see if we can better run our routes which require less people all the while recruiting more drivers to build up that that Staffing so we want to look if we can run better routes look at our routing and make that more efficient additionally we want to put out an invitation to bid more routes so what that is is putting out a public notice to see if contractors can can take some of the work for us and help us while we we uh staff up and

176bring more drivers on board they can help out by taking some of that off our plate and offer a new transportation service model which we're doing here in an interesting concept here which is is innovative and the industry is offering a higher in lieu of payment for impracticality currently it's approximately 250 dollars for um impracticality acceptance if we hire that number it makes it more appealing and we would have less appeals so that is a an Innovative way to um you know address the impracticality option we want to continue with opt-out surveys yellow bus opt out surveys and we heard some feedback during covid that if parents knew that if their children if their child opted out because they had the means to get their child to school then they would open up a seat

177they would gladly opt out their child to open up a seat for a child who's in need and we heard that real feedback uh come through during our survey so we're going to put another survey out that if parents can bring their kids to school they can opt out their child and open up a seat for another student to bring more kids back to school with the resources that we have and obviously we're going to scale up our service based on new hires so the more drivers who come in we will open up a new grade band potentially this is hypothetically speaking if we get 50 new drivers by October one we can open up maybe grades 9 through 10. and then maybe around December hypothetically speaking if we have more drivers we can offer

178another grade in another grade so we're back up to full service another I'm sorry one more point at the bottom thank you and another Point uh that we want to hit on is um the charter non-public uh pick up and drop-off times if the school is agreeable that we can work on a different time based on their education model so if we are maxed out at a certain time frame but their school wants to go during that time frame maybe they could go a half hour earlier a half hour after that scheduled time and we can we can meet them in the middle and bring more kids back because at the end of the day we want to get as many kids as we can on a Yale School Bus and I will turn it

179over to miss Terry Trigg to uh talk about our future recruitment strategies thank you thank you rob good evening board members thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about our bus driver recruitment strategies our current recruitment strategies includes using digital media job boards and working with marketing agencies we have also done community outreach with Franklin County Department of Job and Family Services churches and libraries just to name a few we also are doing Summer Long Radio advertisements with Urban one and I heart media which combined reaches over 600 000 people in the Franklin County area we are about to embark on a three-month robust bus driver recruitment campaign in the month of July uh through August to recruit as many bus drivers as possible that will specifically Target 650 to over 800 Class

180B CDs in the month within the radius of Columbus a 50-mile radius of Columbus so we have also identified an opportunity to be more competitive in the local job market so you will see on tonight's board that we are asking to increase the bus driver trainee pay from 11 per hour to 18.50 per hour to make us more competitive in the marketplace and to encourage candidates to apply to become Columbus City Schools bus drivers if you know of anyone who is interested in becoming a Columbus City Schools bus driver please ask them to apply on site at our website at ccsoh.us slash jobs board members thank you for your time Dr Stanford turning it back over to you thank you thank you Miss Trigg as a recap of the recommendations that we have presented this

181evening we are lifting many of the mitigation protocols that we utilize during the pandemic uh we are we are recommending that uh masks be permitted but not required that we will continue to offer violence I mean that we will continue to encourage voluntary self-checks by our parents and also by our our team members before they enter our buildings that we will continue to work with OSU on the cats monitoring system that we will continue to conduct contact tracing and notifications as required by the current order that is still in place and that we will work with Nationwide Children's Hospital to see if we can offer student testing and student vaccines for the upcoming uh school year we will offer our full complement of fall and non-sport extracurricular activities with audiences as described by uh Dr

182clano and by Dr Hill we are recommending a change presented to you by Mr Weinheimer on our transportation service model and the pursuit of multiple strategies to align our service model to our capacity to provide services for our students we wanted to give you this overview because we will return on June the 29th to request board authorization to change the transportation service model for the upcoming school year consistent with option two that was recommended by Mr Weinheimer again thank you for this opportunity uh and your attention to this presentation this evening the team is now available to receive any feedback and answer any questions that you may have for us this evening thank you Dr Stanford a board member Cole has questions sorry I'm pushing the wrong button um thank you so much for the

183presentation I have a couple of questions of clarification and thank you so much because I as I heard more I got a chance to see okay there is what sounds like an aggressive campaign uh moving forward for transportation specifically is what I'm talking about um but with that in mind on the partnership side of things are we really fully as much as we can leveraging um you know creative Partnerships that give folks access to us to be able to learn about and and thus apply for employment with us on the trans Transportation side um we just got recent announcement that uh Columbus city council City Hall is releasing funds um you know that'll be dispersed at some point in time I imagine in the in the near future through the Columbus Urban League for folks

184to get the vaccine well is there opportunity for that to be a part of our community engagement platform um are we looking and really leveraging opportunities in the partnership side to aggressively go after folks with in a way we haven't done before that's my first question um I would uh defer to miss Trigon on our HR team but uh I I uh in some of the conversations that I have been a part of I know the HR team has been very aggressive and has been creative in uh identifying not only Partnerships but also identifying strategies to um you know improve the the number of applicants and especially the number of qualified applicants uh that uh that are in that pool of potential uh drivers but I'll turn over to miss Trigg to providing additional comments

