001okay i called to order the november 4th 2020 business meeting of the cincinnati board of education we welcome everyone and request everyone in the audience to please silence your cell phones and electronic devices mr messer would you please lead us in the pledge i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all mrs wagner please call roll mrs bates president miss bolton president mrs bowers here mr lindy here mr master president mr moroski here president jones fear members of the public who wish to speak during hearing the public must request to do so during the first 10 minutes after the start of the meeting to speak you will need to send a request by
002clicking the chat button submit your name your affiliation to the district your school community and your contact information if you want a direct response to any questions you might have in keeping with the board standard practice for hearing the public you must click the visibility icon when you are recognized to speak individuals who request to be heard after the first 10 minutes of the meeting will not be recognized to speak thank you superintendent please introduce our first presentation yes so for this evening all the presentations go together and so i'm going to do one introduction to connect all the dots and all the pieces we are going to start in reverse order and then we're going to start with our safety data each board meeting we provide an update to this the health data for
003the city of cincinnati the county hamilton county as well as cincinnati public schools so we will do that this evening and then we're going to go from there right into blended learning and then we're going to take a deep dive into three schools on the west side and look at the west side programming so as they're pulling up my powerpoint slides i am more than happy today next slide please if you could see the smile on my face from ear to ear under the mask you would know that um along with the board i am extremely grateful excited happy appreciative of all of our voters who came out to support cincinnati schools in a huge way next two slides please so um imagine that uh the public believes so much in our children and so
004much in the community and the district and our future that in the midst of a worldwide pandemic economic downturn unemployment um and injustices are taking place all across the united states they believe so firmly in our kids to support a levy to the degrees the degree in which it was supported is phenomenal i mean unbelievable it is very exciting day yesterday it was a very exciting day today you can see some examples of our young people who express their appreciation to our voters so number one we want to thank all of our voters who came out to support us we are so excited and so appreciative you are so generous not only with your money your time but just your interest in our district so we want to thank all of our voters all of
005our volunteers we had thousands upon thousands of people who wrote postcards who made phone calls he did text messaging who put up these huge signs all across the city so thank you to all of our volunteers to our parents and our grandparents who supported this we thank you for your efforts and work and to all of our staff at all the different levels within cincinnati public schools really supported this effort the business community also really came together to work with us literally on a weekly basis on the advisory team for the levy to also make this happen as you know the levy is for 48 million dollars 15 million of that is to support preschool not only preschool within cincinnati public but also preschools with our community providers and this is all done in collaboration
006with cincinnati preschool promise so we are extremely appreciative grateful and excited about the work that we have been able to do together with cincinnati preschool promise and now because of this money we're excited about the work that we'll be able to do over the next five years this levy is not only for preschool we know that it's still important for our kids to our kids to have a strong start with preschool but it supports pre-k through 12th grade this supports what happens to our young people after they leave their our doors graduate and go into a career pathway so again i could not be more excited than today then last night we were at the board of elections to finally be able to call it and say the levy has passed by a huge margin
007so thank you to everyone thank you to our board and everyone who supported this levy thank you all right next slide so this evening here's what we're going to cover the major priorities for our district and those priorities are identified as safety being our number one priority and so you're going to hear some information about our community data our city data our county data and cincinnati public schools data in particular another priority obviously is education and so um you're going to hear some information tonight so we're going to go right from the community data and the health data right into our blended learning update so that you can see what's happening as it relates to blended learning and as well as how we are closing the gap between what our kids experienced last winter um
008in comparison to right now and then we're going to take a deep dive into a subset of schools three schools on the west side of town we're very excited to hear about the work that they have been doing since the beginning of the school year their work actually started last year so i think it's really important to always remember and keep in mind that um despite the fact that we're in a pandemic cps we are moving forward and we have a lot of dedicated staff who are at work each and every day making this happen and so i'm so excited to be able to say that we are progressive and that we're moving forward so at this point in time i am going to turn our presentation over to sarah trumbull oliver and she's going
009to provide a community health update and then from there we will go straight into our blended learning presentation and from there into a deep dive into three schools on the west side of town again thank you everyone we're so excited to be here dara good evening so i do have an update tonight for our community health data next slide please for our city of cincinnati daily new cases we do continue to see an increase in the daily new cases for the past four weeks now we have reached the um peak of our seven day average that we saw back in july on the next slide you will see that for the four past 14 days of city new cases we have three days that were a decreasing seven day average taking this daily average and
010dividing by the number of um individuals we are now at 23 new cases per 100 000 individuals which is up from 21 last week for hamilton county we're at 28 daily new cases per 100 000. and our regional health professionals um have a suggested threshold um to recommend distance learning at 25 new cases per 100 000. on the next slide our positivity rate has increased as well for the city of cincinnati it is at four point four point eight percent and for hamilton county outside of cincinnati it's at six percent on the next slide the average link to get test results remains unchanged one important addition that i want to add is a huge part of our district safety plan is being able to identify and isolate positive cases and paul mcdole has worked with
011our local health partners to administer free on-site employee testing on a rotating basis at all of our locations and so far we have tested over 1200 employees at 13 locations so this is a tremendous addition to our safety plan and something that we're not aware of any other district that is able to provide this on the next slide our hamilton county rating on the ohio public health advisory system has remained at level three red as of last week we are now meeting four of the seven indicators which is down from six of the seven indicators the indicators that that we were no longer meeting um were the outpatient visits and the hospital admissions which a county would be considered as meeting that indicator if they have five consecutive days of increases in those measures we'll
012get an update on this measure tomorrow afternoon so on the next slide um our regional health professionals tell us that not only is it important to look at the community health measures but we should also consider the effectiveness of our safety protocol protocols in schools so this information is from the ohio department of health covid school dashboard and so looking at just hamilton county last week there were 47 new student cases and 63 new staff cases in public schools and that's out of 114 000 students we have also added the the data for charter schools and private schools as they are also required to report their cases to the state now we are working on how to take these raw case counts and add more context for example how many cases in schools per 100
013000 individuals how many cases in schools per the number of in-person learning days and how many of our positive cases were due to exposure to covet at school and the national the new national coveted response dashboard has started to present some of this context with the data they're collecting and so we're specifically um beginning to be able to dig into that data and compare the score rates of coveted cases to the overall community rates on the next slide so for cps specific code counts um susan bunty margaret hall and cynthia igbalmia have been working tirelessly to make sure that we have a system that can rapidly respond to individuals who are ill or exposed or identified as positive and since we have started blended learning three weeks ago at cps we have 32 confirmed student
014cases 600 isolated students and 398 students who were tested through our children's hospital procedures that is out of over 31 000 students who are attending in person the confirmed staff cases is 47 since we started blended learning out of almost 6 000 staff members and we have had to switch six classrooms to distance learning because of a confirmed case and those are typically specialized classrooms uh preschool classrooms or kindergarten classrooms um which we are following are procedures when there are challenges to ensuring that six foot distancing was followed at all times then that would um call for a switch to distance learning so again we're working on how to take this raw data um and add some additional context so that we can consider this alongside the community health data tonight we also wanted to
015add an update on the next slide an update on student attendance so what you are seeing on the left is the district attendance rate overall which would include students who are attending both blended learning and students who are attending through distance learning only on the right hand side you will see students who were attending blended learning either the a group or the b group last week and what their percentage attendance was and so we do see that students student attendance has been affected um and we believe that is due in part due to the community health data and now we will switch the presentation or continue the presentation on the blended learning update thank you superintendent mitchell treasurer wagner and board and sarah tremble oliver the work we are presenting on tonight ladders up to
016these three measures under student-centered decision-making measurable and ambitious academic goals as well as how we are reducing the learning gap in ela and mathematics specifically with our english language learners and students with disabilities we have three key messages although we are currently in a blended learning format of instruction we have worked to create a model that can quickly shift if needed between distance blended and hopefully someday soon face to face we must hold one another accountable and seeing the child behind every number and creating personalized plans to accelerate their learning and we cannot do this alone alone we are smart but together we're brilliant to begin we would like to express our profound gratitude to our cincinnati public schools educators impacting the lives of students daily what you see in front of you is a
017subset of those who have worked hard to level up in our newly launched distinguished educator program as of today 2642 teachers and principals have completed stage 1 and 611 teachers and principals have leveled up to stage two the distinguished educator program broken into four stages was designed in response to educators expressing a need for more pd regarding blended learning best practice beginning with building relationships first we focus on content pedagogy and technology to promote accelerated learning through equitable instruction in blended learning environments everything that we do is geared towards educating our students regardless of circumstances last time we were with you we focused on call to action one finding new ways our students can see themselves and other cultures in their learning the equity and anti-racist work are critical to disrupt the system and must
018be done in conjunction with calls to action two and three as an educational system we must strive to do these things day by day week by week no matter if we are in face to face blended or distance this is difficult work during a pandemic it is even more difficult however the late senator john lewis inspires us with his message if not us then who and if not now then when our kdd outlines our overall theory of change our goals and aims on the left articulate how we will know we are successful in the middle are our key drivers that we collaborated with teachers and principals identifying the conditions we believe need to be in place to reach our goals the first set we collaborated with principals and teachers and the second we believe as
019a department that we must focus on to accelerate learning for each child to decrease the learning loss due to covet 19. the projects to the right are those spaces we are actively testing and learning in order to build a system where every child succeeds lanisha simmons our 712 ela manager and bridget mccomas our curriculum manager of diverse learners we'll share why and how we are building a system to accelerate learning and you're also hear from teachers today about what this looks and feels like in the classroom thank you emily and good evening uh so as an institution for learning our number one job is to educate regardless of circumstances so why accelerated learning due to the pandemic a light has been shining brightly on the inequities within our system we knew that learning loss was
