BOE 2020-08-04

001[Music] you think about all the different ways the world has changed and then you go into most school systems the educational system has not changed very much we need to be building schools of the future and we the organization and the community have to have a real understanding about what that looks like portrait of a graduate is helping districts and communities identify the north star and what is it they want out of their graduates the portrait itself becomes this unifying kind of focus answers the why when you have the biggest district in the state that can bring some different type of not norms that most other districts will see if our community is not focused on the students then they are not focused on the future you know how do we equip them that whatever

002challenges they face they're well equipped to respond to those very effectively city schools canceling all classes it's an effort to slow the spread of covet 19. we don't take this lightly this is a an unprecedented situation we were thinking about what it feels like to that kid and that's why these decisions are absolutely so hard if we don't rally around our students and our families we're doing a disservice to the future of columbus with a high stakes accountability system it's driven a lot of the interest and excitement and engagement of learning just driven that that out it's really important today that we have to change our educational systems plethora of doors that are being opened because of this digital age that we're in we need to create different opportunities for people to be engaged and

003i hope students can help us with that and help facilitate what learning could look like experiential learning you know connecting what we're learning in the textbook to real life in some cases young people are taking on real problems in their own community and solving them be able to establish and maintain positive relationships adaptability perseverance empathy civic discourse we need to remember what it means to be human once you fall in love with the community and the kids and the adults who have committed their lives to public urban education there's nowhere else i'd rather be we want to be a national model in urban education and i think we're going to get there i know we're going to get there and we can't do it alone it's going to take each one of us coming together

004[Music] welcome columbus community welcome to the 2021 school year this is our first board meeting of the new school year and we are excited um i'm president adair and i am calling the august 4th meeting to order will you please call the roll president adair president ms ms beckerly present mr brown i'm here mr cole here dr pierce mr ragland here ms vice president reyes uh you have a quorum madam president thank you um you know we started off with the video uh to kind of explain where we are at this moment in time uh we've done a lot of work to get here and i hope as a community you feel that the change is coming and we are working hard all of us from your board all the way down to your teachers

005and even your students we continue to be challenged in the time of where we are but we know that if we push through we will grow we will expand and we will be better for all of our students so we're excited to be on this journey and we're excited to have you as our community with us um we um we have a little another video to talk about in a second but before we do that i would actually like to have dr dion blue come on screen please dr blue is our new chief equity officer welcome to our district and as the new one of the new people you get the honor of leading us in the pledge of allegiance today uh so we will do that so whenever you're ready okay i pledge allegiance

006to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god god individual indivisible with liberty and justice for all sorry you're fine you know it's funny because it's it's sometimes it's nerve-wracking doesn't it but thank you dr and we will hear from you later this evening so in the spirit of thinking through innovation and using technology board member beckerly had a great experience that she wanted to share with you with all of us here so i'm going to turn it over to board member beckerly to let us know what's going on and what we're about to watch thank you president adair um i have the honor of introducing two amazing teachers to you all this evening um leslie landis and ashley pence are teachers at

007columbus global academy leslie is an esl teacher and ashley is the eighth grade english teacher and these two teachers several years ago had the good fortune of being trained by the quarter institute and a method of instruction that um incorporates real world problems into um the a project-based approach in the classrooms and they are um have been practicing this for a couple of years now and this video that we're about to show shows how they were able to take this method and continue it during the um pandemic shutdown using technology now bear in mind that the students at columbus global academy are anywhere from less than a year to three years new in this country so these are students who are acquiring english and um they're also sometimes referred to um scythe students which means

008they're students with interrupted formal education so their education has been interrupted in their um native country as well as arriving here so um without further ado i would like to oh one more thing actually scott hold on for a second um we are we have the good fortune of having this video because there is a um documentary company that is creating a documentary of how this method has been carried out during the pandemic and how teachers were able to shift from in classroom learning to using technology and continuing with this amazing method of instruction um so thanks to ashley and leslie who are able to prevail upon the document the documentary company to give us our own little video and i want to make sure i get the name of the company correctly i had

009it a minute ago and then i forgot to write it down they are called um galaxy man productions all right thank you let's watch [Music] the conversations in the hallway start going around is it coming here is this happening here and oh you know it's it's not a big deal uh and then a week later we're getting the news that with one day to prepare kind of we were told you know get your students out of the building and ready for online learning most of my students are from families that are just getting their start here in america so prioritizing internet and computers has not been a thing because food and housing has been their priority so for my students we spent the first weeks to find out is your family still working um do

010you have food do you have a safe place to you know a safe shelter to be in then do you have a computer and do you have internet also most of our families are not speaking english as a first language you know just layers and layers of barriers we are in our houses and we get a lot of distractions i help my mom to clean up the house or help her to cook so that times go like flying in others i help my little brother do his homework i think that is one of the thing that is more harder that we are not in the school he didn't buy a car so he said um he needs a computer he doesn't know like to where to go this friday mr vikroy is giving out computers

011and internet wife hot spots so if you know somebody who is struggling with that please please please tell me to every class i just sent out a message that said you know do you want to solve real world problems do you want to help real people if you don't want to it's fine but if you remember what we did in school and you remember how it felt to learn through solving real problems then come on over to the school classroom and let's let's do it so what remained were about 16 students who said i'm so excited to do this which is really interesting because they all come from different classes and it's not necessarily my highest level class that has the highest number of students participating the fact that once again there's 16 students who

012could do nothing and pass on to the ninth grade and are really just there because they love learning through solving real problems hello and good afternoon hi rosemary hi ashley you guys know that you don't have school today right yeah this problem is important to me because like my both parents work on companies and my mom companies is still open and she's going to work and i'm i'm worried and scared for her so we ended up with four teams uh the first team did quarantine inequality their challenge was to create a plan for families so they could have a healthy quarantine life the second team they were really distraught about how big businesses seem to be a profiteering so their challenge was to create a plan for those local businesses to move their business online

013so that they could compete the third group was a group that was very concerned about their own parents going back to work so they wanted to focus on workplace inequality and the final group really wanted to focus on the experience of undocumented immigrants during this time and how status drives the quality of your quarantine because they're working on their own projects they're required when they can't figure something out using resources figuring out whether a source is credible or not and just being able to read through things that are not necessarily on their grade level through that they've been pulling together their main ideas i mean that is something my students always struggle with what is the most important word that you can find in this and that's usually what the main idea is about and

014then taking that and turning that into either a problem that needs to be solved or a solution that needs to be explained and then turning that into a presentation that they can speak freely about and speak in a way where where they're in authority on it to the point that someone would listen this particular project showed us that we don't have to go anywhere in order to meet some really incredible people even when our school maybe might say we don't have or we can't the virtual world can make it happen good afternoon my name is miranda and i would like to welcome you all to our inequality amplified expert q a presentation my name is executive officer at jewish family services i am the state representative for what's called ohio's 35th district you tackled a

015lot of really big issues this is a hard actual question and i have to think about the answer i don't know what i expected but i was so surprised i wish every legislator would take the same sort of a process with problems in general your presentation covered all the ways covet is expecting that affecting us i thought you guys really spent a lot of time thinking about it i thought that was terrific one of the things that we talk about a lot in education is how to get our students the same experiences that students are having in other places just having you here telling students that they can be is closing an experience gap one of the biggest lessons that we've kind of come across is that they want to be in school they want

016to be learning they are not happy with staying at home all the time and we all took that for granted and i don't think that society will look back on on how we entered it but how we exited it how will we come out of this better off more appreciative of the education system more appreciative of the need to be prepared more appreciative of what families need because these things are amplified so if we come out of this not better off then it will only be our fault for not acting because it's not that we couldn't see it [Music] thank you board member becker lee for sharing that with us um what what an amazing program what amazing teachers what amazing students it just really shows the potential of what we can do if we

017keep a positive attitude and really think through how we can use technology our world is completely open we have so many opportunities i tell the superintendent all the time let's take this opportunity to just you know explode everything and start over and think what is the best way we can approach this for all of our students so what a great example and we really hope as a board to continue these innovation from our teachers from our students from our community because it's really important that we continue to stay positive and remain positive as we continue through these challenging times thank you board member beckerly my pleasure it was a wonderful experience okay so now into our agenda where we are going to uh at item two board members you have the agenda um we will

018begin with board uh discussion or mostly an updated announcement around the safe schools working group we will have public comments we will then have notice of public hearing on re-employment of retired employees for two individuals uh the superintendent has a report internal audit or treasurer have no report this evening we have some board matters and then we have our consent agenda and we will end this evening with board announcements and an executive session is there a moment to approve our agenda for this evening's meeting thank you second sec thank you 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 i did not hear vice president reyes i see she voted yes i read her lips so we can't hear

019you uh vice president that motion carries thank you uh we will we will figure that out vice president reyes might have to call the number to do the voice but we'll figure it out okay um so into item three uh when we last left you back in july we had uh let you know that we were going to change to shift a little course in our in our idea around the safe school working group instead of just seating a task force we decided that because we had over 200 people uh and many more really who were very interested in this topic we actually worked through a process to create more community engagement so this evening i'm happy to let the community know that in partnership with patel we will have two community sessions um one

020august 25th and one september 8th as community focus groups around the safety and security of our district and remember what we're looking at is a systems approach a holistic approach to what is our culture and climate around safety to both physical safety and mental uh mental health safety for our students staff as well as members of the community who come into our buildings so all of the 200 people will get invites and then there will be ways for community members to also participate in that so that is exciting after those those uh public community sessions happen we will then seat the working group who um i lost count i think it's at 42 members i know it's a lot but honestly we had the hardest time we had amazing people that really want to help

021us misty can we put the names up so the following individuals will be seated for the safety i'm sorry the safe schools working group we have two individuals identified as co-chairs but we are waiting on commitment from them so we will have two working group members who will serve as co-chairs and we also have three district facilitators um cher award chris ward and james barnes who will help lead this effort because this is so critical and because we have such a diversity of people which is amazing with differing opinions coming from different places we are also in the process of engaging and looking at deciding on a facilitator for this group um this group will meet through in after the public community meetings in september um and will have a recommendation to the board in

022november so we are very excited for this work we think all of the people who are who were selected if you were not selected don't worry there's still a lot of opportunity for you to get involved uh to help us figure out where we're going um in the next five years in our strategic plan remember all of this work that we're doing ties in to the portrait of a graduate ties in to our strategic plan ties into really elevating our district to be that model of urban education and create a 21st century century space for excellent learning and we know that that includes a foundation of safety so thank you everybody we'll put those names up on the website and you will all be contacted very soon all right so we will um board members

023do you have any questions or comments before i move into public comments do you remember yes so should the people um that we just identified as on the working group expect an email or some kind of notification yes we will they will get their formal invitation okay terrific thank you thank you all right we will now move into public comments and oh i lost my favor here misty don't look at me like that okay um so we have we have four speakers but we had one of our speaker our dear uh mr tennant he actually we all we all know mr tennant he was going to speak to us today about effective programs regarding racism unfortunately he had some dental work today so he's unable to talk but he has asked miss coleman who was

024actually our second speaker to speak on his behalf so we're going to allow that and allow her to speak on two topics so the first or i'll let her tell us when she comes on but the one will be effective programs regarding racism and the other which is her topic was black history curriculum board action consider approving putting black history in the ccs curriculum ms nichols president adair the first speaker is on the line uh miss coleman go ahead you have four minutes okay thank you very much i am so happy to be able to address you uh president adair uh to the rest of the school board members and to the superintendent this is an opportunity to for us to share as you move forward i know that you have been your hands are

025full not to mention that school is getting ready to start before long and everyone's in a position now where we're needing all hands on deck i am not a stranger to the columbus public schools i graduated from the columbus public schools central high school and i'm not even a stranger to black history because i protested at that time when i was just a teenager i protested um for black history back then and the interesting thing is that uh here it is again that it's come full circle but i also have a master's degree in african and african uh african-american and african studies which was formerly called black studies and i have been studying black history for many many years i have an extensive library and have uh i did done some teaching i've taught as

026a substitute teacher after my mother uh passed last year i i decided i'd do a little bit of teaching and i i've taught over the years in about 10 different school districts and can see uh some of the things that are needed yes and so um one of the things that uh uh dr tennant he is a doctor in his right but mr tennant and i had talked about was how uh racism uh had affected you know being that uh george floyd uh you know with that whole situation and with the protests that's still going on and um with the coming down of the statues uh of the uh confederate uh um leaders from way back we had been talking about you know how all of this uh and even how through the years uh

027there has not there's been a lack of black history and so there's a lack of education even on uh subjects that would uh basically help people to come out of the state of not knowing um what it's all about at the core of it of anything uh where people are racist is ignorance it means that you're ignorant of the other person and you're ignorant of their experience and maybe you've just kind of gotten your own opinion but if these things are taught at it early at an early age i believe uh and and uh i found out that it does help when uh students learn uh about black history in particular because since blacks have been so marginalized in this society it would bring a balance to the eurocentric courses classes and all the ones

028that i took i thought for a long time that columbus did discover america i thought for a long time a lot of the things that were in those books were true and i come to find out that they really weren't well after i found some things out i decided to go back to school and i what i should have learned actually in um you know like the first grade second grade third grade fourth grade and up i ended up having to learn that actually as a college student and so as a college student i began to study black history and i ended up uh getting a master's degree in it but um what that showed me was that uh there was a great disservice uh in the public education because i went to public it

029uh i graduated from a public education school and so it showed me that uh this is still uh prevalent even today as i um did substitute teaching across the board and you know different school districts i still don't see uh black history being taught in the um from the perspective that it should be taught and even if it is it's just a touch on uh slavery and slavery is just not enough because we have ancient black history uh that goes back uh thousands of years and there were great empires you know we have uh empires uh that started long before the europeans emerged even as a power in the world and so these things need to be taught uh because i think we're doing not only black students of this service but we're also doing

030uh a disservice to other ethnic groups whites and uh hispanics and others who are coming maybe fresh in america they need to know the true history not uh the tainted history that we've been exposed to for so long so i have a point is coming your your four minutes is up would you like to now use mr tennant's four minutes to continue yes i'll wind it up yeah okay go keep going okay so um what i the reason why i'm wanting black history to be taught to be included in the curriculum of the columbus public schools is because the columbus public schools has a predominantly black student population and because of that and and even with what's going on with our black teens getting in gangs and all this kind of stuff we really need

031to look at that and we need um this uh black history to help in the racial issues that are going on i believe it would help a whole lot to bring an understanding to our children of true history uh um i think it's needed for number one i have four reasons why to begin to correct the lack of knowledge of black history among teachers and students number two i believe that it needs to be done because we will begin to correct eurocentric uh dominance in uh teaching and in learning history in the textbooks and everything uh number three it would be to promote uh the develop the development excuse me of healthy self-esteem and black students and also students by teaching true black history ancient and modern a study was done by uh at andrews

032university which concluded that uh watching black history doc uh documentaries can improve young african-american males racial identity efficacy and self-esteem specifically uh those uh from high poverty areas and so some studies have been done this is i'm not i can't give it all in this little bit but number four uh to undo uninte uh intentional uh intentional marginalized black students that is rooted in a white dominated educational system uh destructive particularly to black children uh and this is something that um there have been studies on it as to how we lose black boys at a certain point and and many of them end up being in the prison system i believe that if we started early and we do the kind of communication the kind of teaching that we need that we can prevent some

