BOE 2020-11-04

001good evening columbus community it is board president adair and i would like to welcome you to our november 4th uh regular board business meeting you will see that today we are trying something a little new we have gone hybrid so we have some board members that are in person along with our superintendent um so we can start to practice just like some of our students are um how we're going to come back in this new world so next meeting we'll have different board members here who will practice with us um and that's what we're going to try so hopefully you can follow along with us today with our masks um and uh you can still participate via facebook and we'll have more information about how our future meetings will go as we uh uh keep

002figuring all this out together so welcome to this meeting in our new hybrid format um mr treasurer will you please call the roll president nader president ms beckerly president mr brown here mr cole i am here dr pierce president mr ragland here and vice president reyes here you have a quorum on facebook thank you so much um and we will have the pledge of allegiance today we have a student ambassador from beechcraft high school um i want to welcome chloe abba i didn't say that correctly so sorry chloe tell us how to say your name so i have it right um it's chloe abolica you did get it right okay awesome well you're gonna lead us in the pledge so for those in the room let's go ahead and stand and be led in the

003pledge of allegiance 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 chloe how was senior year going chloe it's going okay it's a bit different it's a lot different but we'll get through it thank you that's right chloe we will get through it thank you so much for being here and leading us in the pledge board members um you have the agenda that was provided to you um we um did have a public comment but actually they've submitted in writing so no one is here to give public comment you received something in writing we have the superintendent's report internal auditors report we will ask the treasurer if he has

004a report we have board matters we have a presentation from the ohio school board association we of course have items on our consent agenda and then we will um end with a board announcements and adjournment no executive session planned this evening is there a motion to approve tonight's meeting for november our agenda thank you there's been a motion in a second please call the role president adair yes ms beckerly yes mr brown yes mr cole yes dr pierce yes mr ragland yes vice president reyes yes that motion carried thank you so much um so we will um jump down to item five of those for the superintendent's report um like i said board members we did receive a public comment this evening but it was in writing i will turn it over to you madam

005superintendent thank you president adair i have several updates to provide to the board tonight first we will start okay first i'm excited to share that the students in our career in technical education cte programs at the district's two state-of-the-art centers the fort hayes career center and columbus downtown high school began their blended learning model last week um this week students in cohort a attended on-site classes on monday um and students in cohort b will start on-site classes tomorrow and continue on friday juniors are attending on-site for half a day in the morning and seniors for half a day in the afternoon on their cohort day for cte students in person it is critical to skill attainment which is required for certification in many cases the certification can be a deciding factor for students meeting graduation

006requirements or attaining the appropriate post-secondary credits this is why it's important for these students these juniors and seniors to be in their classrooms or lab and gain the necessary hands-on experience they need to graduate on time so let's watch this brief video created by the communications department showing the first day back for some students at columbus downtown high school and the fort hayes career center i would like to recognize the leadership of the columbus downtown high school principal sheryl watson fort hayes principal dr milton milton ruffin and director cte celeste lewis for ensuring their facilities and programs were ready to welcome students and staff back this week as i show in a moment there is much work behind the scenes that goes into preparing our student buildings our school buildings for blended learning we're going

007to get busy we're going to be working it feels kind of good to have them back because these students that are in here they've never worked in the lab before and i tell them you can't get a real lab experience virtual it's a lot better and this kind of environment for the students to be here doing hands-on work than it is to be on zoom meetings i teach welding i teach about 10 to 12 different welding and cutting applications my main goal is to get these students ready for the job force and also to teach life skills that they really can't learn online or zoom so i'm very happy to be back i think i have a great group of students and i can't wait to go back full time when they get ready to

008do internships they have to go into a salon and i would not want them to go into a salon and have never did it worked in the lab so this has given them the extra footing that they need to be successful in the program all the students were very good and compliant and i think they all understand and i think they're happy to be back so our operations team has worked closely with our principals and area superintendents over the past week over the past weeks and months to ensure that our facilities meet the district's readiness standards we have established eight criteria to determine when a school building is ready to welcome in students and staff for blended learning these standards meet all of the recommended recommended health and safety guidelines that are necessary to operate

009our schools during the ongoing pandemic so signage so all school buildings must have signage installed throughout the building to show appropriate social distancing and the requ and the requirement to wear face coverings ppe all school buildings must have at least six school weeks worth of personal protective equipment ppe available on site including staff and student mask disposable gloves bottles of hand sanitizer disinfectant wipes special education areas must also have additional ppe such as face shields and clear face coverings and gowns all school builders must have plexiglas barriers installed where six feet of social distancing is not possible and in common areas such as the school office all school buildings must have furniture arranged to accommodate six feet of social distancing this includes desks or tables and classrooms and common areas such as the cafeteria or

010the library and all school buildings must remove and store excess furniture that is not needed due to the social distancing requirements all school buildings must be clean and visually appealing daily the custodial staff will ensure that the building is clean and disinfected frequently all classrooms hallways common areas in the school building must be free of any clutter that could impede social distancing requirements imposed hazard for students and inner staff and all school buildings must identify a health separation room where a student or staff member who exhibits covet 19 symptoms can wait until they're able to leave the building the school will also have a plan on how the health separation room will operate so those things that we are requiring all buildings to have and we have those in place for our students the returning

011our cte students returning so despite the fact that most of our students are learning a remote setting our operation teams and our school leaders continue to monitor and ensure that our buildings are ready according to these eight standards when the time comes to bring more students into the blended learning environment our school buildings will be prepared with all of the proper health and safety guidelines as i mentioned in my report at the previous board of education meeting we're working on ways to enhance our supports and resources for students who are learning in a completely remote environment one of those enhancements was generated from feedback we received from families who said that they wanted more meal options for their students i'm happy to report that we have delivered on that promise this week on monday we

012began our expanded fuel up meal distribution program by providing daily lunch and breakfast options for students at each of our 44 fuel up sites around the city families can come monday through friday between 11am and 1pm to pick up that day's lunch and the next day's breakfast for lunch on monday students could choose between a cold sub broccoli fruit and milk or a hot option a slice of pizza with the same size for many families this daily option offers convenience and provides a variety of meals for those families who still prefer the weekly five-day meal pack we continue to offer that service from a.m to 1 p.m and from 5 to 7 p.m on wednesday in compliance with federal guidelines families who choose to pick up a five-day meal pack on wednesday are not eligible

013to pick up a family meal over the five calendar days after that i would like to recognize and commend our directive food service joe brown for his leadership and adaptability in creating this enhanced offering for our families this is a prime example of how the district is listening to stakeholders and adjusting how best to meet the needs of our community for more information on our fuel up meal program and to see a map of the 44 locations click the reopening tab on the district website we continue to closely monitor our student attendance data in the remote environment we have provided resources to teachers and families on our attendance check-in and tracking procedures as of last friday october 30th here are our daily her attendance rates by region as you can see our overall rate and

014each of our regional rates have continued to increase each week our total student attendance rate is at 71 percent which is a four point increase over the past four weeks as we continue to refine our attendance procedures and track the weekly rates we're also implementing strategies to engage with specific students who have uh who have we have identified as being disengaged as of last friday october 30th we have been able to reduce our disengaged student list to just over 1 000 students through the combined efforts of our department of academic services accountability engagement and operations we are analyzing the data to discover reasons why these students may not be engaged with remote learning for example is it a lack of technology resources a need for a safe space to connect with our to to connect