020inevitable for our students many studies including a study from the new teacher project stated that students would experience a learning loss of 30 in reading and 50 in math as a result of the crisis to be able to support our students through this going back to business as usual was not an option for curriculum and instruction to address inequities head on and ready our students for grade level learning we are focusing on accelerating learning rather than remediating research shows remediation could actually create more inequities for our students and increase their likelihood of not mastering grade level work and grade level content unbound ed's number one charge to begin addressing educational inequities is to adopt aligned high quality curriculums so we would like to say thank you to the board for making accelerated learning possible for
021our students because of your leadership your support and your vision our teachers are able to utilize our adopted curriculums and keep the focus on providing strong instruction to grow students so to move this work forward the cni department created the accelerated learning guide in creating this guide we were aware of the importance to ensure that the components were agile and could be adaptable and transferred to any environment whether we are distant or blended the four components to accelerate learning are number one building a community of equity and excellence number two engage students in grade level instruction regardless of circumstances number three collect and provide feedback and number four plan to address unfinished learning which are skilled students haven't mastered yet scaffold and enrich and monitor your students progress so we are excited to celebrate teachers
022who have implemented these components in their classroom we're going to show you a somewhat short video that's going to highlight these components and what teachers have done with them in their classrooms i've been able to create a community of equity and excellence with my classroom by utilizing the schoology platform as a way to administer our open physical education and etr health smart curriculum this enables every student to have access to the same materials whether we are in distance learning our a b cohorts or for students and families who chose to stay fully remote i'm hoping that this consistency has helped both students and their families to find success during the uncertainty of the school year so far i am able to create excellence and equity in my classroom by going the extra mile for my
023students if they do not have access to internet i have sent parents packets i have sent text messages so that students are able to still get access to all of the materials that we use in class students are able to dial into google meets students are able to call into google meets students who struggle with doing their work independently are able to come to my office hours and ask for help i am able to communicate when students are doing well and i'm also able to target those students who need a little extra help i recognize my students for their excellence and i help them succeed in all areas the way that we create the community of equity we're especially during these challenging times we have to be super aware of the challenges that our students
024and their families face we realize that they've got a lack of internet that they may have a deficit in knowing like technological skills we have to be super cognizant of them the families losing their jobs during these times so being an advocate for them is really important by providing those contacts and resources that could be of benefit to them not only not like equally acknowledging but valuing those efforts of all of the students in our classroom regardless of race and gender is super important we're using an app at wikrow called talking points and that's been really helpful it was piloted last year at awl and it gives us a chance to communicate with all of those families in their native language i think in order to create that strong sense of community whether it be
025face-to-face or online it's really important for us to be flexible as educators and make sure that we're really guiding those students we should still have high expectations and rigor but of course it needs to be coupled with compassion and equity this year more than ever for me it's important that our students have access to grade level appropriate work however it is a reality we had to face that some of our students may have some unfinished learning from last school year so it was important that i took an asset based approach instead of a deficit approach so that we could tap into students prior knowledge talk about their self-efficacy skills and really see what skills they did and did not master by the end of last school year so it was important to use strategies that
026would focus on that unfinished learning we use things like peer deck and vocabulary.com also the skills lessons on think circa and one of the things that was most important to our learning especially while remote was the use of the google breakout rooms my co-teacher and i were really successful at helping students where they were and then getting them where they needed to be so that by the time we returned to school the second quarter we could really put more of a focus on the critical aspects of grade level work for this year so even though this year has brought a lot of new challenges we have really tried to implement some of these strategies using technology and not to build a sense of community help students believe in themselves even if they did have some
027unfinished learning and really set them up for success for the rest of the school year and giving them coping mechanisms to access any curriculum we are exposed to the same books the same text and the same curriculum as as their peers um a lot of read aloud so maybe they can't read it independently but they can listen um a lot of scaffolding and then we read different texts at their level that are high interest that link directly with those standards um i have had to really step up my instructional game this year um with students coming in sometimes they look really sleepy and they're not very engaged and so i've had to be creative in the way that i motivate them to come to class to see what wacky thing might happen um and also
028just kind of keep it fresh so some of the things i do more studying observation we would do video on video off when they turn their video camera off or when i turned mine off i would come back and i'd have something ridiculous on like this and they would be have to write down what change make observations scientific observations about that other things i would use is i would use i lean heavily on our discovery ed tech book it's been very helpful for these days where i'm not in class with them and they're doing self-guided learning so that's been helpful and i've also had to pour pull from my resources i'm just from teaching science years past and making sure that when they are in class with me we are doing some hands-on activities um
029with our smaller class size i've really been able to i have the supplies that i can do that without having to share equipment and so the class sizes have really lend themselves to being able to accommodate not being able to share tools and such it's been very challenging for our students to do assignments on the computer but they have found it easier when i link them to google docs and schoology because we're able to actually view the same assignment at the same time and i can provide them real-time feedback on what they're doing to make sure that they're on track before they go out on their own for the rest of the days to complete the work it's been very helpful and it's been a really great way to be able to communicate with the
030kids in this distance and blended learning time in regards to feedback given during blended and distance learning it is very important that students have the opportunity to share their ideas thoughts and reflections several students are messaged me during the day evening time and even on weekends so they're able to get their best work i actually use auto graded assessments as well as teacher generated assessments and it's not just a grade that is important to them they like seeing the responses in spanish as well in english and suggestions that they're received so i think it's very crucial that students be able to give feedback that is return in a reasonable time maybe um 24 to 48 hours so they can assess how well they are doing and see what they need to improve so feedback is
031very crucial it's important whether the distance in person or in the blended model students want to hear back from the teachers so they are given that input so they can better improve their education and also it sets up community with the teachers not just receiving a great empower school it develops a type of relationship that you probably would not have otherwise if you just gave the student a grade in power school and that was um one instructional strategy that i've used during this blended learning time to sort of meet kids where they are um i've used a couple but i think technology is the number one tool that i've used and so i wanted to be able to give kids real-time feedback despite the fact that i wasn't going to be with them and so
032i'm doing that through my use of pear deck which is an instructional tool that allows me to gain data as kids answer questions and then they get that feedback in real time also something that i do for my english language learners we have a lot of students who are not on grade level with their english communication skills and so through the use of schoology and the assignments being on google docs gives kids an option to translate the document into their native language and then they can respond in that language and i can translate it back to english for better feedback to them paradec allows you the students or the audience to engage and interact in a variety of ways so pear deck when i work with my students i have i'm able because of the
033power of paradox i can create a lesson and i can differentiate that lesson for different levels of students within peer deck but i can also differentiate it to address specific learner needs so a student who might express themselves better by drawing an answer or illustrating an answer they can illustrate an answer students that need to type or put answers in that are numerical you have so much variety in how to use paradigm so pear deck is a really great tool i love it i can't imagine not using it now with my teaching and being able to differentiate and reach students no matter where they are whether they're in person or remote implemented several writing strategies during lessons so that a hundred percent of my students would meet proficiency on a winton wisdom question set with
034the short answer portion of that the students in my small groups knew the goal that we were working towards from the very beginning and also they had individual run charts where they could keep track of their individual progress towards their own individual goals as well after each data point was collected on the class run chart we would discuss pluses and deltas of what helped them meet that goal or what didn't help them meet that goal all right so as you can see our teachers are doing some amazing things in this distance and blended learning model um so we want to shout out all the amazing teachers who participated in that video we do truly appreciate them so within our work to accelerate learning we are engaging our field and our teachers and building what we
035call two-week cycles of learning and this supports again the need to be agile these cycles allow us to focus on quality of learning rather than quantity of learning um teachers are able to look at what they want their students to master by the end of this two-week cycle and then they can identify the prerequisite knowledge that is necessary for students to access that on grade level to access that on grade level work and continue growing next bridget is going to share how the curriculum and instruction department and the department of student services has been collaborating to ensure that our diverse learners are getting what they need as well thank you lanisha and thank you to the board i'd like to talk to you a little bit about how we have supported our educators through this
036blended and distance learning environment the first layer of support came in the creation of educator guides by both of our departments first it was the accelerated learning educators guide created by the department of curriculum instruction to define accelerated learning then a companion guide was created for blended learning by department of student services to bring in those layers that we know we need for all of our diverse learners these include safety and guidance for specialized specific guidance including teaching and learning links to online resources planning guidance through schedules and teaming guidance on compliance and guidance on delivery of services the second layer was continued professional learning opportunities we were gifted with allocated time with our educators to support professional learning and additional opportunities for office hours with each of our content area managers this table shows
037the results from our october 26 allocated pd time you can gather that half of the person participants actually greater than half of the participants identified that their level of skill or knowledge after the learning was excellent or very good at the end of the session additionally nearly 90 percent of the participants identified that they had an actionable step to bring back to their teaching practice as a result of attending a learning session we thank the 1137 educators who filled out exit tickets for the 34 professional learning opportunities offered during this time an additional layer of support is considering our students with disabilities we've taken into account for three groups of diverse learners the first i would like to speak with you about are those students with disabilities as you know the majority of our students
038with disabilities are able to continue to receive accommodations modifications and supports in the same learning environment as their peers our educators support them in blended and distance environments through intervention specialist related services occupational therapy physical therapy bihi additionally students in specialized classrooms attend in-person four days per week with a 1-4 schedule looking at differentiated needs our iep teams coordinate with families to determine if there is a need for additional recovery services we also consider our english learners this was abundant in the teacher videos our english learners continue to receive supports and accommodations as outlined in their limited english proficiency plans and students with limited or interrupted formal education or arts life students attend four days per week to further support their accelerated learning lastly i'd like to speak with you about our considerations that support
