CPS Board of Education — October 19, 2020

001temporarily we have I call to order the October 19th 2020 business meeting of the Cincinnati board of education we welcome everyone and request everyone to please silence your cell phones and electronic devices Miss Bates would you please I'll do it would you please lead us in the pledge I will thank you I pledge Alle 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 Miss Wagner please call the RO Mrs Bates present Miss Bolton present Mrs Bowers Mr Lindy here Mr Messer Mr morosi here president Jones here thank you I need a motion for 48 hour waiver to revise the agenda adding the finance committee meeting report to this evening's agenda I move second thank you all

002in favor signify by saying I I I any opposed agenda is revised members of the public who wish to be heard during the board meeting must raise their hand to speak during the first 10 minutes after the start of the meeting please do so now individuals who raised their hands after the first 10 minutes of the meeting will not be recognized to speak during this meeting we have a little bit of a change so please listen carefully in keeping with the board's standard practice for hearing the public the board asks that you click the visibility icon when you are recognized so that all of us will see you please provide your full name your relationship to the district and your specific School Community thank you again all right I need a motion to approve the

003minutes from the business meeting September 30th 2020 special meeting October 5th 2020 business meeting October 5th 2020 and the business meting meeting work session October 10th 2020 s moved is there a second second all in favor signify by saying I I I oppos minutes are approved as presented Miss Bowers please present the student achievement committee meeting report thank you um Madam president on um October the 9th uh was our student achievement our student achievement committee meeting um and during that time miss Miss Campbell and Mr Hoover presented um more data regarding the AP courses um if you all can recall on September the 14th um during our sack meeting Miss Campbell and Mr Hoover presented a detailed update regarding advanced placement expansion um the percentage of African-Americans and multi-racial students enrolled in AP courses were

004not included and none of our demographics were included therefore during this meeting it was requested that they bring data regarding the number of students enrolled um that concern came up when um during our meeting there was a um low uh passing score specifically for African-Americans and our multi-racial students so um what they did bring was um a list and it did show that we have progressed uh since 20189 they did a three-year uh review um but unfortunately we are still not at our Target based on our strategic uh plan we are well below the expectation of 50% African-Americans being enrolled in um AP courses and 70% of multi-racial um that was very concerning for me um Miss um Campbell reported that one of the biggest barriers to AP enrollment was the out was um Credit

005Recovery deficiency uh which um goes back to when board member morowski was suggesting that we roll back preparation for AP maybe to Fifth and maybe sixth grade in preparation for them being ready for high school Deputy superintendent amont stated that um the goal and the Strategic plan uh was not the desired outcome she went on to explain that the language in the Strategic plan should be reflective of the subgroups and that she would talk to superintendent or discuss how that could look moving forward she also felt um that they were up for the challenge and that um schools right now are building strong foundations around a strong uh access to curriculum uh and is a real solution then we had um assistant superintendent bunte and Miss Margaret and Miss Chrissy Reeves they are presented about

006gifted assessment um is used to identify assessments that are used to identify gifted students and students with disabilities during the gifted assessment presentation um she explained that it was used to screen students who perform or show potential for performing and high levels of accomplishment um I inquired about the gifted assessment uh being used to determine a students ready for AP courses and Miss Monte noted she explained that they did that did not qualify students for AP courses even though that was um a level for which they could be placed in based on how they scored on the assessment but it did it was not the only determining factor for students being placed in AP classes she also noted that gifted assessments um were from elementary school through high school um in the fall of each

007year all second and sixth grade CPS students are administered an assessment for Superior cognitive ability and specific academic ability and reading math science and social studies um Second and six grade students will take this assessment in their school between October 1st and November 20th students in other grades may be referred for gifted screening or rescreening during this window uh also um the demographics that um she presented was a chart um discussed an equity issue across the district 27% African-American um was was circled because I was trying to connect the two with being students being prepared to get enrolled in AP classes as they progress to high school so I just made a special note of that for myself um Dr Hall reported um that because of fundamental rights of students to receive Services um uh

008for disabilities they cannot um there's not a waiver for that so they have to continue to align with the individuals of Disabilities Act of all state and federal uh timelines remained in effect for initial evaluation and threeyear evaluations of students and families uh she went on to say that in August um that the district um had inperson evaluations of resumed and written procedures for maintaining health and safety for students and family were in place um the goal of the process uh for the it's is to the Department of student services I'm sorry has reviews and revise updated District multi-tiered systems of support and this is the process for collaborating with curriculum and instruction and positive School culture she says the um improved consistency was the reason for this updated districtwide multi-tier system adopt common language

009and procedes across the buildings align with State recommendations and collaborate with positive School culture for consistency and behaviors the goal of this is to help intervention assistant teams to identify students at risk of falling behind and not just leaving it up to the universal supports that the schools have so this is put into to place to help identify earlier and to put interventions into place sooner then we had an update of from Mr Justin leech um in testing um he updated the committee on the following testing map growth reading assessments normally achieve nor nationally normed achievement and student growth assessments the assessment um results used to inform instruction and support the CPS accelerated learning plan uh reading grades K through3 results are were also reported to on for the Ohio state report card and improving

010atrisk P3 uh reading component for fall 2020 the remote testing that at at the date the day before which was October the 8th 70% of all students have been tested in the district uh parent Guardians caretaker support uh during testing sessions has been utilized whenever possible and testing delivered remotely is not being utilized or reported as a gifted assessment um third grade reading he also reported on third grade reading uh Ela Ohio State um administered in both fall and the spring um the fall third grade OST which is the Ohio state test window is connected to a legislative requirement um usually District shall administer the third grade ELA OST twice annually to all students in third grade who have not attain the score is designated for the assessment third grade um OST is typically offered

011twice due to the retention and promotion provisions of the third grade reading guarantee um State bill 64 signed into law in June adjusted provisions of Ohio's third grade reading guarantee in 2020 2021 by prohibiting the use of state test scores and retaining students in third grade so that was an allowance um for the state next steps um Cate Public Schools will proceed with the third grade ELA Ohio State Testing within recently uh released flexible administrative dates cohort a will test 1020 1021 1027 1028 114 cohort B will test 1023 1029 1030 115 and 116 um with the return of Blended learning the district is trying to reduce the time spent on assessments so Mr Lee reported that removing the fall window would not have an impact on the report card because students typically do better

012in the spring Committee Member Master stated that it's important for CPS to communicate the testing require requirements broadly and make clear that it is a state requirement for them to be tested he presented also of our kindergarten Readiness um firsttime kindergartens are typically assessed with Ohio kindergarten Readiness assessment before the end of October however remote use of the K has not per has been prohibited by the Ohio Department of Education so what he has presented um an alternative and that the district would utilize aadience and Devil's reading diagnostic to assess students for uh kindergarten and reading and there is some flexibility in to use that in Blended and remote um learning settings the deputy superintendent of M Miss Campbell are researching the possibility of literary literacy summer school to help um for some of those

013kindergarten students and then we had Miss uh salana um and she presented about graduation rates uh when every child when every student succeeds at repl the No Child Left Behind Act the Federal Business rules for determining which students count as a graduate was was uh adjusted and what she went on to say federal rate if a student has a disability in IEP that allows the student to graduate without meeting a pathway required for regular education students the student is removed from the number of graduates but still remains in the cohort the state considers all students graduates if they meet the Criterion deems of them eligible for a diploma so she wanted us to make sure that we uh kind of knew what how how that worked um then we went over the foure and 5year

014graduation um cohorts um if students transfer from another school she wanted us to know that in their fifth year of high school they are reassigned to a new school uh five-year cohort but remain in the previous school's four-year rate so a student's graduation cohort is based on the last school where the student was enrolled and then she provided us information regarding graduation um rate um over the last it looks like 10 years um there were some concerns with a couple of our high schools that are not they at a negative uh for the four-year and also a negative for the five-year graduation uh rate and then um we did not have this year's graduation weight so my comment was that I am I'm looking forward to that I think it'll be in at the end

015of the month so during our November uh meeting first Friday in November we should be able to get that data then and um president I present this report as written thank you okay Mr moraski please present the policy committee my pleasure the policy committee met right after student achievement committee on October 9th 2020 at 3:30 PM via Blue Jeans video conferencing tool we began by discussing the anti-racism um policy as we have uh the past number of meetings you'll recall it was assigned June 10th we saw our first draft I believe a month later and and task force has been created that now has subgroups uh leadership and administration policy communication and enforcement staff training and hiring and curriculum those are the headings of the policy itself as it currently exists um that it will

016not always be in that um the form that it is in today as we have discussed here a couple times publicly a lot of the policy borders on procedure and so we'll need to ensure that it is a policy and not into the procedural weeds we also will need to have a discussion as a full board before the November 6th policy meeting when we will get a new draft um and I don't know um TimeWise if that will actually happen again tonight but I wanted to address and let everybody know that the polic is being worked on and that this full board will have time to discuss it before November 6 so that Miss Stephanie Scott assistant general counsel can include our input in the draft notably um that is not reflected in the minutes

017um and not to put my colleague on the spot um but Eve Bolton sent me a great resolution from the State Board of Education was a resolution to condemn racism and to advance equity and opportunity for black students indigenous students and students of color um and you don't mind kick it to you just for a second um you have a copy in front of you board colleagues um just want to address that real quick I thought it was interesting thank you uh sure happy to do that um in another role that um I play representing Cincinnati public uh was involved with the education standards board and part of the emphasis this past two-day meeting was to talk in terms of uh a number of things regarding diversity inclusion and um and and of course now

018uh the equity piece and have learned that and I'm now sharing with this board that the State Board of Education created a u its own policy uh and passed it in June and the passage was not unanimous and it involved a great deal of uh Amendment efforts and language change and a number of uh folks testifying and so I thought uh I was impressed with the final efforts and uh the state superintendent signed off on it it was really part of the leadership of the president of the state school board but uh tonight uh and over the over the weekend shared with the chair uh Mr morowski the um version that was passed and uh now it's before our board too and actually is is a um parts of it seems similar to what we've

019done and parts of it seem similar to the equity piece but it is also very um I think pretty aggressive and very very proactive so I want to share that and hopefully that will enter into the discussion that this board has and maybe will help inform the uh the community meeting folks as well so appreciate everybody looking through it and thinking about it I appreciate you sending that on to me as well miss Bolton and so again you have the draft in front or not the draft you have the final copy signed by the state superintendent in front of you so um if you would check that out before we have our full board discussion and um also the policy um which you have a copy of and there a brief two pages of feedback

020I'm going to ask um I'll do it in assignments again um but I'm going to ask that Miss Davis resend the uh the two pages of feedback from the task force to to my colleagues so make a note to do that assignment at the end as well officially um we also discussed Justin leech uh was sort of a uh starring member of our Friday afternoon committee meetings we love meeting on Friday afternoon um the Ohio legislative progress with testing Justin leech gave us updates on grade 3 to8 uh five uh 3 to eight reading five to eight science excuse me and um Algebra 1 geometry ela1 2 American history government biology and and high school and of course exams as of 10120 no changes to state or federal testing requirements have been made all tests

021are still scheduled to proceed within the originally published Windows um uh Mr Lee shared and this is significant that the Ohio test director's Alliance or OTA which is a coalition of testing and assessment leaders and Justin is our director of testing in the district for those who don't know um released a statement uh regarding this issue that no no changes had been made and the statement is pretty clear that the group quote values the role of high quality assessment in informing instruction but that school districts need greater flexibility in response to the uncertainty posed by Co 19 and the 2020 2021 school years otda recommended the following extending the waiver for all accountability measures with the exception of graduation rate for the 2021 school year two extend graduation flexibility to class of 2021 and Beyond

022affected by the cancellation of spring 2020 testing tied to high school graduation so that would be any testing that is tied directly to graduating three that districts utilize OD vetted and approved assessment tools like map growth as a measure in place of Ohio State achievement tests for more timely and flexible assessment I suggested a resolution of support may be helpful to this effort this Statewide effort um if that would be uh the will of the board and obviously can be discussed the committee which is Mr Messer and Miss Bowers agreed with that suggestion the action was that Mr leech and Mr hoing would prepare a draft resolution for the committee's review so if we want to have the discussion after November 6th we can do that once we have something in front of us uh

023moving on uh the last part will be pretty quick you have a number of resolutions regarding policy amendments in front of you tonight um polic 5540 interrogation of students very minimal changes um the the the main takeaway as a committee agreed with the recommended changes and we discussed having an administrator present during any interrogations at school and Mr hoing uh reference that is already part of the policy um we are happy to report that we are in a position where we are feeling somewhat normal and policy committee and able to uh continue with our regular annual audit of our policies as we were doing uh so diligently for the past three years um board policy 7540 computer technology and network um no changes board policy 75401 employee technology privacy we added personal devices um into

024the policy and U making note and so all employees know that personal devices can be part of public record if if necessary and we felt that was important we know that but we felt it was important that everybody knows that um there's also a reference to a Blackberry in the policy nobody knew what that was but we left it in there board policy 7540 it might make a comeback Mr hoing said it might make a comeback board policy 75402 uh The District web page there's a lot of cleanup language and then lastly board policy 5410 had a lot of changes uh Sarah Morales our world languages manager updated the committee um just real quick if I may this will be in front of you later but I felt it was important enough to just spend

025a couple seconds um noting because if you looked at the the policy there's a lot in it there's a lot of redlining most all of it is aimed at making um everything more personalized so this policy is the promotion academic acceleration placement and retention policy and most of the redlining the ex to make the learning more individualized which Miss Bolton I know will be happy about as we have always talked about every student would it be great if they all had an IEP um some language that I thought was notable was that um individualized graduation progression language such as ensuring these students May graduate despite of circumstances including but not limited to interrupted education homelessness previous retention through course failure and or the need to work to support themselves and their that we will ensure

026those students graduate despite those circumstances and that schools must offer an individualized graduation progression plan with options for flexible scheduling Etc so a lot of the languages around there um talking about tiered systems of support a lot of social emotional language notable exceptions and then I'll be finished um but I I feel worth pointing out notable exceptions include compliance with retention in accordance with three third grade reading guarantee guidelines and parent Guardian requests I will uh submit these minutes as written thank you Mr moraski um I neglected to ask board if they had questions of Miss Bowers so um we'll do both if you have questions regarding Mr morosi's report or questions regarding the student achievement report this fate yes this um isn't really a a question it's a statement in in review of the

027policy uh resolution amending board policy employee technology privacy I'm going to uh discuss some additions I have and ask that it be sent back to committee because I believe that we can make this a stronger policy uh by uh by further review but thank you this is this is good work but okay that's totally fine with me we can uh we can resend the uh the resolution on the agenda and we'll take it back to policy with Miss bat suggestions okay any questions for Miss Bowers and the student achievement committee okay thank you and some of us do know what blackberries are [Laughter] unfortunately okay all right um Miss Bolton finance committee thank you uh um first of all I appreciate the uh board staff uh doing this incredible turnaround of these minutes but some

028of these issues are of uh time uh importance uh and needing some action not tonight but in preparation for Action uh later on uh this month and early November uh we had the report from our government liaison folks George Glover and Eric Kierney two things uh particularly that were important there continues to be an issue regarding Transportation opportunities and whether or not uh seventh and eth graders uh might be unable or what have you uh by state law to be on public transport and our folks have been testifying to keep that as a possibility because many of our seventh and eighth graders are transported via uh Metro but I think maybe most significantly uh is the um report by Mr lover that does suggest that speaker uh Cup who has been a leading Force regarding

029changing School Finance uh formula and efforts actually is pushing possibly for a very uh accelerated uh review and uh renovation if you will of school Finance now that he is the new speaker so we got a good report uh and the treasurer was interested in that kind of speed up we don't know that it's good for us or bad for us but we do know that there are limitations in the current financing uh formula and operations but uh we will begin to know more in the next couple of months and appar apparently there might be even some action regarding the lame duck session that we are approaching now so soon excuse me soon after the election we also have another time issue and that we had presented to us by the tennis found a plan

030a new partnership if you will between us and the Cincinnati tennis Foundation uh Robin Brandon brought this to us as did the leadership of the uh Cincinnati tennis foundation and it requires perhaps the use of part of the property that is uh the wiro campus uh not negatively affecting according to Administration the current campus but indeed improving it and that this would be the creation of a facility that would be perhaps the cost of all between 13 and $14 million with the hope that it will not only positively impact the children at and students and young people at wro but it would be a facility that would be available uh through all of our district as well as the community uh and uh this effort would be our partnership would be benefiting of course our