015online classes or perhaps a language barrier we believe that by identifying some root causes of disengagement we can better serve these students during a period of remote learning we have also implemented targeted engagement efforts to reach these students we are identifying feeder patterns based on the data as we believe we will be able to serve entire families who need wraparound services and create a sustainability model for student engagement for school engagement for those families from kindergarten through graduation our plan includes a multi-tiered collaborative approach phase one begins at the building level with teachers and school staff such as social workers and counselors who are regularly working to reconnect with these students phage two is where we initiate the house bill 14 process for student attendance this includes forming an attendance team and developing an attendance

016plan with interventions based on individual student needs and circumstances the team will continually reassess to determine whether further interventions can be implemented at the building level phase three a member of the attendance team in most cases this would be the school's social worker would make a formal referral to a dedicated group of specially trained ccs safety and security staff or one of our district partners to engage in grassroots efforts these efforts would include knocking on doors in-home services parent orientation sessions wrap-around services for the student and family or linkage to a community agency and services as needed if students remain if students remain disengaged they will be referred back to the attendance team for further follow-up in phase four one of our long-standing district partners ethiopian tywanda social services ets will be assisting in our

017grassroots engagement efforts to support the families of our english learner english learner students we know that many of our new american and english learner students and families have struggled with engagement this year there are a variety of reasons for this including the new virtual learning environment ongoing language barriers and comfort level with navigating technology our partnership with etss is designed to address these concerns and many more using grassroots methods for engagement ets will have seven bilingual liaisons for arabic nepali somali somali maya and kendaranda is that kendall rwanda if i pronounce that correctly for in two liaisons for spanish these liaisons will work directly with families to help increase their capacities for understanding and navigating technology understanding and monitoring the students academic progress and working with schools with school staff so i would like to

018extend a warm ccs welcome to these new team members as they work with us to improve our new american immigrants and families experienced in columbus city schools and finally i would like to welcome our partners from the first church of god to this evening zoom meeting first church of god has always been committed to our community and our district whenever there have been troubling times in our community that impacted our students and families bishop timothy clark commits his church and his team to help address these challenges for families as the pandemic hit last spring and forced us to begin the year in a remote learning environment bishop clark knew that students were going to need support and technology to help them engage with their classes and continue on the path to academic success fisher clark

019not only opened their doors as they learned an extension center but he also committed to supporting the students of walnut ridge high school with technology tonight bishop clark is here to present columbus city schools with a check for 25 000 to purchase chromebook computers for the students at walnut ridge so please welcome at this time pastor george fox at this time if they're here yes they're wrong all right good evening superintendent dixon and to uh president adir and members of the school board it's our joy here at first church to present to columbus city schools and in particular to walnut ridge high school this check we believe in the schools we believe in our superintendent and the work that she is doing and so on behalf of our congregation and our youth pastor we would

020like to present this check for 000 to aid in helping students have equity in education through technology awesome thank you thank you so much bishop clark again um this is what what it means for community involvement community engagement water ridge is located right there on this side of town we're near your church and oh my gosh the students going to be so excited to receive this gift and we are equally excited as your partner for all the continued work that you have done on behalf of students in the city of columbus not only columbus city schools but tonight is columbus city schools and we're celebrating um and thank you so much for all of your efforts well we love and appreciate you and all the members of the school board and all of the faculty

021and all of the students in columbus city schools god bless you all thank you thank you thank you and that ends my report thank you madam superintendent and thank you so much uh first church of god for that wonderful uh donation um so board members if you have questions for uh the superintendent if you are in the room just raise your hand a board member becker lee has put in the chat so we will start with her and then i will look around to see who else would like to ask questions so board member back early to you um a couple of quick things and then a couple questions um i'm thrilled to see the intentionality um in terms of um connecting and um following up with the students that aren't engaged that's really exciting

022i love the levels of it i love the fact that it includes knocking on doors and i love that um we're using etss and i just want to say that you know these are the sorts of things that we're doing now that we'll continue doing when we're you know back in regular school and it's just really exciting um and it's the sort of thing that i don't think i saw happening when i was teaching at the same degree of um intentionality and specificity so i'm really thrilled about that i also wanted to share that the decision to uh not have all of our students going hybrid um it turns out you know i i personally and i would think others are too relieved because the on our three times a week calls uh with the

023department of health we have been seeing very high rates of infection and um two three three times in the past week we've been over 240 cases per day and today we heard that that's the level at which there's some serious concern about the spread in the community so i just wanted to share that um we're grateful that our students are not um coming into the buildings at least at this particular time because of that high infection rate in our community um i also uh have a quick question and i think that you and i have discussed this already dr dixon but it's worth sharing the process in the building for uh any concerns they have about the safety protocols and the sanitary santa the cleaning protocols i can we just mention that quickly so everybody

024knows there's a loop that can be closed yes so the build the building readiness checklist that principals will have they will be able to review those checklists with their blt teams um and so the staff will work with the principal to make sure that the buildings have the proper ppe if they notice something that needs to be addressed they can bring that to the attention of the principal and then the principals will report that um to their air superintendent to the operation team so we didn't want to just leave it up to the building principles their vlt or their leadership team so jointly together we believe that that's a best practice for ensuring that that they have what they need in all of their buildings terrific thank you that's all for me thank you uh

025we will not go to board member ragland thank you president adair thank you dr dixon like to reiterate voice of thanks to bishop clark and the entire first church family for their support tonight i also want to thank mr brown for his work with our fuel up program that is more than a notion to really respond in real time to the needs of our community and i had several members of our community that reached out regarding our fuel up program and looking for answers uh for their young people and i am just so proud that dr dixon would take that and and do what has been done in order to improve based on the needs of our students uh my question is it goes back to board member becker lee's uh response around our disengaged

026students it's really more of a question suggestion if we don't have it but are we in any way working directly with our environmental courts so that we understand that as many of our students are facing housing and stability issues uh throughout this covid environment that we're living in uh that we may be able to track some of them as they move uh i think one of the the things that really kind of concerns me uh strict definition of homelessness could could mean that yes you are evicted but you moved in with an uncle or an aunt may not feel like you are in a homeless situation but but you are and it's a very unstable situation for a lot of our families in that and that looks to increase over the next several weeks and

027months could we have a closer tie with the environmental court so that we know and understand when our students may be in that court and start providing resources at that level that maybe the court is not equipped to provide comprehensively yes thank you uh for the question board member raglan i i agree i know one of the things that we wanted to make sure um as you remember when we started we had uh more students we had almost 6 000 students that we had labeled disengaged and then we started really taking a closer look at where students were making sure that if they were not enrolled maybe they enrolled in other districts so yes now that we have um the number is now a thousand we are looking um deeper after we get through that

028that phase that of the four phases um i think that's where we would take a deeper dive too to see if we need some other interventions with our courts or some other systems um and um and that's where we want to make sure that um you know that we are partnering with franklin county um doing our services and also um cmha so yes we are partnered with them because we want to make sure to your point that we know our students are but better yet that they're getting the services they need yes ma'am and my last question concerns our cte students and welcome back to those young people i was inspired by that video and enthusia and the enthusiasm of our staff i too want to make sure that those that are working in salons