033of this um many afric uh many times african americans are portrayed in schools as savage barbaric people uh who uh you know were forced here of course but luckily to to be here and we're happy slaves and so we don't want any of those kind of of uh images and those kind of things because they're not really true um uh ancient history uh the great empires as i mentioned those should be included because it gives us a reference point before uh slavery and then number five and the final point is to get in step with the times in which we live where systemic oppression and racial inequity has caused many black students to end up in the wrong place you know prison or dead or just not able to really go out into society and

034be successful we want all of our students to be successful i love all students i have a passion for children and love them and i want to work with the school board to help in developing the curriculum for black history i am willing i you can you know i will be willing to give you consultation i have done some research in this area uh i do have other friends who are in the field and i believe that we can move forward from this point i know your plate is full right now and i was thinking of this for the um 22 school year that way we could work on it during this year i'd be willing to work with someone uh to just start getting it ready uh to roll out next year uh that

035way you know we don't have that kind of pressure you you have too much to handle right now and i'm praying for everybody well thank you miss coleman we certainly appreciate all that um and and certainly your enthusiasm about ensuring that um especially our black children understand their history both modern and ancient um board members do you have any questions uh for miss coleman uh dr pierce um mrs coleman thank you so much for your remarks as an individual who has a degree in african and african american studies and done extensive research and taught in that area i appreciate you for coming tonight to to give this comment not just to our board but to our community and district my question is do you have a potential pilot program that you would be interested in

036taking to the schools um taking out into the community where do you see your first step with this project being is it district-wide or could it be a pilot project that goes from school to school i would like for it to be district-wide but of course we can begin uh i'm not against beginning with the pilot program but it would be great if it could be district-wide but of course that's going to take a little bit more work i i am aware of your curriculum management audit that was just done and i know that any uh proposed uh uh course would have to come you know be be in sync with the other things that you're doing as well and so um i think a good place to start would be uh with uh you

037know i don't know we probably need to talk about it and see what's best for first steps because i'm kind of open to that and i think after we have uh the right conversations and then we are able to look at uh the situation then we can know if we just need the pilot program or if we need it throughout my my goal was to get it throughout but i'm willing to do a pilot program um thank you thank you dr pierce board member raglan thank you madam president thank you mrs coleman uh for your report today for your thoughts behind this um might i suggest that we link up with the african and african american studies department at the ohio state university for the development and support of this i've had several conversations with

038dr simone drake who was also interested in this type of work across the district she is a district graduate from columbus alternative and is chairing that department right now she and her team have already begun uh some work down this road and i think that a lot of the work that you have established as well as the report that you sent to us uh prior to this meeting would be complementary to the work that is already occurring there with dr drake and dr johnson jeffries and several members of her staff and so uh if if we can be a link between you and your former department there at the university uh i would love to do that my information is readily available and i'd love to get you in front of dr drake uh that

039may be able to help further your calls uh in developing this uh thank you very much uh for your report tonight thank you madam president thank you raglan um hold on don't leave yet we have one more question from board member brown um i'm mute yourself board member brown yes i can't do that with the space bar uh thank you and uh thank you for the uh presentation and for your thought uh and and experience that has gone into this um i think the idea is is a really good one and i think that uh it'd be nice to see us develop something and to participate in the development and perhaps even have some students who can help participate in the development of a curriculum and i i i thank you also for your appreciation

040of some of the things that need to go into this and making sure before we do anything that it does align with uh the board's goals with the portrait of a graduate that we're developing uh with uh the matters that came out of the audit uh and uh but our our school administrators will do a good job with that uh i did wanna mention i i know you said uh perhaps not for this coming academic year but for the following 21 22 school year i would simply suggest that you not uh ignore the possibility that uh much learning is going to continue online even beyond the upcoming school year and that uh as curriculum has developed from now on i think we always have to keep in mind an online component for potentially all of

041it and that's all thank you yes good point thank you uh but vice president reyes thank you i hope my mic works now it is we can hear you minister coleman thank you very much for talking to us i really appreciate uh i think one of the things that uh uh perhaps uh you were unable to highlight in the eight minutes we gave you was your experiences and your exposure to some of our great civil rights leaders that is not going to be learned and taught in some of our books so you've always been very involved with our schools sometimes a lot of people don't know who you are because you do like to work in the background but i do appreciate your continued support and being available for our students and i look forward

042to hearing more about uh about this project thank you remember beckerly i just want to say thank you i couldn't agree more with all that you said and i i see this as um while it's a curriculum initiative um falling under and being driven by our equity policy as well i think it it plays in both places or it should be driven by our desire for equity as well as improving our curriculum thank you board member becker lee um yeah i i i agree that this is something and i think something that the board in in even you know looking at the uh the audit as well as our equity agenda as well as uh you know when dr pierce's work on drafting that resolution against uh racism and education all of this is so

043critical to ensuring that uh the true history is told and that's why if you remember back in black history month we did do our own ccs black history so that students and the community could understand how we had racism and and what experiences our black students had so these conversations are absolutely critical and i know that the the superintendent and team are are uh are also interested in this uh ensuring that all of our curriculum is culturally competent and so we will continue to work on on this um throughout so i know that the uh the superintendent uh is gonna reach out to you offline um and we will continue this conversation so thank you so much uh miss coleman as well as uh speaking for yourself and a mr tenet please wish him well

044for us thank you well my pleasure look forward to working with everyone okay miss nichols we'll disappear for a moment and get our next speaker who will be uh william nowlin or nolan sorry i might have mispronounced that uh to talk to us about the spread of covid19 he would like us to listen to his ideas on how to slow the virus down you would all love to to learn more about that i'm sure we'll wait for miss nipples to appear with mr nolan president adair the second speaker's on the line mr now lynn you have four minutes go ahead and begin uh yes um with marilyn and i want to offer a suggestion here that i think might make it a little bit safer for our people as you can see from my right

045up here any enclosed uh structure uh i think uh people are more likely to get infected i think that's where uh if people are in there that are that are infected that's where they most likely going to infect other people and what i am suggesting is that you place another filter on the output of the filter of the hvac system the heating and cooling system and uh and in my write-up here i suggest i even have purchased a piece of the material for the um in in 95 face mask and i if i had been there in person i would have shown how i could have put that on really my home filter in my home but any uh hvac system uh consists of a system where it pulls in some fresh air for combustion

046when it needs to heat the air in in the area and passes it through a filter basically a dust filter all hvac systems have that and what i am suggesting is that you place another filter on the output side of the filter the existing filter in the system and this would cleanse the air somewhat from the virus out hopefully and then return it to the intake and if you visualize your heating and cooling system in your home it's exactly the same thing the heat comes up the cold air the heat the warm air comes up through the vents and the floors then you have the high registered vents that return the air to the to the furnace and that's i'm suggesting this to add another filter on the output of the filter in the system

047and i believe that from my write-up what i'm saying is that i think that this would reduce the probability to near zero for anybody that there is i'm on the phone sorry my wife's calling me um and um this would allow the air to be you know be clean somewhat of the uh you know reduce the possibility of people getting infected because of someone coming in unknowingly being infected and it's very simple and i believe that from my right up i'm i'm saying that i believe that we can uh basically stop the spread of this virus thank you mr nalan actually there has been quite a bit of talk already in the district about ventilation so your comments are right on track um and we we did i want you to know receive the information

048you sent us um board members any questions or comments for mr naland yes madam president mr cole thank you thank you so much mr nylen um would you care to share your background and experience uh in this area of hvac or uh what in that world may be called rough mechanicals those types of things would you would you share your experience on that what your background is well my background is i'm an electrical engineer average i'm an agnt or a systems test engineer and i have little or no experience with hvac systems but this is just common sense i think and uh that's why i'm making a suggestion that i am i i do have a professional engineer i have the license um for electrical engineering i didn't need it for the job that i

049had but i had it thank you so very much thank you any other questions uh dr pierce so mr nylen thank you so much for your comments um i'm smiling just from ear to ear um with your comments along with our first speaker mrs coleman's comments because as we think about how we respond to covet 19 we're going to need all hands on deck we're going to need ideas coming from everyone in the community and starting this meeting off as we start off this school year with such participation just literally warms my heart so thank you for bringing this idea to us for acknowledging the importance of getting our students back to school in a safe way that deters the spread of covet 19. i love absolutely love this idea um i do have a

050question related to do you know how often the filter would have to be replaced or changed well actually i i make a suggestion in my little right up i'm suggesting that the filter should be changed at least every 24 hours uh changed or sanitized every 24 hours that's just you know i guess on my part so the point is this air is recirculating and hopefully this builder is taking up a lot of the virus and most mostly all of the virus and if you look at my little right up here um i'm saying that the n95 face mask reportedly has a 95 effective rate of removing the viruses so that's why i purchased uh i i would i thought the meeting was going to be face to face that i was prepared to take one

051of my filters from my home hvac system and show you how i would propose to insert that this mask over the output of that filter i appreciate you for explaining that i think it's important for our families to understand that with this solution how often the filter will have to be replaced and again i appreciate you for bringing um this great idea to us thank you yeah i don't have any you know experience on that i mean i'm just saying that i think that you could you can probably get away with um chaining is about every 24 hours or at least sanitizing it and then really i i haven't told you the whole story about this i am working on something else that's a little more involved but it works on the basic thing basically

052the same principle but more involved well thank you so much mr nolan again i want to echo what dr pierce said um you know we're all in this together and it is certainly going to take innovative ideas and and the community stepping up so we really appreciate you wanting to help help us and and help get our kids back in in buildings much quicker so thank you for sharing this evening miss nichols we will now get ready for our last speaker um we have vladimir kogan who is going who wants to talk about district negotiations with the columbus education association the board action requested is insist that the memorandum of understanding that will govern distance learning this fall puts the interest of students first um before mr kogan comes on um i just want to

053take an opportunity to make a brief comment about that before he comments um it is the job of every single person associated with our district including this board to ensure that all students interests are always put first and so that is a number one priority to insinuate otherwise is really not acceptable we have a lot to work on we have a lot to work on together but all everyone puts students first that that has to be the underlying principle in everything that we do miss nichols we will now hear from mr cogan mr coogan you have four minutes go ahead and begin mr coogan you can got him again the call dropped let me get him back on the line okay all right mr cogan you have four minutes you can go ahead and begin

054good evening board members and dr dixon uh i think i caught a piece of your introductory remarks i apologize um i got disconnected um but uh i'm here today uh because as you also remind us the board's work is about kids and putting kids first not adult and i hope that is the philosophy that the board will bring to your ongoing negotiations with the columbus education association regarding the resumption of virtual learning this fall specifically i ask you to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of last spring and not agree to another memorandum of understanding that puts the interests of adults first one that sets no clear expectations for teacher-led learning and by banning virtual walkthroughs gives building principles no tools to ensure that student learning actually continues as a result of their earlier agreement

055i think we saw in many ccs buildings very minimal real-time interactions between students and their teachers this spring i really appreciated the video that board member berkeley introduced earlier but i think we all know that was not a typical experience for most of the students in the district this spring and i ask that the new mou that you negotiate address this and include the following so one clear expectations about daily synchronous teaching and learning the recent agreement between the san diego unified school district and its teachers offers a great model it guarantees 240 minutes of daily live interactions including three hours of live whole group and small group instruction and an additional hour for personalized one-on-one tutoring to provide monitoring and accountability tools for principals and parents although months passed the district still has not

056released any concrete data on student participation from the spring aside from telling us the number of students who logged in to clever what percent of our students submitted work on already what was the average amount of time each student spent learning each day we have no idea a recent audit on student engagement in los angeles for example showed that only half of the students who logged into into that district online system actually submitted assignments in the spring canvas your new learning management system and the several virtual learning platforms you're going to spend about 2 million dollars tonight to license come with really great analytics and can all produce daily reports on student usage these should be shared daily with building principles and made public on the district's digital dashboard website in the same way that

057you used to report daily attendance in each school three make up for lost instructional time we know that students will learn far less online than they could have if schools were open in person yet our district has decided to compound these learning classes by shortening the school year by nearly two weeks to make time for professional development i ask that you extend the school year to help make students help students make up lost ground in the spring once in person learning museums now i realize this is a really controversial request but we should remember that the collective bargaining agreement you negotiated last year at a time of historically low unemployment promises teachers a three percent raise on top of the regular step increases that nearly all teachers will receive as well with many parents in

058this district facing unpaid furloughs layoffs and unemployment it seems reasonable to ask the teaching staff to work a few extra weeks into the summer to help their students i wrote the dispatch article this morning about teachers protesting school reopening in central ohio and one slogan i guess restarting uh that was used uh was quote one dead child is one too many and it reminded me of the awful toll that this summer's epidemic of gun violence has already taken on our city's youth we know that since june at least half a dozen of our city's young people have lost their lives for all of us this should be a reminder of the weighty stakes involved when schools are closed parents at work and recreational activities limited our children face significant harm these are precisely the conditions

059the students will again face this fall although gun violence be the most salient and tragic risk we must remember the other ways the ongoing interruption of student learning is affecting our city's youth and families this includes abuse that is not being caught and reported along with significant increases in risk of not completing high school of harms like teenage pregnancy and involvement in the criminal justice system thank you mr clinton our children thank you mr cogan board members do you have any uh questions or comments from mr cogan i think i saw dr pierce yes i defer to board member beckerly if she would like to go first thank you dr pierce board member becker lee um thanks very much both for your comments and the suggestions um i think there's a lot to be considered

060uh in terms of your suggestions especially and i also think that your point about the video that i shared not being necessarily what's happening across the district in that i think that this is an incredible opportunity technology um and the devices and um a lot of training and professional development needs to come with that in order for our teachers to be energy the highest and most effective levels and i think that um intentionality about that is critical and i think that so board member becker lee you are breaking up a little bit so you may want to check your connection uh i think we no i'm not we heard most of that so i'll um to dr pierce now so doctor thank you for uh bringing this research and for bringing these recommendations to our

061attention my question for you is are you familiar with the current research that's being conducted around home shame around the limitations for students to commit to synchronized learning patterns you know i'm familiar with southern research i'm also familiar you know with other research about the benefits of secret learning in terms of helping folks plan their schedule one thing that we know for families with internet access problems in particular having a very specific time uh you know when students meet regularly with their class is really beneficial and that was certainly i think our experience at ohio state in the spring it was the students that had internet access issues that really most requested having synchronous classes because it was easier for them to set us at that time to tell family members hey you know i

062really needed to block this off my work schoolwork and it made you know coordinating access to technology i think i think easier obviously you know i think it's a terrible situation you know regardless whether it's synchronous or not if you if you're in a family uh where you are having you know three challenges technology um but my senses you know that the evidence suggests that synchronous learning really does help at least um minimize logistical challenges well the new research is is showing that synchronous learning does help but it's also showing that we have to be ever mindful of publish positionality um specifically power and privilege and how it operates so new research is also showing that when we mandate a pattern of synchronized learning we have to be mindful that some students some of their

063families don't follow the same pattern of learning that some families may right so just as a young lady and board member becker lee's video showed she's helping to take care of her siblings so she might not be able to get on to do synchronous learning with her peers at 9 00 a.m so as a district we need to be flexible enough to provide opportunities for that student to get asynchronous learning so i think as we as a district as we as a community think about these solutions we have to be ever mindful of the role that politicianality plays um power and privilege um and this aligns with our diversity equity and inclusion policies that we're pushing forward when we make these recommendations we have to understand that the lived experience of our students are very