185thank you for that that's actually a great idea and so we um are actually actively working with different agencies throughout the Franklin County area like we are like heavily involved with um Franklin County's Department of Job and Family Services they actively like help us to recruit and encourage people to apply to our very difficult hard to fill bus driver roles so um we have reached out to the Urban League and been a communication with them and so it's just an ongoing thing that the team that we're we're constantly you know working trying to find new things to recruit bus drivers I thank you for that I thank you for that my last piece is a a note of of uh thank you on part of I I think one of the biggest challenges outside of

186the application of onboarding process for bus drivers period um is also it how we tend to uh undervalue that role and I think the eleven dollars per hour for trainees that needs to be from this point forward if it's not going to maintain the 18 it can't go any lower in my mind it should not go any lower in fact should not have been any lower than 15 an hour we should be talking about prevailing wage across the board we're working with folks who do great work for us and we want to make sure that we compensate accordingly we've done the same thing in raising the pay for our active bus drivers we've done that so I just want to make sure that on that side and I see Mike in the chat I just

187want to make sure we're on that side that we're looking at maintaining that standard or going no less than what should be prevailing wage income well thank you for that Mike you sound like Minnie Mouse you got it shoot us shoot it shoot it to us in the chat on Mr defabo's behalf thank you Mr Cole for that that comment and I know uh that Mr defabo and the HR team are definitely thinking about some of those uh those type of strategies moving forward no worries I thank you thank you bye thank you um up next is Dr Pierce um so thank you so much for the presentation I just have a couple of questions as it relates to our athletic teams returning um Are there specific policies that are going to be put in

188place in case a member of a team does test positive or the whole team B Bar um has there been any discussion around um procedures or policies that will be put in place at the student does actually exhibit covid-19 symptoms so um Dr uh Pierce um absolutely uh the same protocols that we have had in place for uh students that have tested positive uh we're still be in place for the upcoming school year and we would continue to follow that contract uh that contact tracing uh protocols and you know the the protocols for um you know being at home for a certain number a certain amount of time now of course the CDC has changed their guidance around uh those who test positive but have been vaccinated and not showing symptoms they do not have

189to uh you know isolate um uh for any period of time that they can continue you know to um to be actively engaged um but it but in essence but the short answer to your question is yes we will continue to follow the protocols around positive tests and contact tracing and notifying family and making sure that uh if people you know are showing symptoms that you know they are staying home um my next question then kind of relates to the transportation issue um so earlier I want to say kind of in in the midst of us responding to uh the covet outbreak that that we had earlier there were some Charter School families that expressed that their students weren't being picked up regularly are there bus transportation service have been taken from them so my

190question is as we're talking to Charter Schools to see if they are willing to compromise and adjust their daily schedules start later or you know end at a different time are we talking to all the charter schools and parochial schools are we sending out a survey um what's our strategy in regards to making sure that we really touch bases with with all the schools we need to touch bases with uh thank you doctors um that's a great question um we have had two virtual uh meetings set up with our Charter non-public stakeholders that was the very beginning of June and we sent out a an invitation for all of our Charter non-public schools and their their uh their principles to attend uh we introduced the models we introduced what could be coming so we wanted

191to let them know exactly what uh we're going through uh because they we you know we do transport their children they are our kids you know we do put them on our yellow buses and we do care for them so we want the best for them so communication is really something we are championing the best we can and we're having virtual meetings with them and we're also scheduling individual meetings with their leadership team in the office of transportation to come up with workable solutions that we can meet in the middle on so if it's a if it's a time change or could they hold their kids in the building a little bit longer maybe 15 minutes after Bell time and something we can do whatever that is we try and come together and meet in

192the middle as an agreeable solution and we've also set up other channels of communication for example we have an email address just for our Charter now public Partners to email us communicate directly with me and my team and we'll get back with them about whatever could be student related Bell time related but at the end of the day it's you know quick clear communication so we really want to work with with those organizations to come up with the best solution and we're kicking off a lot of these meetings next week we wanted to get through the the month of June to figure out what model we were going to work with and then we were going to have individual meetings going forward and come up with workable solutions for both sides you absolutely did I

193appreciate that thank you so much for that then my last question just kind of relates to to the classroom so as we go back and you know masks are optionals but you know say people start sneezing and coughing do teachers have the discretion to pull out sneeze guards for their room um I would take that question um president there to Dr Pierce um we have looked at the possibility often sneeze guards as options um one of the challenges with the sneeze and guards is the procurement process of getting them in a timely manner but if we don't go with these guards we still would keep the sneeze guards housed at the school and so if we have to move to that direction we would have those available where needed excellent excellent thank you so much

194I appreciate that and uh board member Raglan just let me know he I think his question was answered or he's done um and vice president uh Reyes do you have a question yes thank you thank you everybody for the presentation um so as we're entertaining um the options the different options um a question I had was we know that our district is very large and in some areas of our city there's not easy access to a coda bus stop as our students are selecting which schools to go to so this goes back to the argument of neighborhood schools if it's not walkable if it's not safe and a student does not have a parent or Guardian that can drive them to school or to a bus stop that is in a safe in a safe