029have had some hands-on experiences before they start working on some individuals out in the public uh my question is those those sites specifically serve as workforce development sites for many of our suburban students as well have we brought back those students that are a part of our vocational or career technical programs that attend some of our suburban partner schools uh are they back inside the buildings as of yet uh and if if they aren't what is the process for bringing them back on uh as we move forward yes they are back with us too uh we were smiling as we were welcoming to the students there was a bus from arbor arlington was dropping their students off as well but yes all of our students from the neighboring schools are back and next month you

030will we will be back um as part of my secret attendance report we give you a report on how well all of our students are doing in our programs so that report will be next month yes ma'am thank you dr dixon thank you madam president uh that concludes all of my questions for dr dickson thank you for raglan i have actually a clarifying question for you about when you were asking about courts and you specifically said environmental were you thinking about evictions of families not so much like our kids in juvenile court but evictions that's where he was going yes evictions yes ma'am the the in in particularly for those families of our students that may be a good place where we can catch a lot of our students that may end up becoming disengaged

031and my suggestion is it's just simply if if we could get our engagement department to start working more closely in whatever capacity that the court uh deems necessary or thinks that we can add some value um you know but as as we have families that are going through those courts and they're saying you know i'm being evicted or i'm going into an unstable housing situation i have these children who are currently attending you know hamilton um you know we would at that point uh engage that family and say okay here's what we can provide for you with wrap around services here's some of the things that can add value to what the court is already doing to help those families navigate that situation i just think it would be a belt and suspenders approach if

032we could provide some value there as well as well so thank you for the clarification madam president thank you thank you for the clarification of that too thank you and i will make note of that to provide that for um alicia you know because you're right i know we have a dollars for our students who are designated homeless but to that extent if we work with courts for evictions um i will make sure i'll follow up on that and uh superintendent dixon um the this court actually has assigned social workers so as i know i work on it in a nonprofit organization those social workers have been calling our organization because we have some funding so there are particular social workers they actually have a couple social workers that are bilingual that have been reaching

033out to non-profit organizations to see if there's any assistance so there might actually be an a live person that we can connect ourselves with they have a list of resources the person's actually right um outside eviction court that's the two and they're actually social workers they're not um they're um liaisons they're actual social workers that have been armed with a book of resources so they can connect people who are going through eviction with organizations and nonprofit organizat groups to assist and if i could add briefly not only are the social workers there but legally uh who often assists many of these families uh would be a good place to start and to reach out and have some conversation with uh with the director there because they would appreciate and welcome whatever assistance they can get

034uh and thank you both vice president reyes and and board member brown uh for that i i and this is one process i think dr dickson might look into because i'm not so sure what the structure is behind this but as we are looking at potential increases in mckinney-vento dollars there may be some opportunities for us to address this situation with specificity so that might be just an area for you to kind of think of uh have our staff looking at as we go to our cycle so that's good because we uh we did some reorgan um the organization and i moved um that office to uh is now under lisa gillison under engagement uh where they felt that was a better fit um because they're engaging families um and they have those dollars so

035yes so thank you and i know they're doing some things with job and family services too um that alicia has been working with um i think it's now she's the new chief director joy bevins and in that office so i know there's something some additional support there so so we'll follow up i'll follow up and um and provide an update for you thank you um we now have board member poll thank you madam president uh thank you so much for the presentation uh dr dixon first question particularly on etss um and i definitely appreciate their their presence and their work that they're doing and anticipating to do in the district my concern is not only just with students that are disengaged but also students who are quite engaged but still being considered absent can you

036please provide direction to our families and i know that ets i'm hoping let me move to rephrase i'm hoping that ets will be providing services to families who have fallen in these cracks and gaps if you will of of children having obsessive absences even though they were actually con in in class and have gotten grades um will etss be doing that work and assisting uh families and understanding the process of uh making sure that their children are attending online a um and then b can you explain that process to any family or person watching who's concerned about this issue thank you so i'm going to like alicia gillison alicia yeah she's working directly with them to um address that for you mr call alicia all right thank you thank you dr dixon thank you board

037member co uh what you mentioned and how that attendance piece works computer literacy is a giant component of that and that's the computer literacy for the parents so when you talk about the work of etss and re-engaging students we have to re-engage the families first so we in march we went into a whole new world and that world the linchpin to that world is computer literacy how do you sign on to a computer how do you zoom how do you get in clever how do you use parent portal and yes our um i'm going to call them our bilingual liaisons with etss went through training last week and they will be working with parents on how to access parent portal how to use technology and how to make sure your student is on and how

038important it is for your students to be in attendance every day and we're not just going to stop there because what we heard from a lot of our new america new american and immigrant families was that they felt isolated they talked about the language barriers so that's why we were very intentional we didn't just get bilingual liaisons that spoke the language we got bilingual liaisons from that very same culture so we can work with those families and bring them give them the confidence and empower them to be able to support their students i thank you for that um and thank you again ets um and also want to shout out our food service team as well um in any outside entities that are supporting our food service efforts but my second question then is to

039what do families need to know who are not new americans who are families who who may or may not be computer literate what do they need to know to ensure that their child is properly uh showing attendance and participation in class thank you for that question as well i think what the what families need to know and what we are doing with our outreach efforts is we are families need to know what is virtual learning what does that encompass what does it look like is it virtual five days a week is it going to be blended is it asynchronous is it synchronous and so we have that dr dickson talked about the uh disengaged efforts that we have going on so we've got two trains going here but these two trains are for all of

040our students so it is still working with those families so they know how to utilize what they have at their fingertips and if they don't have it at their fingertips and this kind of goes to what uh board member raglan talked about talking about resources so our liaisons are also going to be making referrals and that's making referrals to columbus metropolitan housing if a family doesn't have the appropriate technology then we loop in our chief information officer we loop wandana in so they're not only going out to to teach or to tell it's a two-way street so we are linking them with the services they need whether those services are inside of the district and those services may look like parents need to understand how you log on to clever when to log on to

041clever and what those various platforms are and we're also trying to build parents confidence and empower them with the ability to work closer with their teachers with the students teachers that two-way communication and with the building administrators so it is a very heavy lift but the beautiful part of it it is a combined effort i think just about every department is involved in it accountability transformation and leadership uh academics operations technology it is all of us working together to make sure this happened and i couldn't leave out equity as well so it's the synergy that we have around it and we're attacking it that way sir and i think too also to add to that mr cole is making sure families are familiar with infinite campus right so uh and know how to you know

042log in um and also you know the infinite campus it has a lot of different um families know how to navigate through infinite campus they can check and see if their kids have logged in on that day teachers we're making sure the teachers going back and and checking their students in but families really need to become parents familiar with infinite campus and knowing how to to log in um and uh we have those additional help sessions that we're offering for technology help sessions you can also ask those questions too or ask your school principal just making sure that you're using that you understand first how to utilize infinite campus and that you're logging in um properly when you want to check your on your students attendance or grades or etc i think i thank you