039gifted learners our gifted learners are supported through academic enrichment gifted intervention specialists share resources with general education teacher teams through professional development and provide supports to students on at home days our buildings can request and gain academic enrichment resources if they need them now i'm going to bring lanisha back to speak with you about some generous opportunities through the weight foundation thank you bridget so as the as we spoke about the three key messages the last one being community and collaboration and we understand that we cannot do all of this work with our students in isolation that community partnerships are crucial to moving this work forward so our science p p e and health manager i'm liz wood has been partnering with the way foundation also known as the newport aquarium and they have been
040working to envision and create cross-curricular and engaging schoology courses for our primary students um one thing we heard over and over again in the spring from families was the importance of having a common launch pad for instruction so the k3 wave schoology course is a great example of making this happen for our families and students the course covers every single standard through from kindergarten through third grade every single science standard from kindergarten through third grade and this partnership is aligned to our every child reads project because we absolutely understand that building oral vocabulary and background knowledge is an essential component of our first graders learning to read and this is just one example of how this is aligned to our projects in our department and is focusing on accelerating learning for our students in the
041schoology course we have teachers from various grade levels and content areas who are utilizing these schoology courses from the way foundation we have hosted many feedback sessions regarding how we have helped to translate this curriculum into schoology so the examples that you see are some feedback that teachers gave in regards to these schoology courses in this partnership one of the videos from the aquarium is of a starfish eating um when we reviewed the data we noticed that it was viewed by 108 of the time and we wondered well how can it be viewed 108 of the time well when we looked dug deeper into the data we noticed that students were watching the video more than once um so we were excited to see that because that let us know that our the content is
042engaging and user friendly for our k3 learners and we're going to continue to get feedback from our teachers and students regarding the ease and use of this course and continue to improve it throughout the school year this partnership with the way foundation has allowed for cross-curricular connections but when students log in they can see realistic fiction they can see science videos they have the opportunity to do math so this partnership has truly been a benefit for our students and we hope to continue it in the future so again thank you to the wave foundation in the newport aquarium for supporting our k3 learners now dr hall will share our next steps good evening everyone thank you for letting us come here thank you bridget lanisha and emily for a great job of explaining everything that
043we've been going on so everybody asks what's next so as we all know teachers are the number one impact on students and our principles are the number one impact on our teachers so our primary focus has been providing supports for both teachers and principals so they can have a successful year we do this really in three ways first we want to make sure that all the hard work everyone is doing is having an impact on student achieve achievement the way that we do this is to continue to provide support for our principals and teachers some examples of this are synchronous and asynchronous pd you've heard about that you heard some of that in the presentation office hours multiple learning guides you have an example of one in front of you this evening finally we will
044improve and refine our communication practices through a variety of ways we communicate with newsletters websites schoology email text messages department meetings through google meets office hours and then you saw in the kdd how communication is a part of that as well so i want to thank everybody for letting us have the opportunity to come here and know that we continue to strive um for always for more for our students our teachers and our principals thank you to the board for your attention this evening and for letting us present this amazing information oh happy day i am so excited to be here to uh do the introduction for the west side expansion i'm going to open with where we were and where we are headed there is rich history on the west side so western hills
045is an historic building that opened in 1928 there was a university focus but had very few pre-ap and honors courses there was some career tech opportunities but lacked a foundation for prerequisite courses in 1970 the annex was built and we started with the walnut west side program with less than 40 students cte courses were not open to both campuses now today and i have a tribe of folks with me want to share where we're going but our lens was around equity and opportunity all students regardless of circumstance will succeed at high levels and we looked at the safety of data and west campus making sure we had balanced enrollment and high quality facilities we took a look at college career pathways for honors ib for all at um data and then we also talk to
046the staff at robert so we can start a theater program and then global learning with expanded languages listed in front of you are all the wonderful tribe members who will present today along with student uh videos so now up who have really led this process is dr dean blaze thank you deputy emma and thank you cincinnati board of education it is so wonderful to be here tonight um i have learned over the past year as the director of school leadership on the west side that there is a lot of passion on the west side and these three schools have brought with them enormous heart enormous passion lots of debate lots of discussion and always with the drive to do what's best for kids we have put a ton of hard work into this project and
047there's just been enormous collaboration so i'm going to start here tonight with one of the most fundamental sort of common sense pieces that we confronted when we got together but what you're going to hear from the remainder of our presenters is how much collaboration went into this piece we worked with members of the college and technical career program the curriculum department administrators at all three schools human resources facilities the ilts at all schools the faculties and the office of community engagement to get all of this to come together during a pandemic to do what's best for kids so what you see here let me orient you to this slide is where we were about a year ago we had about 1300 students enrolled at data and just about 1 000 students at west high but
048the instructional spaces were out of whack so we must have walked those buildings a hundred times or more to figure this all out but what it boiled down to is we were out of balance so with the um again lots of collaboration we were able to bring that into balance this year by through controlling enrollment at the early grades increasing programs and increasing opportunities at west high so we can start to build this back up towards what just frankly makes sense but the real fun comes with what these fabulous people have been working on so i'm going to introduce dr blair the principal of western health hello western hills i'm sorry hello western hills is excited to be here today first i want to say hello to the board members senior officials parents and community
049members first i would like to say congratulations on passing the levy in troubling times like this we're in this is not a small endeavor thank you for the opportunity to share the positive things that are going on at western hills university high school there is plenty to celebrate at west high for example western hills four-year graduation rate increased from 73.4 percent to 75.6 percent our five-year graduation rate increased from 69.9 percent to 81.8 this year we're working to expand our public safety program in addition to our academic programs we have two retired firefighters who are passionate about working with youth mr james dunnigan is entering his second year as an instructor at western hills university high school mr willie jones was added this school year both have been value assets to our public safety program
050the fire program areas prepare students for careers in the fire and medical service students will gain the necessary technical and academic skills to prevent respond and rescue people and property in fire or medical emergency students currently in this course are taking foundations for public safety firefighting medical terminology health credentials etc my public safety team consisting of teachers and district staff are working to solidify a course progression this form will help map out the particular courses needed for students to career to complete their career pathways western hills is expanding accelerated courses as well starting with junior high student junior high school students excuse me per the chart our student population is going to have more chances to engage in very rigorous course work next miss elizabeth oh we'll discuss our accelerated courses good afternoon i've been
051an english teacher at western hills for the past 33 years and i'm also the senior team leader and i'd like to speak just very briefly from a teacher's perspective about the expansion of accelerated courses at western hills double a ap and ccp courses are not new to west high in fact we were the first cps school to offer ccp courses they were then called dual enrollment back in the year 2001. we pursued this opportunity for students to earn college credits while in high school because we knew then as we know now that our students are very capable and they deserve the opportunity to be challenged what we're excited about now is the expansion of these programs and the renewed focus on acceleration at west high we've added double a courses this year at the middle
052school level as well as increasing our double a and ap and ccp courses at the high school level our focus is not so much on identifying students who can rise to the challenge but rather on developing students who can our students are quite capable but they need to know that they are and they need supports to reach high standards to that end we've already developed several professional development sessions for our teachers earlier this year the middle school teachers participated in a workshop facilitated by craig hoover and myself also our english department recently participated in a pd centered around ela specific assignments and grading practices as they relate to accelerated courses without a doubt this initiative will strengthen the academic focus of all of our teachers and by extension the academic preparation of all of our
053students when expectations are raised for one group there's no question that standards will go up for all and i'd like to introduce our next speaker is mr byrd who will give an overview of the middle years program good afternoon hello i am the ib coordinator for roberts academy and vader high school's uh international baccalaureate program this year has been challenging despite this we are pressing forward enthusiastically with our middle years program partnership unlike typical advanced placement programs this program aims to provide a an authentic relevant and rigorous education for all including students with disabilities english language learners and gifted students some of the changes that we've been able to implement are adding two languages at the middle school level french and spanish and an ib design course as our program evolves we will be adding
054community and personal projects at the 9th and 10th grade levels our hope is that these classes as well as the community service and many other aspects of the program will better prepare our students for high school college and beyond please enjoy as three of our students explained what the new ib design program means to them hello my name is adrian challenger i am a student at dader high school design is important to me and i can use it in ways such as when i'm doing a project you can use the design cycle to evaluate what steps you can use and like how you use it for example when you acquire analyze you want to use all the information and design to build up which way you're going towards your project and what you're mainly using
055for one thing that i going to affect me in enjoy future and how i can better engage in projects at school personally i am excited it might be designed to actually use it to my daily life what they now also help me with in the future is making sure i'm on the right track and getting everything done i like i beat design because it kind of it's helping me for my future like i want a business so it's going to help me to create whatever i need when i go to college for high school and like certain steps like ingredient analyzing taking little things that i've learned now oh no until 12th grade it's just going to help me to evaluate my problems to figure out different solutions and once i get my solution i'm
056safe hello i'm tanya boyle i am a french teacher in the ib middle years program at dater in the spring of 2020 leadership prepared and submitted the application for the international baccalaureate middle years program candidature during the summer administration and most teachers participated in a month-long professional development workshop where we learned how to put together entire ib style lessons complete with statements of inquiry different approaches to learning and authentic real world assessment finally this past fall the ib middle years program was launched at roberts in grades 6 through 8 and at dater for grades 7 through 8 for approximately 500 students and on a personal note i want to say that i was an ib student and i know how it changes lives and i would like to introduce now mr al pacino principal at