031students and families in the community but it would be that we would be at least providing uh the property and then the facility would be built that no particular cost to us but then upon the uh achievement of that and the finishing of that uh building then it would become a part of uh the CPS property inventory I think I'm stating that correctly uh so it's a great opportunity they mentioned it being somewhat modeled if you will of the baseball Youth Academy uh that is a very important part uh and it would not necessarily negatively impact the Ron oer uh premere uh baseball facility that is on with rose campus so they're interested in making a presentation we wanted on the uh finance committee to at least share this information with you all now because

032the hope is somehow that indeed uh after you learn more about this uh we might be able to uh ask the administration to give us some recommendations as to whether or not it's a great idea and then perhaps in the next month or so uh indeed the tennis Foundation might be able to move ahead with the fundraising and that dedication as usual we had a monthly presentation uh by the preschool promise folks and the emphasis this time was really measuring coid impact uh regarding enrollment something we've experienced as well and that also they are in the effort of writing a charter for their for particular committees on which we also sit but it's specifically a preschool promise a charter so it is up to them to write that Charter and it dealt with membership and

033dealt with some of the other kind of tenants and principles that would be needed as you know we have charters for our particular uh committees as well so it was a good sharing of information and there's a extensive amount of charts that I think are particular interest for all of us to to see as we begin to ask the voters for a renewal uh also we had a guest uh from the um the administrator from Columbia Township uh and uh the request was to establish a tiff partnership tax incentive of effort and about a particular area of development uh in Columbia Township and that's as you know part of our district and uh Mr uh hin uh briefed us on what usually is the president what usually has been the history of these tiffs and

034so that one too is going to be uh looked at and evaluated uh and uh Mr uh hin is our general counsel and certainly with the treasurer and president uh will'll be looking into further developing what that is and in both in in the entire discussion the was resolved from a standpoint that it our our tenant our principal is that it would make us whole and that that was agreed to by the representative from Colombia Township um also um we had some Transportation updates uh T1 report which is required by the state was filed we also noticed that it's school bus safety week coming up next week uh the director uh Johnson reported that the uh on time uh percentages working well and that there was the hope that even by today we would have

035all of the monitors filled on the routes in our yellow buses uh we continue to press for more information about bus cards for our high school students particularly those that are now attending Hughes and um Woodward uh to make sure that uh that they have the same kinds of opportunity since right now um because of certain limitations they are being transported not on Metro but uh by yellow bus and then we continue to raise the issue about is it possible not only to have bus cards if we have our students participating in after school activities uh and tutoring and what have you but also is it possible to start to consider can we do anything to help them if they are actually employed after school so everyone's looking into that and I think you know

036as I we've gotten some estimates of what that might cost and then fortunately our our Treasurer um uh at our request and her request Mutual request uh presented at least a draft of what's going to be presented tonight and her interest was to have finance committee uh share any uh input and recommendations and suggestions as to how to improve it and make sure that most questions would be addressed in the presentation that is being presented tonight um so uh before you you you can have uh not only all the extensive stuff within the minutes but we do have the full report and and uh uh proposal from the tennis Foundation as well as knowing that the uh Columbia Township Tiff will start to be negotiated by general counsel and and the treasurer I submit for

037um hopefully passage and acceptance the minutes of the finance committee okay thank you questions for Miss Bolton I I i' have have a question for clarification so the uh tennis Foundation proposal is are is the finance committee asking us to accept as written or just to move on the action items that were presented in the report are we approving the actual program or are we just okay no and that's why we were very careful to uh we did not take a vote okay uh but that's why we use the word share with the rather than recommend or what have you and I think Mr Lindy would like to add to that yes I I just add that I appreciated the question and um one of the things that I I know they're going to go

038do or it seemed I asked them to go do was ask some parents in the wiro community like how they felt about the project um and so I think that it seems like it's full of a lot of promise and potential the principal was certainly a big uh advocate for the program uh and I know there's more work and engagement that they want to go do before they propose anything thank you thank you um any other questions for Miss Bolton okay I need a motion to approve the committee reports as written is there a second second all in favor signify by saying I I I oppose thank you all right we're ready for our uh presentation superintendent Mitchell please introduce the first presentation thank you so we have a series of presentations that have been

039requested actually by the board the first presentation is regarding Outdoor Learning and so our Deputy superintendent Tian Amad is going to do an introduction so this um Outdoor Learning is actually been a part of our work over the last several years many of our vision 2020 schools have adopted a um program focused on the environment such as Pleasant Hill John P Parker Rockdale um in addition to that um many parents and Community groups have come forward um talking about the value especially during a pandemic to have Outdoor Learning as a part of our composition within CPS so happy to say this is work we had already started on before coid but we're enhancing that work moving forward so our Deputy superintendent will introduce our team thank you good evening good evening good evening okay I

040am so excited CPS outside I am joined by an awesome team that I had the privilege to meet a few weeks back and I learned a lot did you know that we are surrounded by Green Space in the city and so close to all of our schools when talking to this group a a group of dedic D at passionate uh people um I said okay what can we do to do more that's why they wanted to have the meeting and I said okay let's think of quality improvement I got the group to do a KD so we can be intentional on how to move this work forward but before we get started I want to take this opportunity as you see all the logos up here of our network of the wonderful Partnerships that we

041have um one of the coolest names on this list is the bug chicks I love that name um we have the green umbrella Cincinnati Zoo uh The Observatory just so many great people coming across organizations coming across and partnering with CPS to get students outside to kick us off is our CPS leader uh David trabber in our curriculum department so he will open the the presentation for us thank you David thank you our schools have had amazing Partnerships with outdoor and environmental Educators for years over the past 18 months or so we have worked to coordinate and formalize these Partnerships into a network to ensure that the opportunities and benefits of outdoor educational experiences are accessible and Equitable to all of our students and school communities this evening you're going to be hearing from a

042handful of our partners uh Ryan Mooney Bullock from Green umbrella Tony stabach from the Ohio State University 4 extension Whitney Owens from the Cincinnati Museum Center Mary Dudley an amazing teacher at gamble monaster high school and a student of hers denic Ford who is uh eagerly anticipating his first day back in the building tomorrow and I am Dave trer from the curriculum Department our outdoor and environmental progam uh education Partners provide quality standards-based programming that is in alignment with the district's strategic plan in addition to the health and safety and Community engagement goals we believe that our outdoor opportunities and education Foster the experiences and background knowledge that facilitate literacy and problem solving skills our theory of change shows up in our KD our theory of change is at the impacts of activated students and

043Ames will have positive impacts on student achievement in curriculum and instruction we have a firm standing that knowledge building and experiences are strongly correlated to student academic success and the work of this network of Partners described in many of the projects you see on the rightand part of this diagram will create the environment in which this can occur time and nature enhances creativity and critical thinking increases focus and attention and can boost academic performance Chris Rell at Pleasant Hill Academy sees this in his kindergarten students regularly incorporating time outside into his his instruction our kindergarten he says gets authentic Hands-On nature-based activities that we connect to literacy on a daily basis last winter when we started mapping out what we could do as a network we identified three main strategies which we hope we get

044to soon when the time is right increasing outdoor after school clubs providing outdoor camp-like programs at Community Learning Centers during school breaks and helping teachers build their confidence in facilitating Outdoor Learning so that kids get outside with their primary Educators rather than only with special guests thanks to interest from the administration we added a focus on integrating outdoor Environmental Education into the curriculum across the district this is the gold standard for Equitable access to Quality programming once in place we could see students having outdoor experiences regularly at all schools rather than sometimes in a handful of places many partners at our table are excited about hosting student programs not only at schools but at parks and other natural spaces near the schools the Cincinnati Park District is working with us to create an Interactive map

045to help School staff easily identify walkable Green Space to each school early analysis shows that almost every CPS school has green space they can walk to this map is especially important this year when field trips with buses are not an option but we hope that it can be a tool to connect schools to their neighborhoods and students to their communities by getting out and about around school more now we know that our network has deep relation ships with teachers across the district but it's been challenging to calculate how many students we serve in a typical school year so as a first step we ask our partners to tell us which schools they provide programming to Based on data from 22 organizations we are already interacting with 97% of schools we have medium tohey engagement with

04684% of them the chart on the right shows how many partners are present at what percent of those schools the green and purple wedges show that more than 60% of schools by are being served by six or more organizations in our Network our network is working on how we can collaborate and coordinate for Maximum Impact and reach now what we don't know yet is whether there's 50 students or 500 students at each of those schools who are being reached we'd like to partner with resource coordinators or other staff to design ways to see whether this programming is being offered widely to student populations or to just a small number of classrooms now what does it take to get students learning outside competence and infrastructure teachers will benefit from connecting to existing best-in class educational resources

047and additional trainings on outdoor safety best management environmental and natural resource education and Virtual Field Trips by providing site assessments environmental educators will connect with teachers resource coordinators and principles to help staff learn how to use the campus or a nearby Green Space the site assessment will assess outdoor infrastructure and Outdoor Classroom needs and facilitate ongoing collaboration with the facilities department for site Improvement modification and planning for Outdoor Learning hi I am am very fortunate to work at gamble Monas High School where we have an established culture and several infrastructure pieces that support outdoor education and I'd like to introduce a student daic who is going to tell you a little bit about why he likes to learn outside um hello my name is anic Ford and I find personally for me that when I

048work outside oh my bad I find personally for me when I work outside um I tend to work more efficiently when I'm inside than when I'm inside the classroom I know when I'm inside the classroom it tends to get very loud very quickly and I when I work personally outside I get more room to work outside and there's less noise to distract me I would love for this to be considered a valid option for students to work outside not only to help me but more students across the district thank you okay curriculum working group is excited to collaborate with curriculum writers to embed outdoor and Environmental Education into schoolagy units also to develop and share Virtual Field Trip programming and think long-term not just short-term about how to fully integrate Community Partnerships into the curriculum

049for years to come we're providing ideas for families and caregivers to get students outside during distance learning which can be shared through the remote learning website cpsv and weekly newsletters our partner organizations are bringing exciting nature experiences to child care and after school centers like the crc's and YMCAs to engage students where they are we'd like to start planning now to expand outdoor after school programming and provide camp-like experiences at Community Learning Centers during school break days next school year and Beyond so what are our next steps we're meeting with school staff outdoors and socially distanced of course to conduct side assess Ms so we can identify both needs and opportunities for outdoor spaces at as many campuses as possible the facilities department and local architecture and Landscape landscape design firms are on board and

050standing by to help and we'd like to support short-term improvements to Outdoor Learning environments to make them more usable this school year but also conduct long-term planning for a systemwide green schoolyard approach we are sharing professional development virtual field trips and family activity opportunities Through cps's official channels and we're launching and promoting the interactive walkable greens space map to school staff we're providing programming for students Outdoors once it is deemed acceptable and we are really excited about providing some fun walking trips and campus Explorations this spring finally we're developing a plan to advance our shared goal of integrating aligned outdoor activities into the K12 curriculum so that every single student gets access to the many benefits of outdoor learning every single year so we'd like to build in some predictability so every student will know

051that they have a guaranteed outside experience each year so thank you on behalf of our CPS outside partners and our fantastic Partners in Cincinnati public schools and uh if there are any questions from the board we can take them now okay thank you so much for the presentation we're open for questions Miss Bowers first and then Mr moraski yes thank you uh president Jones hi Miss dadley she excellent I know her from Pleasant too nevertheless um I just wanted to commend you guys when I heard 60% you're already connected with 60% of our schools at least one Outdoor Learning Partner or did you say six or more six or more Partners at 60% of the school wow that's that's um very impressive and then I like the idea of the student I didn't get the

052students name but I know them what daic Ford da you did a great job thank you for presenting and I like when you said that you work more efficiently outside and it was quiet and that you didn't have the distractions I think that's going to be a key for a lot of our students to have that experience to improveing that and then the Stress Management I'm always about social emotional learning so good job I like it thank you thank you Mr moraski thank you president Jones um in my spare time I am a trustee at cam joy and their development chair so this makes my heart Happy and um I want to give a kudos uh before we get to Kudos to my colleague to my right uh Eve Bolton for really leading on this

053issue at least for three years I've been on this board and I'm seeing some nods of agreement out there so I just want to say Kudos um I might do it again later I don't know but um it's been it's been great to see all these Partners come together um and sort of match up and so my question is probably I mean for anybody but probably more specifically for our curriculum folks um is uh with the uh online curriculum uh I just want to put it out there that we have a number of lessons um at Camp Joy since kids can't be with us that if not tapped into love to um leverage any way we can uh to work with our students and I also want to give one more kudos to our gamble

054Gator um thanks so much for uh repping and I I really really like your jacket and I wish I could have one but I haven't put in the work to earn it so uh can't have one but it's a really cool jacket um but yeah Ryan I know you know Jen so um if we can connect that I know we're we're looking for ways to connect with students because we obviously really missed summer so thanks for what yall are doing and again one more time to miss Bolton I appreciate you leading on this thank you Miss Bates yes hi a great presentation but and I have a suggestion I didn't see it on here correct me if if I'm mistaken but I'm h a board member long kind of a longtime board member on go

055vibrant and uh they are involved with the district with primarily Athletics and fundraising and all of that but you know we're also coordinating with with the district on the million Step Challenge for children walking routes and I think that this would be a good another great partnership and do you know Mark jeffre I do not I can I can get you it information I think that's a a natural uh partnership there as well and I'm sure we'd be really happy to join in this great effort awesome thank you Miss Bolton thank you uh and uh the board will recall that I think uh this group gave us our first um virtual distance presentation during one board meeting a couple of months ago um I am so thrilled that uh the Administration has embraced this effort

056uh and I'm even more thrilled that this effort is a community initiative it began in the community it began even before the coid emphasis on outdoor ad and and green space and what have you so we were We Were Somehow Clairvoyant about that perhaps but uh again it's a community initiative that the district has embraced uh more important than even that it is beyond a partnership it's a network that has been referenced that allows us to use all these resources in a coordinated way and so much of everyone helps us so much in this District that are Community Partners but when we can organize networks around this it's just the Natural Evolution of the Community Learning Center model it's the Natural Evolution of the partnership between CPS and our community and most importantly our kids

057need need this effort and service for their own health and well-being and for their families and I think it's making this a priority is just incredibly important and I appreciate the enthusiasm by the deputy superintendent particularly in the effort of somehow involving a cross-curricular effort uh in in in green and outdoor ad and and this environmental piece and so I'm I'm very appreciative thankful U for this so thank you thank you any other questions or comments Mr Lindy I just wanted to say thank you for a great presentation I'm delighted and grateful that this is happening in Cincinnati public and thank you very much for your work I hope you let us know how we can be helpful awesome we will and and then finally I'll just close out with a final thank you on

058behalf of the board and uh it it's refreshing to think about being outdoors so thanks it's very uh appropriate I think for uh the period of time that we're in so thank you so much thank you so much for your time all righty thank [Applause] you okay superintendent our next presentation yes so tonight the curriculum department will provide an update um related to anti-racism curriculum so this is very much in alignment with the foresight that the board had many years ago go to establish a an equity resolution and in light of the racial unrest that's taking place across this nation this is the perfect timing for us to really dig deep and make some revisions to our curriculum so again I'm going to ask our Deputy superintendent Tian to introduce this presentation I was so

059excited to hear that we are at the final stage of um coming to a anti-racism policy and so we look look so forward to making sure our work is aligned I'm joined today with some wonderful Educators that will talk about some of the work that we have been doing and I want to leave you or start with three key messages one we want to creating school and classroom commit um communities committed to equity and anti-racism two ensure the right resources are available at the right time and three want to make this very clear this is a commitment to a movement not a moment this work started before the global crisis that we were all facing after George Floyd's death and will continue to face and um call racism out and do something about it and

060be clear clear and intentional in our work our structure began with three committees the first one is a general education committee made up of principles other administrators and teachers that committee has joined together over it it started over the summer we wrote a letter to our superintendent with some very specific strategies on uh thoughts and ideas and practices that we thought we can um improve our district we also wanted to uh build upon our principal uh leadership team in creating not only safe spaces but Brave spaces that talk about race in our schools and in our district and looking at our curriculum and instructional practices a lot of the work you will hear today will be around the curriculum and instructional work and our director of curriculum she will state this Mantra that I think