043uh for that um just as a quick summary then for me to kind of give a synopsis of what i just heard it sounds as it is as if this is a collaborative effort that not only combines our internal organization and our stakeholders from the classroom to the administration but also a collaborative effort on the part of family members or those who are in stewardship of our children a combined effort that requires cross-communication to ensure that a student is not only effectively enrolled in school on a day-to-day basis but at the same time ensuring that there's quality instruction happening as well so i'm glad to hear that there's a student excuse me that there is a teacher requirement to take attendance so let me be redundant because i see you shaking your head but i

044just want to be sure that that's the case that there's a an incumbency on the part of the teachers a requirement on the part of the teachers to ensure that a student is also attending that class meaning that they've chronicled the student's attendance in the class yes that is correct and i can have dr klein is on from accountability dr klein if you would chime in too to explain what that process looks like further for those who are listening thank you so much dr dixon to board member cole's question absolutely so we are so happy about that and with regard to our students being responsible our parents that can help as well and then most importantly our teachers our teachers have always taken attendance the part that is a little tricky is when a teacher

045is doing an asynchronous day and maybe a student has an assignment for multiple days and they're asynchronous lessons and so the teacher isn't seeing them face to face in this particular day maybe it's a three-week assignment and every friday for this particular school is asynchronous this allows the teacher to look at according to our ohio department of education guidelines it allows the teacher to take a look at the work that was produced and give them participation based on that work that was produced and that is a guideline set forth by the ohio department of education so we're very excited to be using that uh thank you i just would like to um just for me i think it's super important that we continue to strengthen the communications effort to the community on as to what

046this process is what it entails in terms of collaboration and the rationale for it a is that there's student self-advocacy there's student self-advocacy component to it because that student is responsible for ensuring that they're present and ensuring that they're accounted for being present a um and that there is the district side of it as well the only part that challenges me that i'm just not clear on and i don't want to belabor this but it is super important to me my own child got over 70 absences and this boy has got a 3.4 gpa and i know that there are dozens of other parents out here who saw this let her come home and you know bugged out so i just want to make sure that we're clear that there are internal systems in place

047with our teachers to ensure that that student population is captured particularly when we have to account for student attendance at given times of the year uh this last month in fact we had to account for student attendance so where what what systems are in place on our side of the table to account for student population and participation board member cole thank you for that question so very very much because it's near and dear to my heart so all teachers are required to review attendance and just so you know when attendance was not reviewed some of the teachers um chose not to review it as well as maybe they should have first quarter remember those teachers can always go back and correct attendance that they know of and a parent keep in mind for any asynchronous

048day a parent can also email the school wandana virni's team made sure that we have emails to every attendance line at every school and all the parent has to do was email them and let them know we even have special codes within infinite campus as you might know from your own son we even have special codes that say that a parent had indicated that the student was present so those are all taken care of and part of our grace and flexibility plan that was approved by the ohio department of education so thank you so much no thank you for that thank you for your team's due diligence and following up and making sure that that was taken care of i just want to make sure that we are doing that for so many other families

049um that are absolutely in need of and again excited that ets is involved in that process so thank you very kindly thank you thank you board member cole um i am one of those parents too they got the letter and i actually just went and checked my kid in today because she did not do her attendance in infinite campus and she's gonna be in trouble because i yell at her every day so this is a real this is a real challenge um for all of us and so it is nice to hear we have grace and flexibility around that issue all right so now we have dr pierce thank you so much for president dr dixon thank you so much for your report i have a couple of questions so the first question relates to

050our health separation room you indicated that the schools will have specific requirements for that will there be a district standard that sets a baseline of what the minimum requirement is and then a school can do alter or do something a little bit different so for example when you initially report it on the health separation room i think it was just called the isolation room at that time you indicated that parents had 30 minutes to come pick up their children so the question is will there be a district baseline at which all schools will adhere to but then do some things just a little bit different thank you dr pierce um so yes we will have a standard across the district for that separation rule now um we want to be clear um that it's going

051to depend on as well as you know if we call a parent we would need a parent to to or a parent or guardian to to come and assist us too they need to pick up a student but i'll let dr chapman chime in because dr chapman's um she supervises the principals and the schools and she can chime in and inform you what the procedures we have in place for that um dr chapman yes thank you dr dixon and board member piers the expectation is that the isolation room or the the health room is really just a holding space and so we do not intend for any student to spend prolonged amounts of time in that space it is intended to be a temporary space to provide and supervise supervision to students until we're able

052to reach their families and so the expectation would be that families are responsive to the call and recognize the need to act with urgency when we make that call and let inform them that their student or their child is identifying covet related symptoms thank you so much so then my next question relates to our fuel up options um i was one of those board members that was reached out by a number of different community members and i actually went out to our sites and spent some time and ate some meals and got some moldy stuff and got it replaced and first let me say a huge thank you to our more than 300 food service workers as i visited those sites i saw those workers separating the food items re-boxing them up making sure that

053our families had everything that they needed those food service workers were also volunteering to step up and do more to make sure that our kids could get the hot options and the fresh fruit and the veggies so big big big huge thank you to our food service workers for everything that they've been doing to feed our children so my question about the fuel of options then relates to as we think about our students coming back in these blended hybrid learning environments what additional precautions are we taking as the families go into those fuel up sites to get those meals are there some things that families need to know in terms of just anything different that that they need to be aware of as we're slowly opening our buildings back up for student learning thank you

054dr pierce a great question i would like mr odom who's our chief operating officer he can answer that question and let you know all the precautions that we are taking mr oda thank you dr dixon thank you um for president adair to board board member dr pierce um thank you for that question yes there we are actually using a grab-and-go model uh similar to what we utilized in the spring and the first and foremost always is safety and we're also going to have safety security uh there to help monitor the crowd so our plan and what we're going to utilize is where staff where families do not have to come deep into the building where we have the tables and the food areas set up closest to the entry point and then also we're going

055to practice social distancing and continue to have markings around the facilities so that families staff and everyone exiting the facility is safe and also keeps separation from inside the building excellent thank you again so much for that adaptability that we are showing as a district my next questions are the tough questions they relate to data so um i specifically want to know what is the percentage of reduction in our disaggregated students so you show us those numbers decreasing in those regions but you don't refer to the actual percentage of reduction so i'll be specific region five we do see a number decrease there but what's that percentage of reduction so i can give you all of those data points i don't have those with me but if you can give me all of those i

056can have them for you by the end of the week awesome that okay that then relates to my next question and all of these relate to our last meeting when you disaggregated the attendance by region but then you also get disaggregated by race and ethnicity this time we don't have those race and ethnicity numbers so i'm really interested to see if we made some gains with our pacific islander students last meeting they were at 39.74 and i would love to know where they're at you know given the efforts that we've had this week and how we plan to move forward with those efforts in the future the next question is as we look to those trends or as we look to those data what trends are you starting to see in terms of our student

057engagement not just with attendance but maybe also with the level of time that they're logged on the emails that they're starting to send to their teachers the emails that principals are starting to see are there other data points that we're beginning to see some trends in that we can also use to show that our students are engaged outside of attendance markings yes we're still working on what that will look like and when we get those develop i'll report those out to the board all right thank you very much appreciate it thank you dr pierce up next is board member brown thank you and uh thank you to everybody who uh has already presented uh you know it's good to hear uh such great reports about work that we are doing um whether it's our food