057roberts academy thank you french teacher who says my name correctly don't tell my dad well good evening board of education treasurer wagner superintendent mitchell and uh again i want to uh be very um proud and appreciative of of all the work to pass this cps levy uh what a great accomplishment it is for all of us i'm also proud to represent roberts academy as the principal here and thank you for having us to share our progress with the international baccalaure program as a vision 2020 4.0 school it was our it was a natural fit for us to look at the international baccalaureate programs as an academic complement to our current daily instruction when we began working with vader high school i found a collection of committed educators who were willing to engage in learning and
058implementing the international baccalaureate program across disciplines as well as across campuses at robert's academy we began in the middle school and we look to expand all the way down throughout the whole school frankly i believe that this will be pivotal for us to be able to redesign what the west side of cincinnati looks like and feels like with regards to rigorous preparation for our students at this point i'll have mr gary moore the assistant principal at dater high school gonna come up mr beauchamp um i'm joined over here by the interim principal ms jasmine madison at dater uh the rigor and focus on inquiring knowledgeable and caring young people who helped create a better more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect withdrawal for data as well the collaboration of the two school staffs modeled
059a future of cooperation between students in both schools our group composed of members from both staffs create a framework of cooperation and organization as well as identifying our id coordinator who works at both schools developing ib practices and strategies as you can see by the slide we will add a grade of international baccalaureate curriculum each year to dater until we graduate our first ib class in 2024 which is our current eighth graders and those are all the ones that you saw on the video i would like to introduce you to sarah morales who's the curriculum manager for world languages to continue our presentation hello good evening i'm excited to speak to all of you about how more students on the west side are becoming world influencers through studying world languages anyone who speaks a language
060has the capacity to learn other languages when given the opportunity and exposure to acquire them when we're talking about language acquisition in the classroom we need to provide as much time as possible for students to reach their highest potential so starting early is very important for our native english speakers this means starting by the seventh grade for our students who already speaking another language are heritage speakers this means viewing their language knowledge as an asset and placing them in courses that honor their existing language strengths and challenge them to hone their academic language and literacy skills in their home language our english learners and other heritage language speakers are given the opportunity to place into the level of world languages courses that meet their needs for our students with interrupted education or slyve this may
061be basic literacy in spanish that reinforces and supports the literacy and academic skills they are building in english for students with strong academic backgrounds they may place directly into ap or ccp world language courses no matter the entry point all students would have the opportunity to take ap spanish or french in the 11th or 12th grade after completing the third and fourth level courses demand for heritage language courses is high and we hope to expand offerings to meet this demand and maximize opportunities for these students now i'd like to introduce ms johanna frolicker of roberts who's going to share with you the experience of one of her former students who started out in their life program has become fully bilingual and is eligible for ap spanish as a ninth grader good evening everyone proficiency in
062other languages has become an essential skill in our ever-changing and interconnected world the skill allows one to engage with others and the surrounding world in more meaningful ways whether in our classrooms communities or beyond while simultaneously helping to better prepare one to thrive in a global economy one of the advantages of exploring and implementing the middle years program is that our students will have access to learning either spanish or french generating more opportunities both personally and professionally recently i had the privilege of catching up with one of my former students hector david oliva who is now a freshman at western hills when david first came to us in the fifth grade he was only speaking spanish this year as a ninth grader david will be enrolling in a virtual ap spanish course david shared his
063experience learning english as a second language and how it has been informative and making him a more understanding empathetic person because of this david would ultimately like to give back to the community and assist others with their learning of another language and could potentially participate in programs through our partnerships with the university of cincinnati cincinnati state and cincinnati children's hospital where he could act as an official translator here i would like to share david's enthusiasm with you in this video of our conversation from last week i'm hector david olivo i'm a 9th grader at west high university high school and i'm a proud bilingual speaker it was a good time although i didn't understand english but you know i have people that they helped me translate for me all that stuff i was scared to
064get judged obviously yeah but it had it does help me at least because now with me knowing two languages if i don't understand something obviously in english i could just go to someone older and i just translate it to them in spanish so that helps me so i can get help from both sides you know since i let i know both languages um are able to communicate with people from both sides you know i can communicate in spanish sometimes i communicate in both languages at the same time with some of my friends helps me because like i'm able to communicate with more people around me one it has helped me on not judging people i can't judge somebody for not knowing english when i've been there let's say you go to a job like me
065at the store i work at is either hispanic or american either one of those two um and you know so i have to me knowing both languages really helps at the store because like i can do stuff that i need english for and then also in spanish one thing i would like to do though is like help people that don't speak but it kind of be like an entrep interpreter thank you everyone nice job and thanks for being here um so really as you can see there are a lot of moving parts but at its core this is a very simple proposition um we realized that there were some inequities and things that we could do better on the west side of town so that every kid over there has you know the same access
066to whatever strengths and brightness they want to bring into the world so that is that we are here and available to answer any questions that you might have so so well thank you looks it looks like everyone um hung around for the board's questions or comments and uh we'll open it up for board comments or questions mr messer um so i'm going to speak to the to kind of both presentations i have to say this is probably my favorite board meeting to date of board presentations um you know i think the the first part on kind of the update in our learning model um you know what i thought about his life is one percent what happens in 99 how we respond and i absolutely feel like this was textbook and people coming together leveraging
067our expertise hearing from our teachers a couple i sent texts to that was so proud to see them on there that really showed that there was nothing they weren't gonna let stand between them and making their children successful and i am so proud of this district and everything i heard in that presentation and then as it relates to this group um i mean the just the kind of all-encompassing um one team approach i heard collaboration i heard uh synergy all these things that's exactly what uh makes for a successful group clearly uh you created something that was greater than what we could achieve alone and you know i think we're really setting things up um just to be so fantastic on the west side and just this this is the thing that's come to fruition
068is just so wonderful and the only little plug i'll put in we have a little special school that i have a little special place in my heart for and that's leap academy and and they are so multicultural and when i engage one time in a classroom there and the one little boy translated because i asked the one how he was and they translated then he brought it back and they said well we have to be bilingual here because we have to take care of our fellow students and i was blown away by that but i'd love to see them kind of blended in because they're a natural part of this west side um cohort so thank you for your incredible work today i'm so proud thank you um miss powers yes um i'm just as
069excited as board member messer and to piggyback off of some of the things he said just some key points that stuck out for me i saw i heard the equitable approach and i love that from the first group um who spoke more about um blended learning update and i liked the term unfinished business but i heard asset based focus not focusing on what they were you know a student was was missing but seeing where they stopped and starting where they were to bridge those gaps in addition to the creativity kudos to all of our teachers that i saw in the video the teachers the during the unprecedented times i heard one teacher which i know who said that she some students even her on the weekend the accessibility and the the ability to be agile
070i heard that several times through one of the presenters right there she said agile which is a term that we've been using um an understanding it gave me a different viewpoint on understanding what is required of our teachers during these times and how they are going over and beyond what is expected regularly so that's that's huge um and then i like that um the one teacher who mentioned about catering to the different learning styles that was excellent and she used the term there's a mechanism paradox did i say that right i like paradox because when i was in school i had a different learning style people didn't understand and so when i heard they said you can use the drawings or or what have you to to help the student to get to the same
071point as others and for the west side expansion i'm always excited about that um i love the balancing out of the enrollments to help with the safety and security that was very good and then to hear about the a double a advanced accelerated academics or advanced academics however you say it are pre-ap classes and student achievement we've always talked about trying to roll them back even to the fifth and sixth grade and preparation of them not only taking the course but increasing the number of students who will pass the ap exams and then sometimes that's a barrier for us right now so just hearing that our seventh and eighth grade is a date or maybe some second eighth grade is it robertson even rolling back to fifth and sixth can also um have some of
072that uh accessibility in french and spanish i just think that's great to have that in middle school so kudos to both teams and it was very good enough for me for the boat uh miss bolton and then mr marowski thank you very much for all the presentations really appreciate it i'm i'm i felt good about the the uh not the first the second one i guess it would be because there are three um i feel more reassured about the services being provided for our special needs kids and kids on iep during this covet experience i know it's been a tremendously stressful thing for all of our teachers but most particularly the teachers that provide that kind of service for those children and it's harder to schedule and have home visits and everything else so i
073appreciate being reassured and keep wanting more reassurance and then this presentation uh two things uh forgive me for being a history teacher on this but you know i know this started a year or two ago but in reality it started um almost a decade ago for a west side plan for all intents and purposes because of the crowds if you will called enrollment in so many of the buildings on the west side and the district having to address that and some people think that's only about gamble high school or or gamble montessori the reality is this board really and with our particular superintendents thinking about this a lot when we tried to address those issues of overcrowdedness and also developing the the um montessori program more fully uh this board insisted and i can remember
074especially miss bowers who was then a member of the community making multiple guest appearances at all of those uh presentations uh and advocating for the west side i can remember specifically we said we need a west side plan not just one school here one school that is comprehensive and i you know i i'm so impressed that that indeed this is that plan and it's it's the way to do it is to address it strategically and i'm not surprised that the superintendent and all the other folks that worked on it have come up with it being strategic in such a significant way and addressing the demographics on the west side uh this is great the other thing i want to say i i don't think there's very many places in the united states that are developing
075or have tried to develop a k-12 ib program that's pretty unique as i understand it and i think that's very very exciting it's just remarkable so to mr messer's point it probably will spread uh even more but um as a native westsider i'm really proud of what you all are doing and uh i i think this is so crucial to the west side development and not surprisingly forgive me madam president for taking this much time i see a direct parallel between what's been happening in the community development both economic and cultural and social uh in the neighborhoods over there with what is happening at cps as well so i think this is great really impressed thank you mr marowski thank you president jones and thank you to everyone who presented i'm going to go as