064different from neighborhood to neighborhood street the street based upon who has access to what hot spot or what computer i would also like to point out that very right of you to mention what we're seeing in terms of gun violence in our community when our students are in school they're learning and they're moving towards their goals and their dreams however again i will caution us to be mindful of how our entire environment contributes to the experience of our students it goes far beyond just school school plays a critical part and role but as you mentioned it also goes to having robust programs in neighborhoods and communities for our students that are both academically focused that are focused on social and emotional learning that are also focused on physical wellness we have to ensure that within

065our entire community and that is the central ohio region that we are all putting students first and what that means is that we're all working together and continuing because we see the great work that our public engagement department is doing that we continue the great work to partner with corporations non-profits and our schools to ensure that we're providing opportunities for our students to be in safe nurturing loving environments um and so again i would just hope that as you continue to bring your recommendations forward that you stay ever mindful of the role that diversity equity and inclusion plays and the lived experience of our students and also positionality understand that all of our students are coming to us from different spaces and places and with different backgrounds and we need to be mindful and be

066ready to embrace every student as they are as they come to us ready to teach and ready to help them achieve their dreams thank you uh dr pierce um any other comments so i i just want to make known that we have a lot of plans that are yet to be announced and we have actually dr dixon will announce uh we have a special meeting next week to just talk all about academics and um we've said this before when we when the whole world has been impacted by coven 19 not just our district and so the whole world had to make a shift our whole community had to make a shift and you know what we did in march was not perfect uh nowhere near perfect but we all did the best we could and

067and you saw products from that that's what that video was and we have lots of steps to go um but the things that you speak about about um ensuring rigor and measurement and accountability those are all things that that we want um so we don't disagree with you um and and i would ask anyone that is going to come from our community just as uh miss coleman and mr naland did come to us you know you see a problem we need to hear from you but come with solutions come with ideas come with an open open mind come with a with a idea of of sharing an empathy something that we are trying to you know instill in our students um so that we can really move forward together i i honestly i don't feel

068like a game of gotcha is productive right now in the middle of a pandemic um and so that's my ass to you as a person as a mom as as a leader in this community uh mr kogan dr kogan you have a lot of valuable insight a lot of research um your thoughts are actually very much aligned with where we're going um and but sometimes i think that the manner in which it comes through your full message can't be heard because it is met with resistance um rightly so doctor remember raglan thank you madam president um i i want to i want to disagree slightly there um i think his message was heard very clearly um oftentimes um we're not used to hearing messages being given to us as directly as this one was given

069from our standpoint and uh over the last several decades in my opinion that has done a disservice to our students because we have not encouraged an environment where people could come to us with solutions that might not be agreeable to the members of the board but might forward the advancement of students academically and i think that's what this was today in my opinion i am looking forward to hearing dr dickson address many of the issues that dr kogan has offered up to us in a solution driven format today uh and um juxtaposed against what he called a memorandum of understanding uh with the adults that are charged to implement some of the suggestions that he has given to us um standards for accountability for us uh should be very clearly articulated and i know that

070dr dickson uh and her team are working uh very diligently on this we've had these conversations before but what i don't want to do uh is discourage uh the type of thought that was put into the presentation tonight uh and the professionalism with which the presentation was given simply because it may be a bit harmful to the ears of those that are sitting around this table sometimes we need some good medicine and sometimes our students need for us to get that good medicine in its rawest form and i believe that's what that was tonight uh and i don't think that it's our place to discourage the public uh from speaking out in the way that they did uh through uh all of our presentations tonight in in particular uh professor cogan's thank you madam president

071thank you bob remember let me be clear i do not disagree with mr cogan in fact i agree with a lot of the things he said um i appreciate that he comes with well reason with research um and i and i truly know i know that dr kogan does have our kids at the forefront like he is looking for solutions for our children um so and so that's not what i'm saying at all um i'm saying though we need people to come with solutions with help with innovation that's the point i'm driving dr kogan is right and the and we are addressing a lot of that um and we will hear a lot more about that in reports today as well as next week what i don't what i don't and this is is to

072slam us really for things that have happened in the past in the middle of a pandemic um and and and say that that's where we are now we are not there now we are not in in march where everyone had to pick up a laptop and figure out how to get online that's not where we are um and so you know we have to take where we are and we're going to hear all about that it's school is going to be different school is different from march school is different from this summer school is going to be different and it's going to be better and every day we will work to make it better is the point um so i don't disagree everything that dr kogan said you know and we need this we need

073this dialogue absolutely boy member raglan thank you dr co oh we're never brown thank you um i simply wanted to say to uh dr kogan uh thank you for sharing your perspective uh i appreciated uh uh hearing that and hearing your thoughts and for stimulating some additional thinking um among those of us on the board and perhaps our administrators as well so please please stay involved and continue to share your perspective thank you board member brown thank you dr kogan we do look forward to hearing from you again all right that concludes public comment for this evening we will now move into item 5 notice of public hearing on re-employment of retired employees item 5.1 so this is this is notice of the public hearing the pursuant to a high revised code section 3309.345 the

074columbus board of education gives notice that bruce e nicely psychologist who is retired from the columbus city schools effective june 12 2020 is seeking re-employment with the columbus city schools as psychologists effective october 7 2020 the board will hold public hearing on october 6 2020 at 5 30. this will be done virtually during our meeting um and we will continue uh we will hear that case for mr nicely so if you uh would like to provide any testimony for mr nicely please do that for that meeting um item 5.2 notice of public hearing on reemployment of grace um oh i don't know how to say her name marcio somebody correct me i don't know okay pursuant to a high revised code section 3309.345 the columbus board of education gives notice that grace m marco teacher

075sorry i'm so sorry who retired from columbus city schools effective may 31 2019 is seeking employment with the columbus city schools as teacher effective october 7 the board will hold a public hearing on october 6 2020 at 5 30 virtually on the reemployment madam president that's marasco thank you sir marasco i apologize to miss morasco all right we will now move to item six we have report from the superintendent madam superintendent i turn it over to you okay thank you bo uh president adair i have a number of topics to cover this evening that are of importance to our community as we continue um i'm sorry uh let me pause just a second my screen just went blank um scott it's got my screen um sorry yeah my screen went blank when you okay now

076it's okay okay hold just a second scott maybe let me move the screen here my apologies i'm now having technical difficulties okay scott just try it again okay scott i'm sorry let's try it again and see will that work okay all right so as you know i announced last week that columbus city schools will begin the 2020-21 school year fully remote meaning all virtual learning for grades pre-k through 12. we will operate in a completely virtual learning environment through at least the first quarter which is tuesday september 8th through tuesday october 27th although it was our hope that we can return to some form of in-person learning in september the risk of bringing back 50 000 students and 9 000 employees to our buildings in the fall is too is far too great even with

077the use of all social distancing protocols that we all know about we cannot take the risk safety must be everyone's top priority providing a safe learning environment for our students and staff is always a tremendous responsibility especially during this very serious covet 19 pandemic public health conditions have worsened the spread of the new covet 19 infections continues to increase in the city of columbus and within our school district boundaries and zip codes governor dewine announced just today that all students across the state from kindergarten through 12th grade will be required to mask to wear masks during in-person learning this school year this is an addition to his earlier order that all teachers and staff would be required to wear face coverings we know how serious this virus is and in and the precautions that we

078all need to take in order to slow the spread and protect our students families staff and community as we learn more from the health experts our team will continue to engage with families and staff and seek feedback throughout the first quarter of the year to make any necessary adjustments to learning environments and plans for the second quarter of the year as we have explored solutions and options for our families who may not feel comfortable with their students attending school in person at all this year we were able to create the new ccs digital academy this is a completely virtual self-paced option for students in grades kindergarten through 12. many of our families have already taken advantage of the digital academy option when registration closed on august 1st we had nearly 6 000 of students enrolled

079that's 5 849 students to be exact which is 12 of our total student enrollment district-wide this includes students in grade kindergarten through five one thousand three hundred and sixty six students in grades six through eight and one thousand three hundred and thirty eight students in grades nine through twelve students who are registered for the digital academy will remain enrolled in the completely virtual platform through at least the first semester of the school year we will be conduct um connecting with these families in the near future to outline expectations and next steps hundreds of columbus city schools families as well as some staff continue to take advantage of the great information and updates coming from our series of virtual family engagement sessions the online zoom sessions are hosted every tuesday and thursday starting at 6 pm

080by our department of engagement and experts from departments throughout the district just this past week we hosted two engagement sessions on the k-12 digital academy trying to help parents understand the difference between the new self-paced digital academy and the school-based teacher-led remote learning model representatives from ingenuity and apex were part of the sessions and gave parents a closer look at the online platforms for our digital academy because we had such high demand from families wanting this information our virtual family engagement sessions was also carried on facebook live and nearly 6 000 people viewed the sessions in less than 24 hours so this week our virtual family engagement sessions are focused on providing information to our new american and immigrant families in fact there is one session going on right now in spanish with experts from

081our english as a second language team interpreters are part of these special sessions to help share information and answer parent questions families can sign up to attend the virtual family engagement sessions or they can go back to watch previous sessions by visiting our district website in the special section on reopening so it is important that we have that information there and families can go back and review it at any time we have several new participants on our zoom call this evening and i would like to take this opportunity to introduce some of our new leaders in the district first please welcome our new chief equity officer dr dion blue who started her position yesterday as we have discussed many times over the past year i am committed as i know the board of education is

082as well to addressing the inequities that exist in our district and in our schools we must be forward-thinking and proactive and tackling this important work ahead head on equity and cultural competencies are priorities for columbus city schools and the board of education as the district's first ever chief equity officer dr blue will lead these efforts as part of our leadership team most recently doc most recently dr blue served as the chief diversity officer for evansvier vanderbilt school corporation where she was responsible for creating and implementing a comprehensive and collaborative vision for diversity equity and inclusion for the third largest school district in indiana prior to her role in evansville dr blue provided assistance to urban schools across ohio as a program officer on the gates foundation small school initiatives at the college at the knowledge

083works foundation in cincinnati as a previous higher ed education professional turned k-12 administrator dr blue has developed a unique perspective on ways to build more cohesive systems to help all students be more successful from preschool through post-secondary education dr blue earned her phd in integrated teaching and learning from the ohio state university where her research focused on racial identity development and the impact of social context on education she earned a master's degree from washington state university and a bachelor's degree from spelman college i'm excited to work with dr blue and see the impact that she can have on behalf of students in our community so now i would like to turn it over to dr blue just to say a few words dr blue good evening members of the board president adair dr dixon it's

084my pleasure to be here and i'm really looking forward to the impact that we're going to have working together i know that you all have you know both individually and collectively a vision for equity for the district and i'm looking forward to hearing more about what you see happening in the district and how i can work with you all to help make sure that that happens so i'm look i'm excited to be here i'm looking forward to the work i know we have a lot to do but we all have a lot to do so i'm looking forward to it uh well thank you dr blue we have been the organization have been waiting um a year for this position and we're so happy um to have you and the expertise um on the team

085and again we uh you have the support of the community and the board and we know that you're going to help us do a great work for our students thank you so yesterday i had the opportunity to provide a welcome back message with all of our school building administrators i cannot overstate the importance of our principals and school administrators for the great work they do leading in our school buildings and their surrounding neighborhoods we have a number of new principles to the district as well as veteran principles in new roles within the district i would now like to turn it over to our chief of transformation and leadership dr angela chapman who has prepared a few videos to introduce you to our newest school leaders and all of our new school leaders are on tonight

086on the zoom conference dr chapman good evening president adair superintendent dixon and members of the board the recommendation to add an additional layer of support to our school leaders built on our district-wide strategy to to develop a deliberate approach to cultivating and supporting school leaders which we refer to as our principal pipeline work which offers a strategy to improve schools district-wide boost principal retention and improve student achievement the research is clear that the influence of the principal is second only to classroom teachers in determining the outcome of school-related influences on student learning and central to turning around distressed schools the role of the principal coaches is to build the capacity of first and second year principals and assistant principals our first and second year leaders will receive personalized professional development that recognizes their strengths and

087enhances their growth our principals and aps will work directly with the principal leadership coach assigned to their region who will guide and advise them throughout the year to support a successful transition into school leadership principals and assistant principals will meet with their coaches for regular touch points and gather them with their cohort for monthly sessions focused on key topics related to developing effective administrators and increasing student achievement again this is an additional layer of leadership support that will be offered to all of our first and second year principals and assistant principals this year and for the upcoming school year we have hired 22 new principals and 19 assistant principals of these 41 leadership transitions 35 of these vacancies were filled with internal candidates and six were external in addition nine of our leadership interns were

088promoted to either an ap or principal position for the upcoming school year now we would like to share a short video message that was curated by our amazing communications team to introduce all of our new leaders to the board and to the ccs community there are three separate videos that will play in the following order first you will hear from our principal coaches next you will hear from the elementary principals and aps and then that will be followed by our secondary principles and aps thank you hello i am diane campbell and this year i'll be serving as a school leadership coach for region one i'm most conditions for teachers to teach students to learn and for staff to do what is best for all students and families i am most excited to serve our leaders

089in their challenging but rewarding roles as building leaders this school year hi i'm stephanie patton school leadership coach for region 2. what i'm most excited about this new opportunity is that i will be supporting building administrators through these uncertain times to build resilience by discovering new innovative way and learn greetings my name is ed baker i'm the principal leadership coach assigned to region three and i am most excited about supporting leaders to provide high quality education for our students as well as gaining new i look forward to serving our students and our administrators hello my name is elizabeth mcnally and i'm very excited to be the leadership coach for the fabulous region four i am so grateful opportunity to support the amazing students and staff within the columbus city school district in this new role

090it is going to be a great year and i can't wait to work alongside all of you hello my name is james esslinger and i am a principal leadership coach assigned to region five i'm looking forward in this new capacity in particular i'm excited to be working alongside such talented and smart administrators hi my name is shelly and proud new principal of highland elementary school this year i'm looking forward to continuing to a wonderful work with our staff students and parents and continue to engage our students to develop um the ongoing support they need to be 100 successful hi my name is joe lausch and i am the new principal of gables elementary i am so excited to be back here at gables again i look forward to seeing students parents in the community soon

091take care hello my name is elementary school and i'm excited to be here as a part of the columbus city schools administrative team hello everyone my name is dr katina foley the newly appointed principal at weiland park elementary as some of you know this is a homecoming for me because this is where i started my career within columbus city schools this year i look forward to serving and growing with my staff and families within the wild park community let's have a great year hi i'm shawna davis i'm the new assistant principal at hewley elementary school and look forward to staff students and families hello i'm angela sweeney and i'm the new interim principal at columbus spanish immersion academy and i am so looking forward to working with the students of staff again at csia hi

092my name is julia pierpont and i'm the new principal at como elementary school i am most excited to meet the families and the students and my staff in the london neighborhood go dragons hello i'm dr kelvin watson i'm the new principal at eastgate elementary school and i'm so excited can't wait to meet all the scholars teachers and staff can't wait to see you go tigers my name is sandra santos and i am the proud principal of the new dual immersion middle school i am so excited to begin my planning for the 21-22 school year i am looking forward to collaborating with students families staff and community members my name is jenny mead and i am the proud new principal at wedgwood middle school i am thrilled to begin the year and to meet the students