061I've been sharing with you all year long but she will kick us off with this thank you Board of Education and Deputy Amat for leading Us in this very very important work we have two statements that act as our guiding um our guiding pillars the first one is every child regardless of circumstances receive Ong grade level high quality standard deline curriculum instruction and Technologies our system is perfectly designed to get the results that it gets so we must disrupt our system and we have three calls to action that we've created for the year today's presentation focuses on our call to action one finding new ways for our students to see themselves and other cultures in their learning um and not just see themselves but are invited into our curriculum we are working to cultivate This

062anti- Racist community Through education and awareness safe spaces for courageous conversations identifying racist policies practice and ideas and disrupting the system so that we are meeting every child once again it's a great honor for me to introduce some of the leaders in the district that are are need this work on a district-wide level and in the classrooms and in the buildings so uh you'll be hearing this evening from Rachel McMillan from aen high school Dr Christine Gibson from Ro Hill Elementary and Dr Don Williams in the department of curriculum and instruction and we're excited to share just a small sample of some of the big work that is driving everything we do uh in curriculum and instruction this year again we want to show how our theory of change is represented visibly we know that

063the district has made a commitment to equity and anti-racism throughout all systems and we know that this work was necessary well before the events of this year Amplified the need we believe that these aligned acts of improvement including some of the projects uh that you see up here some some of which have already been initiated and some are on Deck throughout the year will create the conditions where every student will achieve academic success going to start off with some work that we did in social studies uh over the summer our social studies curriculum Council decided to develop lessons to kick off the school year with standards aligned units to address social just Justice head-on to provide a space for students of all ages to speak to their experiences encourage necessary and productive conversation and build

064classroom communities where this could occur early in the year um these are some of the lessons that and outcomes that we look for but I thought it would be helpful to uh let some of our students and teachers Shar why they thought it was a valuable experience been shared in that video is accessible just by clicking right at the bottom of the screen you you'll be able to watch it and we'll try to get it queued up so maybe we'll be able to to see it uh after we wrap up with the speakers good evening I am Rachel McMillan I teach black history and run the Miami teach program at Aken high school over the past several months uh several States and districts throughout the nation have reckoned with social studies curricula that are biased

065do not accurately represent diverse cultures and do not equip students to challenge racism this is because State and District curricular decisions are typically topped down and do not reflect the voices of students parents teachers and diverse communities in light of this the social studies curriculum department has decided to engage in the process of curriculum deliberation to identify problems within our p12 curriculum and construct a new curriculum from the ground up we will be creating a team to include the most important members in curriculum decision- making our students our parents Guardians our community members and our teachers our Focus will be to audit the curriculum to develop a more humanizing social studies curriculum to create a black history curriculum that is hold through the perspective of black people and reach a collective decision about what to

066teach our students here and now next slide please we will be critically examining each K12 unit to identify the voices and stories that are missing from our curriculum and teachers will create lesson plans and add resources to our current curriculum maths and schoology Frameworks and now uh Dr Christine get thank you the curriculum instruction Department have heard and listened to the voices of the students parents teachers and diverse communities our black and brown students identities matter so our big work is to align curric um current Ela curricular standards with social justice standards and the social and emotional learning standards by identifying apps adding resources to make lessons culturally relevant for all students next slide oh never mind okay so those standards um that will be aligning with the current Ela curricula are social justice and

067the four domains are identity Justice diversity and action and the five competencies that will be incorporated of the social and emotional learning standards are self-awareness self-management responsible decision-making relationship skills and social awareness next slide here is an example of what it would look like or could look like um this was created over the summer by the ELA um steering committee as well as um a member from the K3 theing Community now Dr Don Williams Justice and the details our monthly collabor was developed as an opportunity for the curriculum instruction Department to share our learnings from the previous year as we took a deep dive into equity and access in teaching and learning and how it really impacts our work and more often than not what we saw that this is a missing component when we

068talk about accelerating our students learning that will result in growth in our students AC academic outcomes we are humbled to be able to provide our teachers administrators in our entire CPS family with a space where we can come together share our learnings problem solve and build capacity in our own spaces on the left at the bottom in red is Miss glenetta Krauss from data high school she conducted some book studies for her staff on the right is Miss Lisa Owens from Roberts who built a equity Coalition that talked about the topics of interest in the world and their community in a previous session of Justice in the details they shared their learning on how they build capacity at data as well as Roberts one of our key learnings from this experience is that Justice is

069in the details for teaching and learning and just a quick note uh you heard it over and over again from all three of these folks uh over the summer over the summer uh these teachers that created those committees at those at Roberts and dater the work that was done in ela and in social studies was done by teachers during their summer break uh because they were passionate and and committed to this as as is the district as a whole the projects and initiatives that we've shared tonight reflect just again a small amount of the big work being done by amazingly activated students teachers principles and other professionals we are creating communities where students are heard and their voices valued and ensuring that the right resources are in place at the right time by alligning these

070acts of improvement and building capacity spread the work we're committed that our district is not responding to this moment but is leading a movement we hope to come back before you in the spring with some final recommendations and and asks that we would ask to be considered for not to reflect where we are in 2020 but to reflect what is necessary permanently to be added to our curriculum or change in our curriculum to ensure that anti-racism and Equity are the tenants and the Very Foundation of everything we do any luck with the at this time we want to take any questions but I want to close with that our students can't be if they don't see so it's also beyond the textbook textbooks it's also in our hiring practices so we want to unite with

071all departments and really make this a movement that is Empower empowering to all of our kids and staff and we're just so dedicated to this work and we thank you for allowing us this opportunity to share the little bit of um time that we can talk about some of the practices that we have started in the curriculum department so thank you thank you are we able to get the um video up okay all right so we'll go ahead and entertain questions Miss Bowers followed by Mr moraski yes thanks thank you everyone for the presentation it was very um uh educational for me I have a question about the safe and brave spaces to talk about racism did that occur first quarter or was is that presented to occur in the future has that already started

072so social studies teachers across the district social justice students the Socialist teachers across the district at all grade levels um started the year with these units it was anywhere from two to three week um based on the the lessons you saw up there what happened this summer why is it important to talk about this and how can how can citizens and students use their voices to impact change and um we we heard amazing things about just fantastic conversations that happened in those space excellent excellent and the second part question I had was can I add something to that um in talking to teachers is also building their capacity so that's why we're working with a principal group in how do we set up safe spaces for our teachers to feel comfortable in facilitating these conversations

073so we have a small um pilot in one of our schools and we're taking notes a small test and hearing from teachers exactly what they need to feel comfortable some of it is around content some of it some of it is around behavior management some of it is around I just don't feel comfortable so if we're going to do this systemically we have to build the capacity of the adults Beyond just the content the other part I had a question I had was for um Miss Rachel that right when you spoke about the inclusiveness of the um you deliberating a curriculum and is it the timeline in April is that when you want to see how things are going is that your timeline to determine a I mean in the spring if this is going

074to be something that we start next school year what is the timeline for the curriculum for black history so my desire would be to start now um and then you know maybe finish by you know the spring okay um in terms of deliberation but you know I would leave that up to Dave okay that is the anticipation that it would be ready to be across the board in next fall is is that okay with me saying that yes we we've uh We've committed to adopting a black history curriculum that um right now we have black history in several schools but we don't have a districtwide curriculum for that and that is something we want to have ready to go next year okay the General Social St curriculum is is an ongoing basis we're um making

075small changes as we go and big recommendations when we when we complete the deliberation at the end of the year okay and just a kudos for the five um social competencies I I like that all that I'm glad that was in there I like the connecting for social justice the ELA curriculum and the five social emotional competencies very good and can I just quickly say it was a group of teachers um Miss Dr Gibson was one of the teachers who reached out to say we have to do something now we have to blow the system up and I have an idea so it was a group of Educators Elementary and high school who are taking the ELA curriculum social emotional curriculum and social justice standards so they are working on this right now as we

076speak um so we partnered with uh Dr the Bunger and pulled all this together and using our current Whitten wisdom curriculum and my perspective so we hope to have the E Ela portion for the fall okay thank you Mr moraski thank you president Jones uh and thank you all so much I think it it begs to be highlighted that we have the experts needed in our district to do this work soon to be Dr McMillan um has been leading on this work for some time Dr Gibson of course is a well-respected well-known published author who's already writing about these issues in her series of books and of course Dr Don Williams as well in curriculum and instruction so um it's really great that we're having these kinds of presentations I'm glad there is still a

077lot of people watching these meetings um because people need to know that we are in fact leading and doc Dr amont I'm giving I'm giving out uh all right Dr amont um okay eitherway um I'm glad you pointed out that it's it's not a moment it is a movement and this is what we've been doing and I'm so grateful to hear um from David that we're going to be talking about this more in the spring and of course I'm not to I'm not the chair of sack but um always feel free to come to student achievement you we can stay up to date on it so that when it comes in the spring and we have to approve the curriculum it's not like first time everybody has uh heard about all the changes um I

078just wanted you all to know so I wanted to bring up that piece about student achievement um I also wanted to uh let you know that I received a number of texts of screenshots from parents um from the initial lessons at the beginning of this year um and it's it neat to see the context put to it um I initially thought it might have been an individual teacher you know leading this unit and as I started getting more and more messages I was like this is a coordinated effort um and it's just really impressive and I wanted you all to hear that and I wanted you to know that this has not not been a year where we are flooded with compliments and um one area where we have consistently I think received compliments is

079in this area of leading this anti-racism work and the fact that the word disruption was included so frequently made me so happy because this system like all systems is designed to self-perpetuate and it will do so until it is disrupted and our job is to empower that disruption so our black students aren't always on the bottom of every single metric we look at and our white students at the top we want everyone to be at the top I'm say we want to bring it put people down but those metrics aren't acceptable as Miss Bow's talked about in the presentation of her minutes um and lastly uh I just you know our I can't help but think of our former colleague Mr oie Davis who would have been so thrilled uh and I know was watching

080probably he's watching is is he texting everybody um so thrilled about all this so thank you um we look forward to supporting it um in all our committees and the full board thanks thank you any other comments of Mr Lindy and Miss Bolton I I primarily just want to say thank you for all of your work uh I loved the way you said finding new ways to see themselves and learn about others I thought that was such a a clear and wonderful way um of describing so much that matters I've had a chance to talk to to Dave about some of this before and and would just Echo what Mr moraski said around the beginning of the school year units I thought one um one opportunity for the future my hypothesis is that there's a

081real H spread of the extent to which teachers see this as their responsibility uh and that we have some real standout Educators here in CPS and and I think our board meetings could be opportunities to publicly thank them for the work that they're doing um I'm excited to take a look at the video but even just bringing some of them here this say in front of the entire District we see what you're doing it matters a lot we hope more people do it thank you and thank all of you miss Bolton um yes just to Echo what folks have said I do uh hope that all of our curricula particularly the ones adopted in the last several years provide the kind of platform for expansion and deepening and I appreciate the work of the curriculum

082department for that reason I think to the the idea the students have had an impact the community has had an impact and that the district itself both the leadership and the whole structure of the district has realized its social responsibility and I will also say political responsibility let alone its educational responsibility to confront and embrace these challenges and figure out how we can uh as we try to say all the time lead and instead of follow so I appreciate what you're doing and I too got a lot of good response regarding the early lessons and the early engagement with our students to to in these very very challenging times so it's a it's it's good that this is happening and I guess we'll be hearing more because you do have to adopt what or try

083to uh so keep at it thank you so much thank you and then um finally just uh again on behalf of the board thank you for the presentation and to members of the honors you got the video up okay give me a minute um thank you and to encourage people to support our authors by the books they're good so congratulations and Kudos thank you and I'm here today just to speak on the impact and the fruit of the social injustice unit um it was very impactful for my students to have open dialogue about things that affect their Community um history that reflects them and what they look like and their daily lives and so kudos to the social studies department for um taking on this task to unveil in the new year to build into

084our our students to build in relationships and although these conversations can be tough it's necessary um and I'm just thankful to be a part of it to be part of CPS in this process I think it's important to discuss racism and race because a lot of the problems that we have that minorities face back then still have an effect on how our society operates today I thought it was very important to talk about social justice in my social studies class at the beginning of the year because it taught us to treat each other respectfully and not by what the color of our skin is hi hi my name is Daniel krook and I'm just coming to you all to tell you how um thankful and impactful this unit on racial justice has been for my

085students I teach 10th grade American history and I have one class of African-American history both classes have been super engaged they have been there's been great dialogue great discussion and they've been really really involved um my seniors are even using this topic for their common app essay so that I think is amazing as well to see how engaged they are in class even my student students who last year I knew the r the Halls have been in class participating discussing um on task just on point with this dialogue and discussion and is greatly needed and appreciated thank you so much um I teach fourth graders the social studies and the social justice unit was a great start to this year to make social studies relevant to our standards with timelines historical thinking analyzing primary and

086secondary sources analyzing text for bias and we analyzed photographs songs speeches laws from the Civil Rights Movement um at the same time this unit created empathetic knowledgeable citizens who can see a point of view that is not always heard through our be social social justice superhero scenarios we had made we made protest posters and the kids and I became family that would stand up for each other it really helped create a strong class structure a lot of people try to dodge the topic because of how proudful it can be to talk about it and they never really know what we go through until we explain it and they see it with their own eyes that's why we need to talk about race uh my students really responded very well to the social justice lessons they

087really enjoyed them they enjoyed talking about uh something that they know affects them on a daily basis uh it also helped me with building relationships with my students right off the bat letting them know where I stand on issues that are dear to their heart um and talking about how it it is living history and the importance of understanding how history is happening every day was very beneficial and I think will continue to be beneficial throughout the school year we need to talk about race because we need to get all this confusion and racist out each other's head because it's not right for the United States of America Al righty well thank you that was a great presentation we look forward to hearing more okay so we're going to move on to our presentation from

088our Treasurer treasur Wagner good evening that's certainly in a hard act both of them hard acts to follow um but I'm here today uh tonight to give you an update on the budget M but um before I start you're working on my slides okay I'll just talk um so I'd like could take a moment to offer a little bit of clarity in that there's a lot of uh conversation going around about not having a budget we do have a budget on September 14th the board authorized through a Appropriations resolution thank you um to Grant so that to authorize me to spend money up to 625 million in the general fund and we have been processing thousands and thousand are requisitions to support the schools in the school opening um so despite not us not having

089a line by line allocation of the budget we still we do have a budget okay so also in a recent meeting it occurred to me that um there's a lot of confusion over what's called cash carryover so I thought I'd take a few minutes and talk about um how School school districts operate on a cash basis and what that means with our financial plans so in the corporate world um oops oh okay this isn't working okay stop right there okay so in the corporate world um do I keep doing that okay I'll let you drive um I talk with my hands a lot so I must be pressing a button that I'm not supposed to p pa okay so in the corporate world they use Gap accounting which is a cruel basis accounting which means

090that revenues and expenses are recorded when incurred and not necessarily when either received or paid school districts work on a cash basis by state law and so we only record a revenue or an expense when cash changes hands this there's a there's a difference there so as an example on the corporate side of the world they sell a computer they book that um sale and then into a receivable so when they get the money to deliver the vents the computer get the cash is when they record the cash receipt on the other hand on the district side we don't record our property tax collections until that actually shows up in our bank on the other H side on an expense when a corporate body buys something they record it when they get the invoice we'll

091record the expense not when we get the invoice bll we actually pay the bill and it could be 30 days later because our terms are net 30 days so I'm saying all that to explain how cash balance helps to drive our multi-year 5-year plan you can switch thank you so this is a shortened version of the May forecast so if you remember when we were doing the forecast in may we were in the midst of a huge economic downturn people are laying off all over the place but the companies were closing but we still have to put out a fiveyear forecast so the rule is that you can't have a negative cash balance in a three-year window the current year plus two years and so because the state had cut our funding and we were

092anticipating delinquencies in our revenues and our tax collections we we took a conservative approach to the forecast and because last year we allowed our budget to grow a little bit higher than our forecast suggested because we were investing in the Strategic plan it became important to manage that cash balance at the end of the year with a three-year Lookout so what this slide is showing you is that by fiscal year 23 we still end the year with a positive cash flow a small positive but it is positive um and so what we did is we looked backwards towards fiscal year 21 and said in order to maintain that cash balance in fiscal year 23 we we can only spend $625 million based on our anticipated revenues so if we start the year with our cash

093balance of 106 million which is what we were forecasting we add our estimated revenues of 592 million we end up with an available resource for that budget of million if and we have to end the year with cash of 73 million then we can only spend 625 million flip it to the next one so in September as new information came out and the economic key performance indicators started to reverse themselves into more positive fashion we took a look at some of our Revenue assumptions um the good news was we ended the year with 2 million more in cash than we'd anticipated so we start the year with $108 million and then we increas the revenues on our state Foundation uh with a conversation with Aon Ral at OD they intended not to cut us again