076quickly as i can in order the presentations the first presentation was i remain concerned about the public health ramifications of our students in the buildings i remain encouraged that the community spread appears to not be happening in our buildings but i will say that um i continue to have an eye on the fact that we do not know what the long-term effects of this virus are on our children particularly and disproportionately black children as we're seeing around the country 11 of all cases in the country are children at this point and so that's all to say i mean i am also encouraged by the fact that we have invested in and are prepared to pivot if and when we have to um i know that the hospitals are full children's icu is getting full and
077um the health commissioner in the county mr kesterman is concerned about the overflow in the hospitals and so i as i've been want to do at these meetings i feel the need to bring that up and express my concern while we are moving forward i am very grateful that the safety precautions are being followed it appears they are and it appears that the spread is not happening in the schools and so while we have administrators and teachers from the schools here kudos to all of you for doing that work i know how hard your job is from being an assistant principal and a teacher and i can't imagine trying to do it now with all of this and so thank you that's the applause i want to give you for doing this while we're able
078to be in our schools and to echo ms campbell hopefully we can be in our school safely five days so if we are ever able to do that it's going to be because of your work so thank you the second presentation was on accelerated learning which was really really awesome i was so excited by it i wrote expletives on my notes that i will not read out loud but it was good stuff is what i'll say um that what i heard over and over and over again and miss bowers called this out i would never dare speak for miss bolton but i'm sure she would share this sentiment the most exciting thing about the opportunity with this blended concerns on the shelf for the time being the thing i heard over and over from the
079teachers was the ability to differentiate learning among students in some ways seems to be i don't want to say easier because that's not it but manageable with the blended model and that's really exciting to me and as i talk about my wife a lot we have an eight-month-old son and i keep telling her yes like you know school will never look the same for him and y'all's students are the ones that are going to be teaching him it's just interesting to think about that i'll stop but if my brain goes down that pathway that differentiation is really really awesome um another piece i heard that uh and then i'll go to the west side is the design thinking um uh dr blair at western hills is so great i used to give a lot of
080presentations at uc school of social work and i used to tell the social work students and they'd get mad at me and that's okay people are mad sometimes but i know well and i used to tell them that if they wanted to solve a complex issue regarding poverty when they're older that they should call a designer not another social worker and they didn't know what that meant at first and then i'd walk them back and eventually they wouldn't be upset but that design thinking and teaching kids to think that way is a big deal so those are my kudos i only have two questions um and this is in regard to the accelerated learning piece and that is one i think they're they're pretty simple questions one is if kids are doing fully remote right
081now and i love that we're accelerating the learning for everybody not just students with disabilities um or students of other languages but for everybody because they all need it but if kids are doing fully remote right now how did they get their questions answered so um we have technology has opened the doors to being able to communicate and answer questions um with our remote learning that we are working to schedule at our home schools teachers will be able to google meet with students and have live sessions we also have discussion boards on schoology kids can ask and answer questions together and um we also have supports that we are um publishing so kids can look look at little videos to get help and things like that okay there's not like a set time so like
082if i'm a student and i'm home do i have like the hours of noon to one that i can log on and ask questions as of now as of now but we're scheduling that for the home screen like scheduled office hours yeah dang appreciate it ms campbell thank you my other one is um the videos of the wave foundation who are super generous people um newport aquarium thank you for your help and love um not to be down in the weeds but i i look at a lot of social media video data and i'm curious we have the for the starfish which is fantastic are those views rated the same way they are on other platforms i.e facebook where you only have to let it play for two seconds before it counts and i'm genuinely
083curious like do you have to watch the whole video or at least half of the video for it to count as a watch question um i don't know the answer to it right now but i can look into it appreciate it thank you thank you mr lindy thanks president jones am i coming through okay yes great um i'm going to focus on the student learning section uh and i i think it's easy to see from the present temptation tonight that there are incredibly committed educators in cps who are working just unbelievably hard for students and so i wanted to start by saying to every single one of you who are here tonight presenting and to those of you who work alongside these folks and can't be here tonight i wanted to say thank you uh
084to the administration i did want to express a concern of mine which i brought up at the last meeting i i do think we need to get clear on a small number of priorities and measurable outcomes for the district and align our conversations around how we're doing on those when it comes to student learning it's the third month of the school year and i'm not sure exactly what our goal is or how we're doing against it and we haven't talked about that at a board meeting yet this year i also left the last meeting with the impression that we were going to look at beginning of year map data today so that we could see how students are doing and how much learning loss we've seen because of covid uh i was a little surprised
085a little confused that this wasn't a part of the presentation um now the the board did receive a really great report on the map data by email which i really appreciated and so i wanted to talk about it for just a minute um for people who who aren't um in education uh and are watching the meeting um the nwa map assessment uh is a really wonderful way to measure student learning you give it at the beginning middle and end of the year and it shows growth as well as the share of kids on grade level and you can give it in a whole range of subjects um in grade levels and what was so impressive about the report um was that we managed to do that i think with a wonderfully large share of kids
086uh with what seemed to me pretty reliable results despite the fact that we were doing it remotely i think it's great that that information was shared with the board and that it was disaggregated by racial group and by students with special needs and uh what blew my mind is we hadn't seen um much of a real coveted slide and that was apparently consistent with what um nwa map is seeing across the country so i thought it was full of some good news uh i think that the big challenge that i see is we just have an enormous amount of work to do when it comes to the education we provide students of color in cps according to the report at least if i'm reading it correctly we're preparing only about 20 percent of our african-american
087and latinx students to be on grade level 20 and so going forward i'd like to ask again that we get clear on a small number of priorities and outcomes so that we can prioritize learn and hold ourselves accountable for changing those numbers and another way of saying this might be i'd like to see us become more outcomes driven rather than activity driven when we do presentations with the board thank you okay yes thank you for all the presentations they were very very helpful i agree with mr messer that this has been one of the best set of presentations we've had this year yet uh i have a few questions uh that i wanted to um bring forward and one is you know i like the idea of roberts being a feeder program that the more
088we move towards that the uh the more efficient our district will be much like gamble montessori is a theater for gamble high school but do we have plans yet for uh theater programs at other west side schools such as westwood and carson elementaries um and that's my first question and then i'll ask the second one so you can kind of prepare for that uh sailor park has always been a concern because it's been pretty common for the students at sailor park to move to three rivers under open enrollment they they just have never felt that that's what i've heard from them from the community members they have not felt that that was uh that west high is really their school so have we worked with that community as well uh in the west side plan
089sure so to the first question um this is actually just a small portion of what we're actually doing on the west side there's a whole um next set of opportunities in the career in college education programming and what we will begin to do next and we actually have mike turner on the phone if we have specific questions for him but what we would hope to do is to identify cte pathway the career and college pathways that can draw from the various programs vision 2020 programs for example westwood has an entrepreneurship focus that could easily feed into something in business or entrepreneurship at the high school kids can get credentialed and take courses that way and there's all kinds of examples of that in technology um and across the board so that is definitely a part
090of what we're looking at when we look at feasibility of expanding programs we do understand that people who live on the west side love the west side i'm married and i'm not from there but um we get that and so we want to make sure that if you're a kid on the west side if you're a family on the west side you can see a clear through line all the way up through graduation and beyond to the second question about sailor park taylor park and roberts are actually part of the same program through a t and verizon and we are definitely an active communication about what it might look like for those students to continue their project-based learning again that's something that could continue at either west high or through the design programs at the
091international baccalaureate program okay all right so um i i get to close and uh considering that today is a great day okay i want to keep it light my my colleagues took care of the serious stuff so people are going to laugh at me but i'm going to step out there because i ain't scared okay um parliament francais um a okay i'm still having a hard time but i'm going to take a shot at it at hughes high school a lot [Applause] thank you all so much okay all right just a little fun okay all righty back to the agenda here okay um so we are now at the item on the agenda for hearing the public the board prides itself on being as transparent and open as possible consistent with the state's direction to
092minimize public gatherings we are convening this video conference call to include opportunity for public comment here again are the specific instructions for participation in hearing of the public members of the public who wish to speak during the board meeting must make requests through the chat feature including your full name affiliation to the district school community and contact information for response to questions this request models standard practice if we were meeting in person in the ed center treasurer wagner and daniel hoyne will be our time keepers once the request has been granted you will be invited to enter please click on the visibility icon to go interactive after speaking you will briefly see the welcome screen again as you transition back to the live stream meeting each speaker will have two minutes to speak and may
093only speak once when the timer goes off your two minutes are up please refrain from discussing any personnel items we ask that your public commentary be respectful of all those listening in thank you how many people we have five speakers tonight our first speaker is a student from aitkin high school go ahead keshawn hello hello [Music] hi um yes so firstly hello my name is keyshawn townsend and i am a aitkin new tech senior uh class of 2021. um and i really wanted to comment on the blending learning um so over the course of the past three months i will say um i have struggled incredibly struggled um being on virtual and that's mainly due to my mental health at the time um and that is probably one of my main things that i really
094want to speak on is mental health when it comes to mental health and this blended learning right now with covid and all it's already chaotic and there's already a lot of problems and everybody is frantic and making decisions that they will soon regret later possibly and overall i just want to ask has anybody like asked if our students are doing okay and how they're handling the situation like personally and i remember about four years ago i had a counselor her name was miss reading and she was by far one of my favorite counselors ever and she was the first person i was going to bring forth my mental issues with and unfortunately she was taken away from me because of i believe there was funding that was cut for counselors and i was unfortunately not
095able to take care of my mental illnesses until just this month where i now have a therapist who is helping me both with my education and by far within this past week of just talking to my therapist my grades have been increasingly going up and i really feel like right now covid and all we need to focus on our mental health because when we're in a crisis we admittedly go into flights or fights or flights and i feel like that's where a lot of decisions are being made right now is this flight and flight decision making and is causing us to basically panic and realize that none of the issues that we're looking for right now are helping us um solve the issue like we're looking for linear solutions when we should be looking for