058service team and the great work they're doing but you know everybody else and thanks to bishop clark and first church of god um i wanted to ask and i guess this goes back to uh carol beckerly's initial comment on the uh first i i guess i want to commend our leadership uh and and superintendents especially for the decisions that have been made relative to covet and pandemic and keeping schools close and extending that you know i don't know that anybody quite foresaw where the numbers would get to and are likely to uh continue to be very very high both on new infections on deaths and uh and in several other areas uh so you know thank you for that i know it's not easy and i know that uh there are plenty of people on

059you know both sides of this that feel strongly uh including the woman who had intended to speak to us tonight but uh i i wanted to find out with respect to the uh ohio state i think it's cats how far along are we uh where does that stand um and i'm hoping that you know we've got that in place and that data has become available to us yes uh thank you board member brown i have um dr roush is on dr roush can you provide us you or and or dr stamper with where we are with the cats program thank you very much for the question um at this point we've i know completed the data sharing agreement we've i think had some initial conversations internally with our team as far as the best way

060to start to pull that data i think the next step now is to sit down with ohio state and our partners at columbus public health i don't believe that meeting has quite been set up yet with everything else going on but i know that it is is set to occur in the very near future well great um i'm happy to hear that's moving along it'll be great to have that fully in place and and to have the opportunity as we will have a much broader set of information and guidance coming to us about our own situation so that we can make plans with the you know best information and both scientific and medical available so thank you thank you board member brown and quickly back to board member beckerly um i i'm actually gonna follow

061up on what um eric board member brown was just saying a question about this cats program or effort we're getting involved with it seems to me and i don't know if this is part of it or not but maybe it's worth just mentioning in general that um part of what is in the balance when we're making these decisions about whether to go to blended or whether or not and whether to bring in high needs special ed kids and why is balancing priorities of our students and um the uniqueness of our mission our population and our district and i think that um you know and we kind of encountered that a bit when we started to look a little more closely at bringing in which a decision i totally supported the high needs complex needs special

062ed students because we know what we know about what our challenges are in terms of maintaining social distancing while also educating our students providing instruction um is unique to us and so you know the the it's not sufficient to say well you know certain schools are bringing kids in and it seems to be going okay why isn't ccs doing it too because we have our own unique challenges the whole busing situation makes our challenges more unique you know um even you know our families from other parts of the city our um esl population all of these things make our challenges different than others and i think anything that allows us to be able to inform the health care and the health advisory guidelines with our mission so that we get really meaningful decision making um

063it is important uh because i think it's easy for people to say well you know uh so and so catholic school has bringing their kids back why don't we bring them back to or you know and i think that we need to understand that our mission and our challenges are different and we need um to get really specific advice because of that so i'm excited about this cats thing for that reason um i also think it might be worth considering the the to the extent there's a certain drum beat in the community saying the kids need to be back and it's so important that they're you know we should be able to that we should be able to figure out how to do and how to do it safely i think it might be helpful

064as we consider that to tease out how much of that is about academics which is our prior our primary mission and how much of that is about social emotional concerns and concerns about kids needing to be engaged because we've got violence and other stress things going on in our community because those are really two different reasons to want the kids back and i think you know there may be some ways to address that latter one while doing um having a really strategic approach to the education piece and it kind of gets back to my thinking about the potential of um extending the leds to opening some of our buildings and providing a safe place to learn while continuing to have high expectations about the improved use of technology both in terms of our students getting

065better at it and also our teachers getting really good at it and focusing on that as an objective and i think that it might be worth as we consider the various concerns of the community to try to tease out those two factors oh and one last thing um and i think this is sort of touching based on what dr pierce said and what board member cole said about we have a good data on attendance numbers and we have good data and a good strategy about those who have not been engaged at all and i think that that was your priority and clearly those are the things we had to wrap our arms around first and you know i and so i look forward to hearing about how we're going to define which is the challenge

066what is engaged what isn't engaged and maybe there'll be strata within there and then again systematically come up with strategies but i just wanted to acknowledge that you had to you had to get the priorities addressed first and i'm looking forward to you know the next phase that's all okay thank you board member becker lee uh we're gonna go back to board member ragland thank you president adair i guess for me uh the conversation around bringing students back really centers on uh the fact that covets going to be here for a while we're not going to magically just lift ourselves out of this current situation um to your point board member beckley around the social and emotional issues i think a lot of those problems are being exacerbated in some of the homes uh of

067our students because of some of the realities that they are facing that we may not see um you know uh parents unable to work uh in what you know what that does within the home for a family um is something that we we can't really put a finger on uh if if we're going to be in this environment for you know the long term which it seems like we are um we've got to start working on ways to cope within this environment uh in figuring out uh that process uh in in getting our our children back inside the buildings is is something that you know we've we've got to do we now have you know the our i just saw a report the other day where uh dr roberts from columbus public health is uh

068imploring us to bring students back inside the building um she's been here on several occasions uh uh you know speaking to us about uh these health issues as we have gone uh along but uh you know i i think what it's gonna be important is that if if our administration comes up with a plan that says here's what we feel is the safest way to bring students back inside the building that it's going to be up to the seven of us uh to really be supportive of that um and and i you know i i'm i'm for um you know making certain that we that we say all the right things in these types of discussions however we've got to do the right thing when the time comes for us to make those important decisions

069and you know that that is where i really want to see us uh show some leadership because uh there's going to be um tremendous pushback uh as there has been thus far uh there's going to be you know a lot of ramifications for each of us for making a decision to bring our students back inside the building we all know that however um we've got to do what's best for the young people more than anything uh their safety and security their education is what we are here to do and so um you know i i i am looking forward to seeing uh even more detail about the structure by which we will engage in in january now um with the announcement that has already been made and then let us as board members start building

070community support around this effort so that we can have the support that we need to make the right decision for the young people thank you for allowing me [Music] because i have vice president reyes next oh right right right i wonder i thought maybe she decided she didn't want to say anything no um so uh thank you board um president there uh mr ragland i was um going to go down a little bit on that also the only thing i wanted to mention is i know that as i've talked to a couple of students and a couple of parents there is still high levels of stress and anxiety especially some of our students that have back-to-back classes so one of the i have a couple of families that have several students and they've talked about

071the difference even in the same building of one child has the opportunity to kind of have a mini recess where they talk about their day or or uh do some fun things while the other child it seems like it's back-to-back classes they have a class maybe 15-minute break a class 15-minute minute break you know um and so the child that's had the recess um talked a lot about being very disappointed about not coming back to class when the decision was made that we wouldn't go hybrid while the aisle the other child is like i'm in school all day anyway so i just got to keep on going um there was a um and i meant to send this to you dr dixon but there is a school that has talked about how to um uh

072provide uh stress and anxiety resources to every child in their district uh and i wrote it down and i'll have to give that to you but um while we're waiting to see when uh if we go back to hybrid depending on what this virus is doing um i think those are things that we need to begin to initiate throughout the district i'm sure you've thought about it i'm sure there's places where it's some people are doing it very well but as you consider professional development and as you as we continue to roll out um i just thought it was very interesting that a few parents told me the same thing set children in the same same building different grades and just how the difference in the the feedback from each of the children on whether