094the second year and we thought they were going to so we added that Revenue back and then we also looked at the trend of our city Tiff payments are going up and so we revised our revenues to 609 which creates an available resource of 717 million and so two months ago at finance committee we said we had Cho a choice to make we could either put that money in cash or use it to support this budget that would help save jobs as we were still looking at reductions at that time now those Revenue adjustments we're going to filter into the into the next couple years and we'll update the forecast in November as required with those assumption Corrections so um so this forecast adjustment allows us to increase our budget Target to 644 million from

095the original 625 next line so the next item that's important to understand is that our revenues do not increase necessarily with our enrollment growth so what I'm showing you on the right hand slide is enrollment um from fiscal year 14 to the projected for the current year we don't have actual official estimate or enrollment count right now so I'm just still using the projection but you can see there's like an upward slope on the left side I'm showing you the blue bar chart is our property taxes and those stay relatively flat they don't grow with enrollment the pink stack on the top is the new money Levy if you just look at it in total it looks like it grows with enrollment but it really doesn't it's just because we had that new money levy

096on the ballot on fiscal year 17 16 and then it started collection at 17 um and this is important because half half of our Revenue comes from State Foundation um the yellow line on that bar chart represents the state Foundation formula so you can see that it actually kind of sorted tracks with our enrollment growth but the difficulty is we're not getting enough money from State Foundation to keep track with the enrollment growth that we're getting and that's important because it squeezes the rest of the budget down when you have to hire more teachers we're not getting more Revenue enough Revenue to fund all those teachers so that squeezes the rest of the budget items down to stay balanced next so here I'm trying to show you the different kind of categories and how we

097spend our money so the first one being fixed costs so right off the top on any year we we cut we have to take off $150 million that represents 23% of our operating budget those payments are our debt payments the 3. 4 million that we have to transfer to our building fund to maintain the billion doll Master facility master plan buildings our County auditor fees technology lease payments um and liability insurance for the district then NE the next category in the second block are we call them fixed they're not really fixed or variable but they're controlled by the state so those are all of the tuition payments Charter Ed Choice Peterson autism scholarships the Third category is what I'm calling mixed fixed variable so that when we spend or have to reduce we do it

098in chunks so if three kids leave a school you're not necessarily cutting a teacher because you lost three kids but you're losing three kids worth of funding so um because of our funding formulas and the way we have to staff classrooms buses operate the same way we kind of spend that money in steps instead of individually by students so that takes us to the fourth category which is completely variable spending and that is based on the number of students so we will buy the number of textbooks to support those children um instructional software supplies we wouldn't buy subscriptions where we don't have students in the building I'm just saying all that to to in times of reduction it makes reducing the budget that much harder the next slide So today we're facing with balancing a

099budget in a pandemic time where the plans keep shifting not necessarily from our control and so we're trying to bridge to this new world that we're living in the new CPS from a budget that was supporting our strategic plan our my tomorrow initiative our digital instruction Vision 2020 and Equity into um on demand learning so back in the day when the superintendent was the deputy superintendent and I was the CIO and we were kicking off the whole my tomorrow initiative we did a lot of listening sessions and the students told us they want to be able to learn when it's more convenient for them to do it so why can't they listen to lessons while they're on the treadmill at the gym or work in the morning and take our classes at night and so

100they were really looking for Learning and working anytime and anywhere and so we started working towards that and this pandemic is really kind of pushing us into leaping into that a little bit quicker next slide please so here's a summary of from the last presentation some additions that that are happening with the budget and then what with some of the reductions that we've already made that first line that says coid Supply staff technology isn't 27 and a half I picked up the total in that column it's 21 and a half 21. 1 but the estimated total of 42 million 42.7 is correct so we are adding 42.7 to last year spend because of coid because of vure tuition eligibility changes because of our enrollment growth and all the Staffing that comes with it and our

101strategic plan investment and then over the summer we all work together um and made reductions some of they were approved in July they've already been put into place but we actually have some estimates that are still in progress for example the transportation Savings of 3.9 million we put it in the budget as a reduction because it won't be transporting children on Mondays um but until that contract gets reduced we won't actually realize it potential Staffing reductions we're waiting for the teacher allocation committee budget Staffing work to be finished after all the children children return to work I mean School excuse me and then um some of the Deferred projects and cancellations that we've already recorded so the check bark means we we got it we're done and the other ones are still in progress next

102slide please so this is where we stand today on October 19th um this is a picture of that $150 million that we set off off the top so we start with $644 million Target we reduced 150 million for those items and then the rest of the operations gets to share the 76.7% that's left next slide so um our Target the left bar chart on the um on the graph there is 644 million that's our Target today this morning's extract came out at 687.5rpm side we can close that gap down to 649.2rpm that's 154% increase over last year's long-term illness pool and so what that why that's difficult why that's important is because we're paying the teacher that's on leave but we're also paying the substitute in the classroom to cover so you're paying for two

103bodies um the other issue is and I'm sure we know but at the time of this development I didn't know um what's our ridership on our buses look like so would there be some economies that we could capture on that um we don't know the future of whether we're going to be able to stay open for the rest of the year and we don't know how we'll be able to adhere to some of these reductions so we we had an estimate at one point of all of our vacancies if we just froze and we didn't fill in for the rest of the year we would save us $1.8 million but how realistic is that and so we're looking at those as oppos and in in coordination with the Staffing review okay next SL here's a

104view on some of the things we talked about at finance committee um and what I'm trying to show you here is that if you just look at the centralized budget unit and as a percent of the total budget it looks like centrally we're spending we're controlling 56 M 56% of the budget well the schools get 44% of the budget but in reality the 38% of the central budget is actually spent on either directly on student services or in the schools some examples are um the My tomorrow techs are budgeted in the technology department but they actually work out in the schools transportation provides Direct Services to students curriculum buys textbooks but their cost allocated out to the schools based on the students and um tuition is another one of those district-wide spends so when you

105look at it where where the money is being spent the budget shifts to 81 82% is actually spent on schools and students versus the central Administration next slide okay so this is how we spend our money this is pretty high level still when we get to um the next level of the budget is when we'll get into a little bit more detail but just to share with you this salaries and benefits represent 56.4% of the budget which compared to other districts is really really low there it's usually around 80% but because we Outsource our busing and a lot of our Technology support contracts that show those costs are shown up in purchase Services instead of salaries resource coordinator is another example of of how we contract for services um the purple section off to the

106left there is our purchase Services what um what's in there are the technology lease payments um transportation tuition [Music] um any other professional development contracts that we have the yellow slide are are supplies so that includes office supplies and general supplies but for the most part the biggest dollar in there are textbooks instructional software and supplemental software and classroom supplies we actually increased the budget to classroom supplies um on a project that we collaborated with the CF Union and so that budget is $6.7 million across the district uh let's see the green section is I can read this properly are dues and fees so that's the add County auditor dues I'm sorry not dues fees they they charge us to collect taxes for us and then um and also our liability insurance is in that

107section and then the orange section of the transfers those are the the money that we transfer to the debt fund and to the building maintenance fund so our next steps um is next week the team is going to be reviewing enrollment after all the kids come back enrollment um with the formulas and right sizing the staff in each building um and then sharing that with the Union Representatives then um on Election Day I put that up there because I was starting to think it doesn't it what happens on Election Day doesn't have a d a current impact on this year's budget or it doesn't have an immediate impact on this year's budget but it could influence some of our reduction decisions as we move forward so I'm just putting it out there as a note

108um after election day the PLT will get back together figure out what our final Gap is based on all these other changes um we'll give you an update on November 4th as a scheduled board meeting uh with the hopes that get a board budget approval on the 16th when I'm presenting a 5-year forecast as well and then the very next day I'll start working on the next year's budget one more the one new piece of information that I want to be able to share with you after the Staffing process happens is to compare what our anticipated normal Staffing would look like based on the projected students of 36,990 to what the base Staffing would look like based on the enrollment that we have this year compared to what we're Staffing due to coid so for

109the extra bodies that we have to out there for Safety and Security um the difference between 3 feet and six feet social distancing I heard a story um a week ago where there was a kindergarten teacher that we probably would have reduced in normal days but because the number of kids that were there they couldn't social distance in the classroom so they had to keep that second kind teacher and so to me that's a cost of coid so um I want to be able to organize the Staffing data with the budget in that fashion so we can clearly understand um the impact this is having on our budget so kind of as a closing comment at this point is as a the financial professional of this District my first inclination is to cut cut cut

110balance the budget reduce reduce but it wouldn't be wise at this point because we are still intending to open up five days a week if we can to bring all the kids back in order to do that we have to have the staff in order to make that do that safely um and so it's a fine line a fine balance so um anyway I'll pause there and entertain any questions that you might have for members questions or comments Mr Lindy thanks treasure ragner this and I apologize if you said this just a second ago uh after Tac what's that stand for again I'm sorry the teacher allocation committee it's a term that's used in the collective Bing agreement where they go in a review to make sure that we're in compliance with all their Staffing

111formulas I got you thank you you're welcome any other questions comments Miss Bolton um appreciate the the effort in all of this that everybody's had to to take into consideration couple of questions um I don't I don't have any I don't find any fault with readjusting the uh Revenue piece I still have great uh consternation of course about whether we use it to spend or we use it to for cash but I think that the board generally would prefer to use it in order to to fund what we must do um I I am concerned about uh the the anticipating we would have to our hope is to go five days somewhere down the road but even if we can't do that this coid requirement of Staffing and programming whether we do five days or

112we are living through this coid experience next year it's this it's not the same amount of money but neither one of them them are saving money or reducing the amount of money or Staffing that we would need at least the way I look at it whether it's we're still in coid for fiscal 22 or whether we are back to being normal at five days in person the budget next year it would seem to me has to be rather large too so I think you get this year you know maybe we can do it so that it would be possible for us not to need new money in the fiveyear forecast which is for me a major goal in the whole board I think but right now it's hard for me to Envision being able to

113develop the next budget endlessly and the next budget with very much less money or less uh less needs than we have now so that I worry about fiscal 22 which is why I still think if there's a way to make fiscal 21 the one we're talking about now less probably helps us uh in the following year but more important than that I'm concerned um because because the superintendent Nu and everybody has emphasized and even our last presentation we can't keep funding the old CPS we can't that's we can't keep funding the old CPS but there's not going to be enough money in the world to keep and we're still sort of funding not only the coid experience that we've all had to go through fiscally but we're but but if we start in the next

114month or two to do the next budget there has to be significant change as you and the superintendent both mentioned it for the last several meetings to develop a new CPS and any incrementalism that we use or have used has to just go away I mean it has to be a redesign if you would and so it would seem to me that that needs to be where our focus is is there's not much that can be done about now but I just think it's a message that needs to be out there that the next budget is going to have to be radically different and we said two years ago when we added for the Strate for the Strategic plan we're going to spend a lot well and then reduce it well we haven't been able

115to reduce it and not by our fault or anybody but by what's going on I'm just saying that we have to start is I know everybody's exhausted but we have to finance a new CPS and right now this doesn't help us but there's no help for it so I just want us to be thinking along the lines of what it means because that's that's just months away that that budget has to be adopted so board and everybody has to understand that there's going to be some significant change or there has to be so I appreciate all this work and effort but it's that we might look back and think this was okay because moving into the future might be a little bit more difficult so thank you other questions or comments Mr Lindy this is

116just a question for member Balton is that okay yeah can you this is my first um year through all of this I is is there an idea um of what you wish we were doing differently instead I I'm sorry can you repeat that yeah I was just I was saying um it's my first budget cycle and I know that I know this year is is unprecedented for everybody but I just if if is there a version of uh for member Balden what you would like to see us be doing now in terms of financial planning I I think we're prisoners of our circumstances uh I know that the treasurer has worked hard to start to develop a different budget process that was going to kind of start to be done even in this this particular

117year but couldn't do it because we're figuring out how to react to co I think uh moving into the future uh we have to be willing to cut and redirect our monies in certain ways and that certain ways would be this new CPS and that will require a new process it will require a completely different process uh to to Envision the next and the the next CPS versus all the other constraints we have whether they're you know contractual ex you know constraints whether it's Revenue constraints whether it's hoping there's a different Federal Administration that gives us money but be careful what you wish for because we got that during the Obama Administration we got more money but we also got it endorsement of charters and everything else coming out of the federal government so it

118we have to have a new process so that's where I think we could be focusing and we have an expert that would help us develop what that new process is right now I think we're just prisoners of our circumstances but we've got to be willing as a board and a district to redirect monies and re and be willing to make hard choices instead of um trying to maintain I appreciate that thanks okay um other questions or comments I I just um I was trying to listen very intently to miss Bolton and uh you know how I feel about numbers right but but I think there I I am hearing what you're saying and I think that uh but also what I've heard is that I think there is a recognition that we have to think

119through what a new CPS looks like and I think that that's part of the Strategic Focus that we need to to prioritize as we move forward so when you say budget redesigned for a new CPS I agree that you know we must be willing to cut we must be willing to shift we must be willing to do lots of different things but I'm not quite sure what again what that process would look like so is that what you're speaking of or what would be a new process for that am I making sense yeah okay I so what I'm saying is I see the focus being on us thinking through right now what our strategic plan looks like moving forward and I've already heard the board and administration talk about that but we're not there yet

120so does that make sense yes absolutely and I I do think and I I would embrace the the existing strategic plan we have from a standpoint that you know this is our second year or whatever third year is about to happen or what have you there are core aspects of that strategic plan and all these other initiatives you it's been mentioned my tomorrow and some of this other stuff that we've done over time the rediscovering our neighborhood schools there's there's a core of the a structure of what the new CPS might look like or as Jen mentioned kids with my tomorrow we want to learn whenever we want to learn uh and and some of the stuff we've been we can use this Co experience to help us figure out what some of those new

121ways are but you're right it's the we we have to come to grips with having discussions about that strategic plan and we have to have the the experts tell us what kind of budget process would help us do it but you also have to jettison some of these things that are extraneous to allow that that don't allow us to have the discretion we need to have we're not in a position to develop a new CPS yet because there's so many structures and rules and regulations about this and that it's hard to have the discretion that we need to redesign the place other questions or comments Miss Wagner any final comment no no okay working hard to get it done okay thank you thank you so much uh yes Miss Miss Bates has a question yes

122since this is a budget hearing are any of the people that have raised their hands do they want to speak to the budget well they they can in hearing of the public and she can respond right I just thought because this was a budget hearing that we would hear the public during the budget hearing but um I think you're right but we didn't structure it in the way that we typically do typically when we have a budget hearing we block off a half hour before the meeting and we have a hearing we didn't do it but I think we can easily address that if it comes up okay so thank you okay our final presentation of the night um superintendent Mitchell yes so this evening I am so excited that last week we opened our

123doors and welcomed our kids back into our schools normally we would give this presentation in August which would be an update as to how the opening went and so we're excited that that happened last week so just as a reminder our prek through 2 grade students and our seventh and eighth grade students returned last week in their AB grouping along with our specialized classrooms we're also super excited that tomorrow we will welcome back our third through sixth grade students and our 9th through 12th grade students in their AB grouping so the leadership team as well as directors and managers we were all assigned out to schools um on the first day of inperson instruction and it was so refreshing to see the kids in the buildings and all the safety precautions that were in place

124and the adults I cannot say enough about our staff they were warm and greeting our kids they were excited that they were there and you could just see the energy so it was very very exciting so for tonight's update we're going to talk about several things in terms of our Health Data our precautionary measures Transportation student dining services academics and attendance we want you to know how attendance was last week and of course we're going to continue to collect attendance this week and be able to report out on that next slide please get to the next one so right before we moved to inperson learning Hamilton County moved into the red we anticipated that we would move out of the red at this point in time Hamilton County is still in the red um several

125weeks ago we put into place a medical advisory team so all along we've been working with the health department we've been working with Children's Hospital on a weekly basis as it relates to the data and as it relates to precautionary measures but we did put in place a a team of people medical advisors to give us some direction as it relates to the data and also to help us be able to interpret that data and so our chief strategy officer and I we met with that team on Friday and at that point looking at the data considering we are in the red but also considering other data points that advisory team thought that it was safe for us to be able to open schools for our students last week and again this week however we