096an exponential solution which is by focusing on our mental health and making sure that every single day that we are in a healthful healthy mindset and ready to learn and make sure our teachers are also in a healthy mindset and ready to give back to our students because if you could finish your thought please i don't want to cut you off in the middle of your thought but your time has run out but if you want to finish your thought go ahead thank you and when it comes to a teacher and student relationship like it goes both ways it's not just one way it's both teacher and student and we have to make sure that both our teachers and students are in a well mental health state thank you so much thank you our next
097speaker is hannah shike go ahead jana hi everybody i'm hannah scheik i am a mom of three kids at stan's montessori we've had to remain remote because of our health issues and it's hard i mean there's really no other way to say it there's very little communication with the teachers there's no homework being sent home i'm creating schoolwork based on what is being put in schoology but no assignments are being posted we go into our specials and we click that we're attending but there's again there's no assignments it would seem easier to be able to leave the district for this year if our spots were able to be kept and then rejoined sans montessori next year sans is our home school we've been there for five years it's been great for our kids yes being
098there for five years means we've one one of my sons is about to age out and move on to the next school but my younger my youngest is a preschooler it would make sense also in the long run of our teachers our teachers are working overtime to provide a public school in person and a home remote in this blended experience it's crazy they're being asked to go above and beyond and there it just seems like they're struggling too our kids are struggling our teachers are struggling we're all asked to work overtime and i feel like if we had a little bit more of a leeway we could make it work a little bit better um that's really all i had to say but it seems silly that there's no way we can retain our spots
099for our magnet school and i'm wondering if there's any way exemptions could be made for that okay if you left your contact information we'll ask someone to reach out to you to have a conversation okay next our next speaker is jillian whitaker go ahead jillian hi guys it's me again um i just wanted to start by asking if everyone besides mike forgot that we were in the middle of a pandemic because it really seemed like it i'm really frustrated with the way that the date is just getting glossed over we had four thousand cases of covet in ohio on monday and the numbers are just going to keep getting worse after the election yesterday and halloween last weekend especially with the flu season and the holidays on this horizon and while i understand what everyone
100is saying it's imperative that cps continue to provide education regardless of circumstances how do you provide this education when your teachers are sick or how will your students get to school and get their work done when their parents are sick if you can't promote the safety of your teachers stop talking about how great they are to something that shows that you're caring about them they're asked to sit in a classroom full of unmasked students while they take breaks and while they eat lunch there's not enough bus monitors to make sure that the kids stay masked on the bus and that also puts our support staff in danger there's not even enough teachers to come into the classroom every day increasingly studies are showing that asymptomatic people are more and more likely to transmit covet cps
101has also completely ignored the new definitions released by the cdc that outline the meaning of close contact i'll go ahead and read it to you just so that everybody knows what the cdc is actually saying which is that close contact is now defined as someone who is within six feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period additionally at this time differential determination of close contact for those using fabric face coverings is not recommended meaning students have questions they go to the teacher even if they have a mask on that should still cloud as close contact parents and staff have to have transparency in regards to exposure there have been several teachers who have not been informed of student or staff cases in their schools and
102have had to learn about the diagnosis through through parents or students and that is completely unacceptable finally while i'm encouraged that cps has committed to the remote learners if this is actually the case we've heard a lot of rumor and speculation but nothing was addressed tonight at all um i guess i shouldn't be surprised however the learners who would like to know i'm sorry i'm sorry your time is up thank you our next speaker is angela bustamante go ahead angela um trying to share my camera but it's not working so um i just went to i have a couple things and i kind of would like maybe some answers um so our virtual plan i i know we're asking a lot of the teachers but we need daily virtual for our tm availability to teachers
103um our students are struggling just like the other um parents said they the um teachers here's why teachers are telling remote students that they won't help them literally the teacher told my fourth grader i'm sorry i have been told not to help you or to communicate with you except on monday that is not okay second teachers are assigning work to students that are in person and then telling the students do not tell the virtual students and do not help them this happened at clark okay that these two examples literally happened in like i heard the other teacher telling my fourth grader i cannot help you i've been instructed to not communicate with you guys except on mondays also um the google classroom is better than schoology just a side note um google classrooms more user-friendly
104for the students so if we have to pick one platform which i love the idea of picking one platform google classroom is more friendly than schoology for the teachers for the students so it's just like planting that seed you might want to like look into that option and um so the last um thing that i really wanted to touch on was so we discussed in the beginning on per year slides that we've met the harvard per 100 transmission and i was wondering at what point are we going to go back virtual since we're at 28 for 100 like per per your own data okay if you left your contact information if you left your con okay we'll ask someone to give you a call yep perfect thanks thank you thank you our last speaker is
105miss julie sellers i think she's having some technical challenges trying to accept can't get in is that what it is i've accepted her request and invited her in on two occasions she must be getting kicked out jeremy can you i didn't hear jeremy i'm sorry okay well we have to move on okay does anyone have any kudos okay miss bowers yes thank you um president jones i would just like to be a kudos to our students of the speak up and speak out group one of them was one of our speakers tonight and partnership with cohere the diverse group of our intellectual high school students were able to participate in a conversation with some of our civic leaders this week and it was a great conversation um they had some great questions they um challenged
106some of the speakers on why they are involved with what is the you know expectation of civic responsibility and engagement and i just want to say that i think we have a new generation of young people that understand the importance of civil responsibility and so just look out for them coming up next okay thank you any other kudos miss space please present to retirement yes thank you i have four retirements to acknowledge this evening uh from our civil service personnel barbara banfield kathleen buber reuben edwards and judith m my men so we thank these professionals for their service to our children and wish them well in this new part of their life thank you miss bates okay uh moving into board matters mr marowski um you asked to present the board matters item yes thank
107you so much and also um a a repetitive thank you to miss bates in health and wellness for their feedback last time and then also to miss bolton who i know has been anxious to talk about this and wanted to get it on the agenda um tonight as well so i'll do a quick opening salvo because what i'm interested in is the course feedback from members some of which has been given informally so it'll be great to have it here done uh formally for the first time um so a little history this anti-racism policy was assigned on june 10th and then a month later on july 10th we got a first draft which is relatively unchanged from the one that's before you until very recently a little over 24 hours ago there is a red
108line version that will be presented in policy committee on friday at 3 30 p.m i didn't feel uh great about knowing it existed without at least having it here so those of you have had a chance to look at it awesome i know ms bolton has and she's already given me her notes but for mr messer and miss bowers that draft will be presented formally on friday and it incorporates feedback excuse me from the task force which is made up of representatives from organizations such as the urban league and uh representatives of schools and parents and teachers and folks like this so that being said tonight the main point is to get feedback from everybody and before we do that if i may um it's fresh on my mind as i was walking into our
109meeting tonight i was wrapping up a call with the equity committee that i'm on at my day job and we've been undergoing some serious anti-racism training about two and a half years long now and i just kind of wanted to sort of level set and remind people that this policy and this is not meant to insult anyone's intelligence watching or on this stage but for folks who may not be as familiar or don't engage in this work all the time um we're not talking about being mean to people we're talking about systems and structures um uh oftentimes i think when we get in these conversations people start saying i'm not racist and so i like to quote um ibrahim x kennedy who says there is no such thing as being not racist you are either
110racist or anti-racist the definition that we have in our policy which i'm just going to read for the edification of the public is from dr kamara jones who i was able to work with a couple years ago and she says it's a system of structuring opportunity and assigning value based on the social interpretation of how one looks which is what we call race that unfairly disadvantages some individuals and communities unfairly advantages other individuals and communities and saps the strength of the whole society through the waste of human resources that last piece is probably my favorite and then my last piece of level setting is a definition from the racial equity institute out of north carolina um who greater cincinnati foundation has brought to cincinnati on a number of occasions for training my colleagues and i
111went through three days of it at the freedom center about a year and a half ago and the definition that they work off of i just really like it so i want to share it with everybody they they define it as a specious classification of human beings created during a period of worldwide colonial expansion using themselves as the model for humanity for the purpose of assigning and maintaining white skin access to power and privilege and then second piece of that is racism is defined as social and institutional power combined with race prejudice is a system of advantage for those considered white and of oppression for those who are not considered white is a white supremacy system supported by an all-class collaboration called white created to end cross-racial labor solidarity so thanks to gcf for bringing
112those folks to town and teaching a lot of us about it so again the goal here is to get some feedback on this it would be nice even though i don't like to put deadlines on these sorts of things that are this big it would be nice um if we could have a solid draft of this in december's policy committee with some board you know input this whole month so i'll just shut my mouth thanks for allowing me that time and um allow members to okay whatever open it up for questions or comments from board members sounds like that you've already received some written feedback okay i got a number a bunch of written feedback of course uh from miss bolton and then health and wellness um in in policy the first agenda item on
113policy on friday is the anti-racism policy with a parenthetical note that doesn't actually appear on the notice but to talk about the administrative audit of procedure verse policy because as ms bates validly brought up and i've noted a number of it the red line version there's a lot of procedural things that are in there that are probably best left out um but of course asked admin to do it but obvi i would love everyone's feedback on it so or any other feedback obviously on either draft i i apologize for throwing a brand new one at you but again i just felt weird if i had seen tina and nobody else had so i just wanted everyone to have it well yes i thank mr marowski for bringing it forward um would like to and glad
114that uh chairman bates uh uh brought it to uh health and safety for good reason um i would just like to remind people to also review the uh state board of education's policy i know there were a couple of things in there that even appeared in the minutes uh from health and safety and i think this version this next draft that mr moroski has brought forward is is far better than the first so that's good um but yeah i i it'd be great if people could react to it you know whether it's about word choice being a little bit stronger or adamant or whether it's the procedure piece that there are some things that really are administrative responsibilities not bored or what have you um and i like the reference to school the student community
115as a student participation but i think every almost every place where we say about students it's probably community members have to be involved with that staff has to be involved with that as well so i mean there's several things but i'll share those uh further with the with the policy committee but it's really good to look at both of those or whatever to really come to grips with it so we have the best and the strongest and the most relevant uh of uh anti-racism policies thank you miss bates yes and i would uh also suggest that if we if the uh committee could also entertain the resolution that the board passed probably i don't know 10 years ago it's been quite a while that stated that uh students shall be given the opportunity for ap