093family and community go warriors hi i am shannon tucker i am honored to serve as the new principal for columbus city preparatory school for girls i am so excited to meet the young ladies of ccpsg all of the staff and the families i look forward to this new school year stay safe and i'll see you soon hello my name is ty corneux i'm the proud principal of columbus city preparatory school for boys i am excited to learn with our families and fly high with all of our falcon community hello my name is dr marvin bernard jones and i'm the new principal at johnson park middle school the staff and the parents essentially the culture of that particular school and working with other great educators in ccs good day my name is roderick vaughn watson jr

094and i'm excited i was formerly the assistant principal what i'm most excited about this year is being able to continue to serve the community in which i live which is the yorktown community i also look forward to interacting with staff students parents and the community so that we can continue to renew relationships and allow yorktown to continue to be on the rise hashtag stronger together all hands on deck hello my name is brittany mccourt i am the new proud assistant principal at yorktown middle school i look forward to families good afternoon my name is carrie cordell i'm the proud new assistant principal at a buckeye middle school looking forward to have a fantastic school year and increasing student achievement for all students middle school see you soon greetings greetings my name is doc west and

095i'm the new principal of columbus iota 612. i am eager to get to know our new staff i look forward to working with everyone in the columbus sciota shark community in order for full potential sharks are always moving forward sharks hello my name is michelle martin and i am the very excited assistant principal at columbus iota 612 school home of the sharks i am so looking forward to working with all of our students our families and our staff this school year bye for now my name is dr donnis tuller jr i am the proud new principal of independence high school i look forward to kicking off the school year with you the student since high school see you soon be well hi my name is christy nickerson and i'm the proud new principal of south

096high school i look forward to building relationships with all of our staff family staff and community is unprecedented time and ensuring that each student is academically and socially successful i'm looking forward to meeting you see you soon hello i'm dr brent sells one of the new assistant principals at west high school i'm excited to join an excellent staff and serving the students and families of one of our most historic schools best to west my name is yolanda stewart i'll be serving as assistant principal at west high school home of the cowboys this year i'm looking forward to building families i'll be supporting this year i am interested in working collaboratively with our amazing administrative team and others throughout our district to build a system of equity for all of our students and families so that

097ultimately they're empowered um an entrepreneurial endeavor or the military thank you and go cowboys hi my name is zachary riggs and i am the proud new principal of columbus north international school i cannot to connect with them all and i cannot wait to start the new school year go lions hi my name is deon drakeford i am the new assistant principal at beach prop high school i'm excited to be here at beach crawl the looking staff connection with the students that we serve hello my name is dr michael mccrory and i'm the new assistant principal at lyndon mckinley stem academy i look forward to getting to meet and be a part of the panther family and to ensure that we all move forward successfully together as a family thank you hello my name is janet

098love i will be an assistant principal at mifflin high school i'm excited to serve all of our proud hunter staff students and families i'm looking forward to in this new school year let's go hunters hello my name is crystal sanders and i am so excited to be the assistant principal for fort hayes metropolitan education center i'm looking forward to collaborating with administration staff students and parents and the community to ensure our students are highly engaged and receiving high quality instruction especially for our scholars within the career technical education programs thank you so much and i'm excited about this school year uh so thank you dr chapman and thank you to all of our principals who have committed to leading our schools and serving our students we are expecting great things from you i know our

099community will be so happy to embrace you and the students and staff are looking forward to your leadership understand that principles as a principle you set the culture and climate you're the ones that are responsible for making sure that learning take place and that students are so involved in their education experience even in these unprecedented times and we know that we have chosen the right leaders for the for all of our buildings and i am so excited to see the work that you're going to lead during this school year so um ford if you can just give them a hand clap please because i'm going over to the next so you see from the board members they're excited about all our leaders so we know that the heart of our work is teaching and learning

100which makes our academic service team critical to the success of our organization so i would like to welcome our chief academic officer dr tracy ocasio to introduce her new team members and their roles in leading the district so dr ocasio good evening everyone i look forward to introducing you to two of our new executive directors and i'm going to let them introduce their new team members so my first executive director is responsible for curriculum and instruction the role involves curriculum development looking at the teaching and learning process and and supporting our teachers with these resources so i without anything further i'm going to ask elise clark our new executive director um to share with you the members of her team that are new to the district or some are not new to the district some

101are returning um and some were in the district so she will share her new team members with you uh doctor costco i'm sorry can i pause for just a second i made a mistake i made a mistake we could just pause for the academic team if i can just have all of those principles and system principles you can turn your screens on please so that the board members can see your faces all our principles and assistant principles if you can please turn your screens on my apologies please turn your screens on do i have them all dr chapman and scott look at their board members you see these are all of our new leaders there's still some some more to happen but these are all of our principles and our assistant principles again welcome um

102to your first to many of you your first board members which is y'all your first board member meeting in this capacity so uh my apologies for that that slight error i was not following um uh protocol thank you scott for um providing that update okay so now dr casio we return it over to you and um we will like the academic team as you introduce yourselves um they won't have a video for the academic team but they will turn their video on and present themselves as to introduce themselves okay so back to the academic services team is it elise clark yes elise clark our new executive director and we're going to ask the team members at to make sure their camera is on and that they say they do a brief introduction a hello and

103um share who they are so elise clark please introduce your team good evening it is my pleasure to introduce the additions to our team we'll start with kenton lee he is going to be our director of secondary curriculum catherine myers is going to be our supervisor our secondary curriculum both of them were previous principals in the district we also have kelly rivers who joins us as our director of early childhood education and last but certainly not least dr tara baker who is joining us as our supervisor of elementary curriculum thank you all right so again as board members we give them away please to say welcome um um they have a lot they've been doing so much work and this is a team along with others that you will hear from next tuesday night at

1045 30 the academics team would provide for the board a high level overview of the academic programs for this fall they would get more details during the parent engagement sessions but for the board i wanted you to see all the amazing work that they have done and although we do have some great principles that are going to lead this work know that those great principles that are coming to the academic side were replaced by outstanding administrators um for those building principles so it's awesome when you have talented individuals who um can work in any cup and several different capacities in your organization and still do great work so again congratulations to all of those members of the academic team um next uh we were here a presentation about our summer school program was recently sorry

105i'm off script go ahead dr um ocasio i am too um so what uh we have another group um our second executive director is kira schlolenbach and she's our executive director for stu um special education and student support services kiera was also in our district previously we like to give her a lot of long titles but i'm going to have kyra introduce her to new directors with the team as well thank you dr ocasio i feel honored to continue our work on behalf of students in this new role tonight i'm excited to introduce and welcome two new administrators ms shirelle benton is our new special education director of academic innovation and programming and she's bringing 20 years of experience in the field of special education our next director is dr mickey nelson she's bringing 24

106years of experience in education and is our new special education director of compliance and we're excited to facilitate student growth and support all of our teachers and team members this year thank you and so that is all of the new team or that those are all of the new team members for academic services and i'll turn this back to you dr dixon for our next section okay thank you dr ocasio to you and and and your team and again kara thank you for stepping up into your leadership position just a reminder uh to the board kira both karen and elise um were in other positions and now they're leading um their departments as executive directors so congratulations um uh to all of you um so next we will hear a presentation about summer school program

107which recently finished on july 25th this six week online program was free for all ccs students it was not what we originally envisioned when we presented our summer plans to the board of education last winter however we are certainly pleased with the results in the amount of student and teacher engagement in the summer program so please welcome emma corbin and pagine clary potts who led our summer school efforts this year thank you i'm going to share my screen give me just one second to share my screen okay well good evening everyone president adair dr dixon members of the board we are so very excited to keep the good things rolling this evening uh and to share with you what has been quite the journey but a journey in the right direction as it will lead

108us right up to a great opening this fall leslie good evening everybody in response to the pandemic the 2020 ccs summer experience was redesigned from our original camp style enrichment summer program to a remote summer experience that provided extended learning opportunities targeting standards identified as a priority for learning based on critical areas of focus previous assessment data standards considered and standards considered foundational for the learning that will occur in the next grade we continue to build on teacher students and family familiarity with the platforms utilized in the spring such as iready achieve 3000 studies weekly and momentum in addition one of our original planning partners franklin park conservatory worked with our team to develop active and engaging nature-based learning activities for families using the identified standards and platforms as the foundation the summer school team

109led by emma corbin and peggy cleary designed and implemented a dynamic and engaging learning experience to share their journey and provide a picture of the remote ccs summer experience i would like to again introduce emma corbin principal nicole kenwood french immersion and peggy cleary director of alternative pathways thank you lesley someone's not muted so to say this is a journey into the future is an understatement uh we made a shift back in march to an online platform across our district from that information our team came together and really thought about things that we had heard from our teachers from our students and from our families and from that we created a unique ccs summer experience let me get our question of the day um since we're waiting for other people um if you could bring

110one fictional character to life who would you choose and why so a fictional character is somebody that's not real so that could be like um a movie character or somebody from a book or one of the video games you like something like that okay so which character would you bring to life or make real [Music] um and why would you choose that character so that was just one example of one of our amazing ccs teachers who joined us on this journey this summer along with myself and peggy i have to give a huge shout out to our core district team who very quickly came together to create an amazing learning experience for everyone and along the way became cheerleaders troubleshooters of technology and more and those are dr daniel burke christine delay michelle bell lisa

111chappelle elaine turner and monique karate without them none of this would be possible nor would it be possible without the amazing educators and administrators and instructional assistants and families and students that we have inside of this columbus city school district as you can see ccs's summer school this year was a hundred percent virtual it was a new land for us all but because of our online platforms and our high quality ccs teacher-led instruction we met students and i love this look this little neck saying no matter how we reach them we will teach them and this summer it was all about virtual this summer we surpassed last year's summer school numbers with 3549 ccs students participating in virtual summer school we had the highest historical numbers for grades 5 8 and 9 through 12. which

112was super encouraging as we think about students and wanting to get online for fall 2020 our 9th through 12th graders participated with 1 516 students and many ask what about attendance well we saw attendance that was equivalent or higher at different grade levels than in past summer sessions this summer we had many success stories because of everyone who worked so hard and tirelessly behind the scenes sometimes well into and or overnight that's another story these dedicated educators helped us to graduate 96 additional students this summer they helped to earn 112 credits for our high school students 199 elementary 142 middle and 365 high school students uh received special education services this summer hi my name is yamil feldiciano i am 22 grand of west high school i just want to thank my summer teacher mr

113lewis miss smith and miss delight they push me forward and always help me when i need it thanks to them i will that i will have my diploma on august 15th i'm so happy for that thank you so much guys i appreciate it and it's thank you that face says it all these students our rry and they continue to be each and every day why we do what we do in ccs in addition to the success stories you saw on the previous slide 405 english language learner students were served by our instructional assistants providing tutoring and supports for students and families in our six major languages our family ambassadors led office hours meetings and held virtual orientations for our parents a best practice we will continue as we move into fall we piloted unified arts

114opportunities for students in k-12 with high levels of engagement across the board our teacher teams with our administrators met weekly to share best practices and to learn together how we can better ourselves in this new virtual world overall we had a culture of collaboration that drove us forward and will continue to drive us into the future as we send back educators into buildings ready and armed with great information to drive us forward here is just a glimpse of what a day in the life of our summer school team look like you'll see a familiar face on there this summer we also piloted our first multiple disability enrichment course which served 16 students but solicited a great amount of really positive feedback from our families we wanted to make sure with this summer experience no child

115was left out of what could be a great virtual experience our staff utilize the opportunity to take lessons learned from our closure in march and apply them to the application of new platforms in summer we hosted weekly staff meetings to share best practices in the middle of the summer we surveyed our teachers to identify things that they saw as important and essential for us to think about when entering fall we had i'm sorry we collected videos of exemplary online teaching many of which our teachers are using as we speak to come up with new ideas and ways to serve their students we developed weekly communications with families collaboratively with our teachers and we learned a new tool infinite campus messenger which will allow us as we move into fall to send text messages voice dialers

116and emails directly to students and guardians this is a look at our fabulous educators learning and if you look around the screen you will see all of the different new online tools that we are becoming very familiar with as we speak everything from zoom to jam board to studies weekly and more remember true means right and false means wrong okay so when i did this with my other groups i had each person take a turn picking a question and answering a question but since it's just you and me it will just go back and forth picking questions and answering questions and like i said we'll see who has the most points at hand okay so you can go first what kind of question do you want to answer what questions do they have well you'll

117find it it's kind of like a mystery you'll find out when i click on it but these are questions where i'll tell you how many sides the shape has and you tell me what shape it is this one you want to do that one yeah all right and how many points now the questions that are worth 100 points are the easiest and the questions that are worth 500 points are the hardest and the other ones are in the middle so the more points it has the harder it is so what kind of question do you feel like you want to answer first all right let's start with the easy one i think that's a good strategy all right clara i have no sides and no corners who am i circle good job 100 points for

118clara all right i'll let you pick my question what question do you want me to answer picture of this all right how many points do you want me to go for i'll go for 200. all right that is a rectangle and i know that because it's got two short sides and two long sides do you think i'm right yeah yes i am good job misty all right pick your next question clara examples of teaching like you just saw happened across our district this summer teachers held sessions virtually face to face with students three times a day and provided targeted instruction based on individual needs as we continue with the theme of face-to-face and teacher feedback our unified arts teachers piloted different programs utilizing websites instagram flipgrid and email challenges were posted daily inside of google

119classrooms by our building coordinators and students were able to do things like attend virtual field trips attend a performance live streaming with the columbus jazz symphony orchestra and even take a behind-the-scene tour of an mba locker room our students and our educators were able to provide information back and forth to make the enrichment experience even more enriching this summer we couldn't have reached our students without access to technology and we are so thankful to ms birney and her team because at the kingswood data center all summer long devices were able to be picked up bi-weekly troubleshooting happened across the board uh even yours truly troubleshot some different chromebook issues and some hot spot issues we all learned together this summer to say the very least our amazing vcap line and summer school phone line were

120available meaning that we were able to rapidly respond to students who were having trouble with logging on unlocking tests or just needed somebody to cheer them on as they tried to finish those final courses this summer our english language learner call center was also available this summer they were able to not only help with registration but also help families to better understand platforms because on their end they could see what the platform looked like our coordinators were out there delivering chromebooks and hot spots as needed to make sure that our teachers could reach our students even our family ambassadors and secretaries joined in with troubleshooting and learning how to help our students get to the content that would help them to grow this summer our parents joined in the fun our middle school team had

121weekly meetings for their families called stronger together where during those meetings the administrators and our family ambassador could share best practices and help our families to better understand what it was their students were doing online those that whole time our one stop shop ccsummer.org provided a location at essentially a hub not only for access to our family ambassadors who were able to respond to calls quite quickly with their office hours as you see here but also a one-stop shop for everything in our high school virtual experience because we had a one-stop shop we were very easy i'm sorry it was very easy to troubleshoot to direct to guide and to ensure our students were growing towards success this summer part of what we did when we were planning for this summer experience was to think