126wanted to double check and make sure and so after Friday we decided to um look at two more days of data being Saturday and Sunday and we met again with our advisory team again this morning for them to give us an update on that data and they are still under the belief their professional belief is that we should continue to move forward with our students being in session we may be excited to know or happy to know that our neighboring districts around us that data is being collected in terms of their spread in school and there are few School clusters in terms of spread that that's happening in our neighboring districts that are around us last week Cincinnati public schools and I'll talk a little bit about this later it's very exciting we were able

127to test 62 students who displayed coid likee symptoms and um out of the 62 only one had a confirmed case of coid 19 the early detection is the key here and we were able to find that out very quickly due to the precautionary measures we put in place you may also be interested to know that on October the 16th this is a quote from the governor governor dwine he says that that the state is seeing spreads at funerals weddings churches and informal gatherings in people's homes and backyards where they are not seeing spread is in controlled settings like schools next slide shows you the epidemiological curve so you can see that we did go up in Hamilton County and then also in the city of Cincinnati we have started to drop a little bit um

128but we are still in the red next slide in terms of the length of time that it takes to get a test result um the average is still uh about two days for our situation for our students because of the relationship that we have with Children's Hospital the longest period it took us to get a test result of the 62 kids that were tested was 11 hours and 33 minutes so we were able to inform the parent before the kid came back to school the next day whether to send the child back or not in terms of community positivity rate for Hamilton County we are currently sitting at 3.3 and for the city of Cincinnati we are 2.7 so that's a look at our community data now let's look at some data for CPS we

129were actually um just able to collect data for our students because we just welcomed them back but we've always had the data for our staff members so you can see that we started collecting data back in May and you can see the number of confirmed cases each day and remember that back in may we weren't even in session face to face so these are people who were getting coid due to family gatherings or somewhere out in the community you can see that on the 12th we did um spike a little bit with eight but then we were coming down the rest of the week and so you can see that we were in the one and two range in terms of confirmed cases for CPS employees next slide please you may remember that Dr Amin

130who is the epidemiologist for the health department she came and she presented to the board several board meetings ago and so she t talked about a global Health Institute out of Harvard that provides guidance to schools and a threshold in which is safe to be able to enter into schools and you can see that there's a color coding system but this is specifically for schools and if you go to the next slide you will see that Hamilton County according to this um public school health advisory we are in the range of 22 the city of Cincinnati is 16 so if you go back one slide for me you can see that between 10 and 25 is in the orange section which is to consider remote and hybrid learning so again this is coming at the

131advice of our medical advisors next two slides thank you so let's talk about our protective measures so again I stated that we were out in schools looking at the precautionary measures and so here's what those measures involved they involve kids when they ride a bus they should have a mask on when they're getting off the bus they should have a mask on if they approach the bus and they don't have a mask the bus drivers to give them a mask so that they ride to school if they are driving to school in a car before they get out of the car their temperature is checked to allow them to come in or not to come in and if they're walking up then when they enter the building they have to have a mask on and

132their temperature is again checked those students getting off of a bus will have a temperature check as as well we were able to observe all of those um during this time we looked specifically for proper mask wearing that's above the nose and covering the mouth and for those students who did not wear it properly they were reminded by the adults there the proper way to wear masks we also observed six feet of social distancing while we were there in our schools and so there's clear marking outside and inside of our buildings stickers all over the floor signs on the walls to be able to demonstrate what six feet of social distance looks like there are many of our principles who purchased these uh tubes they're like pool tubes see what six feet of social distancing

133actually looks like for little kids hand sanitizing so we look for hand sanitizing during three key times of the day we looked on for hand sanitizing entering the building that's one of the first things you do after you get your temperature checked then you go to the hand sanitizing station um let me say this if you are a student or a staff member who um has a fever upon coming in you only get so far in you're immediately directed to the isolation room that you're not in the main PLO with the other students they're hand sanitizing when you come to the building hand sanitizing and washing hands before lunch and then also hand sanitizing anytime someone enters into that classroom so if the principal is walking from classroom to classroom they have to hand sanitize

134every time they go in and if a child leaves the room and comes back in the hand sanitizer wash coming back in next slide please so Safety Systems so children's hospital they have impressed Upon Us learn fast and mitigate fast early detection is the key so within our schools we have registered nurses in all of our schools we have a rapid response resp time so children has said to us you need to get your response time down as low as possible and we actually time it and so Susan buy our assistant superintendent she um is on a huddle call with the school nurses once a day twice a day and so it's immediate information so that we can turn things around very quickly it's not a turnaround time of a day or a week no

135it's in a matter of hours so from the time a student displays symptoms five minutes was the average time that it took the teacher to get that student to the nurse I stated that for testing and we have to thank Children's Hospital for this 11 hours and 3 33 minutes for the test results we tested 62 kids last week who displayed symptoms and only one of the 62 had a confirmed case of coid daily safety huddles so our chief strategy officer and myself we split the schools up there are four different clusters and on a daily basis at the exact same time each day we go through and we have a safety huddle with um our particular clusters and we ask them there were three questions we want them to focus on for this um

136first week and those were around the mask the six feet of social distancing and then the hand sanitizing and it isn't oh are you doing this or aren't you doing it's a roll call by principal what's the data and we impressed upon them the idea is not to be perfect it is to tell the truth so so that we can identify where there are problem areas to make changes and so we're very excited about those safety huddles and the good news is in many instances for those safety huddles we were able to get what they needed out to the schools the very next day or within a matter of days whether it was more stickers for their floors or anticipating needing more hand sanitizers because of the number of times we want the kids to

137hand sanitize and all the adults in the building so Swift action is what we're looking for and we also have our mask onme campaign and so those are the things that we have worked on diligently over several months and we actually got to put those practices into place last week as we welcomed our students back and we will enhance them as we welcome even more of our students back tomorrow so now um our um Chief strategy officer Sarah Trumble Oliver will come up and she'll talk about the safety protocols good evening so we're very happy to report that our safety measures were a success last week the first week of Blended learning the staff in the schools have done an incredible job adjusting to the new procedures and putting into real action all of the

138planning we've been doing over the past several months so as the superintendent mentioned we focused on the top most important safety precautions which are maske wearing six foot distancing and hand hygiene our staff is reporting a 97% implementation of these measures so not perfect yet but as the superinten superintendent mentioned we are holding safety huddles daily with the principles in a Relentless pursuit of reliable safety protocols protocols among all of our buildings we did also observe the safety precautions on the first day of Blended learning and we have been hearing anecdotally from parents that they are impressed with safety from the first week we did also experience our first week of student coid testing through the Cincinnati Health Department nurses and Cincinnati Children's um Hospital testing and this has been adding to our confidence that

139positive cases can be identified quickly and isolated and as Laura mentioned there were 62 tests given with one being positive result so as the other school districts in Hamilton County have been experiencing we expect that with our safety protocols and in our controlled environment we will continue to see little to no spread of coid with in-person learning in our schools next slide please um as a quick Transportation update uh for the first week of Blended learning so you may recall that in transportation we have been working for months on implementing a new call center and I work to get system so that we can handle the volume of requests and issues especially during those first few weeks of school so we now have good data on this volume and we can improve our management of

140the work and the workflow so in all honesty our customer experience is not where we want it yet we have resolved 78% of the work tickets opened last week we received 9600 calls with a daily average answer rate of 51% the number of calls on Tuesday alone was almost 5,000 but by Friday the volume of calls decreased to 900 and we were up to 70% being answered our goal is much higher than this and so um even at Peak time we want to be able to handle more calls and so we have added three more call center staff for this week the top reasons for all of those calls coming in last week were service information requests um finding out um pickup times and locations and drop off times reporting late routes and inquiries about

141service changes from last year so we are able to track in real time 91% of our yellow bus vehicles with our GPS system and so because of that we now have automated ontime performance reports we were up above 80% for our Charter and and non-public routes but last week overall for all routes we were at 55% of buses on time within fifth within five minutes by Friday we were up to 62% but again this is not meeting our goal the number of routes that were 30 minutes late or more was 18 on Tuesday out of almost 600 routes and down to only two on Friday the transportation team holds daily huddles with the vendors who then submit an action plan for how they are going to improve the ontime performance of the routes that had

142been late on to student meals the student dining service department has completely transformed their processes on how we deliver meals to support the district safety plan so breakfast last week is was served from kiosk as students enter the building and lunch was delivered to classrooms on mobile delivery carts on Wednesday for the a group and on Friday for the B group students were given remote meal packs to take home for their distance learning days and on the next slide you will see we still have two sites for meal hubs which is at Walnut and at virtual for the Cincinnati Digital Academy um and those are still on Wednesdays and contains um meals for five days for the distance learning students and we are grateful to our partners U UMC food Ministry and LP for providing

143additional meals as well and next uh Miss Amat will continue the presentation I just wanted to remind you we are doing the one 122 model on Mondays is distance learning we have group a coming in on Tuesday and Wednesdays and Thursday and Fridays Group B so half the student population to ensure um consistency through models and transitions um we have used schooly that is still our learning platform and at two of our sites Echo and at CDA uity so consistency in our learning model is there I also want to share next slide please I also want to share some additional supports that we have and remind families about cpsv season 2 we have read alloud stem challenges science around the world and um Virtual Field Trips you can also check out our website it is

144updated um and you will also have access to some of that outdoor activities that we spoke about I'm excited to present our district fall literacy night in um partnership with the public library will begin October 22nd for grades preschool through three we'll share stories and activities and give quick tips um for learning literacy and reading for our families we also will continue our were student support teams our families were um called on on during distance learning and those still uh school teams will continue during the one 122 model now we have a little [Music] video [Music] hi Jer warro here I teach seventh and eighth grade science at Hartwell Elementary um one thing I'm really excited about for Blended learning is just seeing kids again um being around them and just being able to offer

145that assistance to children in person hi I am one of the assistant principes here at Robert AAP it high school I am Dr Jennifer Williams and I am excited about Blended learning I'm excited about Blended learning because we finally get to see our students face to face my excitement for Blended learning is the access our kids have access to the curriculum more importantly they have access to their teachers in the building two days a week when they go home they will also be able to access their learning even at home so the Blended model has now joined us together but I think it is also making the actual learning come together for our students it was exciting to see our students using programs such as seesaw and flip grid to create their projects and to

146respond back to teachers now as we move into the Blended learning we are equally excited as our students now create their second project for them to have the opportunity to merge in and collaborate with one another in person I'm excited about seeing our students in person in order to make them excited about becoming lifetime Learners and when you're a lifetime learner you learn that learning never stops that you become focused on becoming a better person each and every day and here at South Avendale school we are Learners today lead us tomorrow something that I am most proud of in this Blended learning is the adaptability and flexibility of our our teachers our students families and our whole school Community um one thing that I would say that I'm fairly proud of in terms of Blended

147learning is um the schedule and the organization on schooly that her team has created so we made sure to have our folders looking similarly across the grade level so that when students went into each course they were looking at something that looked the same so it was familiar to them um and created an easier access for them to to complete their work I'm most proud of Blended learning because it gives our students and teachers an opportunity to expand their boundaries using their interpersonal skills as well as their technology skills it makes us be able to stay focused and and learn in multiple different ways so we have our in-person piece where we can learn to support each other social emotionally as well as our Tech piece where we can learn those first century skills that

148will make us successful well into the future my most proud moment I would say this morning seeing families come and drop their kids off kids getting off the bus students were excited to be back into the building staff was excited to be back into the building and I was as well so just proud to see my little babies ready to [Music] go [Music] [Applause] [Music] work out good evening so I wanted to share with you a little information about attendance so soon on the screen you will be able to see the distance learning attendance that's cumulative from August 31st when we had our very first day of school up through um the 9th and That Was 87.6% Then if you add in last week's attendance we're at 86.9 you may be wondering how many of

149our students attended during this first week of school both in the a cohort which was Tuesday and Wednesday and the B cohort which was Thursday and Friday so for cohort a we had 88% and for cohort B we had 90 2% so at this time our superintendent will offer concluding remarks okay so in closing we have a community responsibility next slide please to create not a bubble but a protective field around our schools what is so important is the community's response to the data we all know what we can do to protect ourselves and to protect our kids so that they can be in school and so it's all of our responsibility to make sure that we're washing our hands creating social distance and wearing our mask the proper way we also believe that it'll

150be very important as we build out a campaign to be able to test our students on a regular basis when they're exhibiting symptoms we also believe that that should be true for our staff as well we know what to do and we believe that we have the resources and support to be able to protect ourselves and protect our kids as they come back to school next slide so we're excited to be able to launch our mask on me campaign and what a cute little picture of them looks like a child smiling with a mask on so we are kicking off the mask onme campaign it will be something visible every single week and we're excited to say community help us out we cannot do this alone we need everyone to wear their masks social distance

151and um wash hands so we can keep everyone safe and keep our kids in school so this picture that I want to share with you is a is a picture that a little second grader uh sent me and and she wrote on here um I want to be back in school because it's hard to stare at the computer screen and stare and it becomes boring and I'm missing the library playground history friends and iners so please let me back and then the next picture is of a fine young man on his first day of school at kindergarten at gamble Monas Elementary Alex so this is the reason we need to create a protective field around our schools to keep our little ones in our buildings because this is where they want to be and where

152they deserve to be thank you wonderful questions comments Mr moraski and Miss Bowers thank you president Jones Thank You superintendent and team uh I keep my comments brief I want to start with things that make me really happy uh there are a lot on that that presentation that uh I know I was pleased with I was happiest about the rapid testing um that's really really impressive be hard pressed to find an agency or organization that comes close to that uh turnaround so that's awesome two very very happy um for those who wanted to go back uh I I got a lot of notes this week saying people were pleased um by and large um particularly with the in-person piece um and then third extremely extremely happy by about the 97% um implementation of the safety

153measures as well so I want to start with those three things so kudos to the team um I know U Miss Trimble Oliver you've worked really diligently on all of this for months and months so um those are really impressive numbers to report um there's got to be one dark cloud in the bunch though and it's me this time uh it's not me but it is this time um I'm still concerned for all the reasons that um people know they haven't changed um regarding this most recent data what I'm most concerned about is getting too excited and I'm saying this for myself I'm trying to curb my own expectations and manage them in that that we know the illness has a two-e leg time and so that's not to say that we're going to get

154this huge Spike but I do want I'm cautiously optim istic I'm far more optimistic than I think I would have been a couple weeks ago but still concerned especially with the spread of the virus but like I said I believe it was on Saturday at our meeting I do believe that our schools are probably some of the safest if not definitely the safest places um our kids could be indoors that I feel good about um which leads me to I have three questions um that'll sort of dovetail into question number one which is we talked about the hand San iers and all this it also kind of goes in line with the budget presentation from Miss Wagner do all of our teachers classrooms have all of the supplies that they need to keep the classrooms

155clean and safe and they're stocked uh yes and so I'm going to ask Sarah to come up to talk specifically about the stocking system um if there is a teacher who doesn't have what she needs then she just needs to let us Lo know and there are multiple ways go through her building principal she can go through the hotline and so Sarah I'm not sure if there are other ways but we have four different hotlines for people to be able to report but we provided a kit for each um teacher and um are restocking those kits and got orders to restock things from principles last week not because they had run out but just trying to be preventative great so specifically the class cleaning kits include um disinfectant spray with paper towels okay hand sanitizer

156and wipes and so we have been working diligently on Stocking all of those um before kids arrive and um the schools even have on site already the restock supplies so that they can continuously restock those um proactively and as Miss Mitchell mentioned um if any teacher is in need of any of those they can contact their building engineer they have have the supplies on site and if all else fails we have the safety hotline that's great I appreciate that very much um and then my second one so and I appreciate the outlining you know the differences I call it good red and bad red I know there have been a lot of questions that's just my own phrase uh it's like good and bad Hodgkins I guess but um good red and bad red um

157I've had a lot of questions this week about what constitutes a red that's not good you have outlined that superintendent it is out there it is public um I just kind of want to put a plugin if we can make that even a simpler graphic um than the ones I've seen uh it's simple to me because I I do this and and I and I look at this data and and I study it but um just so there's some clarity on what bad red might look like um which kind of leads to my question of has anybody in the first um week of this Blended is are there any units in in quarantine yet are there any what in quarantine any units classrooms in quarantine or units in quarantine I know we had one student

158out of 62 which is still one too many in my opinion but I'm just curious if there's anybody that's been mandatory quarantined um so I'm not aware of entire units that have been quarantined we do we did have a situation in which a staff member did test positive for coid and I believe that there are two students who are now in quarantine is that it or we beyond to thank you Sarah and Susan Okay and then lastly for um um and I know I've been kind of bullish about this but for the parents who are waiting um on the school-based remote do you do we what's the timeline on the update on whether or not that'll be feasible yes so we will be prepared to provide a um presentation at the next board meeting um