116coursework because uh i i don't know if the practice still exists that students have to apply and they may or may not uh be given the opportunity based on you know some qualifications that are you know are determined at the school level but that was not the intent of the resolution and that resolution really hadn't been codified into policy so if we can if you can get a copy of that and integrate that in this policy as well i think that would be very very helpful and i i if i can put a pin in that and um for general counsel hoing if we can dig up that resolution that ms bates is talking about but also to that end miss bolton during that piece if i may about where we're listing things we had
117done to combat this already added a couple things deluded to that the electives the seven bill day sort of thing so yeah that's good yes i'm gonna write that down this is bolton just to follow up on what mr morowski is saying you know there's the community particularly is and we are too particularly interested in any kind of disparities regarding discipline but the reality too is that there might there may or may not be disparities as to school uh children being assigned or uh classified or categorized as kids that are in need of special help that may not all actually meet the criteria but we there's so many things that we have to look at and to the point about about ap it's also the extracurricular piece it's it's also uh if you will um
118even class size differentials in buildings so it's just you really just start to kind of peel away and get to the heart of it so yeah there's plenty of good things to do to fix this okay um my only comment and i do want to read the red line version and i promise that i will get my comments to you before your meeting but um miss bolton alluded to it i think we have to be pretty uh she used the word adamant about our word choice this this is very generous but i think we have to call it what it is and systemic and systematic racism is is a much more forceful terminology so let's call it what it is and then then the rest will my opinion is if you work on that and
119you can define that you'll be able to implement whatever it is however it's defined it'll be easier to implement that but um i think this this is a good draft i still think it's a little long but uh maybe we of course you know um but but i the content i think is really good but i really think we ought to call it you quoted you talked about candy who i've read some of his material and you know it's it's um we don't want to give so much variation that we lose the meaning of what it is we're trying to do so let's address what it really is and that's systemic racism systematic racism and what is it what is it for our school district so i'll get i'll give you my comments you you
120said something very specific but i i lost it so i don't remember what it was but i'll ask you again okay thank you any other comments well those those two thanks to miss bowers and mr messer for being on policy committee this all this summer has just been going on so they've helped get all this here this is the communities and i appreciate y'all's feedback wonderful okay great so we're ready to move on we have uh two resolutions and i'm gonna ask mr messer the first resolution we're gonna do uh sort of a round robin kind of thing so mr messer would you please introduce the first resolution yes thank you president jones um tonight i'm very excited uh to present a resolution recognizing and thanking father michael graham for his service as president of
121the cincinnati preschool promise board of directors whereas father michael graham recently announced that he would step down as the president of the board of directors for cincinnati preschool promise and the cincinnati public schools board of education is grateful for the service he provided as the organization's first president whereas after the voters approved cincinnati public schools strong start and strong future issue 44 school levy in november 2016 cincinnati public schools partner with promise forward and the united way of greater cincinnati to form the cincinnati preschool promise for the purpose purpose of expanding and improving preschool programs in cincinnati in january 2017 the united way named father graham the first president of the cpp board of directors whereas father graham pulled together all of the stakeholders and interested parties who supported this expansion and improvement of preschool
122and helped to form and define a cincinnati preschool promise organization that could effectively carry out the mission and vision whereas father graham was instrumental in ensuring that all stakeholders interests were considered drafting of a master agreement between cincinnati public schools and cincinnati preschool promise and he has overseen the hiring and onboarding of successive executive directors who have shared the mission and vision of cincinnati preschool promise whereas during the time father graham made this significant commitment to preschool promise he also was the longest serving president of xavier university and has led xavier through the most significant period of academic and campus growth in the university's history whereas borrowing a phrase from his jesuit background father graham is a true man for others notwithstanding that early childhood education is somewhat removed from his role as a university
123president father graham truly is a servant leader and he has provided a fresh outside perspective that is unaffected by any partisanship or personal interest in the leadership of the preschool promise father graham's only interest has been that the cincinnati preschool promise organization successfully carries out its mission and vision of expanding and improving preschool for early childhood students in the city now therefore be it resolved that the board of education thanks father graham for his service as the first president of the cincinnati preschool promise board of directors and wishes him the very best in all of his future endeavors submitted on behalf of the cincinnati board of education okay it's been moved i need a second second any discussion it should it should be a member dates i'm sorry should be member baits seconding it [Laughter]
124we did talk about this last time they're doing a virtual they have a virtual meeting on the 17th and um i will be presenting this to him and we will work with administration or board staff i'm not quite sure where it goes but we usually try to when people are able to be here physically we kind of make it look pretty and presented to them to him so we will do that and make sure that he gets it okay miss wagner please call the roll mrs bates aye miss bolton hi this is bowers yes mr linde yes yes mr messer aye mr morosky yes president jones yes thank you miss bolton please present the following resolution thank you uh this is a resolution of proving students eligible for subsidy reimbursement in lieu of transportation for
125the school year of 2020 2021 i submit uh for approval and uh i think we all are aware what this is because this is kind of perfunctory and procedure also okay is there a second second any discussion miss wagner please call the roll president yes mr lindy i had some discussion is that okay go ahead um remember bolton just as it's my first rodeo with this one um could you just explain a little bit about the the perfunctory part of it for some context uh more than annually we have to usually find ways to transport kids that we cannot in a way that makes sense safety wise financially or distance wise makes sense for us to transport them via a regular method so to speak so there is money provided for um other ways of
126transportation for individual students and i would be happy if the treasurer can add to that that would be great um hold on hold on mr lindy uh miss wagner was trying to also add to that and then we'll get your comment great thank you i just wanted to say that the rates of subsidy are defined by the ohio department of education um and the transportation department determines whether it's um financially convenient or appropriate to transport these children or to pay them the stipend and so the board has to approve the stipend payments okay go ahead i really appreciate that treasurer wagner i think the only outstanding question i had is um this is if i'm right this is not a change basically um reauthorizing the same thing we've done before is that accurate very normal
127happens every year thank you great okay any other discussion miss wagner please call roll mrs bates aye ms bolton aye mrs bowers yes mr lindy yes yes mr messer aye mr morosky yes president jones yes thank you okay superintendent mitchell do you have a report uh yes i do i have a very short report and i believe they're pulling up my powerpoint slides you can go to the second slide please so i wanted to take this opportunity to just connect some dots in terms of um where we started our journey with distance learning and blended learning and the safety protocols everyone is aware that our major priorities as we stated earlier are really centered around safety and academics and so last spring in april is when we formed two groups one to work on the
128academics and the other to work on a safety team plan for the entire district and then we launched our safety school campaign next slide please overall with safety following on connecting the dots we do have a district level safety plan as well as one for each school we now have an active live covet 19 dashboard for our schools as well as central office tracking confirmed cases for students and for staff we have a medical advisory team to help us interpret the data as it's related to the health concerns for hamilton county and the city of cincinnati we have conducted safety audit plans of safety audits of all of our schools and it's on an ongoing basis we provide testing for our students who have parental permission from parents right on site and then a courier
129system to take those tests over to children's hospital with a very fast turnaround time back to cps we also started the beginning of the school year with staff testing and we now have ongoing staff testing at all of our sites which we are scheduled out over a period of time next slide please as it relates to schools and our buses we have a cobit 19 hotline for employees to be able to report concerns we also have public health nurses for every single one of our buildings and this is new for cps in addition to isolation rooms at all of our schools where we can separate those who are exhibiting symptoms for students who are in distance learning on the days that they are not in attendance school we have meals that we distribute to our
130kids to be able to take home during the times that they are not with us as well as bus monitors to be able to maintain social distancing and provide mass for students who may not wear a mask on the bus in addition we have cleaning kits for our classrooms and an updated ventilation system to be able to pump more fresh air from outside into our school buildings next slide please in terms of the academic work which you've heard a lot of this work this earlier this evening our students are able to have devices at home with them we have a one-to-one initiative pre-k through 12th grade pre-k through second grade have ipads and then third through 12th grade have laptop computers we have a lot a wi-fi program that is free to our cps families
131who may need to take advantage of wi-fi dps tv is continuing to provide programming for our students online and at home we use the platform schoology to deliver our instruction as well as google meet for video conferencing with our teachers and our students the digital cincinnati digital academy is up and running and continuing to accept students as as they are needed as they need that service for our district and we have an updated um distance learning website that we continue to pump information into on a weekly basis so that our families and our students are informed about what's happening as it relates to our academic plan so that's just an update to kind of take us through our journey from where we began in august with our two teams to where we are right now
132in november and that concludes my verbal presentation in addition in addition to the superintendent's report thank you do board members have questions or comments okay i need a motion to approve the recommendations of the superintendent so their second second thank you discussion ms wagner mrs bates aye ms bolton aye this is bowers mr lindy hi mr messer hi mr moroski yes president jones yes um we're gonna divert a little bit um julie had trouble connecting so she connected and i that we would allow her a few minutes to speak i set you in so you need to accept does she accept i don't see her yet oh there she is go ahead julie okay can you hear me um first i would like to say um i am really proud about the passport on your
133visibility screen so we can see you yes do you see me no there you are okay um so first i would just like to say that i'm really proud of all of the work that all of the teachers have done for the passage of the levy we did have teachers at every one of the polling places reminding people as they enter the polls to vote and support issue 17. and um there were some parents tonight who were questioning about the remote option if to stay at your home school and not go to the cda um what we have heard is that parents want their children engaged in the learning not just watching it and the streaming is like watching a ted talk it is not interactive and it doesn't and it has kids just looking
134at a screen of a teacher teaching a class all day long that i don't think this is really what any of um teachers or parents were expecting and it seems kind of difficult since teachers haven't been given the type of equipment they need to effectively do that in the district there may be some teachers who have the technologies in their rooms and the knowledge of how to use it to make the streaming interactive but most teachers do not and this creates another equity issue that is why i'm suggesting that each teacher team needs to determine what is best for them i believe that parents and students desire to have google meet sessions like were done when we were in full remote learning and personally if there are teachers um that are in danger of possibly