195manner or in a manner where they would be on time are we tracking those students and asking those parents what do they need what are the um what options they may have so say I my closest bus stop is you know a mile away I don't know how close I know some classes but not all of them or a certain distance and it's uh uh I have to pass a hazardous the same hazardous pathway just the same things that we same rules that we have for our Walkers and our kids that that will are we looking at those folks because not everybody has a mode of transportation to school even ninth through 12th I hope I asked that question correctly uh thank you uh vice president rice um you know at the end of the

196day we would love to transport every single one of our eligible students on a yellow bus um unfortunately we just don't have the capacity at this point to provide our traditional Transportation model 704 routes so with that said our plan is multi-tiered we're trying to hire more drivers seek an increase and pay for bus driver trainees continue to seek efficiencies in routing like alluded to earlier with the consultant project and we'll give our parents an opportunity to opt out if they really don't need it which hopefully to your uh your your point of Vice President race is that it opens up a seat for those children who who maybe have a hurdle of transportation from uh from their home to the bus stop or from their home to the code to stop and we're really

197exploring um you know to increase the amount of of money for impracticality I know that may not be a an immediate solution during the school year but it could be an option for some not all um and it's a multi-tiered approach again that that that we feel in the office of Transportation will work and we will able to phase in high school transportation throughout the school year um but to specifically your point uh or question are we tracking or reaching out to those families we will once we determine what model we uh come up with we will absolutely uh work uh diligently with those families to see what options are on the table and absolutely uh come up with a solution um you know if whatever best fits their their family of what we can

198do within our means and maybe this is I think I appreciate that um a part of the question that I probably did not ask correctly because you answered part of it is um so I make a selection for my 11th grader that school's on the other side of town I.E choice um there's a transportation issue now the mom mom dad Guardian States well there's a close High School Within walking distance closer and safer than taking him to the quota or the fact that I can't take them to school so Dr Dixon or maybe uh someone else does the parent have the option to say I now want to move to my neighborhood school since my child is not able to be transported in a safe manner uh board member Reyes uh yes that is something

199that we have discussed amongst our our team members um Dr Klein uh in fact was the the person that that raised that as a possibility and so you know that is something that that we are looking at and you know so Dr Klein I don't know if you want to say anything else in that regard absolutely Dr Stanford said thank you for the opportunity and the question board member vice president Reyes I can share with you that transportation is an issue for many of our high school students and sometimes they do select to go to a school in which um is far away from their home and so I think it is imperative if we need to go to this particular type of transportation that we do give some relief in a period of time

200in which uh students and their parents can work together and decide if they will be able to provide transportation if Coda is an option or if it is better to return to a school that is within their neighborhood or at least closer we would have to look at all kinds of things like maximum capacity but I assure you that our Enrollment Center is more than willing to do that I think it would be a great service for our students and for our community and I appreciate that comment Dr Klein as you um I believe you were here when the district made the change to increase our attendance by offering busing to all high school students so I appreciate that I had another question about it it just went out on my brain so I will

201hold that and ask either after another board member or as a follow-up outside of the meeting thank you thank you foreign thank you madam president thank you Dr Stanford and your team for the report tonight my question is it was sparked by uh vice president Reyes um one of the things that concerns me um is the safety of many of our COTA bus route throughout uh the city um many of our our COTA bus stops uh are not necessarily well lit um they don't have sidewalks adjacent to them in many cases they're uh really small and very close uh to the streets um I would imagine you know I know for certain that our transportation team within the district takes into account uh all of those types of precautions uh when uh when setting stops

202for our students but that may not be the case uh for Coda um one of the things we may want to consider as we continue having con contact with Coda throughout the summer maybe our our part our partners at the city and the county um this scene this seems to me like it would be a good opportunity uh to use some of the emergency resources that are being uh devoted to our County and City Partners uh to improve um some of our public transportation uh bus stops um with the increase in the number of students at these stops we can make a case for them being um better lit uh and maybe having a bit more improvements on them regarding the spaces that are required um I'm thinking uh specifically of a stop on Cassidy

203Avenue that is right up on the street uh and it's very very small not necessarily well lit and we understand that our high school students will be at some point uh in the school year um catching the bus when it is Pitch Black outside uh you've got to cross the street to get to the bus stop in many cases and so um have we had those types of discussions and have we brought in our city and county Partners to speak about the potential of using some of the emergency funding that we have for the short term for the Improvement of uh of our public transportation apparatus simply because we will be seeing an increased number of young people that will be utilizing uh these stops uh board member Ragland uh I I'm I am not

204aware of any uh conversations that we have had with Coda specifically on uh the condition of uh the bus stops around the city uh that that's definitely something that we can add to our discussions uh with them I can tell you that my understanding is that uh the majority of our discussions with them have been around whether or not they have the capacity uh to handle the recommendation that you heard tonight and also um with the the uh the routes that they have in the frequency of buses uh on those routes um I I know those have been the type of conversations that we have had with them thus far again we did not want to go too far down the path of having those conversations with them uh until we had this conversation with

205you all tonight and receive you know the feedback from you all and so Mr Weinheimer is there anything else that you like to say in that regard based on the conversations you've had thus far all right yes Dr Stanford thank you and uh board member Ragland thank you for bringing that point up because we do care about bus stop safety we do have um a program in place to look at our current bus stop safety of a bus driver you know submits a form or we get a call through our call center we have an investigation process and we also um you know we'll go out there we'll put boots on the ground check out the bus stop we'll we'll look at Google Maps and see if there's a better walk path so absolutely that