159regarding providing distance learning at your neighborhood school is that what you're asking me yeah that's yeah yes so we actually have some data in terms of a survey um and actually the percentage of parents who actually return that was pretty low in terms of the number of people who wanted uh to be at their home school I want to say the range was in the 3,000 range is that correct yes so in the 3,000 range um so we are looking to see we want to see how many kids actually show up in in person last week to understand the Staffing that we need now this week we're adding additional students we need to see um that Staffing NE I will be very honest and upfront it may be a possibility that we may not be

160able to make that happen with our technology constraints and so we'll be able to provide an update for you regarding that next W Wednesday okay and so every and then that's October 28th 4M is our next meeting right October 28th 4M yes okay great appreciate thank you okay um Miss Bowers yes thank you for the presentation this is very um informative I just need Clarity on the attendance during Blended learning um Miss Bunty I thought maybe or superintendent you might answer it um I'm trying to understand the 83 through 106 and then that's the district attendance rate but then I see a percentage of students who showed up I guess I'm trying to get clarity on what yes so we were particularly interested in looking at the number of kids who actually came to school

161so little people or big people in seats and so the second chart shows you the number of kids who actually attended in terms of the um a group was 6,000 roughly and then the B group is 6,000 roughly okay and then the last point a question I had was I I think I'm just now hearing about Echo I know about engine uity and then I know about schoology but I didn't know about Echo and the schools that are using that and why are they using sure so there are only two schools who use eeko and it's a part of their um school program focus and that's um new tech and so that's Ain and Ethel Taylor eth Taylor okay those are the only two who use Echo okay because of new tech any other questions

162or comments Miss Bolton and then Mr lendy yeah a follow up on the attendance just so I'm clear uh on the A and B group that's the the number of students attended and enrolled those are the folks that said they were coming um those are the folks who are enrolled either in uh Blended learning or distance learning is that correct Susan correct okay just help me out the difference between like 6,25 and 7,4 is it's a percentage thing that's confusing me sure so um we have 7,000 students enrolled in the a group for prek through 2 grade of that 76215 were in attendance is that correct great then I'm good with that um then if I could just because we had um a different number in the finance uh committee minutes where we were talking

163about on time it was 88% and in this chart it's 55 but you explained that because the 88% represented the charter and everything else so is that the charter and CPS or the charter 88% the non CPS was because we've had several weeks of work on that we've only had a day to is that the reasoning yes that's exactly right Miss Bolton um I believe Mr Johnson was giving you the charter and non-public rate at the finance committee because we had several weeks worth of data and improvements on that um right uh By the time this presentation was created we had additional data from the CPS routes that's helpful and then does that pertain too to the 14,000 or so that were transported on yellow bus yes and the 12 n on Metro that includes

164CPS and non CPS yes okay thank you thank you Mr Lindy uh thanks President James I chiefly just wanted to say thank you uh for this has been an enormous amount of work and I wanted to Echo the superintendent with how exciting it is to be able to welcome back kids to school uh I took my son to his first day of inperson kindergarten this last week um and the energy and the enthusiasm for the staff and the kids and the families was uh palpable um we want to say thank you I also think that is so great that um the administration is looking carefully at the Public Health Data I think it is so great that we're continuing to consult with uh medical experts from the county and from children's uh I just wanted

165to say again how exciting I think this is um and and I'll just share that um you know I think like everybody I'm I'm learning a lot about this as we go to um but one of the uh things I've been reading recently is some coverage of This research from a brown Economist named Emily ustar that's been on NPR a couple times in the last few weeks and it looks she had an article in the Atlantic that I'm imagine folks have seen um but she's um with her colleagues built a database that is collecting information on schools across the country uh with what looks like a nice representation of schools from Ohio a nice representation of schools that are in urban districts like Cincinnati public uh and I think is adding to what we know

166about or what we're learning about schools and uh kids in Co um and I think there's um this is just enormously challenging because nobody knows uh exactly what the right answer is uh I'm just glad that as we're getting more and more information we're trying to use it to do the best POS possible thing we can for children uh and want to say thank you thank you any other questions or comments all right thank you superintendent great report okay alrighty well it's been a couple hours like two and a half and we're halfway through so okay we are now at the item on our agenda for hearing the public the board Prides itself on being transparent and as open as possible consistent with the state's direction to minimize public Gatherings we are convening the video

167conference call to include opportunity for public comment here are The Specific Instructions for participation and hearing of the public including a request for additional information that will allow us to appropriately document and follow up on all questions and concerns at the end of hearing the public the superintendent and Treasurer will have opportunity to follow up on your questions and comments including questions specific to the budget presentation okay members of the public who wish to speak should have already um sent their requests within the first 10 minutes of the meeting by clicking on the hand icon again we ask you to Pro provide your full name relationship to the district your and your school Community treasure Wagner will be your T our timekeeper once the request has been granted you will receive a notice on your

168screen click yes to go interactive and we're also asking you to click your visibility we would like to see you on screen after speaking you will briefly see welcome screen again as you transition back to the live stream meeting each speaker will have two minutes to speak when the buzzer 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 okay we're ready Miss Wagner so our first Speaker the tonight is Julie sers go ahead Julie let me get my um screen on can you see okay okay so tonight there was a lot that H that happened it was almost too much for one single meeting first I want to make some comments I think it's great that um

169be through this pandemic and the emphasis being put on equity and social justice this should have happened a long time ago but I think it's really important that we're doing this now and I really um am glad that we're emphasizing the need for more opportunities for Outdoor Learning um but through the the budget process I don't know if people from the district really understood this but with 11.8 million of freezing positions $4.4 million of cutting Super Subs $6.2 million for Staffing cuts and $1.6 million of overload pay that's $24 million you're taking just out of Staffing and I don't understand how that is something that is necessary at this time and I don't think that it is um appropriate when there's been not no types of conversations of what are those kinds of positions going

170to look like um I would like to say though that CFT and many teachers within the district have concerns about returning to a class um in face-to-face Blended model our county is in red and we want to know will the district go fully remote if in purple and will that decision have to be put off until October the 28th when the board meets or will that happen as soon as we go purple our numbers are escalating um it's so confusing how the district is using data to make their decisions I was told that the state does not use that the District does not use the governor's state color rating system and on that system we would be raid it red and the district's guidelines state that red is remote and purple is a stay and

171place order so buildings would be closed schools are part of the community we are not in a bubble and since summer we have had 95 positive coid cases all of this is something that we have to take into reality um on October the 12th CPS began to use the health collaborative guidance document for Co measures that Laura um presented this evening and this was used to inform School planning I'm not sure how this um document uses the different color coding systems and why they're using different ones on their system red is equal to purple orange is equal to red yellow is equal to orange green is equal to yellow and this system is confusing to everyone and the new system red is the highest indicator their primary measure for red is more than 25 daily

172new cases per 100,000 on on Saturday I received a report from the city and it said that the 14 now this is where the numbers are going back and forth between County and City and city and county the state's numbers the city's numbers but it said in my report from the city that the 14 day average is 47 cases per day and so I'm not sure why there's all these discrepancies and numbers why are we bringing more students back and especially high school students when high schools when you look at the number of positive cases that age group and the early 20s are the highest number of cases in the count County and they are really the contributors and the vectors of the community spread hospitalizations were also up both Cincinnati and Hamilton County are

173up but not at the 3% threshold that this report uses the new one uses a 3% threshold um Cincinnati is 2.4 Hamilton County is 3.3 so the county is over the threshold of safety but due to the numbers in a few weeks um from a few weeks ago that's what is currently holding down um that percentage of the positivity rate but we all know we've all watched the governor we've all watched the news we've all read the reports all the data is moving in the wrong directions our teachers are fearful for their lives and the lives of their families I find it disturbing that some parents pressured the board to reopen at the last meeting when most of them were saying that it was dist attracted to them while they were trying to work from

174home they were neighborhood schools and their students are not dependent on their children riding a bus they have they live within walking distance of the school and that is not the case for all of our students DPS is currently the only Urban District that is open and teachers are feeling very happy to see the students but they are also very anxious overwhelmed stressed frustrated unappreciated depressed and cautious the district says that they appreciate the hard work yet as a district needs to cut teachers from schools and they're making arbitrary cuts to the funding for overloaded classrooms this is a contractual issue actions speak louder than words teachers are not feeling the love of what the district is saying that they have for the teachers many principles are not providing a duty free lunch which is

175not just a contractual issue but a state law they are teachers are expected to eat with the kids in the room with their masks off and that is not safe for them and they are entitled to have a lunch just to take a break from their students where they can go outside have a few minutes to clear their minds and be able to take care of their personal needs um planning time is not being protected the district is filling up every available minute with PD there's many overloaded classrooms and some of those overloaded classrooms and I don't know they want to cut all these positions but yet there's classes at CDA of um a second grade with 70 kids and um a a first second grade with 40 kids and a high school teacher with

176328 kids and another um third grade teacher with 59 students and that's for four bells of 59 so they are planning 59 for 59 students and four different classes that's almost 240 kids there are um seventh and eighth grade with enrollments of 49 there are there's a fifth grade teacher that has 62 for their enrollment there are teachers that have um an enrollment of a high school teacher with 271 students students there are teachers with for High School Math With 328 students there's actually one teacher who is teaching math and science and has 1,06 students and here we have a budget coming from this Treasurer that we have not discussed we have not had any input on that is saying to cut that much $24 million in Staffing there are teachers who have here's a

177high school science and history 373 students um there is High School 7th and eth grade middle school with 841 a fifth grade science with 378 I mean it's ridiculous I can go on and on and on and I don't understand that the numbers that they have to cut that much and why you are cutting $24 million out of Staffing in this District we are not at all over staffed and it's ridiculous to think that that's how we are going to make the savings Cuts is cutting out um teachers in classrooms parents in classrooms and Subs who are supposed to be covering in classrooms I cannot understand how this treasure gets away with this week after week after week with no input from the public this is not Community engagement around the budget okay Miss sers

178I am not happy about it I'm not happy with Miss sellers um youve given us we we appreciate it as you know and for the for the sake of the public we give you as the as a courtesy we give you as president of CFT an opportunity to speak and you usually go last and we allowed you to go first but most of the people who who are following you don't understand so we've given you 10 minutes we'd like if if at all possible if we can close it out to allow the rest of the public to speak fin thank you for giving me the time and the courtesy because I have not been able to get on for the last couple of meetings and I'm not sure was we know okay thank you thank

179you I appreciate it but I don't understand this budget and I cannot as a board you cannot accept this budget okay we hear you and and and the treasurer will probably have comments at the uh at the end of the hearing of the public okay our next speaker is Alia Kierney hello are you able to hear me yes go ahead please okay please please state your name um your affiliation with the district and your school Community right wonderful I don't know if you can see me or not new technology is always grand um my name is Alia KY and I'm a mother of three children in the district I'm a proud resident of Mount Washington a neighborhood to which my family moved to be nearer to our home school Dan monor I have some prepared

180comments but I'm going to go off script right away because just a few minutes ago superintendent Mitchell discussed that only 3,000 surveys were filled out in response to the remote learning from our homeschool option I work in data and I work in corporate real estate and I'd write a lot of surveys that survey was written in such a way that it scared many from filling it out it was I hold a duplicitous document that was written intentionally to reduce that response rate many parents I know of six anecdotally in my peer Network alone did not feel comfortable filling it out because we believed that we were signing that we were comfortable for our students to only receive a half day of instruction per week for the remainder of the school year if we signed the

181document I'm sorry but I cannot allow for that to become the proof that superintendent Mitchell uses to say that there were not enough parents who wanted such an option that document was abhorent I'd like to now move on to what I prepared to share with you tonight there's been quite a bit of Statistics that have been shared with you and I'd like to round that out with a couple more points not only as of this week have 40 States in our great nation increased uh seen an increase in their coid cases but 21 States including Ohio have reached their highest 7-Day average for new cases since this pandemic began also in Ohio the percentage of new patients who are children aged 0 to 17 something I know we all care about out dearly is at

182the highest rate it has been since the pandemic began the curve is peaking people it's peaking right now tonight was fascinating hearing the discussion on racial equity and social justice and I'd just like to add one more that to that conversation which is that coid is also a race issue for my Latino and black friends rates of hospitalization due to coid are 4.7 times the rate of non-hispanic white people this is a race Equity issue I'd like to ground these stats in some personal context my husband and I have three daughters two in kindergarten and one in the third grade our multigenerational household also includes my parents of the seven of us who live Under One Roof four of us are at high risk for severe complications should we contract coid for our family the

183decision about whether to return to school is truly life and death with all of that context I'm coming to you with two asks tonight as a datadriven person I humbly ask that this esteemed board reaffirm your commitment to datadriven decisionmaking I know that different decisions can be made with the same data you're making me feel less Miss karney thank you thank you your time is run out our next speaker is Shauna Carpenter go ahead Shauna hi yes um I'm speaking this evening um I just have a couple quick questions my name is shaa Carpenter I have a wonderful grandson that goes to Fairview Clifton German and I'm an activ an active participant in his educational process so my first question is when you guys say you're going to test these children in the next maybe

184week and a half um my question is are they being tested and they haven't learn the full curriculum that's needed to be tested I know you guys don't have much leeway in what you can and cannot do but that is my question are they being tested on what they've learned thus far or are they receiving a full curriculum that they should in order to be tested and that was my question for that and I also wanted to give a kudos to one of our teachers there by the name of Terry Udo she has worked Tire tirelessly on the equity and inclusion piece with our students and it it was such a refreshing thing for me to see I also my second question is will all the staff at these schools be required to take this

185um Equity training or would it be optional for them to take it and that is all that I have for today and thank you very much thank you can I just ask a Qui question of the board um superintendent as well are are you all comfortable with the superintendent responding immediately after the speaker or do you want to wait and summarize everything at the end summarizing so depending on the question I'm texting my staff getting the answer so I may not have it just right that moment okay so what we'll we'll just keep going and we'll wait to the end and do a summarization of all the questions thanks thank you our next speaker excuse me is Haley Webster and Benjamin Jarvis you're up after Haley hello my name is Haley I'm calling because I'm

186a stakeholder in several communities I'm sorry um can you give us please are you able to to be visible on screen actually I'm not okay okay okay great so I have a couple questions so I noticed um on a couple of the CPS schools websites um their intervention specialist you guys are speaking about race this evening and a number of other things but I want to know why there are um five intervention specialists at Douglas three at Rockdale but seven at Fair viiew German what are the bases of the needs per school or what makes the number differ as they do also what information should be on the lookout for to determine if a shutdown will be on the way because as Julie seller stated the data is kind of you know um ippy or

187not understandable so is there something we should look for on the media because or is there something that you guys will tell us also you guys said that um well actually Miss Mitchell um about the student the parents who turned in the forms for staying remote there were 539 students missing which from you guys's data um which you guys said we have to get into iners school we have to get into inperson school so why wasn't 3,000 enough to actually 3,000 signatures enough for you guys to actually take some serious thought into the stain remote you guys are saying it has something to do with internet that's bogus we've been on the interet for months that is bogus it's bogus because we don't want to put our lives and our kids and our families on

188the line because of some madeup stuff that you guys just came up with you guys we we were all on the same page just a couple months ago now all of a sudden your data is different than what Mike dwine says or what's being charted come on like you got don't don't please don't do this because the deadline that you guys sent for that paper was bogus along with like she the other caller said the language yall Ed y'all tried to play up we get locked into that BS and then our students can't get an opportunity because we're locked into this BS thank you thank you can you your time run out but can you please identify your affiliation with the district are you a parent or a staff okay yeah okay let's go on

189okay our next speaker is Benjamin Jarvis and then Julian Whitaker you're after Benjamin go ahead Benjamin yeah hi this is Ben Jarvis I am uh very proud to be a uh CPS teacher at Robert atap information technology high school um I just want to uh you know even though as a teacher uh this district has not made me feel safe to express my opinion on the matter of coid 19 I'm going to go ahead and do that anyways because of how important this is to our community and our children um I'm very happy to see that uh my union president pointed out the obvious which it's astonishing to me that no one else in this room has has pointed out until then which is that we have seen a dramatic and unprecedented uh spike in