135being cut this might be a time that they t schools can draw up a plan to provide instruction through group google meet to those remote students initially i believe that there was another speaker who was talking about the latest data the data that we saw today is from october the 29th which was last week and it's not reflective of what is going on now initially dps was having about three positive cases of covet per week and now we are identifying that many cases or more per day and just yesterday we had six staff and one students who were confirmed on sunday and monday there were 10 positive staff cases on friday there were eight student cases and five staff cases so students and staff are escalating in the number of cases per day and so
136i really think that it's time that um schools have look at these numbers and the impact that it is having because with the number of quarantines it's getting really difficult to make sure that all classrooms are covered and i do know that there's many teachers who are really worried and concerned especially now as they are entering into the buildings if we go remote it would help with this that we could go back to the remote where kids could have interactive lessons five days a week we would not be risking students we still have a way that families can pick up if the for the mo the food packets the district is a much better place today than they were last year or the beginning of the year from the presentations you saw tonight you saw
137how innovative our teachers are you've seen how much they are working for this to happen teachers are saying that the the attendance um of on the google classrooms that were interactive kids were even more engaged in what in many schools and classrooms than what they are now and so i we need to know when we were going to be going um remote since we are meeting the requirements to be remote and it's because it cannot happen in one day teachers have to know parents have to know it takes time to do that and tonight from the presentations it's almost felt to me and if to many other people who have been texting me as if the um district is acting as if we are not in the middle of a pandemic and that these things
138are not going on and look at how we're just moving forward i think it's dangerous it's dangerous for not just our staff but also for all of our students and their families as you know students who may be asymptomatic are not getting tested they're only being tested if they have symptoms and so many many children could be carriers of covet and we don't know it the parents who were very outspoken and saying that they want their kids back at no matter at what cost many of those parents were the parents whose kids are not having to ride the bus to get to school they're in neighborhood schools where they can walk they the parents have their own private transportation and that isn't fair for all of the other kids who don't have those types of
139opportunities and so i wish that there would have been more discussion about it this evening instead of everything is copacetic and we are all happy to be where we are because that is not the case it concerns me that so many yes i'll be off that we're going to be losing staff and we're not going to have enough staff to um cover all of our classrooms which is another problem and what kinds of teachers if teachers leave the profession all together because of this inflexibility so i just want i i don't want to wait until the next school board meeting for us to make a decision this should have been tonight thank you thank you all right superintendent did you want to respond yes so um first of all i do want to acknowledge and
140thank um all of the teachers who really came out to support teachers did mailers they addressed envelopes they wrote personal letters i did visit several voting sites yesterday and teachers were out there on their day off handing out literature and making sure that everyone was aware of issue 17 so to all of our teachers as well as um president sellers thank you so much for all of your support it made a huge difference i also want to take the time to just really thank all of our employee groups all of our employee groups really stepped up i think that jeff crystal is like mr cps i have pictures of him with huge signs and he is just like over the top with enthusiasm about supporting the district that he loves so much so thank you
141for that from cass and jeff and asks me and all of the unions have done a really outstanding job so thank you and so um i didn't want to miss this opportunity so thank you um present sellers for bringing that forward the other just one thing that i wanted to um make i'm sure that president sellers is aware of in in terms of the distance learning at your home school each school is developing a plan for how this will work within their school and so this is not being dictated from central office there is one caveat though and that is the fact that every single teacher cannot stream because if every single teacher streams that's when the the bridge will fall so um teachers just know as well as present sellers that each school has
142been asked to develop a plan for their team for the kids who have asked for this service thank you okay thank you superintendent all right so um at this point we want to um i need a motion to approve the report of the treasury their second second any discussion oh miss bolton i was very happy to see that the sum of dollars on the last page of the report thank you okay any other discussion i saw that too mr golden okay thank you i had two comments um one um and just to go to show that grapevines think alike laura just said just about everything i was just gonna say that's okay no it's great but i do want to add my thank you to the public for their trust we take our role as
143financial stewards very seriously we very much appreciate the passage of issue 17 that adds a small measure of our financial stability for the future um in addition to um what superintendent mitchell said and thanking all the volunteers for all the work they did from cps and cpp and the community um i wanted just to have a special shout out to yen submuller i think this is his sixth levy with us he keeps us very organized and informed and supported and um we really depend on him he's an awesome partner along with burgess and burgess so um thank you again um the second comment the very next step to our financial stability is we were notified today that the patterson house bill 305 formula will be the simulations will be released on friday so i've signed
144up for the webinar to go through i will certainly keep the board informed uh philosophically this is a great formula for the district but the devil is always in the details and always the last minute adjustments so i'm cautiously optimistic this will be helpful but i will certainly keep you informed thank you thank you any other discussion miss wagner please call roll uh mrs bates aye ms bolton aye this is bowers yes mr lindy hi mr messer mr boroski yes president jones yes inquiries and updates osba conference starts november the 7th um the cincinnati public is presenting on our equity policy mr hoing and miss bolton and myself so tune in and you can tell us all about it afterwards okay any other inquiries and updates yes ms bolton to follow up on that the
145statewide uh report card reform committee that has functioned out of the osba's urban network is also presenting the spotlight report with full details of what the proposal looks like and the justification for it so it'll be a two-hour presentation it's a great way to kind of catch up on what these folks have have come up with that uh it's very challenging and and very needed as we all know okay thank you all right any assignments yes mr lindy uh thanks president jones um i had given an assignment at the last meeting for the administration to share uh what they thought our most important priorities and measurable outcomes could be and i wanted to see if i could get an update on the status there yes so the priorities that we feel are most important are
146related to health and safety and that speaks to the data that we provide at every single one of our board meetings it also speaks to our dashboard and the safety protocols that we're putting in place to ensure the safety of everyone within our buildings and then um academic um progress as it relates to blended learning at this point in time and then obviously when we continue or increase more days then we'll make some adjustments as it relates to um academic progress and so those are the things that we um hold as priorities at this point in time and which are aligned to the board's goals and there's always the financial stewardship of the district i appreciate that uh and i think those sound like three great areas um i think that the next piece there
147seems to to me to be some measurable outcomes for each of those um did you take that away as part of the assignment last time if not can i make that a part of the assignment for next time um can i respond to that i i'm wondering if it wouldn't be better directed through one of the committees or either part of the the board's overall work session when we're all together this sounds like a full board conversation and we have some of those measures already am i not am i correct okay would that be helpful mr lindy do you uh i i'm not sure uh president jones i i think what what i'm um where i'm hoping we could get is that it's clear for for us for the administration for the public on a
148small number of most important priorities and outcomes that we talk about in the board meetings um and that we're aligning our time and resources to those a few number of priorities and outcomes um i haven't if if they exist i guess i haven't seen them or i might have missed them um am i missing them well go ahead yeah i i mean i i think that um the first step is reviewing the strategic plan and then the annual plan that's tied to that which does have metrics tied to it i think maybe your question is has anything changed to that you know maybe safety wasn't specifically called out so is it something that's added but i think that has to always be our guide um you know if we start creating additional plans on top
149of the plan then it kind of obviously creates chaos so maybe that is like a first step is to assess a strategic plan and specifically the plan for this year and say is there anything missing based on the current world i i would actually suggest that this be a topic that we can add to our first work session agenda in january to review kind of do a review as mr messer was saying of the strategic plan which which has all the measures and all of that in there maybe that might be helpful for you i i um i'll chime in there president jones and it may be that we can't solve this issue tonight um but i do want to say that from my part that feels too late um because half the school year
150would have passed without us being clear on what what we're trying to accomplish and and like against what we're spending the district's money um and so i may be alone in that position um i hope not though i mean for me it seems um absolutely crucial um that we're clear about what we're trying to win on um so that we can track back to that when we look at uh how things are going in the district and how we're spending our resources um and it may this may be a bigger topic that we can solve in this meeting um but i did want to at least advocate for moving as quickly as possible to get into that picture okay miss bolton yes i appreciate the suggestion of i think also mr messer's right and we're
151due for a review and update and rethink and of our strategic plan i think that could happen fairly you know not quickly or whatever this work session in january i think that does make sense uh looking at that and for me at least what's guiding me right now is or very frankly are the five guidelines for the period of covid that we're in those have really been helpful for me to use as uh thinking points um but i do think a review of the strategic plan and and this will sound kind of crazy except for people that have been on school boards sometimes a board commits to particular things but every remember you know unfortunately some people call it like special uh interests or whatever but they aren't they're things that you personally and professionally
152focus on uh over time as and so i think that's reasonable to at least in that interim for all of us to keep working through that as individual interests but we do need to review the strategic plan as soon as we can i think and president jones this is the last thing i can i can close out can i just make one more point yes go ahead um from my part i'm not asking and again other board members may feel differently i'm not asking necessarily for like a refresh on our strategic plan i think there's a there is there there the administration is doing their and i truly believe this absolutely their very best to navigate us through an unprecedented crisis um i think what i'm i actually think the three priorities that the superintendent
153articulated were great um all i'm asking is that we put some numbers next to them um and say you know here's what we want to deliver for children and for um the community uh during this unbelievably different kind of year and then as we have meetings together um we check in uh about how close or far far away we are um from achieving those outcomes um so that's that's uh i just wanted to clarify a little bit and say thank you for the time okay all righty any other um assignments i i what let me just say mr lindy i think what you're saying suggests to me what you're asking for is additional conversation around it and maybe what we can do maybe what we can do at some point and and maybe you and
154i can talk about this if you want to put it on the agenda to have an agenda discussion i would just ask that it not be sort of in the next meeting or next two meetings because um in in order to give it in order to to make it worthwhile the discussion we need the superintendent needs time we need time to sort of think through it but we also need time to even talk about so that we can all be on the same page because i'm not sure all of us are on the same page with you and maybe it's just me not really understanding what it is you're asking for that's different than what we already have so if you and i could talk about it and get it cleared up and then maybe
155we can put it under a board matters item is that yeah i i think i would love to talk more about it and i i do truly believe there could be multiple ways to win um and what i'd like to do is find a way to get the best possible outcome as quickly as possible um and i would be delighted to chat about it okay sounds good okay any other assignments last call all right having no other business i declared a meeting adjourned