206is something we will bring to the table with Coda and we'll have those discussions as as soon as possible it's a great Point uh board member Wrangler thank you for bringing that up no and thank you Mr Weinheimer and I I would I would hope as we begin those discussions that we will also speak with our Coda team um about some form of training uh for not only our students but our our Charter and non-public students as well uh on how to write the coda I think it is incumbent upon us if we are making this type of switch that we do everything uh in our power to make this the safest environment possible I think if we can come up with some sort of training regiment it may help to Ally some of the

207fears of our high school families um and if we are if we are strategic in how we do that getting an early start on identifying where these stops will be located and then literally training students and their families on what it's like to get on the bus at a specific time what the ride is going to be like maybe you know offer some opportunities for families to to get on Dakota that may not have ever utilized the system I think you know and just announcing what it is that we are announcing um there are some stigmas around public transit here in Columbus that is why we have so many cars on our freeways and streets right now and I think it's going to be important that as the system of Education in this city that

208we educate our way into a responsible partnership with uh our public transit system and so if you all would please consider that in in entertain that kind conversation with our code of Partners uh around training I think it would be helpful um in in getting this program up and running for not just our students but all of our high school students throughout the city that that concludes my my questions and remarks Madam president board member Raglan um I have a comment and uh the amount of work you have to do is like amazing because we are one of the largest Transportation operations in this country um I and so the the plans are what they are what are the the problems with the uh lack of bus drivers in the industry issue right now across

209this country so I I'm really proud of the Innovation that I'm seeing from you in the HR team to try to solve the issue um my question or comment I don't know you don't have to answer is really I think around the equity lens and the and maybe uh try to understand that you know we've kind of selected the great bands as the measurement of where we determine the need what vice president Reyes was kind of asking and she triggered me and her and her kind of thinking was in that balancing we have made some determination that a high school student any high school student must have lesser need than an elementary student and that doesn't matter the region or the circumstances or anything like that and so I just want to make sure that

210as we are trying to embrace equity and we're trying to really think about the needs of every student that we do that actually um and I do like the the opt out I opted out as a as a parent last time because I was able to take my child to school um I think that that is a viable option and I like the innovation of trying to to give more choice but I don't know I do have a hard time you know that kid that worked really hard to get into Fort Hayes on the other side of town that is doesn't have really great access to a coda or it will take like an hour to get there they don't get to have a bus and we have we might have some students that are

211in a different region that are going to a closer school but still within the bus route that um you know might have different options or community community might have different options to support that um so you know I think every area of town is different obviously every school is different um you know so I just kind of I don't it's not it's not a criticism I just want to make sure that you know we we're trying to practice this idea of equity and looking at regions and looking at neighborhoods and trying to get our kids everything that they deserve um so I just wanna I just feel like I had to say that um but you guys are doing an amazing job and it's really really really challenging um and so I'm really proud of

212the Innovation that I saw tonight but want to put that lens of equity over it so you don't have to answer because it's not it's not really something I think you can't answer um but just something to keep thinking the kind words um uh president there okay um I don't think there are any report for tonight thank you thank you team thank you everyone um okay internal auditor why we finally got to you how are you I'm fine thank you and um I will give you the gift of time I do not have a report this evening with us anyway the treasurer good evening good evening I forgot why I'm here you're gonna give us a monthly financial report all right and how exciting will this be well after all those reports well you are

213correct um monthly financial report from a which was um you got are you saying that okay am I did I share the right screen okay good um monthly finish report for May was shared with the finance and Appropriations Committee uh last Wednesday at their meeting um oh as has been the case in um just about every other month this year revenues are above plan and expenditures are below plan uh year to date through May the cash balance is running about 105 million above plan uh at the end of May highlights on the revenue side State uh state aid is now about 25 million above plan and remember there are a couple of extraordinary items in there uh the little over 19 million we got in the uh Bureau of workers comp dividend payment along with

214the partial restoration of the uh the cut that was instituted in FY 20 and Kerry Ford at fy21 um it was reduced to 4.8 million from about 9 million and change and so there's about 5 million in there coming back to us in terms of that so that that pretty much makes up that over plan year-to-date number for state revenue the property tax allocation is now spot on to plan last month we had a variance but that was simply because of timing the plan had it coming in in one month it actually came in uh in in just a different month one month off so now we've got to uh through May and everything's caught up with itself so we're we're spot on there in that vein the property tax allocation that comes to us

215through the state is really a credit off of taxpayers tax bills so it's really part of property taxes in general so while I do my best to split those estimates up I add them back together to see how well did we do in estimating property taxes in total and as you can see here we're within one percent on about 572 million dollars in property taxes year to date um so here you can see property taxes are pretty much spot on state aid is running above plan all of the revenues pretty even although when you break that out you'll see some variances here and other revenues um in in terms of um uh interest actually interesting comes down but uh Pilots have been up a bit um and so that accounts for for some of that