190new cases I the the data presented in front of you the trend line for daily new cases in Hamilton County shows a rapid increase which is actually circled boldly in the Hamilton County uh Health Department's own uh uh diagram own chart um and it's astonishing to me that no one remarked upon this um um until now uh it's it's bizarre to me that we have this idea that our schools are are bubbles I'm very happy with how things have been implemented at at Robert atft um I'm very happy with our staff we're all trying our best even though teachers don't have enough time to plan uh that's not uh the administration's fault they've been doing an excellent job but when our students walk out the doors they are community members just like every other Community

191member we are a part of the community we are not isolated we are not we are not a bubble um and so it's absurd to me that are ignoring the community data in this way and we we are more than double where uh in terms of new cases where we were two weeks ago and yet now we're being pushed back into the classroom when we were uh we had just made a rapid decision to to push that decision off I can't understand the decision- making that's going on with this district and it's very frustrating I feel like the goal posts are being moved in a manner that is simply convenient to the board or or to the district uh uh rather than one that is consistent with the community data I thank you thank you

192our next speaker is Julian Whitaker and after Julian Jen Robbins you'll be up after her go ahead Julian hi my name is Jillian Whitaker I'm a CPS parent I have a child at dat one at Coale and one at Walnut um I just want to start by asking does the pr team for CPS have a degree in gas lighting I can't believe we're sitting here listening to this and you guys seem like you're patting yourselves on the back and you know the teachers have done a great job this week but there is still a pandemic and we are right in the middle of the worst part of it by any measurement you want to use um Julie sellers I would urge the teachers union to consider a strike in order to keep your staff safe

193because of as as I've seen here tonight the board is not willing to do it themselves um I'm quite frankly a gast at the way that your steamrolling for when the numbers are the worst that they've ever been we are the number one culprate in regards to community spread in the US and I can only hope that the governor gets some sense and shuts the schools back down since everybody is unwilling to do the right things for the kids uh none of the other urban districts are going back to school in person what makes us different why do you feel like our kids are immune to what's happening why are you willing to sacrifice the students in their families the governor said the small Gatherings are the reason for current spread but do you think

194our students are staying home from these events I'm appalled at the way that you guys approached the fully remote learning option uh the district is pretending like they gave parents a choice to go Blended or to go fully remote in their home school or of course transfer to CDA which by the way is being legally scrutinized in Columbus because of their biased in inaccurate curriculum however calling fully remote an option is a misnomer your survey was a joke it wasn't a survey it was a legal demand that we contractually oblige ourselves to something that didn't even exist um many schools didn't send any communication to the parents the parents who received the paperwork felt it was legalistic and putative and we all feel like our students are being punished because we desire for them to

195be safe some schools even sent out emails strongly discouraging parents from choosing the fully remote option telling them that the students would not receive responses from teachers because they would be focused on Blended learning and that the teachers would not do any work related to fully remote students your honesty the thank you thank you your time is up our next speaker is Jen Robbins and then after Jen Kim Tobin hi uh my name is Jen Robbins and I'm a parent of two children at Sans I love CPS but I am concerned that we have no real options for families like mine who include vulnerable family members my mother lives with us and I'm a single parent if either of us is hospitalized our family would be severely harmed I know many families have grandparents or

196other vulnerable members of their households and some students themselves are vulnerable tonight I'm speaking as well on behalf of one of those families who couldn't be here you told us that you would try to make a better option than CDA which uses a teacherfree click-through curriculum currently under investigation for bias by Columbus City Schools which is widely der derided as pedagogically inadequate but then you sent out paperwork clearly meant to discourage people from choosing this alternative remote option we all had to commit to something that could not even be described in 4 days and the sparse details provided were almost entirely in negative terms we also had to initial some 10 statements assuming legal liabilities about truancy and agreement to only half a day instruction per week until January it was clear to any reader

197you wanted this to fail and fail it did garnering only only 3,000 kids even though your own survey had indicated that half the families wanted to stay remote over and over you've professed concern for the thousands of kids who had not checked into remote now we know there were actually only 539 kids and I want those kids helped now uh but are we actually helping them now are we even talking about them now what's happening to them further now you really do have thousands of kids who are not being served the kids with vulnerable family members who can't accept the risk of your sole offered option which is to return how is it Equitable to go from 4.5 days a week of of instruction with your peers to go to 2.5 for some students and

198only 0.5 half a day of instruction or simply no teacher at all for other people and how is it Equitable for prek families who have no option accept to return or give up their seat our neighbor finny town has a better solution when they go back kids who want to go in person go in the morning and kids who need to be remote go on computers in the afternoon this is an equitable solution if you insist on going back despite having failed two of your four metrics for safety and it also solves the quarantine problem for the in-person kids which you have no answer for and it allows all kids thank you Miss Robins thank you teach thank you your time is up thank you our next speaker is Kim Tobin and then following Kim

199is Jacob r hi my name is Kim Tobin I teach English at dater High School um I'm here tonight I want to comment on a few things first of all I'm super excited about the anti-racism work that's happening both within the board and within our district however I would like to point out that being anti-racist means being anti-racist all the time and we know that coid disproportion Ely affects our black and brown Community therefore Co is a racial issue and we need to treat it as such we need to recognize that this disease is going to come into our schools and is going to impact our children that we serve at a disproportionate rate than any of the surrounding districts as a parent of children in those surrounding districts I can tell you for a

200fact that their dashboards are incorrect they are fleeing their numbers to make them look better when a school says that they only have two cases but I as a parent have gotten multiple emails in just the the one day that we've been back this week you cannot assure me that those districts data are anywhere near as accurate as they claim to be in fact it reminds me quite a bit of the data that's been shared at this meeting that we all know is absolutely insane considering Hamilton County is on Str of entering purple I'm concerned for what happens when we enter purple we've so quickly changed our course to being in person while we're in red and cases are rising so when we hit purple is there going to be another explanation of how we

201can B that data to fit our own needs are we going to actually open our eyes and save the lives of our children can't talk about social justice and anti-racism without also talking about how Co is affecting them it is ironic that we're talking talking about children wearing masks appropriately when we've seen just at this board meeting that some adults are struggling to do that as well make no mistake we all want to be back in school I want more than anything to see my kids I want to give them hugs I want thank you Miss tolin thank you our next speaker is Jacob is it rice and then Deandra Jones is next are you guys able to hear me yes please please click on your Vis visible so we can see you I actually

202don't have a working camera right now and you guys haven't made it uh feel like we are able to make ourselves uh make our comments public so okay so good evening board and CPS Community I've always posted that Cincinnati public schools was an amazing Community to be a part of for the years that I've worked here I felt confident that the district always has teachers and students best interest in mind the the crisis has change this crisis has changed that mindset completely in the past several months students teachers and families have been jerked around kept out of the loop and misled about this situation the plan continues to change daily emails go out with conflicting information questions are dismissed and not answered the way the district's cheerful ready to go back propaganda contrasts so sharply

203with the confusion anxiety and fear that the re that this is is the reality of this situation is at best wildly out of touch and at worst gas liting at its most te textbook definition the current plan feels like it was created for a district that does not face the unique challenges that CPS faces at the building level we've been scrambling to make this plan fit our unique need I will take this as an opportunity to thank building level admin and staff who are working so hard to try to make a square uh Peg fit in a round hole so to speak we have not been giving the answers organization or resources for this plan to be through or safe as a district we claim to rely on data as a means to drive our

204decision- making we do this every day in our classrooms when the data indicates a trend we listen we inform our lessons we rette if a plan doesn't make sense based on the data we change it it's called The Plan doe study act model and it's part of the quality improvement method we focused so heavily on last year what data are we using to deform this to inform this return uh decision to return because if it's based on our initial data points we should not be returning in person Full Stop in addition I feel like it's a sick form of irony that we would spend time on this meeting discussion the new anti-racism policy when every person here knows full well that low-income black and brown children and their families make up the vast majority of

205this District are the ones that will be dealing with the dire consequences of this pandemic we know the reality of our students lives two days a week sitting in a classroom is not worth the social and emotional Havoc that the illness or death of a peer teacher or care caregiver will have thank you your time is up thank you our next speaker is Deandre Jones followed by Angela D all right go ahead hello hello can you hear me yes can you make yourself visible can I my camera hold on it says I clicked it it says it's enabled see me now no okay but it's okay go ahead all righty then um my name is Deandre Jones I am a parent and grandparent of a student that goes to Hugh stem and Rockell Academy first

206I want to give a shout out to those awesome teachers at Hughes the eighth grade teachers Miss Johnson Mrs Yokum and Mrs um helon they're doing great with the virtual distancing but I'm very disappointed in the fact that you guys are only saying it was only 3,000 parents who filled out that survey half of the parents that I talked to who wanted to fill out that survey didn't even get it in their emails and a lot of them couldn't even access it on schoolagy because at the beginning like I had to do you had to print it out and get it to the school later they were saying that you can actually fill it out in Google Docs and and it just automatically went in lot of them didn't have access to print it out

207but I'm just really shocked because my grandson who's here Don year had he's an asthmatic and he gets really sick during this time and I'm just really afraid of sending him back with the numbers that's accumulating this time we have literally not been out of our house since they diagnosed everything with this coid and I'm just so shocked that you guys with these numbers becoming 2,000 and plus that it's starting to affect we have two kids on our street who actually had Co so it's just amazing to me that you guys are not really taking this into consideration as to whether or not to send these kids back he's due to go back this week and he's not returning he's not going to CDA either because I don't believe they're getting the education that they

208deserve their either now I just think you guys need to be able to make this work with this virtual learning because I have faith in CPS I really do but thank you very much for this time and you guys have a wonderful evening and please just just make something work are here thank you our next speaker is Angela Bustamante and after Angela is Mandy Janine hello um I'm Angela Bustamante um I have my camera on I'm not sure if you can see me yes we can okay um I have two daughters one at monor want a DAT monor fourth grade and 10th grade um what other information did you want to know um so I just wanted to speak up because on a couple things I've been taking notes through the whole board meeting and

209um first of all I know that your job is extremely hard however I feel like it's the numbers are so skewed um the survey like the other parents have said um it was flawed um it came out it was inappropriate the questions were not clear and they were they used fear monitoring for the results I'd also like to know if though that survey went out to the parents who chose their kids into the um Virtual Academy the at the beginning of the year because it should have gone to them as well because the reason that so many students are now in the Virtual Academy is because parents were afraid of exactly what is happening now so right now Ohio and Hamilton County is at an r factor which means how contagious a diseases of 1.37

210that means for every person that has the disease they are passing it to one other person so right now in one and a half weeks we are expected to be two times the amount that we are now these are actual facts and actual data versus whatever you guys were showing earlier when we are in red even your own data said that we need to be remote learning so I am extremely confused as to why we're back we are being strong armed as parents to send our kids back to school when it is not thank you your time is up thank you our next speaker is Mandy Janine Mandy Jean and then Leslie Mooney after Mandy go ahead Mandy yeah hi um okay so it's Mandy Jean um thank you very much and also um I

211am a parent I have two children in CPS uh one at Pleasant Ridge monor one at Clark um I first just want to say I do not understand how you can be so rude to Julie sers man she is she's a beast and that you can tell us as the general public that we are tell her that the general public will not understand what she's communicating I understand her more clearly than I understand the whole lot of you combined um and fact the the sort of blanket email that you gave me in a response um you know as far as the metrics and how you're following and red is cool and all this you know to send our children Back Into the Danger Zone which really is this whole situation and not getting any kind

212of real response to is how we're going to go ahead into the hybrid and not remote and the mumbo jumbo and that Metro buses are fine to use even even though they were circulated but earlier with the CPS outside learning that field trips are with using buses are not okay but we're going to use recirculated Metro buses send our kids on I don't understand what you guys are talking about you have me so confused in the head right now I feel like I'm taking crazy pills and I'm sure a lot of other people feel that way um I would really like you to get it together because even though Mike dwine said that it's not coming from schols he said that schools will have to close down just today we don't give together as like

213a state and as a group so please come up with something please actually respond to parents that are concerned about this because you guys seem really lazy hair about the entire thing and I know I'm not the only one who is so concerned and so upset and just so utterly confused by what you are doing so you know whatever okay our next speaker is Leslie money followed by katrice Carpenter hello there we go hi there I am hello everyone thank you um I'm lesie Mooney I have three children in CPS at Fairview clipton German language school and I just wanted to tune in tonight and um give a huge Kudo kudos to the team at Fairview I volunteered I had the honor and pleasure of volunteering to help welcome the kindergarten through second graders back

214last week um twice during out throughout the week I'll be back again tomorrow in the 50 degrees pouring rain standing outside with har Sipple and her mey and the rest of the amazing staff and team over there and I can attest to the fact that nothing is normal um except for the kids smiles and coming back into the school as well as the teachers and the faculty and staff there and so I just chimed in to say big kudos to that team and all that I've seen going on with the safety measures um at the school that I'm affiliated with and others that I've heard about so thank you thank you our next speaker is krice Carpenter followed by April Thompson h hello you guys I'm glad to finally get through hello I'm glad to

215finally get through as I've been trying for um a couple of meetings and I just get skipped over or my hand gets put down I'm not sure who is responsible for that but I'm glad you guys have had a change of heart so um I want to speak on um those surveys that were sent out those were tragic to say the very least um I got mine on the weekend because I sent the email over to my principal and asked him to let me know what was going on so um the it was worded horribly it seemed like we were in some type of horrible contract that would have screwed our child's education up um so I declined on sending that in and last year so last year my son caught the flu twice he

216caught the second time he caught the flu ACC compan with strp so when I went to go pick up his homework there were 117 staff and students out and the school was not clean so that was only a couple of weeks preco so I have to get you guys to understand why I don't feel safe sending my son into school and then we can't get any remote learning because of your technology um I'm I'm very disappointed um my son goes to Fair viiew German school I I know I don't even have enough time to start on the race relations there and the issues we've had there however I do want to give a shout out to miss hudo because she is Thoroughly trying to to remove barriers that have been set on my son's education

217for the last two years that I've tried to get some resolve from through the Board of Education and that has been lack there of I've had to go to several different platforms to get a voice and I think I'm gaining a little momentum now however I want to let you guys know this is a horrible idea it's flu season and I you thank you your time is up thank you our next speaker is April Thompson followed by April Berg hi I am a proud neighborhood teacher uh at Ro Hill school and I would like to see the district's Presence at nearby HBC use and recruitment of more teachers of color and I would like to see the teaching and Technology program come back to Hughes and other high schools I'm a proud Hughes grad of

218the teaching and technology program and I would love for us to build within teachers that'll return back to CPS and become teachers but also principles and then I would like um for us to increase access for families of social a lower social economic status um if the IT department can look into adding a shortcut to Blue Jeans on the student devices because sometimes that's the only device that some of our households have now and also communication via VIA text messages for our families to increase engagement and I do appreciate you all now asking about the affiliation um at the beginning of the public so I would love for you to continue this and maybe we could use this data to increase the engagement on those voices that are not heard thank you thank you okay

219Ashley Berg will be followed by go ahead Ashley I'll get the next one up hi it's April Berg um I'm April Berg and I have three kids at Walnut Hills High School and um I understand that Walnut is not going face to face due to safety concerns and it from what it says the small classrooms and six feet of spacing however the CDC allows three- foot spacing and says that as doable as is most schools and so three questions that I have is one will you follow the CDC and amend your um stance to three feet for Walnut at any point um two if not what plan are you working on to get Walnut Hills High School back to in school learning while dividing by six feet is there a plan and there's a lot

220of parents that I know that would like to know what that plan is if there is any or if you're working on one and three if there is no plan then why are you neglecting thousands of students and their education because while we are remote because we wanted as much instruction time as possible the students are not okay we're getting half the instruction time and especially in the AP classes which is noted by the AP teachers um we would just like to know what the plan is in moving forward for our students and is this driven by the union and if it is then I just have to say shame on you because you're missing the whole point and forfeiting what true education is about it's about these students and it's about them thriving and

221moving on to the next point and so I would just like we would just like to know of any kind of answers we're not getting any from any email s from The District administration or anyone what the plan is for Walnut Hills High School thank you for your time thank you so our next speaker is Bethany glass followed by Christopher mro hi my name is Bethany glass I'm a teacher at roson I teach first grade and I wanted wanted to begin with a shout out to my first graders and their grown-ups during our time in remote my kids were online when they needed to be they were ready they had all of their materials they did their very best they participated they asked questions we read we wrote We calculated and when I hear people