073they felt they liked school or didn't like school because of the way with it they had flexibility in the learning so i don't know if that's a question or a statement the other um the other question or the other issue that i've been presented was i had a couple of parents that talked about delinquency in the sense of they're having some challenges addressing their child their children who do not want to come to school they don't want hybrid they don't like it um i'm sorry not hybrid they don't like uh virtual and so they've stated and these are children that are by law have to go to school they stated they don't want to go to school the and the questions that the parents keep asking is that what can i do who can i

074call they don't feel that they have somewhere to turn can you share with our parents um you know what what are options for those parents who should they call if they want to talk through with when the child is just doesn't want to come to school and the parent is getting penalized by law because they're not their child doesn't want to continue in this virtual learning environment yeah thank you board memorials um the family should always reach out to the principal and the teacher call the teachers call the principal the social worker you always start in the building because the building principal and the teachers the social worker they know your key is best and they can personalize it for you and really give you some strategies that are very specific to your kid i

075always say again the principal knows all the students the teacher drills one another layer with the support of the social worker you know that i think that that team um is the first place that parents to reach out to they can give you so many different strategies so many different resources especially if those students are considered one of the disengaged students that we were talking about earlier right so you know what is that you know you have students and the parent wants you the student to be engaged the student may have a device the student have a hot spot and but for some reason reason they're just not engaged in this format we need to know so as you stated so the parent is not being penalized that there's some additional resources that our families

076need that's why we have this office of engagement that was a very intentional strategy last year how do we engage parents so that they can understand what should happen in schools what should not happen in schools and how can we provide the supports that they need so that their student can have what he or she needs so again start with the principal the teacher just immediately call them send them an email tomorrow and dr dickson the the parents what they shared uh was that the student did not understand that by law they had to go at a certain age you have to go to school so so these are um new americans um that i was discussing so um we're talking uh with not saying that it's unique to just them but they had gone

077to the court the child had shared with the court but they did not want to go to school um and the and the mother was trying to let the child know there are repercussions when you make that decision and you're under 15 years old um uh so i i as you can imagine the the mother was extremely frightened as to what would happen to her um when the child continues to refuse so thank you um the other questions uh that i had was uh i've had a couple emails where uh parents have asked if they're going to be getting those cards the snap cards again this year well if that happens uh i would assume our parents should rest assured that we will share that with them perfect just wanted to and then lastly i

078just wanted to also uh give thanks to uh bishop clark and first church god uh for the donation so that's all from the questions tonight thank you uh dr klein did you have something to add we have to unmute you're muted okay thank you board president adair i just wanted to say to board member reyes's comment with regard to the um snap cards and so forth um if in fact we do have that opportunity again that comes up the information that we share from infinite campus in order to get those ebt cards sent it is very important that parents update their addresses if anyone has had a change of address they can do it all virtually they don't have to come into the center and be worried about anything but we want to make sure

079everyone's address is up to date for those ebt collection cards thank you thank you dr klein group member becker lee um i guess um the one thing i wanted to stress is that to the extent the driver behind whatever decisions we make about how and when to do blended learning um is the social emotional piece and is concerned about the safety and wellness of our students we should treat that as a community problem and not just our challenge and you know try to figure out ways to bring in resources and support from the community to help us with that so that teasing up teasing out the driver how much of it is purely education driven how much of it is sel driven just for a shorthand term should inform who we turn to and how

080in terms of looking for support and extra resources thank you board member becker lee all right i think we are finished with questions thank you for that kind of extended discussion uh we uh had time on our agenda so we allowed that to happen this evening thank you madam superintendent for your report uh we will now turn to the internal auditor welcome auditor smith thank you president of the bear president there vice president res and members of the board of education the audited accountability committee met on october 29th the committee discussed one report and voted for the release of the report the release report was over the accounts payables operations the report noted commendations for implementation of electronic payments to our vendors this allows for a quicker turnaround for vendors to receive payments and eliminates

081any manual processes that were required with our formal processes where the vendors are receiving actual checks in the mail so kudos to the treasurer's office and the accounts payable department for successfully implementing that change also the accounts payable department successfully implemented five of nine prior year recommendations the benefit to any audit or assessment is in the implementation of the recommendations such as the one that was just discussed above of the four outstanding recommendations only one rose to the level of high risk and that recommendation was effectively implemented before the audit report was even issued so once again kudos for implementing and strengthening that identify control weakness and that was basically an issue where there was a recommendation for two-factor authentic two-factor authentication which the treasurer's office has implemented the remaining open recommendations will be tested

082at a later date and the results presented at a future board meeting um it was a pretty um succinct meeting and this pretty much concludes my report i'll be happy to take any questions thank you auditor smith any questions for auditor smith board member raglan uh thank you madam auditor i too would like to thank our treasurer for uh his work and work with his department on implementing those recommendations make an announcement that our next audit and accountability committee meeting will be in january of 2021 we have yet to set the formal date for that but it will be in january of 2021 and be on the lookout for that formal announcement thank you madam president and thank you madam auditor for your work sorry thank you so much uh i do not see any

083other questions so thank you so much for your report this evening we will now move to the office of the treasurer uh mr treasurer do you have a report this evening hi good evening no report from me this evening just an announcement that the finance and appropriations committee will hold its next meeting a week from tonight on november 11. it will be fully virtual still i guess we'll let a handful of you board members figured out this uh hybrid uh model before we jump into it so but we'll we'll meet uh november 11th uh 4 p.m online uh we'll get those notices will be published thank you so much uh co-chairs of the finance committee any comments i'm seeing head shaking so i will take that as a no uh thank you so much mr

084treasurer all right we will now move into uh item eight board matters and i would like to welcome uh members of the ohio state ohio school board association we have mark bobo membership retention engagement consultant and kathy mcfarland deputy chief executive it's always so lovely to see our friends from the osba and you have uh you have some things to talk with us about we sure do thank you and good evening everyone my name is kathy mcfarland and i am the deputy executive at ohio school board association thank you for the privilege to join you this evening great conversation osba truly appreciates this opportunity public service as a school board member is not an easy task as you well know and the rewards of a board service are few in the end the true reward

085is that school board members have the opportunity to make our schools better place to learn and communities a better place to live we are fortunate that columbus city has shared one of your own with the state of ohio tonight i'd like to say thank you to dr tina pierce dr pierce served this community as a member of its school board for four years she has provided leadership to the state of ohio through a tireless commitment to our central region executive committee urban network and board of trustees and she has been dedicated to self-improvement becoming the best board member she can be she's been involved in professional development covering urban schools school finance mental health and social emotional learning and much much more dr pierce we are indeed indebted to your service and extend the gratitude

086of 3 500 school board members and the communities they serve on behalf of the osba officers trustees membership and staff we would like to present to you this token of our appreciation which i hope everyone can see and i'll make sure that i get it delivered to you so congratulations we also want to thank the columbus city board of education for all of their support for dr pierce first sharing her with the osba central region and now supporting her as she works on behalf of nearly 1.7 million students in the state of ohio i am proud to present you with this plaque as well thank you again see if i can get there on my zoom thank you again for the opportunity to be a part of your program tonight if i or anyone at