122about the feedback that we had and the information that we had gained based upon parent feedback we increased face-to-face virtual times with teachers this summer we also solicited ongoing feedback from our parents and ensured that our teachers were providing a glimpse into our students education through weekly communications our students also received lots and lots of shout outs from our staff for their progress whether it was just a hey you're almost there ten percent more and we've got your credit or hey you logged on every day this week great job we are able to keep our students motivated going and growing this summer in a virtual land this is just one example of a progress report that uh our teachers created you can see that this is our generic one as spongebob squarepants is definitely not

123a ccs student um but our teachers came together to come up with a way that they could share with families exactly the work that their children were doing so you can see that this included virtual lessons i ready reading i ready math and this teacher utilized flipgrid another one of our new online virtual tools my name is jacqueline coleman i'm my august eastmonder academy graduate over the summer miss delay and mr lewis helped me be a facetime zone to get me through my summer school classes they wouldn't let me give up even when i wanted to there were days and nights for me just so i can graduate on time he's another reason that we kept going this summer and we would not stop along the way there were many lessons learned midway through the

124summer we wanted to collect that information so that we could better utilize it for fall so we surveyed our amazing educators among the biggest things they believed that we should continue to consider for fall or planning hours knowing that differentiation in a virtual world is different uh that we should continue to utilize google classroom something that our families became very comfortable with as well and it'll be part of our elementary program they also i'm sorry they also really enjoy the ability to team teach together when we are virtual even though we all can't physically be in the same classroom we can virtually be all together which means that more teachers come together to be creative to think and to drive the learning forward in a really fun way this summer we learned quite a bit

125which will help us to drive forward into fall we learned that communication as always is the key to our success knowing that communication between teacher and home is at the heart of what we do our educators saw increased participation and increased progress from our students when they shared a glimpse into what was going on in the classroom for the week we learned that we did need to take some more time to plan for our online lessons really being strategic and utilizing our data in the best way possible just as we would do in a face-to-face room we learned that our intervention specialist working directly with our general education teachers drove student learning even further we learned that that website website or one stop shop was an essential component to our progress we learned that setting

126clear goals is key not just for our students but for our families our teachers and even administrators ourselves and that the creation of a collaborate of a collaborative culture was essential to all of us learning and growing together you heard mention in the last video the student talk about even into the evening that was a continued conversation throughout the summer many of our high school students worked during the day or took care of their young siblings or their own young children our teachers met them exactly where they needed to be sometimes after a baby was put to bed sometimes before a morning shift sometimes on a saturday or in the middle of the night just to finish those last pieces the flexibility with ours this summer allowed our teachers to better meet the needs of

127our students because we worked with them and understood where they came from and we continue to celebrate and support them even today our educators each time they contacted a parent would record that information in our essentially contact log which we like to call the plp and that allowed everyone to be on the same page whether you were an elo assistant or a classroom teacher we knew who contacted you and with what information the next quote i have on here is one of my favorite our hard to find students were often hard to find but our village this summer be it a secretary an administrator a coordinator a teacher an assistant or a member of our office staff our amazing counselors whomever we found them and once we found them we were able to come together

128document the reason why they were so hard to find and find a way to get them online something we know will be essential as we drive into fall we had to be quite flexible not just with our students but with each other in terms of time in terms of balance that sharing of best practices is something that was a highlight not just for our teachers but for me personally during the summer we learn so much from each other knowing that our amazing columbus city school teachers have such great ideas and such talents whether you've been teaching for six months or 35 years as we enter into this digital age which is new for all of us it's important that we rely upon each other and build upon strengths we now because of summer are sending

129over 300 teachers back into our buildings armed with the knowledge of putting theory into practice this summer they will be the champions of our school buildings they will be our cheerleaders when someone is trying to troubleshoot something and it just won't work they will tell everyone we can push through we already did it in summer so as we think about the lessons we've learned this summer we think about where we've come from what we've learned and put in place and now where we can go with this knowledge in hand and with that being said i'm so excited to introduce you to our newest graduate of columbus city schools lenay mayo lenay tell us about your journey it all started when i came here three years ago from ecot after they shut down i came here

130so excited for a new journey and when i got started i wasn't i wasn't on track as much as i wanted to be but i had all of my teachers here showing me what to do helping me out and then four years later i'm finally finished and we could be no more proud and check out her new sweatshirt seniors the ones where they were quarantined but lenae made it and we are just so proud of her is there anything else that you would like to share with us especially about your summer school summer school was great i finished all six classes with the help of all my cap teachers um they helped me so much and it's just up from here ready to start college i was just going to ask you where where are

131you going next so have you decided i was supposed to attend clark atlanta university but for now since the whole colgan 19 i will be starting at columbus state community college and that is so wonderful we are so proud of you lanai mayo we'll keep our eyes on you congratulations so i'm going to stop sharing for just a smidge and share that one of the highlights of my career to date was the day liliane mayo earned that final credit uh i will again shout out another educator sarah bibby our amazing counselor uh we were all distanced on the phone when that last credit hits and the cheers that surrounded me in the room were ones that i will carry for a lifetime when you have the opportunity to see a young person like that with

132unlimited potential seal the deal get that diploma in hand it is one of the best feelings so i want to thank you all for uh believing in the summer experience i want to thank my team for everything they did and the amazing educators and students and families in columbus city schools we went on a wild journey together and you know the sky's the limit at this point so thank you and we are here for your questions my team turn your cameras on please oh wow such listen to that enthusiasm from emma and peggy and i think with leslie did i hear leslie on the call other than a presentation i'm not sure leslie kelly was on um okay but thank you to to miss corbin and miss clary potts for their presentation and and and

133for your leadership this summer um your enthusiasm uh for us and for me it made a situation that we didn't want to happen for our students you know we didn't want them to be online totally but you uh put your creativity your your enthusiasm you and peggy and leslie with the teachers and made it come alive so thank you for that and as you stated we now have 300 teachers who are going to help leverage this work um this fall they became experts they use their creativity and we are so excited what they're going to add um and hopefully we'll be able to highlight many of that work uh many of their work this fall so thank you uh again now yes did someone have a question oh okay uh thank you to to the

134team again so next i want to discuss um federal relief funding and what we expect to receive as part of our various legislative actions and proposals that had come that have come forth from congress we know that the cares act is providing pandemic relief funding to school districts across the country and there could be more on the way we often get questions about this funding or potential funding means for our district and our students and i would like to turn it over to stan buharik and eric roush to tell you more about the implications and details around federal funds so mr baharik and dr roush um i think we're all set okay thank you very much um eric and i will walk you through about a half a dozen different items here relative to federal

135relief and uh share with you um what we're anticipating to receive or where um you know the details haven't yet been worked out so the first item up that we'll share with you is part of the coronavirus relief and economic security act commonly known as the cares act and within that act there is a fund the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund we call it the esser fund and that federal amount for this particular fund is a little over 30 billion dollars and we here in columbus will receive 28.4 million and uh in addition to that about two and a half million will go to non-public schools so we'll receive close to 31 million in total but part of that is being shared with non-public schools we submitted an application for that last week

136on thursday we're waiting for ode's approval of that and as soon as we get that approval we will begin to spend those dollars on the uh on items that we're permitted to spend those dollars on and those include just a number of different things related to reopening schools um purchasing supplies to sanitize and clean school facilities um anything to do with preparing for being prepared to reopen and in our response to the um covenant 19 covenant pandemic uh the spending deadline on that is september 30th of 2022 so these funds while we will receive them here in this fiscal year if we don't spend all of it it can carry forward but right now the budget that we put in to ode um accounted for consumed all of the 28.4 million but we'll see how

137that that goes the next item also part of the cares act is the corona virus relief fund crf as as we're calling it that allocation was 150 billion at the federal level we've been told that we'll receive about 303.8 million now this has a much shorter deadline so we'll try and spend these dollars first these have to be expended by december 31st uh of 2020 and um again these dollars are restricted for expenses related to our response to covet 19. the next item again part of the cares act um [Music] and this is the same uh 150 billion dollars but this is federal funding that we're receiving through the city the prior two were federal funding that comes to us through the state well this is federal funding that comes to us through the city

138and the city took part of their um cares act allocation and as you read in the press and heard announced here i think a week ago the city is supporting the district with 7.1 million dollars it's actually 7.15 million dollars for the purchase of 20 000 chromebooks so we've got that in the works right now so they'll be reimbursing the city will be reimbursing us for that purchase so that's another source of funding that we have again part of the cares act uh and that 150 billion dollar allocation another separate amount is is 50 million dollars again in the crf we we don't know what we're going to get at this point time we're now working our way from things that we know for certain down to things that aren't uh aren't known at this

139point and some of the details aren't spelled out but this is the broadband connectivity grant program it's a matching grad program we're not sure whether that's going to be a competitive grant or how that's going to work uh but we're supposed to hear the details here in the coming week about how this grant program uh will work and that is i believe as the name uh implies it's broad it's related to broadband connectivity around the state of ohio really quickly that those grant funds my understanding is they can also be used for things such as hotspots as well as other devices so so there's a little bit more than just just connectivity it's it's also the hardware that goes along with with said connectivity but again we'll know more in the next week or so

140as far as what the specifics are and how we'll be able to access those funds the next item again federal funding through the state and and eric i believe this is part of of the cares act as well correct that is correct this is part of the cares act as well and this is a separate fund called the governor's emergency education relief fund or gear as we're calling it uh 3 billion in federal allocation uh the state has been allocated about 105 million but we have yet to hear how that's going to be allocated to us and what our dollar amount might be and as as the slide tells you here it's support to local educational agencies and remember institutions of higher education as well so we're of that 105 million state amount it'll be

141shared by um local education agencies like us uh a public school district and also institutions of higher education and it's to those entities that the state has deemed to be most significantly impacted by this public health emergency again details aren't now but they should be forthcoming in the in the hopefully near future anything else on that eric nope perfect summation cool all right um i'm going to let eric take some of these because these are items of pending legislation and eric follows those uh very closely at both the federal and the state level so so the first before you was the heroes act now the heroes that cleared the house a couple of months ago uh it's the three trillion dollar relief package you probably read about it or seen a little bit about in

142the news here recently um it provides uh in addition to relief for school districts also relief for state and local governments um there's some additional dollars for wi-fi hotspots or a lot of that running through the e-rate program uh emergency financial relief for school meals so there's some additional dollars there as well as kind of a change of the calculation on how how we'll do that during this particular period of time provides some um you know tax credits that heretofore school districts local and state governments have been unable to avail themselves of because they were explicitly singled out as as far as having not been allowed to take advantage of those under previous relief acts um that the one that really comes to mind i'm losing my sidekick dr rausch we've lost you never never

143good when i didn't walk through this part of the presentation with him so rather than then to wait for eric if he happens to come back in he can fill in some of the blanks but um again as he said this is the the heroes act as it's being called and currently pending uh at the uh federal level well there he is he's back i i don't know where i don't know where i lost you so i apologize i apologize for that um in in short this is the house plan this is uh passed a couple months ago i don't want to necessarily repeat myself you've already heard me go through all of that um but additional funding both both for school school districts about 58 billion dollars there will go to k-12 education and

144there's some relief funds for local and state governments um the senate version which is the heels act which is on the next slide that's the the senate republican version there's 70 billion dollars in relief funds for k-12 education there's another five billion dollars for gear funding that's part of this particular package now that 70 billion then is kind of further subdivided where a third of those dollars will get released fairly quickly and again using kind of the same formula they used in uh in the cares act uh that gave that netted us about 28 million it's based on title one um proportion of title one students um the remaining two thirds the way it's written currently in the senate plan though is only for schools who who actually reopen and so they have to put

145together a reopening plan and submit that they have to be in session at least 50 percent of the time in person so this is right now one of the key areas of contention with the between the house the senate and the administration as far as whether or not there should be any stipulations on further relief funds for education there's a lot of different moving parts and pieces that are part of the conversation right now in the negotiations this is a part of that certainly unemployment compensation is is the one that's being discussed a great more in the media but that's another large sticking point and so i think we'll see here in the in the days and weeks ahead whether or not congress the administration can can come to some kind of a conclusion i

146believe that they will uh it's a matter of i think it's more a matter of when and what will it eventually look like so as they say uh you know stay tuned i i will say this about all of these programs um the ones that we are most certain about the first couple that we mentioned where we know we're going to receive that funding um as as you've heard tonight the the planning and our our need to react to changing environments relative to uh the pandemic and opening plans um you have some timing issues you know you've got to get these details from the the state or the federal government um and and yet we want to um proceed with preparing to uh make the purchases necessary to open school in whatever format uh we'll

147be doing that in this particular case all virtual but there's much to be done so in the background um we're we're um well i'm envisioning that picture of of of the duck that looks like they're sailing smoothly on their surface but underneath their they're pedaling um with all their might uh to keep going so we're we're working feverishly in the background to work through all the applications and approvals and budgetary issues and and record keeping that we have to have a place so that we can respond uh promptly uh to meet our needs for you know opening up school uh while yet taking advantage of all these different funding options um uh to help pay to help pay for these these items so that's a um hopefully a a complete but but brief and thorough

148um explanation of all the different funding sources um that we've been outside of our own general fund that we have access to okay uh thank you both standing eric again the board i just wanted you to have and the listening audience to know that we are mindful of the various um um funding uh sources that are out there and we are actively keeping an eye on it to inform you of our um of where we are with each of those areas dr dickson um board member raglan has a question okay uh thank you madam president thank you uh madam superintendent for this uh for this portion of the report my question is for mr port um and maybe this isn't the appropriate time maybe you're going to address this later on but i'd like to

149know how our move to uh in all virtual learning environment for uh essentially the first nine weeks impacts our budget and if you could uh articulate what it would mean to us budgetarily if our virtual uh learning environment were to last for the entire school year well certainly um when we began to plan through uh dr dickson's um you know reopening task force that she put together as those plans were put together we anticipated a full year of being opened in in this um blended model and so we were doing we were doing that costing and we were in the 100 million plus or minus range for some additional expenditures to do that um a significant portion of that um was personnel related and i think that depending upon what we do with transportation and

150um uh what we need in terms of student supervision um because of the different way that the buildings operate in terms of like lunch time is in the classroom and and not in a lunch not in a lunchroom uh uh space as an example there will be required some additional supervision of students the taking of temperatures things like that those are the staff related expenditures so opening up at a virtual for the first um what uh two months roughly um until october 27th i think we'll save some of that but certainly once we get to a blended model after that point hopefully they we won't avoid them in entirely uh that portion of the 100 million was in that 70 million range i think i shared that with the board so we kind of temporarily

151avoid that but i think ultimately we may be faced with a significant portion of that down the road thank you i know that board members have a few more questions at boomer cole and dr pierce but i understand they're for different parts of your report so we'll let uh stan and dr roush you know what i'm almost at the end of the uh they want to you know go back to standing dr roush and then i have one more portion and then a report concludes so if you want to wait to the end or um for those additional questions whichever your pleasure okay well we can wait we'll wait till the end so it but board members if you have any more questions for dr rausch and uh treasurer no okay thank you okay thank