216Outreach and that other financing sources are down a little bit so they even themselves out um we're still looking at state aid on a monthly basis you can see that the the plan had some rather uneven understood and especially uh in the last three months history would indicate that we would be tailing off a bit in April May and June but as you can see the black line uh we've been pretty flatlined in terms of an equal amount each month except for these two months for those extraordinary payments came in so we anticipate that this will continue um on its even monthly payment plan and we'll have a little bit larger monthly variance in June so we should be above where we are right now here to date by the time we get to the

217end of the fiscal year the heat map um uh this month because of the plan calling for that property tax allocation to come in but we received it in April these are all unfavorable variances in terms of uh percentages but um dollar amount we're close to Beyond plant except for the the property tax allocation on a year-to-day basis we're all um pretty much in the in the green uh which is good um and we've got some unfavorable variances slight under moderately unfavorable variances down here and all other financing sources um on the expenditure side again Personnel continues under plan now about 28 million uh under plan uh split between salary and wages 29 21.9 million is selling wages and 6.5 in in benefits um for the month actually selling wages were spot on we were

218within thirty two thousand dollars but fridge benefits were running about 2.2 million under plan for the month um purchase Services Charter supplies materials Capital La all those non-personnel items continue to run under plan um both on a month-to-date basis and a year-to-date basis again keep in mind that plan was based upon the budgeted amount not an actual estimate for cash flows um I've rectified that the five-year forecast by reducing the budgets based upon historical uh percent of budget spent calculations for each of those items so next year I'm hoping those variances will will be less simply because the plan will look more like a true cash flow plan for the district for FY 22. graphically exair how Personnel Stacks up Charters pretty close but still under plan and all other expenditures when you break those

219out you can see the purchase Services leads the way in running under plan for the year a green heat map here on expenditures as you would expect with those results we anticipate will finish the year out this way um looking to how we compared to last year property taxes running above by about three percent State AIDS up 5.7 but again keep in mind that that's solely because of the partial restoration of of the cut and that dividend payment um you can see here property tax allocation pretty much spot on to where we were last year um we'll get to expenditures last month Personnel actually was running ahead of last year um but now we're back to running behind last year and that was because uh the three pay month worked itself out we were ahead

220last month because April this year was a three-pay month but last year may was a three pay month so we we caught up so you have those apparitions and they worked themselves out so we're now back to running behind on um on personal expenditures compared to last year um nothing else is is notable there I mean some of them are we anticipate being above last year in many of these categories interestingly enough uh purchase services not only running behind playing but they're running behind where we were last year advances out are running ahead of last year um I've mentioned before that we've been doing monthly advances to cover cash flow needs and both the wcbe fund and the latchkey fund will be doing some a transfer or in advance to both of those over a

221year year end wcbe will likely be a transfer which is more permanent latchkey there'll be an advanced latchkey it'll be in the you know over a million dollars there but we're anticipating the ability to um get some of those funds back from the federal Esser funds that's a qualifying expense there for loss of Revenue so we'll be making application there to get get that reimbursed to us and be able to advance that back to the to the general fund the only other um I would say that an anticipated uh transaction in June that will be fairly large this this is the month we'll be doing the transfer the 80 million dollar transfer to a pi fund to provide the seed money for the student transportation Fleet replacement plan which is a fancy name for a

222bus replacement plan at this point so we'll be doing that this month so you'll you'll see that that was not in the original plan so that'll that'll drive us over playing in that category for gin um but other than that we will uh we'll end we'll end the year uh in cash balance above where we anticipated in the original plan and that's it for the month of May um at the meeting there were several other items we talked about those fund transfer in advances uh a bit um we set the dates for the quarterly update to fac on where we are on the Esser fund revenues and expenditures we'll do those quarterly beginning in September with fac um I gave the committee some summer reading it was uh some material from the March and April

223of 2020 uh millage committee work because we'll be talking about the possible need for an operating Levy or a pi Levy in fac over the next few months looking to um you know should that be a 2022 ballot item and then lastly we had a discussion about our meeting format beginning in August I anticipate we will return to in person um I don't know that we finalized whether or not it'll be hybrid that is whether or not zoom will continue but we will likely be in person and we'll be down there in the 3700 South High building location utilizing the facility that you're currently using for board meetings because of the AV setup and and that's already and prepared to go so uh that's the end of my report uh if uh Finance chair Cole

224has anything to add I'll I'll defer to him at this point in time I do thank you all being you stole some of my thunder trigger before you're welcome um uh but yeah I I think the only thing that I really like us to consider in looking at this monthly report and the ones preceding um particularly where we see the uh below line for expenditure on Charter Schools I think that there's an area of opportunity for us for reclamation so as we continue to tweak uh our curriculum and our services I would really uh have in mind targeting that that group of students um for entry into the district so please you know pay attention to that and take a look at that and see how we then adjust to be able to incorporate those

225students and recapture them um the other piece is is a short comment um shot in the vein shot in the vein a lot of this money that's coming down the pike this year is really a shot in the vein um I've had continuous conversation with Treasurer pahoric and will continue to do so particularly around looking at and utilizing new funding models expanding on funding models that that are under I think underrepresented in our revenues and our annual revenues Mr Cole what are you talking about I'm speaking about income tax sharing I think this is another area of tremendous opportunity for us in Columbus City Schools to leverage what we've done with City Hall has been nothing short of really amazing in terms of building a new relationship a newer relationship that we really didn't kind