222on board meeting saying that remote wasn't working remote was so terrible I will say I was shocked because my first graders have done an amazing job and I would also like to speak to and I know that the budget is complicated but our Paras having a day cut on Mondays even though our kids aren't in the building our Paras at roson have been working they have been helping us with testing they have been helping us by leading small groups and helping kids that need a little extra help or working with kids that are Advanced and need some enrichment they have been making phone calls they've been helping parents with tech issues our parents are incredible and I don't feel that they have been treated all that well thank you for your time thank you our

223last speaker the evening is Christopher mro go ahead Christopher hey how y'all doing um I just wanted to say you know good job to you guys and I would like to commend you guys for letting everybody speak because I know it's not easy listening to all of us Fe so I think it's great that you guys are taking the community input allowing people be heard um on both sides of the spectrum and um so so kudos to that but um one thing I'm confused about is the Staffing Cuts you know I think before Co it would be fair to say that at Cincinnati public schools we were underperforming District um the principal of my daughter's school talked about how you know we'll pull the secretary home in the classroom to help teach and now we're

224talking about cutting our support staff by 20% I'm really confused um I think it's a very bad decision and um I hope eventually we start having some conversations about long-term learning loss and the effects that coid is going to have on our kids and how are we going to make that up you know I'm I'm new to the discussion I'm new to the table so maybe we talked about that in some meetings and I missed it but I really think we need to start talking about that like we're gonna get some extra days like snow days you know if we miss so many days of schools we get some snow day makeups so um what are we going to and that's not going to fix all of our problems I understand that but what are

225we going to start having that serious conversation about what is our learning loss and how are we going to make that up um I would like to see those conversations and then I just want to jump back to Western Hills um I was able to talk to Dr Dean glaze and I guess we're running two different educational models or whatever you want to say um and one is less interactive less screen time but I just felt like the less screen time was sort of a fallacy because after the teacher gets off the screen how does the student continue learning they're in my opinion I would think they would still be on the laptop Mr mro your time is up my apologies thank you was he the last speaker okay so what we're going to do

226now is uh have an opportunity for both the superintendent and the treasurer to respond to some of the questions and comments expressed um so we're going to ask the superintendent as much as you're able to respond to the questions sure so um I do have some responses I will say that it was hard to hear the person who was speaking and follow up on the last question with my staff and so I hope that I caught all of them but that turnaround time is just pretty fast I'm more than happy to answer the questions I just probably need a little bit more turnaround time so in terms of the first speaker um our CFT president speaking about duty-free lunch um and overloaded classrooms at CDA so to address this issue I really need to know

227the specific schools in which the teachers aren't don't have a duty-free lunch and so if that if she could provide that with for me I would be more than happy tonight tomorrow to work on those schools because all of our staff should have a duty-free lunch in terms of the Staffing at CDA I will look into that as well um one speaker spoke about the testing and the testing was the academic testing so there's testing at K3 that is required and it's map testing and also testing for gifted and so that testing is a curriculum based assessment and teachers can decide when to give that based upon when they've covered the material in terms of the equity training um the equity training has been provided for all of our staff um beyond our teaching staff

228and principles so for all of our staff and through a online platform through our talent development department in terms of fair viiew students or Fair viiew School having more intervention Specialists than Rockdale and fair and Douglas the fair viiew has 80 students who have a disability and they have six positions however there is one position that's split by two people so it may look like more than one position but it's really one position so Fairview has a total of eight people but six positions Rockdale has 52 students with disabilities and they have six intervention Specialists and two are assigned to their autism unit Douglas has 86 students with disabilities and they have 10 intervention Specialists so just to clarify the fact that um Fairview doesn't have more intervention Specialists than Rockdale or Douglas based upon

229the number of students that they serve um in terms of Metro we do clean those Metro buses in between um rides writers ship and we use an El electronic or electrostatic spray that is able to kill the germs on site within a matter of minutes is that correct Sarah in terms of the pair of professionals um so on Mondays when our students are in distance learning we are offering our teachers the opportunity to work from home and so we will not have a fully staffed building in many in is the PA of professionals work very closely with the teachers we offered the PA of professionals two options one is to be able to work four days so Monday through Friday but to have extended time either before school or after school to make up for

230that fifth day so that they would not receive a reduction in Pay there are some pair professionals who stated that um they have jobs after um the school day which we completely understand and so if they are not able to work that extended time they will still maintain their full benefits and those are the uh questions that I was able to answer but again my apologies I was trying to keep up with the current question while answering the previous question and getting the answers from my staff thank you superintendent um treasure Wagner did you want opportunity to respond yes thank you president Jones in terms of um Miss s's questions about the budget or confusion about the budget um if I'm not mistaken we met with the Union presidents just a week ago and I

231went through the details of what I presented tonight we had a lot of engaged conversation a lot of questions answered I would be more than happy to meet with Julie with her team um to go over any further questions or concerns that she has M um but we started last we had a budget last year 660 million we added 42 million to that which presented us with a SE almost a $70 million reduction in order to meet the budget Target and it's very difficult with the information that's changing on a regular basis um we're working hard to do that we've worked extremely hard to hold on to this staff that we have while everybody around us is laying people off and furlough and so it is very difficult process um it's the process that we're

232using isn't our normal process so we can't engage like we normally do um but I'd be more than happy to do a town hall or whatever is needed to further engage the public um but I like I said I'd be more than happy to meet again with Julie and walk through all her questions and concerns president Jones if I could go back um there's one ma major issue that kept coming up that I do want to address and that is the survey regarding parents who wanted distance learning so it's my understanding that it wasn't a survey but it was a commitment asking parents were would they committing to in-person Blended learning or distance learning and so I have the survey I will go back and I will look at the survey and talk with the

233staff to see if there any modifications that can be made so that we can um better gather information from families since it came up multiple times so it it um it would have been remiss of me to to leave that piece out um in terms of my comment around only 3,000 students I apologize the only should not have been there I was saying out of the 30 something thousand students that we had we heard from six from 3,000 parents who said that they wanted do have distance learning in their home school well thank you um this was a little bit of a different format for hearing of the public but as always we do um want to hear from the public and um we do appreciate um the the any of the support we get

234it's we're we're in a pandemic nothing's normal we're doing our best and you know sometimes I guess our best isn't good enough but um we we are in the business of educating our children so we're going to continue to do our best okay so I'm going to move on um to announcements and I I'd be uh I wanted to make sure to mention that vice president Messer is absent tonight he wasn't feeling well and so we wish him well and wanted board members to know why he wasn't here okay does anyone have any Kudos Miss Bowers yes I have kudos for superintendent Mitchell um assistant superintendent Bunty and um Mr Justin leech uh on your um conversation with CC night digital send digital media that's CC night Digital Academy s digital media today I thought

235that um the engagement uh with the with that um on that platform the community the urban community I thought was was excellent I thought you guys did a very good job and communicating where we are what we're doing and and clarifying some um misunderstandings or misund Communications about what uh CPS is doing and why we're doing regarding 504s IEPs um coid 19 I thought it was very informative so kudos to you all thank thank you any other Kudos okay Miss B please present the retirements yes we have uh several retirements from our uh Civil Service Personnel uh we'd like to acknowledge Yanda Beverly Deborah Coker Martha eckart Gloria Forte Stephanie Hyde Pamela T Jones Sims James leming Gerald Powell and Diana Richard and the board would like to thank these Professionals for their service to

236our children and wish them well uh in their retirement thank you Miss Bates okay so we're at board matters and uh short conversation before the meeting about the status and where we are given that it is uh 10:15 so miss Bolton any comment about that particular item real quickly um just uh since we delayed The rosson Farmhouse discussion last uh time just wanted to update the uh um board that the uh interest in uh making rosson uh a part of our uh instructional uh uh efforts and uh invent facility inventory my understanding the administration is proceeding with trying to um meet the needs that we have legally and also uh that the neighborhood is embracing the opportunity to make it a um Community Learning Center so to speak but for more of the regional uh

237area as well as Clifton itself and that there are any number of connections that the outdoor outside s CPS outside folks would be able to use uh the rosson facility and others as well so things are moving along with rosson thank you Mr moraski any comment on the anti-racism policy are we going to not Beyond not I appreciate it president Jones not beyond the comments made during the presentation of the minutes okay great thank you um so we're at the item on the agenda for Resolutions and we are going to run through these pretty quickly I'm going to ask folks please if you if you're presenting you don't necessarily need to read them all uh just present it as written um I'll present the first one it is a resolution appointing an official delegate to

238the Ohio school boards associations 2020 Capital conference um the delegates uh we usually appoint at our organizational meeting but we're always behind the schedule and so we need to appoint today and last year it was myself as the delegate and Ryan Messer as the alternate I am proposing that we leave it that way they wouldn't let me in last year just so you all know but if we get it in by the 22nd we can make sure to be represented so I present the resolution I second thank you any discussion okay Miss Wagner Mrs Bates hi Miss Bolton hi Mrs Bowers hi Mr Lindy yes Mr moraski yes president Jones yes Mr moraski the next resolution please yes I have a resolution amending board policy 5410 promotion academic acceleration placement retention this was the policy

239that I uh called out all the redlining uh items to during the presentation of the minutes I present it as written thank you is there a second second any discussion Miss Wagner please call roll Mrs Bates hi Miss Bolton hi Mrs Bowers hi Mr Lindy yes Mr moroski yes president Jones yes Mr moraski next resolution yeah I have a resolution amending board policy 5540 interrogation of students again you recall this one had minimal changes I present the resolution as written thank you second second any discussion Miss Wagner Mrs Bates hi Miss Bolton hi Mrs Bowers hi Mr Lindy hi Mr moroski yes president Jones yes okay Miss Bowers please present the next resolution yes we are um uh retracting that resolution I think based on Miss a board member bat's uh recommendation to go back

240to policy do more revisions okay got and I'll I'll provide some uh edits for you or considerations for you great that'd be great yeah and we'll we'll bring them up then in our November 6th um policy yeah thanks okay Mr Messer is not here okay thank you m Bowers I have resolution amending board policy 7540 .02 District web page I present that resolution as as written thank you any uh is there a second second um discussion Miss Wagner Mrs Bates hi Miss Bolton hi Mrs Bowers hi Mr Lindy yes Mr morosi yes president Jones yes thank you superintendent Mitchell have report I do um I do know that it's a late hour however I think that it is relevant to many of the topics that came up with the hearing of the public and so

241I'm going to ask members of the team to come forward TI Amad Deputy superintendent is going to provide an update on CDA Susan Bunty assistant superintendent is going to provide an update on students with complex disabilities and shaa Murphy assistant superintendent is going to provide a presentation regarding Partnerships during distance learning and so it'll be a quick presentation we had it ready for you last week and don't want to continue to belabor not provide you with the information thank you I will start by giving a quick update on CDA um our curriculum there is Edgenuity uh it's a program that is flexible for students um and then we have teachers hosting um distance learning check-ins next slide please we are looking to continuously improve and build upon the success of the program so we are

242convening a cross functional team made up of teachers students families and administration they will outline what is going well identify areas of improvement and we will build a transition plan for all Learners um if they decide to go back to their neighborhood schools some of the key components that we will investigate is programming professional development uh families and students as partners and communication and lastly just want to say that CDA is a part of CPS and will be aligned with our district strategic plan goals um that every child will read by the end of the first grade increase in academic achievement and graduation rate good evening everybody it's my honor to share with you just a brief word about our Community Partners who have been engaged with us on Children and Youth Development since we

243entered distance learning and then Blended learning on the slide you'll see a listing of those Partners who have been with us for the past three four months at this point now I specifically want to call out Cincinnati Recreation Commission and Mr Daniel bats and his team because he partnered specifically with me to convene all of these people including uh the YMCA Cincinnati parks etc etc earlier today we had uh our partner from Cincinnati Museum Center here for the outdoors presentation so it was great to see her uh the CPS people who participated at the bottom of that slide I do want to call out ver Brook from Early Childhood Britney cousins and Casey fiser from our Community Learning Center so the team has again met uh each week for the past 12 weeks at this

244point it's probably more like 16 uh but we have shared weekly updates about what Cincinnati public schools plan is and they have shared with us their plan and we have worked together to problem solve items like uh WiFi uh with Jeremy coming to the table and introducing the partners to our connects at Cincinnati Bell new resources from Jessica Shelly uh and uh other ideas around distance learning and how to make that happen best for our young people coming up soon we are planning a site visit to CRC some of the CRC locations and we'll continue to work with our partners to help identify resources for information technology thank you M and and if I could just add just a little bit to that um while assistant superintendent Bunty is coming forward I know there was

245made mention at a couple of City uh Community meetings that CPS wasn't responding or engaging with the city and so um what we were asked for was to be able to give money to support um the student um academic care during the day and so the and I did meet with them and we did explore resources that um we thought maybe could be used we cannot use uh District funding for daycare services and so that's the reason that assistant superintendent Murphy is actually going to go do a site visit to ensure that um teaching is actually happening or connecting the kids to their virtual work is is happening so we cannot use you know the the treasur children to our brains proper public purpose we cannot use dollars for daycare services and so we're going

246to visit in addition it would be remissive me not to say that we do provide meals for CPS students so and that is um a cost that um comes from the district um through federal funds but we actually do do that and um we also provided in kind services in terms of our it helping to figure out how Wi-Fi might be made available in those locations thank you good evening so just a brief update about our students who are in our specialized classrooms as you know they are attending schol four days a week all of our Learners in prek through 12 started last week and we just want to say a huge thank you to our intervention Specialists the PA professionals within those classrooms they're um families and our students themselves for engaging in this

247work thank you okay do board members have questions or comments bolon just a question and perhaps I couldn't I couldn't hear properly or understand was there some sort of reference about the curriculum or what have you about CDA there was some reference that that it's been cited or it's um regarding racial bias or something maybe the curriculum that we're use that there it's not that we've designed it it's it's a part of the package yes it's um clear that up it's more so in um the elementary portion of the curriculum so we do not use that material that content in that curriculum so that's what they were referring to in Columbus okay thank you so I'm going to ask general counsel Dan Hoy because he actually looked into this so if you could come up

248and give the specifics regarding the curriculum that was cited in an article about CPS and uity Fin thank you um there was a group um from Washington DC uh that wrote to the district expressing a concern about uh the curriculum uh we looked at uh our curriculum Department did an investigation of the specific examples used by uh the group um and found that they were taken out of context and that there was not um any kind of overall violation of the board's policy which is is firm in saying that religion is is not to be taught as a part of the curriculum basically and uh I think we've had a Firm Stance on this as a board uh we expressed that to the group uh shared with them our conclusions about the curriculum invited them

249to respond to us with any further examples and I promise that we would look into them and to date we've not we've not heard again from the group other questions or comments no thank you did you get your question answer I'm I'm confused where what was raised was that it was inappropriate curriculum and some group raised the issue and everyone seems to know about it um but it was about religious teaching or there was too much the AL the allegation was that there was an impermissible sort of mixing of religiosity in this Edgenuity curriculum um the board's policy is firm again that uh uh that curriculum cannot either promote uh any specific religion or even religion generally um and again that's the standard we uh reviewed that the curriculum Department reviewed uh again these examples

250and and the determination was made again based on the examples that they cited that there was not um an impermissible ible promotion of religion okay I think the way the P some public members spoke about it was seemed that there was some reference regarding racial bias or you but that's not what was raised correct okay this was specific to religion okay thank you thank you any other questions or comments okay I need a motion to approve the recommendations of superintendent is there a second second Miss Wagner please call roll we had discuss Mrs Bates hi Miss Bolton hi Mrs Bowers Mr Lindy yes Mr morosi yes president Jones yes do I have a motion to approve the revised report of the treasurer moved second thank you any discussion Miss Wagner Mrs Bates I miss Bolton

251I Mrs Bowers Mr Lindy yes Mr morosi yes president Jones yes any inquiries or updates hearing none assignments Mr moraski as promised uh to make my assignment official to miss Phyllis Davis to send the two-page uh document regarding the task Force's uh input on the anti-racism policy to my colleagues okay all right Miss Bolton uh one of have two one very simple one uh just to uh officially change the names of our board committees to the names that we passed when we passed the protocol um I think they we have different titles for at least two of the Committees um I know policy and also finance and there might be others I don't know health and safety of course is the new commit not a problem uh but student achievement we we just may want

252to look and see what we what we put in the protocols as we uh retitled and then uh the other is a more of a substantive uh uh assignment if it pleases the board to refer uh the required um Ohio teacher evaluation system uh uh 2.0 uh to the policy committee for the writing and the final um uh efforts to U uh to draft and accept um a new uh policy for Oz 2.0 which is required than thank you all right having no other business before us I declare the meeting adjourned