152you uh finally i would like to bring uh our executive director of family and community engagement scott varner to provide a brief update on our radio station wcbe um as you recall scott was given initially to the end of the 2021 school year for to bring a recommendation i've changed that timeline and he is going to bring the final recommendation to the board in december so i wanted him to update you um monthly or every other month prior to to december so that you know exactly where we are with wcbe so at this time scott varner will provide his update thank you dr dixon uh president adair vice president reyes members of the board thank you for this opportunity i'm going to share my screen if that's okay as i've also prepared a presentation and

153thank you for the timing as you know earlier tonight i was hosting our latest virtual family engagement session with our english as a second language team we had about a hundred parents and families on that session who really got some valuable information so i appreciate the timing and allowing me to share this update with you as the last part of the report tonight again i want to give you an update on our reimagination efforts with wcbe what really brings the importance tonight is that this board we have asked we have a request on the agenda tonight three pieces of legislation 19.1 19.2 and 19.3 these are the annual requests that we put forward to the board uh for part of our programming the key components of our programming the first being national public radio programs

154like morning edition all things considered public radio international which is the world afropop worldwide and american public media which is best known as the source for our marketplace report that is a component of our daily programming all three of these pieces are for membership and programming the cost for national public radio also includes digital it's amazing the station has seen an increase in the number of people who are listening to us digitally that is listening to us either through the website or as sometimes i've shared with you if you have a smart device at home and say alexa play wcbe you can actually get wcbe to play in your home so that's some of the the costs there with national public radio as i mentioned these are key components of our daily programming schedule this

155is also what draws a number of wcbe's current audience which then is a driver of listener donations the more listeners we have the more we can hope that they donate uh through membership and that also allows us then to attract local businesses non-profit organizations to advertiser in our world we call it underwriting although it's always been a part of the legislation i wanted to put intentionally in there a reminder that this authorization is an up to amount an up to amount um and i noted that you know should there be a change in the district's management plans with wcbe we would have the ability to change our relationship with each of these vendors which then of course would reduce the cost why is that there a potential for a change in our management plan well

156that goes back to what dr dixon mentioned and that is the work on our reimagination efforts to really rethink the best opportunities for wcbe so there's four things i wanted to update you on tonight as we advance this plan first is finalizing the work of our reimagination advisory group second building on some of the short-term successes that we've seen at the station third our efforts to hire an outside expert to help us in this process and finally giving a realistic view of the station's value so let me begin by updating i know i've shared with with many of the board members before whether it be part of some of the committee work or in some of the one-on-one conversations from the update on wcbe but you'll recall our reimagination advisory group was a number of

157community individuals with very diverse backgrounds and voices ranging from education to business to development experts in radio both locally and nationally and those who work with our young people here locally so this was a great diverse group we began our process back in february and bringing in that group we really discussed the station's current operational and the fiscal challenges that they face the challenges in the radio industry as a whole and especially in public radio and how the station's operations might better connect to the district's academic mission this group shared their thoughts on the value of programming that was currently on wcve such as national public radio the importance of local music local programming or locally produced shows and then we concluded our conversations with a really tough conversation on how wcbe's future funding and

158the operation model might be more fiscally sustainable remember the goal of this group wasn't to necessarily endorse any or create a specific plan but instead to offer some guiding principles some considerations in determining what the success of the station could look like what we also know is from a timing situation that we were entering the final stages of the work with that advisory group just as the covid 19 crisis really began to see a dramatic impact here in columbus and so on on a very personal note my role with the department of engagement our efforts to link and align and grow all of our local partners those supports for our families took on a more important a more high profile role and so the work of this group was somewhat put on hold i say

159somewhat because the ideas that came out of it did not go dormant the work of this group was not uh left to waste in fact it really has fueled some of other work that the station has been doing which i'll share momentarily but i think the work of this group has been beneficial because as we look to the future there there are some key points that i think will help us in figuring out making that best decision and recommendation uh for the district and for wcb there are three key areas of lessons that we have learned over this past year which will fuel this decision making first off there are the lessons of need of need that we learned through our stabilization efforts over this past year we now have a better picture of the

160station's true operational needs the staffing needs and more importantly the financial needs of the station and where the gaps are we also now have a better sense of how wcbe fits into the local radio industry and market and what it brings to the to the market second we had our lessons of risk from our audits i appreciate auditor smith and her team in the office of internal auditor who conducted our first audit but we also had an audit by the inspector general's office out of the corporation for public broadcasting i bite my tongue every time i say it but these audits were were valuable we gained so much insight because there were a number of risks that we didn't know were there that we now know about and as we think about future planning can

161make sure that we're ready to address those risks and finally there are the lessons of opportunity that we got from this reimagination group great insight from this team and others on how we can better match education operations community engagement content marketing development governance even finance to make sure that we are that the station is a better partner with the district in what we do more importantly there were also opportunities to look at how we differentiate the station and how we use the station to represent diversity representing those communities that are often under represented so i think these three lessons are something that we can take as we work with that the wcb reimagine advisory group so i will tell you they are now re-engaged so i've reached out to all of those members with a

162commitment to make sure that we re-engage bring them back in finalize these lessons and recommendations and begin to add that to uh the work so that's part one part two is building on the short-term successes that we've seen at the station um i give a lot of credit to the team at the station right now our interim station manager greg mobius who really has used these last uh eight months in working and looking for ways to improve the station's operations we have eliminated paid programming where possible especially weekends as a way to to save money we have been able to maintain our reduced staffing levels the staff there really stepped up and developed a staffing model um during the the coven 19 crisis that allowed us to continue programming without interruption but while also maintaining

163the safety of our our staff there they were actually even able to maintain some of the expectations for our spring spring fundraising efforts even though we had to completely cancel our spring fund drive and finally they've really worked to increase support of district communications to be kind of a return on the investment of sharing the district's message through the station perhaps you heard the simulcast of all of our virtual high school graduations and completer ceremonies those were carried on wcbe so i appreciate that the station has stepped up and we look to build upon those short-term successes so that's part two part three is hiring an outside expert to help i know that i'm not able to do it all in and also know that we really need some of that outside expertise to come

164in and share with us some great opportunities so we are currently finalizing a consulting agreement with milton clipper out of atlanta he has uh well recognized 40 years of experience in the media industry especially in in management he's most recognized for turning around the struggling public radio and tv stations owned by the atlanta city schools he incredible work grew those two stations to be some of the best in the country by changing the dynamics of the entire organization really revamping it to be more efficient uh to be more inclusive just not not just with staff but with programming and how they really relate it to the community and um most importantly he turned them to be self-sustaining financially in fact as he shared with me uh the stations typically required on a yearly basis a

165two million dollar subsidy from the district uh he turned it around and so now those stations actually give money back to the district so with uh mr clippers help we will develop a realistic blueprint and framework for what wcbe could be both short-term and long-term and i purposely put that word realistic in there because as he shared with me when you go down this path to think about what a station could be there are going to be a lot of ideas come in um but you want to make sure that you're looking for those that are realistic that will be the best benefit uh for the station itself and for the for its stakeholders and making sure that we are realistic in our thoughts so that's the third part the final part i'll share with

166you is that it's giving a realistic view of wcbe's value so we are also finalizing a consulting agreement with organization defcom advisors this is a national firm that does that works in the sale of radio stations and they have specific experience working with public radio assets that are unique as you know we're kind of at the end of the dial in an area that really is reserved for non-profit organizations educational institutions faith-based organizations when you're limited on what you can broadcast that limits who might be wanting to buy you you know 90.5 cannot be the next power 107.5 or wnci um so there's a limited pool of who might be interested in purchasing purchasing us um and his firm is very good about understanding that and so the appraisal that they'll do will be based

167on data that we'll see from national information from ratings from other sources not just the comparable sales of other similar size stations and similar size markets but also looking at the financial forecasts what should we expect the station value to be in terms of the revenue that we should be seeing so i think he's going to give a good fair market valuation as well as a financial picture and that is to be prepared by august no later than august and actually we're hoping for that sooner so those are the four important things as we think about the reimagination it's finalizing the work of our reimagination advisory group it's building upon those short-term successes at the station hiring that outside expert to bring us some much-needed help and for getting that realistic view of the station's

168value as dr dixon mentioned i will now be providing monthly updates to her and the cabinet and hopefully then which will be information they'll be shared with you and we are actively working to provide those recommendations as dr dickson dixon mentioned by december with that that's the presentation i wanted to share and knowing that there had been some questions about wcb in the past are you finished sharing scott normally oh yes i am sorry let me stop okay dr dixon i didn't know if you want to do questions now or a few yes no no i'll just nope that was it that concludes my report for for this evening thank you okay so uh we have questions from board member cole followed by dr pierce thank you madam president uh thank you all for uh

169the presentations that we've gotten this evening that have given us a uh in certain instances a very good thorough understanding of where we are what the current situation is um particularly to that uh about outstanding resources financial that may be available through federal and state uh relationships and connectivity um my first and then i secondly want to say thank you uh mr varner for what has been teed up with regard to getting a much more deep analysis and look at where we are in terms of potential with wcbe or respective losses with wcve so i look forward to what's forthcoming in the future with that um and i certainly hope that you have the opportunity as things move forward particularly on the fiscal end to even present to fac finance and account finance and appropriations

170committee um and talk to us about uh your updates as you get them um with that in mind i have a few questions relative to um our academic gains and madam president if you'll indulge me and i won't be long i promise um as as i've been digesting uh our our our academic situation current situation since covet and even before then um you know and as we've had these even uh uh retreat conversations about where the direction we're trying to go academically and what what our priorities are specifically there are a couple things that have come to mind um for me and i love it if i could even get feedback from us as a board today to help set or give the give our administration a clear idea if they don't have it of

171what our priorities are for final impact on our students academic achievement i don't want to lose sight of that at all if i were an outsider watching this piece um i would think that we did a great roll out of some things but i wouldn't be all that clear about what the academic priorities are of the administration and what what's the direction we're trying to go so the first thought is is that we have consistent teacher engagement to mr cogan to dr cogan's earlier comments um that is something that i am vehemently and have been long before this uh uh focused on and really wanting to see that we have particularly during covet consistent strong teacher engagement and how we're looking at this universe of that kind of knowledge capital from a different perspective from

172an out-of-box perspective again one that maybe isn't even just confined to buildings and conventional assigned teachers but a knowledge-based of talent that can uh engage students on any number of level grade band for grade band um need for need in terms of special education or you know gifted and talented and that's special ed too um academic achievement i need to put my glasses on for what i wrote um academic rigor is another one so second is academic rigor where are we with ensuring that how do how do these new hires how does this structure of you know uh of best practices the structure of training and development amongst administrators how does this trickle down to our teachers and benefit our students ultimately with rigor that challenges them and keeps them engaged student demonstration of mastery

173that is absolutely critical to me um i you know here in my home we kind of had to take we had to step it up and fortunately for both of my children they had a really good experience with their teachers and educators eastmore columbus north international and my estimation really set a bar high and they killed the game part my colloquialism but they killed it when it came to keeping those students engaged and giving them the information and making themselves available uh one of the math teachers at eastmore just did an outstanding job with that where are we with that in terms of engagement and again mastery and rigor and the last for me is academic gain what are we looking for in terms of academic gain we have a 81 graduation rate as per

174last report that i received where are we looking to increase that where are we looking to shrink that gap where are we looking to strengthen middle school and that transition to high school um particularly in this environment where we could very easily lose students i don't want to see that happen so as i'm thinking about priorities i'll just recover them again recap consistent teacher engagement number one two academic rigor number three student demonstration of mastery and number four subsequent gains as a result of that mastery those are my priorities but i'd like to hear the feedback of my colleagues on where we are because the one thing i do want to have happen when we're having a focused conversation or academic achievement of our students is that our superintendent and administration are clear on what

175the board's priorities are thank you so thank you board member cole for that just as a reminder we have a special meeting next week all about the academic priorities including measurement and some of the items that you mentioned uh the superintendent if she wants to can talk about that agenda really quickly um also as you know remember cole we were working with council of great city schools on identifying priorities so that is a work in progress as well as we are um uh greatly um improving our evaluation process of all of our direct reports including our superintendent which outlines specific uh priorities and as you know we are beginning that process right now this month to set those uh goals as a board um so that's where we are and the the discussions are to

176come we are in the process for it um but if anyone does want to say anything they certainly can but i'll turn it over to dr dixon just because this is this is like the third time this has come up so i want to make sure everyone knows we're not ignoring it we're talking about it next week in full detail we're having a special meeting just for academics right uh thank you president dare i think there's a couple pieces one the board priorities are usually set during the strategic plan process as we're talking about those are why we've hired aj and welton to hire why we're working with aj so the board can help set those priorities together as a board um secondly next week's meeting is not for uh priorities to be set it

177is for the board to learn about the new curriculum and how we respond it to the pdk audit thus far so just remember where we were last year and where we are this year and we have a curriculum management system we have actual curriculum now we have an mtss system these are things that we did not have before so next week's meeting is to share with the board at a high level all of these curriculum resources that we will now implement in the fall um and also the management systems all of those pieces is what the board meeting is for next week at a height so you can understand that at a high level there will also be engagement sessions for parents to learn about these various platforms the curriculum what to expect for that

178learning experience from their teachers those would be in individual engagement sessions by group pretty much like we had we've had thus far smaller sessions for parents to learn about what their expectations are next week but those board priorities those are things that are set by a board usually through a strategic plan and a monitored and that information is given back reported out we have those goals that we have set my goals for this year we can um outline some of that work uh we can build it to to those four goals that i have that are moving forward this this this fall but the overall priorities from the board is the work that we are currently doing in partnership with uh council of great city schools i if i may just very quickly madam president

179and i thank you uh for that feedback dr dixon um however and and i'll borrow from and by paraphrasing i'll borrow from uh aj uh mr crable um the conversation and the the focus of our meeting is not just the business or the operations discussion i better better yet the operations discussion of our district it is also that substantive dialogue and deliberation around what is best for our kids based on what best impacts their best results at the end of the day to me quite honestly and i'll push back against you to me our conversations are ongoing discussion if you will discourse on student achievement and what those guard rails are yes we have some goals established but we can always provide guard rail conversation around where we need to be unconventional times like these

180require unconventional flexibility our our ability to be nimble and flexible you've asked that as superintendent and we have we have to my best ability and certainly that of my colleagues imparted that to you and your administration so what i'm asking is as a board that we lead this we lead we lead this effort respectfully by ensuring that everything is that is put in place is that we've given it some very clear idea around what the priorities for outcomes of kids are that's it and this and again please don't see me as an attack this is not an attack please understand that we are colleagues you are my ceo i'm here to support you right so please don't see it that way but i just want to really encourage us to understand let's help you set

181some priorities here some guard rails so we're clear on what the gains are because i don't know what the governor is going to say next week that could impact us even more moving forward but if we've established that we're trying to make some very specific games that we want a certain quality of instruction that we want a certain quality of outcome for our students then no matter what the governor says you're clear on what needs to be done whether it is ongoing discussions with our collective bargaining units whether it is whatever whatever makes our kids better that's that's where i'm trying to take this conversation okay so please again i'm not this is not an attack i i don't think anybody sees it as an attack and i actually don't think anybody disagrees with you

182at all i mean i think we want we all want those things it's just an issue it's it's doing it in the right way to make the best impact and and what i'm saying is i believe we're on that path um and so i mean i don't think today tonight we're not ready to have that conversation in whatever detail you think that um you're ready i mean i don't think we're ready as an organization yet we still have some things to work through and we're working through the process of uh you know working with our consultant i mean no one disagrees with you my board member poll at all we think we want all these things and we have to push um and i think we are we're on a very fast pace to get