087osba can be any help to you please reach out to us anytime thank you for letting us join you tonight mr bobo good evening and uh thank you again for allowing us to be here have a very quick uh congratulations again to dr pierce and to the entire uh school board of education uh for their recognition tonight i have a very brief presentation for you i'm going to attempt to share my screen all right but as to echo dr mcfarland thank you to each of you for your continued dedication and commitment uh to the city of columbus and the children that attend columbus city schools i'm very honored to serve with you and osba wants you to know that you all have served as members with the association for the last 60-plus years and we

088don't take that membership for granted and we're thankful uh to be able to continue to serve with you very quickly three things we want to talk about in regards to the value of your membership uh osb's response to cover 19 our diversity and equity consulting services in our 2020 national capital conference as we all know when march came a totally different world set upon us and uh we had to face things that we weren't uh we didn't see coming uh but we wanted to make sure as your board association that we aptly prepared you in regards to your continued leadership during this time i'm referencing uh the ohioschoolboards.org coronavirus culvert 19 resource page this page is being updated on a weekly monthly basis in regards to resources and information in regards to leading during this

089time i want to specifically highlight uh the town halls that we hosted uh from beginning of april until about the end of last month each week we met uh as an association to highlight some of the expertise uh throughout the state in regards to reopening sanitation sanitizing of buildings um in regards to mental health and social emotional learning in pandemic states so those town halls have been recorded and are on this resource page i welcome each of you to visit this resource page to get the information that is still available to you as members of ospa as well as we know uh in our society we've had to have some conversations in regards to diversity equity and inclusion and osba is attempting to lead the way in in that conversation uh providing uh diversity and

090equity consulting services we've partnered with five different entities uh that have a wealth of knowledge and experience in regards to diversity and equity and these firms will come and partner with you to do a plethora of things in regards to diversity and equity and inclusion such as diversity audits professional development for your district leadership your building leadership so these consultants have been working with a number of our member districts and we've gotten rave reviews about the uh uh the expertise and the work uh that has been done in this space so i welcome each of you uh to go to the uh diversity and equity consulting services page at our schoolboards.org and check out the the different infantes that we're working with i think they'll be of great help to you and finally we're excited

091we're just a few days away from our 2020 capital conference and i must give kudos to columbus city we have over 25 registrants from you all's district to the conference so we're excited to have each of you there i do want to make this very quick point uh yes our conference is virtual this year and we'll be live there november 7th through the 10th but what we think is so impactful about this year's conference is that every session is being recorded and provided on demand through december 31st so we know it's kind of hard to take off work sometimes and be able to get away during the day but those conference sessions are being recorded and you can watch them from the comfort of your own home have your own coffee or whatever and enjoy

092the sessions to get the information that's being provided at capital conference again we have over 60 learning sessions we're bringing in kite who is a violinist who is going to show us how to take uh music and write the music for our own lives we have kate fagan who is an advocate on behalf of women's rights in education and leadership and we're ending with dr edward foley we're excited about the conference and we think it's going to be wonderful we want to have each of you there but again if you're not able to be there live those sessions are available to you through december 31st so we want to thank you again for being members with ospa we we're so appreciative to have the support of columbus city uh to serve with us i i

093again my name is mark bobel serve as the membership engagement consultant is there anything that we can do to continue to support the leadership in columbus city uh we thank you for that so president adair each of the board members thank you again for this opportunity tonight thank you so much um we i'm excited about the capitol conference i have it on my calendar excited to attend the sessions um any board members before i turn it over to dr pierce if she'd like to say anything um about her award so congratulations dr pierce i don't know if it was a surprise i knew uh but oh it was a surprise um so i'll let you say a few words um uh so i'll give you a second to think about it if you want but

094does anyone have any questions for the osba board member raglan um no questions for the osba thank you so much for your honor and recognition of the board and especially for your honor and recognition of dr pierce who's been on the front lines of education for this community for quite some time and does just yeoman like work and everything that she does it's always student-centered and uh i'm just so proud that you all would recognize her work and i thank you dr pierce for everything that you do on behalf of our students so kudos to you and a well-deserved recognition thank you madam president thank you all right dr pierce you ready to say a few words um so i'm very completely shocked and and honored so let me one thank all of my colleagues

095our team our families of columbus city schools to my colleagues at the ohio school board association thank you for this honor it's very funny that it would happen today a day after an election in which i've spent the past 30 hours with my children with family members with friends kind of questioning if i'm walking in my purpose and people who know me know that i'm very intentional about walking and my purpose and um the election just really had me questioning am i am i focused on the right things you know have i deterred from being called as an educator and being in classrooms and educating people to board service um and and helping the community in the way that that i see myself helping the community and so um you all with my face being

096covered up you can't see how heartwarming this is how much i appreciate it how much just in this moment it confirms for me that i'm in the right place that i'm doing what god has led me to do that our universal creator has guided me to be here with all of you all and in true service and that's exactly what it is for me to be a servant of our community i get so excited to see our kids in buildings and games to be approached by our families at the grocery store at the gas station with different questions and then as sometimes to be told at three o'clock in the morning dr pierce stop answering emails please go to sleep um so thank you to everybody thank you to our community for just recognizing the

097level of work and the commitment and dedication that i have to our children and to our district i appreciate you all thank you congratulations again dr pierce and again thank you ohio school board association um just so so everyone understands you we are a member of this association we do uh participate uh dr pierce is a trustee i'm a delegate to the legislative caucus and we also are a member of the black caucus which uh um you know works on issues around uh for our african-american students and you know they put on great training and they have if uh if you're interested in becoming a board member they have training for that um so they are a really great resource so i just want to thank both of you for taking the time to come

098and talk with us and to honor us um you know we're all on the same team really pushing for equity across uh all schools in ohio and it's really amazing uh to be a partner with you so thank you okay thank you so much go ahead bye okay thank you all right board members uh we are going to move into item 9 which is our consent agenda our consent agenda consists of 10 point items 10.1 to items 23.4 are there any items that we would like to remove from the consent agenda this evening misty said i said it wrong again 23.4 23.3 oh sorry 23.3 okay that was my fault that was my fault president of there okay we have doubled down on the five-year forecast so i'll take the blame for that one all

099right items 10.1 to 23.3 and i saw no one requesting to remove any items um is there a motion to approve the consent i'll move approve the consent agenda a second thank you are there any items that the board would like to discuss this evening dr pierce which item item 18.9 and 18 11. 18.9 oh sorry 18 point yes 18.9 and 18 11. 18.9 is the award of design build contract to the brewer garnet company for operation fixic hvac renovation phase um for twitter stone high school columbus gifted academy at everett and you said 1811. approval of ddoc change order one to johnson controls for operation fix it hvac renovation for medina middle school ridgeview alpine cranbrook eakin and scottwood do you have a specific question yes so the question is have any of the

100job requirements regulations been changed as a result of covet 19 and just if the team would like to speak to how this not only updates the system but will also allow us to be very proactive in our coven 19 precautions dr nixon yes thank you uh maurice odom if you want to speak to this question please thank you yes thank you dr dixon uh the president there to um board member dr pierce uh these particular projects in 18.9 is definitely it's a hvac upgrade for operation fix it um this has already been bid but quite naturally it's going to upgrade our hvac system in those areas which will be able to bring in more fresh air from the outside and have better automation controls uh currently those systems are at the end of useful lights