226of have in the past whether I whether in previous iterations of the board with me on it or prior I just don't it just doesn't exist um what we get in terms of income sharing with them income tax sharing is is small it's small and I think that's an area of growth for us to look at how we offset some of our costs um as a in as a as a in our efforts toward equity in the city as a whole and public education is a tremendous part of that and a an attractive proposition for the city when you're talking about growth potential and and you know again that Equity issue so a couple things to keep in mind Treasurer pahoric and I will continue to along with the committee work towards identifying new areas

227of Revenue potential for Columbus City Schools thank you so much Mr bahoric you've done again an awesome job thank you and and you did bring up an interesting point when you mentioned Community Schools I I was on the phone today with um a gentleman at ode talking about uh what next year's accounting will look like um uh based upon what's going to come out of the general assembly in terms of school funding and uh this is just one aspect uh in in both the Senate and the house bill they're going to go away from deducting a charter and and voucher payments from us or from from all from public school Foundation payments instead of deductions they will directly fund those but um what will what will happen is in essence we will then get the

228net dollar of that um and so we we won't see the deductions but the actual Revenue we receive will be less because that's where we're going to start so it's a it's a really interesting accounting convention and when you when you look at our five-year forecast you will see those three years of history when we roll forward um in in November you'll see 21 20 and 19 as history and they will have a certain Revenue number for state revenue and they'll show those expenditures for vouchers and Charters being charged against us but then in 21 the revenue will drop but so will the expenditures we won't be charged for them so I'm I'm got my fingers crossed that that is a um net cash flow neutral kind of transaction we've got a similar thing going

229on with student wellness and success funds and so the the accounting that goes on the background um Can can make the data look a little bit odd and um will cause the need for an explanation uh a couple of times a year to explain what's going on but I had a conversation uh with ode about how how we you know what are some ideas for accounting for it and we walked through two or three different options and we we both agreed that um on one particular one but that's I just want you to know that that's coming down the pike our data is going to look a little bit odd and and so just just like that uh dividend payment and restoration of the cut they cause blips in the data we're just going to

230have some next year is going to be an interesting year when we use that data compare back and then redo our forecast at those lower Revenue numbers at lower expense numbers um hopefully it's there's no cash balance impact but you will see differences in the numbers above and below the line so to speak so that's it thank you very much thank you are there any questions for the treasure all right thank you so much all right we'll move into board matters uh item 8.1 we have first reading of amendments to board policy which board member Brown is going to talk about thank you um yes we do have uh quite a few policies uh here for uh review and and some for acceptance uh the uh former policy Review Committee now called the GPA uh

231government and policy and advocacy committee uh has been hard at work and we've accomplished a lot and that allows us to bring all these things to you uh or first reading we have seven policies um they include policy 2240 dealing with controversial issues 32-20 dealing with standard spaced teacher evaluation uh 3220.03 standards based licensed support professionals evaluation 32-23 standards-based school counselor evaluation 60 to 20 tax budget preparation 64-23 use of credit cards and that's a a new policy and 74.50 dealing with property inventory um most of these policy changes are being recommended by the committee because they conform to a change in law some of them are fairly small tax budget preparation for example simply adds CFO after the word uh treasure so that we can be consistent with other policies uh the only one

232that uh I would draw your attention to is the controversial issues uh policy uh it's been revised because of changes to law uh specifically House Bill 164 which defines religious expression to include Fair religious gatherings such as prayer groups distribution of materials and lots more so there are some changes uh needed simply to conform to that new law um I can't say but uh it's conceivable as we go forward with some of the uh bills that have been introduced into the legislature that we may have to revisit this again but here it is uh today here's all seven of these policies for first reading certainly in anybody has any questions or concerns about any of them please uh contact me please ask questions or let me know so that we can address it as early

233as possible and not have to deal with it uh at the next meeting uh while we're here working on it and uh and proceed with a second reading so any questions at this point wonderful uh water and I move on okay hold on a second I have to say something Matt that officially concludes the first reading and now before we move around we can move to item 8.2 the second reading of policy 5000. thank you I I wouldn't know what to do without you thank you um policy 5000 is uh as a result of a lot of good work by a lot of people uh this policy is here for its second reading and adoption it's been before this board before and was uh sent back to the committee for some additional work uh and

234that's been accomplished a lot of good things uh happen when our committee gets together and discusses Basics this pertains to transgender and gender variant students uh I think that uh people that worked on this um did an incredibly good job and deserved a lot of credit uh and have come up with policy that is uh practical as well as uh sensitive and uh I think expresses uh in in my view uh the will of this board as I've heard it over the last uh five and a half years uh so is here presented uh for a second rating and for adoption uh the GPA committee recommends it to this board for approval I think it was that emotion whatever yes yes it is is there a second second second uh is there any discussion comments

235okay please call the roll yes this is beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes Mr Ragland yes vice president Reyes yes and president Adair yes that motion carried well thank you all um and again thank you to everyone that worked on that this is a really important policy and um you know we didn't mean to to make it coincide with pride month but you know it did um we've been working really hard on it and so you know it's uh it's something that I think is really important to our families and students and Community around uh you know transgender issues and just letting everyone know that you're accepted and loved here in our district thank you for that all right we're going to go ahead and move on to item 8.3