183this work done um you know we're talking about having all of our work done by november um so the superintendent can have her work done by the beginning of uh early next year so that we can implement for next school year but but in the short term and this is what i'm talking about with with when we talk about her her evaluation you're absolutely right we will put smart goals around some of the items and these are things that we will discuss um you know as a board and how we want to evaluate her progress in this interim without having that five-year strategic plan um and so all all of this no one i don't i don't think anyone i see everyone that we're not disagreeing um i think it's just a term of like

184the timing of it maybe um and doing it right i thought i saw someone's hand i want to talk about this exact response to board member cole or okay remember raglan uh yes i i i agree with uh with boardman mccoll on this i think um one of the things that he may be trying to get at with having this discussion now is the board giving dr dixon some guidance on uh what we feel we need to be talking about in regards to [Music] opening uh and literally in this change of environment what it is that we would like to see if we're going to be getting a report on information um that that talks about some of this next week uh to board member cole's point i think we should be informing um informing

185a lot of uh what dr dixon may be talking about with her team and planning for that meeting based on what the board would like to see now um to your point board member code regarding you know what other board members would like to see regarding um rigor and the effectiveness of lesson delivery etc um i am a staunch advocate for recorded lessons uh i think that we should be recording what it is that we are delivering students uh i think that those lessons should be stockpiled somewhere that they could be made readily available uh for our children to go back to them um in their own time uh but it would help us as far as evaluating effectiveness and delivery of our lessons uh and that's one thing that i am hoping to hear

186a little bit more um you know feedback from dr dixon on but nobody's asked me what my thoughts are on you know what it is that i would like to see um regarding what it is that we're embarking on for september 8th and so to that point i think that board member and that's just one example i've got a laundry list but but i think that's why board member cole's um you know assertion that we do have this discussion is so very important now next week we're going to get a report um you know about what the administration is doing has been doing has been working on um but as far as i'm concerned i'd like to at least inform dr dixon and the public uh about what it is that we as board members

187are thinking we need to see uh regarding all those things that that board member cole uh mentioned and so i i you know no better time than the president uh to engage in that as far as i'm concerned especially knowing that we're coming back next tuesday to hear more information from our leader thank you board member beckerly um i think that part of what we're struggling with here is that we are in this interim period and we don't have a strategic plan and i keep going back to um what aj crable has said about you establish expectations and you manage the expectations um and i think that um it's hard to be managing in an interim like this because we don't have clear goals and we don't have clear guideposts i guess to some extent

188because we're in this phase where you know we haven't don't quite have the strategic plan and we don't have a lot of the things in place that we're working hard to get in place and so maybe that explains some frustration but i don't think and this is going to sound funny coming from me i don't think we get to say you have to record lessons or you don't have to record lessons or you have to do this or you have to do that um we're in a position now where the best thing we can do is persuade and and poor dr dixon will tell you that i bend her ear all the time trying to persuade her about what i think would be a good idea but it is her it is her decision and

189it has to be because we're all going to have different opinions and so i um i think that you know mr ragland if you have ideas the answer to the ques the response can't be no one's asked me it's on you to call dr dixon and say i really think this and this is why um and then if it's important enough for us to put it in the strategic plan that lesson shall be recorded i don't think we should get into that detail uh which is a nod to mr brown um but that's going forward we're in this place now we can't and it's where we are and it's frustrating and but i don't think that um we are in any position now to get into a discussion about exactly what we expect or want

190to see i think that that is a bigger process and a very um a very structured and detailed and intentional process that is longer and that's what we're in the middle of right now and i think you know it's unfortunate that we're in the middle of pandemic i guess but that adds to how hard it is to lead during this time period coupling for raglan thank you madam president and thank you for that uh board member becker lee i think there's a difference though um between my private conversations with dr dickson in a public setting in which we're addressing the public letting the public and more specifically our parents and our students know what the board's thought process is behind this that is what mr cole in my opinion is asking us to engage in

191i speak to dr dixon all the time in my conversations with dr dixon in my suggestions to dr dixon are always given with the caveat that she can take them or leave them they are always suggestions and they are always in a private setting but looking at where we are today uh we've already seen one proposed reopening plan be shifted we've said all along that these types of discussions were open to interpretation and open to change throughout the process and it is very important for me that we engage with the public letting them know in this particular setting what our thought process is as a board or at least as individual members my conversations with doc one thing but me expressing to the public what my thoughts are around how we should be reopening how

192we should be ensuring rigor how we should be establishing a process is something entirely different in what i feel we were elected to do instead okay can i'd like to remember let him finish beneficial for for for for me and this this is just this is just me this is not you know you may have a difference of opinion but i value the opportunity to say the things that need to be said publicly from this board table and that is what this type of discussion is about there are some things that will be said and have been said to dr dixon in a private setting that remain there but there are things that benefit and impact the success of our students that should be demand to be said from this particular setting in in board

193member code please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong but this is what i heard you saying so uh you know maybe i am interpreting that different but i feel like we should be giving the public our thoughts on what we want to see academically moving forward thank you madam president so so um yes um there are there's there's there's a lot in that what you just said board member raglan um but here's here's the thing you you you haven't ever approached adding something to the public agenda so i mean you know the genders are made you get briefed on it and it's you didn't ask to have anything added to to board briefing or discussion and so if hold on a second if we want to have a discussion about something let's take

194the time to have it if it's that critical to you okay so it needs to be on the agenda right now we're totally off agenda this isn't even part of the meeting this this discussion about how we structure a meeting and how we set up the meeting and what we talk about when up so you know these things are critical i don't think and no one is saying that they are not no one is saying that we shouldn't discuss them but we have set up a path where establishing priorities has been set in how we're going to go about that how we evaluate the the superintendent is set communicating to the public is something we can do we have lots of opportunities to do that but i mean i just don't feel like at this

195moment none of us are in a productive conversation right yes may i respond to that please excuse me for one second dr dixon no it's my interpretation that the academic achievement of the 5 000 students in this district is always on the board's agenda okay this conversation is not productive at the moment so if i could if i could interject for a second i just want to clarify what i did last week i asked the board president and vice president to say the team has been working so hard on all of these curricular um materials some things that were identified clearly in our pdk audit of resources and policies and procedures that we did not have in place you remember when roseanne and they came and they talked about all of those things we have

196many of those items in place and ready to roll out this fall i wanted you to have an opportunity to see what the mts mtss system will look like multi-tiered system of support what are all of those new curriculums we were rolling out so that you would be engaged on what teachers would be teaching and what students will be learning at a 50 000 foot view right because we didn't have those resources but we have those moving forward we didn't have a remember when we talked about talisa could you pull some data for us and make presentations and i tell you we didn't even have the platforms in the past to do that work and to give you those specific data points we will have that information moving this fall and we are so excited

197about it i wanted you to see it that's the that's the whole structure for next week's meeting my thought was then from there you will know all of those resources what we're implementing what teachers will be doing how students will be engaged how what parents should be expect then we can move forward and look at okay so then to lisa superintendent what are some of the reports we want to see those at endos and what feedback do we want from parents all of those because you would know exactly what would be happening in our classrooms you would know exactly what data points that we could i can bring back to you you would know what presentations that you want to see because you would have heard from the academics teams so that was the purpose

198of next week so there is uh i agree there is a follow-up but i don't think we should get um ahead of ourselves an understanding of what the expectations will be what we will be teaching what reports will be available for board to review etc and making sure we're following the pdk audit and then i think those next steps will come so i agree um mr cole mr raglan we're going to be able to provide more information to the board and to our public but next week's meeting is for you to be well versed in what we will be doing and that is very different from what we've done in the past we've not had a cohesive curriculum that was born adopted now we will have those curricular programs we had various pilots now we're

199going to have those programs so we're going to get to exactly um where um you desire to get and setting those goals and setting those priorities but next week's meeting was just that i want you to see exactly what those resources are all of those things that you have been approving for payment how that would be actualized in the classrooms the feedback to our parents the feedback to our our students and the supports that teachers will have um in the classroom thank you madam superintendent if i can just very quickly no i'm glad to my only uh aim at bringing this up today was basically a precursor to that conversation i avoided asking very deep dive questions um that i was writing down as the presentation was underway um i kept it general to what

200i thought were my personal priorities that i wanted to see one if there was alignment just based on what you just told us there is some measure of alignment in what i'm asking for from my colleagues as guiding priorities for you so and as much as i'm talking to you yes i'm talking to joe and jane public and mom and pop public um but my my comments were really directed toward my colleagues to help give you some some greater guidance if you will as to do we have shared priorities around these things and then secondly yes let's have that pre-discussion idea at least that you take to next week's meeting that gives you a greater sense of what it is we're looking for so that if you come if you came with holes next week

201and we didn't we didn't at least say this to you well then that's my fault that's not yours that's my fault as the board member so i just want to be clear that we all share some of the same priority values see want to see some of the same outcomes happen for kids and i expect then next week we'll have of course that deeper dive discussion around that where i will have my questions that i prepared today ready for you then but that's it i i thank you for it for this i think um again uh in contrast to you madam president i think it's been a very productive conversation i do um i believe in creative tension and this is what it is the contraction and expansion of ideas whether they're indifferent or whether

202they are the same um i think you've gotten a clearer sense of where a few of us stand on certain things and i think it just makes us better that's it but i thank you for that i look forward to next week okay so we're moving on but i just want to say i i do not stifle conflict i believe the difference in hearing difference of opinion is essential to moving forward um and so you know these conversations are critical what i'm saying is if we want to have a meaningful dialogue a meaningful conversation about we have that meaningful and meaningful conversation about it because that is most productive if we're trying to have the conversation to get to an outcome and a goal um we're moving on from this conversation i think we are

203all in a fine space and we look forward to the the presentation next week there are additional questions on other areas i know okay so um it's going it's dr pierce then board member brown then board member becker lee dr pierce so president adair thank you so much um first and foremost can indulge me for a second um i have students who watch this meeting i have colleagues and family who watch this meeting who have seen me with my head down because we just went off into a tangent this has been a very long meeting and every now and then you need to just stop and breathe you need to stop and think about all the things that you are thankful for the fact that we are still able to have this meeting the fact

204that we all saw rainbows when it rained the other day the fact that we have babies that are being born in the that will come into our schools and do great things and just center ourselves for a moment on what we have to be grateful and thankful for these meetings take a lot out of us we all contribute in a productive way and share our insights to move the district forward but sometimes when you're at the third or the fourth hour you just get tired and so community members indulge us for a second so we can just take a moment to breathe and be thankful and think about the work that we need to do thank you for that and so to my questions uh dr dixon first let me thank you and your team

205for providing an opportunity to introduce our new administrators and our new principals i am a proud product of this district and that is honestly the first time administrators have been introduced to our district and our community in such a way you put a face with the name so all of our parents that were here this evening watching this all of our parents that will watch the recording have a face that they can put with the name if they see you in kroger's they can ask you that question about special education when they walk into the doors of west high school they can greet you with a smile because they saw you so thank you for providing that opportunity early in your presentation you talked about our current enrollment for the digital academy my question is

206are we adjusting the registration given our recent reopening plan can parents make changes in their decision given our reopening plan that's my first question registration ended august 1st we have almost 6 000 students so parents actually the night um that we made their announcement um many parents made their decisions that tuesday night there were several engagement sessions in which parents were given the opportunity to ask questions so we have to plan for staffing and curricular resources and so august 1st was the deadline there were a couple other parents that we're still following up with um but august first was the uh what's the deadline okay my next question is you spent some time talking about our family engagement sessions well this week's sessions include interpreters i'm given that they're focused on our ell population will

207those sessions be available for viewing on telemundo special access channels outside of just facebook and do we have those times and sessions posted and readily available for community members yes so tonight i talked about um that we had interpreters were a part of um of the session tonight um they're they're always part of the special sessions to help answer questions and families can always go back to the website to review all of the previous reopening sessions so any of those virtual sessions you can go back and review did i answer your question or was it another part dr dixon i think that mrs gillison would like to help you a little bit with that question dr pearson is she on i didn't see ma'am yes i'm on and um i will echo what dr dickson

208shared tonight was our spanish session and the actual presentation was in spanish tomorrow is our somali virtual family engagement and tomorrow we have our somali from 5 30 to 6 30 our nepali from 7 00 to 8 p.m and then on the sixth we have our arabic from 5 30 to 6 30 and our french from seven to eight and that encompasses our five major languages and as dr dickson says those sessions are in their native tongue and those will be posted on our facebook not our facebook page but on our website families can go back at any time and review those sessions if they didn't have an opportunity to view them tonight excellent thank you so much uh my next two questions then relate to summer school and in particular you might need to

209get this information back to me but in your presentation you indicate that the attendance was up from past years but you don't give us a percentage you don't give us an indicator of how that attendance increased in what areas it was or how it contributes to our students graduation plan i would like to know how the attendance how our overall students engagement and achievement in this year's summer school is contributing to our graduation plan did i go okay thank you i bring that information back to you next week um then my next question related to um really it connects to summer school and cbe we've had a number of different allocations uh requests for spending come across the board table for cpe i would love to know how we leveraged cbe for summer school and

210how we plan to leverage wcbe for our virtual learning moving forward a more robust plan of how we really plan to again um use wcbe to help with student learning and connected to that could you send the copy with the rest of that presentation to board members um my copy of the presentation stopped at slide 14 so i did not have the wcbe presentation in my slide deck for prior review to tonight's meeting okay i have scott varner on he can speak to that um scott um president adair to board member pierce yes thank you um i think as you heard our hope is to engage that consultant who i think just what you shared will be part of that work we also heard some of those same echoes from our um reimagination advisory group

211so i think there's going to be opportunities to see how that fits into that realistic blueprint um that mr clipper kind of will help us see so that so that the board has an opportunity the superintendent can present to you some of those different recommendations to see what what the best opportunities are and then what if any costs are associated with those that you best understand what the station can be so just what i hear you saying is we did not leverage wcbe for our summer school um learning and we do not have a plan to leverage wcbe for our virtual learning um no i would share that that um as part of so for summer school we you are correct in that we did not have any summer school classes um that were that

212we used the radio station for um that because that's not something that um that we've set up a plan by which to be able to do that now i will say we did leverage wcbe as a way to promote the summer school programming so those are ways in which we are currently using wcbe to leverage the work of the district to make sure that we're using that platform for what it's great at and that's broadcasting out information so we did leverage wcbe to promote summer school learning as we think about what virtual and remote learning will look like moving forward again i think that's part of the work of that reimagination process to see what are the realistic opportunities for the station how it might fit into um if that's the best determination for how

213we utilize wcbe how that might fit into a greater plan and two final questions and um mr varner one of these questions is for you we did not have a local vendor in columbus ohio that could help with the transformation process for wcbe when we looked at we really wanted some national expertise to understand the unique natures of public radio and i think we found an excellent person in milton clipper who has not only that 40 years of experience but actually the experience of working with a public school district turning around stations where there were truly some financial struggles some struggles in better connecting the station not only to the work of the district but to the community itself so gosh i think we found an excellent consultant to help us bring some of that