101or for example at the everett building there is no ac in those buildings and by this model we're able to again have a more up-to-date hvac system but also have automation controls where we can be able to monitor those uh off-site as well as from our building's grounds energy management office and then i think you had a question about 18.11 would you like me to carry on on that one she said it was the same question she didn't know it's the same question 18.11 is a deduct change order and that 18.11 is money that we're receiving back from the vendor uh it was a project at the dyno with some damage to our sidewalk and this is their portion to pay to repair the sidewalk at medina middle school so in part of that snippet

102that description it says for the hvac renovation so again that just refers to the sidewalk that doesn't refer to so the reason why it's written that particular way it's it's the way the legislation is originally written that's the contract the contract was part of the hvac renovation at medina in those areas so therefore you write to the legislation the same way so we can get to the change order for that particular contract excellent thank you so much awesome thank you for clarifying thank you for remember brown has a given item you want to discuss or a question about those two well i i just wanted to uh comment about this uh section of the consent agenda with respect to the facility's management legislation last thursday i attended the meeting of the nsbp and at that

103meeting alex trevino presented some really encouraging information about how we're doing with the lede program and uh to what extent we've uh uh improved over the past uh in this area it was really um enlightening and good to hear i hadn't realized that we've made that much progress obviously there's always more to be done but i wanted to uh commend not only alex but maurice oldham and the rest of the team that works in this area for uh for such good results and uh hopefully we can hear more about that for the full board in the near future thank you thank you board member brown any other comments or items to discuss on the consent agenda seeing none call the rule ms beckerly nice to say yes thank you mr brown yes mr cole yes

104dr pierce yes mr ragland yes vice president reyes yes and president adair yes the motion carried thank you so much we are now into item 24 which is board announcements does any board member have any announcements they would like to share this evening dr pierce i just have one and i think it just connects to my words of thanks that i said earlier with the recent election that we've had not only have i had conversation with my children but also with their peers and with my students at the ohio state university and i just want us as a community to rally behind our students rally behind our children right now there's some uncertainty around what will happen with the election and no matter what happens with the election our kids need to know that we

105support them that we will be behind them no matter what happens and so if you have an opportunity to just sit down with the young person and be of encouragement to them let them know that their voice matters let them know that we're excited and looking forward to them becoming you know adults so they can fully engage in in our beautiful governance system you know sometimes it doesn't work the way we expect it to work and you know that's the the beautiful element of it is that we can change it through through policy through voice through action and so i would just encourage all of us to be encouraging to our young people be encouraging to those families that are dealing with evictions that are dealing with job loss that are dealing with the loss

106of loved ones as you know they also experience this election so just take a moment to encourage somebody around you thank you dr pierce vice president reyes uh thank you uh president there i just wanted to mention um since dr pierce had um stated the eviction again i wanted to share with our families and our community that there are resources for those individuals who have been impacted by covet they're available with a lot of our non-profit organizations such as catholic social services the columbus urban league impact if you are facing eviction and you need rent or utilities there are some services there are some qualifications and some free questions that you have to answer but do not feel like you're isolated or out there alone there are a lot of cares monies that are available

107for our family so please please reach out reach out to somebody reach out to columbus city schools and see if they can refer you to somebody look up call 2-1-1 they have a list of resources available for you we should not have anybody being if they need the help please i know there are many of you that this is the first time that you're experiencing uh some challenges because of this virus and a lot of times we don't know where to turn because we've never had to turn there before please know there is a lot of help and referrals available so i would just want to make sure that our community partners and our families are aware there are many organizations that have also bilingual services so if you are uh speak a different language

108please rest assured that these agencies that have been provided some of this money are out there and know that this money is only going to be available possibly until mid to late december so it's available now go and apply at least ask the question to save your reply and congratulations dr pierce thank you vice president reyes uh looks like we have board member brown and then it will be board member cole sorry trying to find my uh mute button uh just uh very briefly um reflecting on the uh election season and especially on the election that was held yesterday and yet we are still in the midst of that election um just wanted to comment that uh i continue to be very confident in our constitution the united states constitution that the constitution will prevail

109um i think that it's important to remember as bobby kennedy said some years back democracy is messy and it's hard it's never easy but caroline kennedy followed up with a statement the bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing as a former active judge i fully agree with that statement i think that the most important thought is that things are working exactly as they should you know every state is doing its best to make sure that every vote counts every state uh is doing its best to work through their process um at a reasonable pace but wanting to assure accuracy and that nothing at this point is is uh you know

110wrong about the election process uh it's not unusual to have things and i i think there's some really good lessons from this election uh an election season for our students in particular um that it's it's incredibly important that everyone participate uh including uh our students as they come of age to vote uh even before that because we have uh 17 year olds who have helped out at the polls so i want to commend everybody for participating in the process and at least from my perspective assure uh everyone that it you know we're not at a point that there's a crisis we're not at a point that there is um anything out of the ordinary um that you know it may take some time before we have an outcome but uh it's working the system's working

111exactly as a job thank you board member brown and board member cole thank you so much madam president um this too is a a very brief reflection on the election cycle um and whatever its outcome may be i am really in a space of imploring asking that all of us seek wisdom and seek peace and not just peace and behavior but peace of mind look for that level of settlement and groundedness as we move forward now is not the time for rash behavior now is not the time to go back to the streets and tear our communities apart now is the time to come together and strategize and watch this it doesn't matter who the president is whether it is mr biden or mr trump now is the time to strategize to organize and to

112build our movement the way that we should and ensure that future elections do everything that we've set out for democracy to do so let's not turn democracy into democracy i'm just asking and employing those out in our community who are pondering the idea of going back into our streets and destroying our own neighborhoods and our own communities and bringing ruin to our own city i'm really asking you and and imploring you and even demanding you and challenging you to do different to think different to plan differently and then i think we will see a different outcome god bless you and everybody else watching thank you for that board member cole um i would like to say thank you to our teachers who are helping our students through this today i got to over here my

113fifth grader's teacher tried to explain the electoral college to fifth graders um answering uh all of their questions and uh doing so in a in you know a very good manner um so just as my other board colleagues have said you know we we do not have an answer yet to the election uh we will continue to be a strong community our community um you know was different than the rest of our state and so you know we know we're gonna get through this together uh we're gonna keep at the top priority all issues of equity and justice for our students and community that has always been the pathway we are on and the path that we will remain on um and we will do it together as columbus because that's what we do here

114in columbus so i just wanted to thank all the teachers who tried to explain it today especially to those little ones um and we will get through this together and uh you know like what like the fifth grade teacher said today um we might not know anything until friday so it's okay if you ask questions but we might not know anything until friday so um so thank you to all of our staff who are who are doing that and thank you to board members are you talking about well i don't know she just said friday so i think she was trying to stop their questions um anyway so thank you all so much and thank you all uh for uh who are here in the room today for practicing our hybrid uh meeting model thank

115you to our staff who set this up um thank you to everyone who is participating online if for fun next time you all can put a mask on too and join us um and we will just again continue to work through this together and do everything in the name of our children so with that i will ask for a motion to adjourn our meeting motion to adjourn second thank you thank you there's been a motion in a second please call the rule mr brown yes mr cole yes dr pierce yes mr ragland yes vice president reyes yes president adair yes ms beckerly yes thank you so much good night to everyone and have a wonderful uh tomorrow we'll see you in a few weeks