236a resolution to endorse a direct funding of community schools and other school choice programs and to reaffirm the district's support of the fair school funding plan remember Brown thank you once again uh this resolution uh is is to endorse well you know to ask the general assembly to directly fund Community Schools and other choice programs um rather than to send those funds to us and for us than to uh send them on uh where their students are attending uh often with greater dollars than we get from the state in the first place and this resolution also reaffirms our support of the fair school funding plan and that is uh particularly timely uh as well as uh extremely important as you all may know uh this week uh the uh conference committee uh made up of

237both Senate representatives and House Representatives are meeting and doing their work to try to sort out the differences uh where the Senate proposal it does not include the fair school funding plan and the house version does uh there's certain obviously much more to it than that but uh that's why this resolution is here for presentation and uh and and for uh consideration to adopt the safe name uh and I move the adoption of this policy uh I think that pretty well covers uh the substance of the of the resolution okay so a brown has moved the resolution is there a second second uh are there any questions comments seeing Memphis called the role Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce yes Mr Ragland oh staying vice president Reyes yes president Adair yes Ms beckerley

238boss that motion carried thank you so much all right we will now move into the consent agenda this evening our consent agenda consists of eight one to 23.10 runs the board member would like to remove from the agenda to uh discuss and vote on separately okay same none is there a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved is there a second second are there any items you'd like to discuss on the consent agenda this evening uh board member beckerly um I would like to discuss 13.3 which is um uh funding for uh 13.13 I knew that was wrong okay uh funding for training uh for teachers who are k-3 who are implementing the Foundation program no no surprise here I'm talking about phonics um but the the one thing I want to commend um

239the administration for is understanding the importance of teaching about the science of reading so that teachers understand why we're switching to this program because there's a lot of science behind it and it's important that the professional development um conveys that to the teachers that we're asking to shift their practices so I am um really pleased at the wisdom of the administration and the commitment to doing this well and doing this right so thank you um the other thing I wanted to ask Dr Breeden just to um go over for us on the edge annuity uh 13 Point item 13.9 we're um Contracting for services or license from Ingenuity to um for the Blended program next year and that was a program or company that we had a lot of issues with and a lot of

240concern about last fall and so I wanted Dr Breen to address how we've kicked the tires on that to um make sure that we're not having We're not gonna have any repeats and that we're comfortable with using this product going forward just to clarify that's 13.19 right Ingenuity you said nine just want to make sure all right um thank you for your question um as you know when we began using Edge annuity it was a rough road uh some of it was them some of it was us and uh at that point we just had to go forward throughout the year we've met with them weekly we have stopped using their science program and uh people have we have adjusted to it it is not perfect we investigated some other products but they weren't much

241better we were afraid to bring something in because we're only going to use it for one more year and we're only going to use it for reading and math we need the platform that allows us to do a lot of the things besides even the curriculum so we will use this for one year for two subjects and next year we will be talking about we won't need it because our canvas curriculum learning management system will be up and we will be on the other side of this so thank you for your question it's one year only thank you uh Dr Pierce you have an item you'd like to discuss yes so specifically um 11 points 11.1 um just in the lower area of that item there it just seems to be unclear how will a

242student be able to select the paper versus the online blizzard bag president is here to board member Pierce fortunately we've only had to use this I believe once before um what we did last time is we left it up to the discretion I think really of the teacher and the um and the families based upon what their need was we wanted to make sure that we had as many options available to students as possible this is really just a contingency plan should we be unable to meet the minimum school hours as I think before in the vast majority of our schools were well above the minimum hours but this is more of a just in case uh plan but the short answer is that really it's up to the the educator and the in the

243family's need is there any way that we can note that in the actual policy because it just seems unclear on that part is it teacher discretion is it family need just in terms of equity there may be some families that have um multiple devices but say they have multiple kids and they have a shortage of devices and they need paper anything can happen so when you get to that access to computer it just says students may be provided for blizzard bags which are copies of the lessons posted online but it doesn't really get to the point of how do we distinguish who gets a paper versus who gets it online are you asking are you wanting to amend this particular resolution or just want us to kind of put that into practice should the need

244arise I'm comfortable um with you all putting it in practice but making sure that it is um equitably implemented throughout our district certainly so I'm comfortable I trust you off you say that you'll do that that you will do that well entertainment on that that's yours too I mean we've learned so much with all the online Google classrooms and everything I you know even the way it used to be you know it was just posted on the district's website I mean I think there's just so many different ways now we would probably handle this uh but this is just the contingency plan piece so good point any other items anyone would like to discuss okay seeing none will you please pull the roll Mr Cole yes Dr Pierce with the exception of 16.1 yes which

245I'm abstaining from 16.1 thank you Mr Ragland yes with the exception of 22.7 and 22.8 from which I abstain vice president Reyes yes yes president Adair yes Ms beckerley yes Mr Brown yes that motion carried thank you we will move into uh now announcements from the Board of Education they would like to make whatever Cole and then book number Brown uh thank you madam president I'll be very quick um first and foremost I had an outstanding time as I always do um assisting the officiation of our graduation ceremonies it is it is just a really wonderful and blessed time for me um I really enjoy it like I enjoy the holidays it's just a beautiful thing to see our families come together in support of our children and them taking that adult step towards what