214potential and vision to the work that we're doing and help us think about what those realistic opportunities would be to connect the station with our mission um if that was the direction that the board and superintendent would choose and then colleagues thank you so much my last and final question relates to summer school um during the slide deck dr dixon um miss corbin shared that staff were asked what did we do well what could we do better were families particularly parents caregivers and students asked what do we do well what can we do better in regards to summer school and potential ways to step forward positively into our virtual learning for this upcoming year i'm not sure if emma gainer's on to ask to answer if we had additional surveys for our families but i

215would get that information back to you thank you i appreciate you all for indulging my question please colleagues continue to breathe thank you dr pierce uh board member brown uh it was just taking a breath um just a few things and i cut back uh some of what i was intending to talk about uh of respect in part for your request uh jen and uh i very much appreciate uh with respect to the conversation that we uh that that got us beat toward i think uh i appreciate the your handling and and your comments about that uh as well as those of uh dr nixon and uh and and uh carol you didn't need to call me out i knew where that was coming from uh so thank you for that uh i did have

216a couple questions for uh scott uh probably more common uh i i you know what i heard tonight this this uh presentation the plan was what i had hoped to hear uh in in spring of 2019 uh that's what i thought we were doing uh but we're here now um and i will tell you that uh you know yes you're now asking the right questions yes i think the right people are involved uh i did a little bit of reading about uh both defcom advisors and milton clipper and i think you've made some very uh good uh choices uh for folks to work with that have the uh necessary expertise um i'm not gonna uh try to predict where this is going to come out but i think uh i i i am happy to

217see you know that we're finally moving in this direction that we have a clear and well understood timetable and uh and we can just get this done uh so you know at least thank you for putting uh that together uh now and and we'll look for a report uh you know in a few months in december uh and uh yeah the rest uh the rest can handle other time uh i think that the process that we're engaged in is very thorough is very comprehensive and i like the process and i i want to continue to see everybody participating in that and i think that it will get to uh the questions that were raised tonight in the issues and uh and help keep us on track and on time thank you thank you board member

218becker lee hi um well not high we all know we're here thank you um i had a whole long um list of uh added boys and mata girls but given the time i'll um opt to send most of them in emails but the one thing i did want to say is that i was thrilled to see during the summer school sessions the weekly connections with the parents and how that was perceived as making a huge difference in the overall results and the connections between the families and the kids and the teachers and the success of the summer school sessions as you may recall i had suggested back in march when we were going virtual that engagement should be a priority um because despite uh board members raglan's suggestion to the contrary i do believe that

219things should be said in public and i am very regularly sharing my um advice or suggestions in public um i did not in any way intend to suggest that things should be said in private or that we should be discouraging public um discussion but that is thrilling to me and um i think that's going to be a key going forward and that's where these technology is going to make a difference a a a radical difference in student engagement family engagement and the educational results a quick request question about next week's uh presentation i'm hoping and actually that one of the other atta boys are out of girls was going to be um the engagement stuff is just amazing um what we're doing with these sessions and these family sessions and the parent sessions i think

220um it's really really wonderful and uh the stuff that um the things that uh the engagement and the communications groups have accomplished this year and during the pandemic are truly um truly remarkable and you know light years ahead of where we were a year ago so please we should not lose track of that because it's really important um what i'm hoping um is to hear next week or not too distant future are um some uh details about the strategies to connect to the people that aren't connecting with us um and then i have a question for scott um varner on wcbe um the uh up two amounts that you suggested uh with respect to the national public radio budget items if we were to receive an evaluation of what the district or what the station

221was worth in october and decide we want to sell it are those up to amounts sort of on a monthly basis are we committing to spending all of that money i assume they're annual licenses so that's my question for scott how much can we avoid spending if we decide to um go in a different direction president dare to to board member becker lee uh those are uh we pay those bills uh quarterly so if there were to be a change in our how we wanted to operate the station that would impact those pro those programming decisions we would have opportunities to go back to those partners to those program providers change our change our agreement which would then reduce the cost but typically on a quarterly basis so um okay so we could cancel them

222in other words and then um my follow-up question i guess is and and your lessons learned in your third category i forget what that was but i think it was opportunities um do you have any more detail about the educational opportunities i keep hearkening back to aj krabill saying the sole purpose of the school district is to educate kids and so really to me the only justification to continue spending and really using our resources to address wcve in any capacity is how is it going to turn back to be and further into the education of our kids so i i assume that those details are forthcoming and you don't have them at the moment or do you have any light you could say about that i don't want to take too too long but but

223i can share that you know as part of the conversations with our advisory group we really did talk about what are the better ways in which to connect with our young students is it a case of internships you know if we think about wcb's location on the fort hayes campus it is yards from an area oh yeah no i know i taught there yeah where young people are learning on the the latest equipment for audio production yet none of those students who are in audio production have ever come over to intern at wcbe because the equipment is so outdated right again as we think about examples of those educational opportunities that's one if if we as a district decide that the station should be kept and that's something that we think is important our internships

224then what investment might we make um perhaps using some perkins dollars those careertech dollars to put in place the equipment at the stations that those students who are just yards away can come over and be a part of it the the other aspects you know it's also on a campus full of incredible talent and we've actually looked for ways currently to make sure we're airing more of our young people who are performance so when you listen to the station now you'll actually hear songs performed by columbus city school students um but wouldn't that be great to also use that as a platform um to create a source of revenue even i've heard that as an opportunity that as young people are creating these great music then how do we turn that to creating a pool

225of talent that then can be shared with it with others but then there's really also the opportunities you know internship at a radio station is not just about being on the air or business and stuff or scheduling it's about advertising it's about office administration it's about so many different aspects so again as we think about and i like the term um that we heard about leveraging the station you know how do we leverage the station to provide our young people with more opportunities more those educational experiences so that they can see themselves in potentially different jobs so those are just a handful of examples that have been a part of the conversation and again where i think that milton clipper is really going to help us is he will take all of those kind of

226opportunities that we heard along with all of the other different aspects the need the risk staffing finances community input pull all those together and tell us these are really the realistic aspects that we should think about and then what are going to be the the cost the investment needs again if we want to do more education what's going to be the need for investment from the district so that again so that the superintendent and you can make a um can make a good comparison of of the station's value what you think it should be what it could be what it could leverage um as well as what if you were to make other decisions with the station okay all right thank you that's all i i think that is the last question yes okay thank

227you uh madam superintendent all right we will move into item seven the internal auditor hello internal auditor smith do you have a report this evening uh good evening president of there i do not have a report but i would like to take this opportunity to welcome dr blue to the district and to welcome all the new administrators or to say congratulations to those administrators who have been with us for a while but are transitioning to do other other functions and regarding summer school i do have a teenager who was in summer school and i must say the flexibility and the encouragement and the constant communication definitely made a difference and especially that last push you know hang in there you can do it you're so close um so i can attest to the um uh

228the the the benefits and just the um the the just the benefits of the program so i'll just leave it at that so thank you and and welcome to everyone thank you so much we will move to item eight mr treasurer how are you couldn't be better yay do you have a report this evening i do not have a report for you though but thanks for asking you're welcome sure we will move on to item nine um we have in board matters item 9.1 resolution to refund latch key fees paid during covet 19 pandemic closure i'm gonna turn over to board member becker lee for a motion um madam president i would like to move to approve item 9.1 which is a resolution to refund the latchkey fees paid during the coveted pandemic second please

229call the roll is beckerly yes mr brown yes mr cole absolutely yes thank you dr pierce yes mr ragland yes vice president reyes yes and president adair abstain that motion carried thank you we will move to item 9.2 first reading of am i supposed to read the resolution well you know but it's okay we already did the second so it's all right okay um we have item 9.2 first reading of omnibus amendments to board policies i will turn it over to board member brown thank you uh thanks to all your policy review committee has been hard at work uh in fact we met uh twice just last week on wednesday and friday mornings and uh we've been getting a lot done and we've got a wonderful committee uh and uh uh very thoughtful and very

230thorough and uh they've done some good work in bringing these policies to us as well as uh more in the pipeline uh tonight we have four policies to uh consider uh and they're all here for first reading only and after i just described the four of them um if anybody has questions or concerns you can raise them now but you can also uh bring it to me uh after the meeting and we'll be teaming these up for a second reading and adoption at uh at our next regular meeting uh the four policies are as follows the first is pertaining to graduation requirements and this is uh an update to conform our policy with newly passed law house bill 166 from the general assembly was passed and requires these amendments and the revisions now reflect current

231state law and we should adopt those the next three are all brand new policies the first pertaining to students at risk of not qualifying for a high school diploma is needed because the law changed general assembly in house bill 166 has directed certain changes and in how we deal with students who might not qualify and provide some interventions early on in the process so that it's not all last minute uh there is guidance from the ohio department of education that helped shape this and uh every student's going to have a graduation plan and it does some other uh good things and now reflects current law should be adopted the next one is not a result of uh law changes but uh neola our policy uh service firm uh simply got to this uh and uh

232pushed it out to uh all of the school districts it services and gives us an opportunity to cover uh how drones are used uh on over uh school property the committee did a very thoughtful job in having discussion about this and bringing up questions that i had not initially recognized which is always the case with this group and i think we've come up with a a good policy uh to recommend i'm not aware that we've had any problems or issues uh dealing with this so it's uh one of those policies where i think we're ahead of the curve and finally a policy that is uh very very timely uh on facial coverings basically face masks that are used during a health emergency uh the policy is required by the new guidance that was issued by

233the state in july and it reflects the language required in that guidance and we've gone through and made cross-references to other existing policies such as those pertaining to disabilities it provides in this policy we provide coverage for everyone district employees volunteers and visitors and of course students and the recommendation is to adopt this policy to remain in compliance with state guidance i know that the governor just today announced that masks will be mandatory for all students upon return to school whenever that occurs uh i was very pleased to hear that he's finally got to that point uh not that it's easy and it's going to be challenging and and challenging for many people but it's it is uh clearly the best way to prioritize the need for safety and good health hygiene so with that

234any questions about the four policies back to you madam chair thank you um so it's okay it's a fun uh reading them you do have uh questions or changes um you can put those in writing to chair brown and dr roush and with that this will constitute the first reading of the omnibus amendment to board policies um we will now move into the consent agenda um without objection we will amend the agenda to remove item 14.10 from consideration hearing no objection the agenda will be so amended are there any items from the consent agenda that any board member would like hold this evening okay seeing none is there a motion to approve the consent agenda to approve the consent agenda second i said thank you um will you please call the roll mr brown uh

235yes except as to items 19.1 19.2 and 19.3 on which i vote no mr cole yes dr pierce yes with the exception of 14.11 to which i abstain mr ragland yes vice president reyes yes president adair yes with the exception of item 20.4 from which i abstain ms beckerly yes with the exception of items 19.1 19.2 and 19.3 uh for which i vote now motion carried madam chairman thank you so much um are there any board announcements this evening uh yes madam president remember cole thank you so much um i just want to uh announce to uh my colleagues and uh the rest of our listeners that the african-american male wellness freedom walk will be taking place this weekend august the 8th uh beginning sharp at 10 a.m what we are encouraging folks to do

236is walk their neighborhoods in fact if you can't walk your neighborhood walk up and down the stairs of your home walk up and down walk through the basement wherever it is we're asking folks to get out and just be active we're not saying or or congregating you're not encouraging the congregation of folks um and if you do we are encouraging that you so you practice the cdc guidelines of masking up and being socially distant um but with that we like to we'd like to chronicle as many folks as possible to participate you can do that by going to your text and texting the number 31996 text the number 31996 and type in walk what will immediately prompt in response is a direct link to register for the walk you can register and what we like

237to be able to do as a national center for urban solutions is chronicle the number of folks who are participating so get out socially distanced uh mask up or just stay at home and walk around but we're encouraging all folks of all colors to get out into our neighborhoods and walk our communities for our own personal health and well-being thank you thank you a board member brown thank you just uh very briefly a couple of items uh first uh you've probably all heard uh some of the continuing national drama that's only gonna get worse between now and november but one of those items dealt with the census and dealt with possibly providing an early cutoff for census data collection that's discouraging however it does provide an incentive for me to say to all of you

238and to everybody listening let's get to work on making sure that everybody participates it's incredibly important uh there is a a vast amount of money that is distributed uh entirely based on census data and it will make a difference for the next decade and is essential so please participate in the census and get everybody know to do so [Music] the other thing that is obviously coming up uh perhaps not soon enough is uh is the november november election uh it is moving forward quickly and voting early is going to begin before any of us realize it so make sure you get prepared you learn what you need to do that you get registered you can still do that and you participate in our democratic process i was very pleased to participate uh i think it

239was just last week with with some folks from league of women voters and several other groups who want to come into the schools uh as they have in the past but now they have an opportunity a much bigger way i think to leverage that and to expand their efforts district-wide and uh to help make sure that our young people who are reaching voting age uh do register do vote and that they get folks in their families to do the same so i just want to commend to all of you that the voting is going to continue to be extremely important high priority and finally i just want to thank all of my colleagues on the board all six of you uh discussion that several points this evening uh you know went you know went in

240a different direction or uh or or there was a bit of tension at several times and yet all of you handled yourselves well and respectfully and uh you know it's it's a it's a pleasure to work with all of you uh when we can do it in this way uh the focus throughout was on kids in benefiting them uh educationally scholastically academically and uh and i think you know we do that and uh we're going to continue to do that so i appreciate the opportunity to work with all of you thank you uh board member brown yes kids first growing up problems later right it's going to be dr pierce then board member raglan thank you so much so um as as a child growing up in columbus i spent plenty of summer days in

241the linden community and during the past couple of weeks we've seen some violence happen in that community and so at this moment i want to to every columbus resident student say that you are loved that you are valued that we cannot wait to see you in our buildings that we cannot wait to contribute to your success um every now and then you just get caught up in living and sometimes you just need to hear and know that there's a community of caring that supports you that is excited to be around and with you so to my whole columbus family you are loved you are valued please be safe as we continue the rest of the summer protect and keep our babies safe as well thank you thank you for remember raglan thank you madam president

242and i'd be remiss if i did not uh go on record and recognize the passing of congressman john lewis uh a member of five minister fraternity civil rights icon in someone who contributed to the advancement of all people here in the united states of america and also reverend ct vivian as well both of them passed about a week or so ago and they've been recognized widely uh throughout the country and uh each of them contributed to the fabric that is our country and i wanted to make sure that we gave both of them uh proper uh recognition uh on on today uh for the many many attributes that they have contributed to uh us all so if we could have a moment of silence please for the passing of congressman lewis as well as ct

243vivian thank you any other comments okay um we will now uh go into executive session vice president reyes the view of emotion yes ma'am thank you i move that the board of education recess into executive session per section 121.22 g4 of the ohio revised code to prepare for conduct or review negotiations or bargaining sessions with public employees concerning their compensation or other terms and conditions of their employment second please call the role mr cole yes dr pierce yes mr ragland yes vice president reyes yes president adair yes ms beckerly yes mr brown yes provided we have a very short break first we will motion carry thank you the board will recess into executive session we will come back to public session to officially adjourn the meeting for those staff members that are leaving us thank

244you so much for participating in our meeting this evening um we will board members uh once you transition into the breakout room we will take uh 10 15 10 minute break 10 10 minute break i'm seeing 10. and we will get started um back okay so thank you