246is the future that I encourage them to continue to own um so that was an awesome experience between Columbus North International eastmore Academy Linden McKinley High School I had I had a wonderful experience um in addition to that I had the experience to uh to be a part of the FRN um doing that work with the National School Board Association and uh working with that advocacy group to learn more about quite a number of things whether it's uh school funding was a big one that was discussed as well as how school districts are going to Pivot legislatively around uh covet and establish a new normal for itself and the common denominator for it all came really came down to this this old Axiom that many of us as you know public servants know very well

247who are elected that all politics is local um and it may it just gave me a lot of time to really think and reflect on all the open door opportunities that we have here that weren't even discussed on the call by the way um uh but we've we've been able to do some amazing things and I just want to close my comments Again by saying that uh here here lies an opportunity for this city to uh for us all to work collaboratively together to put public education as a major part of The Narrative of this city as to why to be here why this is an attractive City why there are to those who do live here and don't know about the jewels and gems of our district um that they learn them because we're

248ahead of the curve in a lot of different ways in comparison to other major districts or cities so I thank you for that opportunity thank you board for encouraging my leadership in that capacity and I look forward to continuing to serve you thank you uh first like to uh say uh following uh my Kohl's uh statements that uh we still have a lot of work to do uh thank you for your leadership in those areas and for the things that we've accomplished but uh we can't stop here we've met it much more to do thank you uh the only uh additional thing uh is is a simple statement that uh is a quotation from a dramatist and writer of the early and mid 19th century Charles Reed and I think it was appropriate for tonight

249we have all much to learn let us teach one another as kindly as we can thank you brown foreign thank you this weekend we will celebrate Juneteenth which recognizes the freedom of slaves here in this country as we continue to discuss critical race Theory and deal with issues of racism inequity within our district it is vitally important that we celebrate those that helped to found this nation but didn't do so in their own free will these are the words of Nikki Giovanni we celebrate and rightfully so those who escaped slavery we are so proud of those who ran and those who did not tell who was running when we could not read or write we sang a song or quilted a blanket or showed our grandchildren how to make stew because we knew one day

250some of us would build a home a church a school a community that we could celebrate we clapped and sang and studied by the Light of the fire we persevered we made a change we stood ever on the altar this may well be your life but it is our life too and we celebrate you happy Juneteenth Columbus thank you for that remember Raglan remember beckerly um this is circling back to a graduation in um uh echoing all of the sentiment expressed by um Michael and it was joyous uh and my first time so it was really exciting um it occurred to me and I'm just tossing this out as a thought if we might want to um come up with a strategy where we uh get the schools will be speaking at assigned to us

251earlier in the year maybe even the beginning of the year and maybe we can spend some time checking in with the seniors and getting to know them a little so it's a little more personal at the end when we get to speak at their graduation so I'm just tossing that out as something to think about yeah all right any other announcements um thank you Barbara Raglan for that um I you know I you took me a back actually by those statements I think today for me has been a rush of emotion um and uh you know we we issued a statement um late last week around the critical race Theory type legislation in our opposition with it standing strong with all of our labor Partners in that and and really what you what you spoke

252to about the fundamental purpose of education and that there was a time even more recent time where those opportunities have been here in Columbus were not afforded I mean we talked about the history of our own District in 175 years ago African-American students uh and any other student other than a white student of privilege was unable to be educated in our public school system and these are true facts um and from that we um we have to build forward and that's what we do and we want to talk about these things in a very open and honest way while still supporting every student in our district no matter who they are or their background and um you know I think really that's our purpose as education um and protecting education and protecting the ability for

253our students to understand truth and become critical thinkers and be able to impact the world as we want them in our portrait of a graduate um to seek change and to seek Justice um and so that's why we do this and that's why we sit here as your public servants that's why we fight that's why we've been very vocal board on these issues um and I'm proud of that um our charge is to protect our students and the education that we as a community believe they deserve so I just want to say thank you to our Union Partners who are standing strong with us on this and they've also been standing strong on that school funding I know they've been out uh uh you know offering testimony and I've seen them in in pictures in

254the protests of John at the state house um so we have to keep doing this together uh fighting when we can together um because uh you know I truly believe uh we as the education system have our students interests uh the best uh in mind all the time so uh thank you board members for uh agreeing to that statement and uh um supporting us through that and um I don't know if any of you had a chance to listen to the proponent testimony today uh but it there was uh it is moving uh these pieces of legislation are moving and we will need to uh watch it and uh Dr rash will help us watch it and be prepared for any next steps that might come so um on that note I think I saw

255someone else with a hand up no okay so uh we we have executive session and a board or vice president Reyes your emotion thank you I move at the Board of Education recess into executive session for Section 121.22 G4 okay the hourly buys code to prepare for and Doctor review negotiations or bargaining sessions with public employees concerning their station or other terms and conditions of their employment second thank you Dr Pierce yes sir yes sir Mr Ragland yes vice president Reyes yes president Adair yes Ms beckerly yes Mr Brown yes Mr Cole yes that motion carried thank you we will now go into the executive session um we will come back and adjourn the meeting uh in public session when we are finished staff members that are not joining us thank you for sticking it

256out this long we appreciate you and all of your work um and we will see you at some other time in the future the board members uh head into the room when it we get the announcement