001President Harden. Uh before you begin today's meeting, I would like to read a few announcements. Good morning. Welcome to the September 25th, 2025 board meeting. Before we start the meeting, I would like to share a few safety points and next meeting announcements. Please note that the primary exit and entrance to the boardroom is the door which is used to enter this morning. If you are leaving the room, please use this door. The restrooms are outside the boardroom doors to your left. During the meeting, we ask that you keep all aisles and exits clear. If you need any assistance during the meeting, please wave the attention of one of our security officers. Please mark your calendars for the upcoming meetings. The next ARK meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, October 8th, 2025 at 10:30 a.m. The next
002board meeting is scheduled for Thursday, October 23rd, 2025 at 10:30 a.m. The ARK and board meetings will be held at 42 West Madison Street, Garden Level Boardroom. For details on how to register to speak or observe at the meetings and to learn about the speaker lottery process, please visit the Chicago Board of Education website cpsb.org. If you have any questions about registration or public participation, please contact the board office for assistance assistance. Thank you for joining us today. President Harden, we are now ready for you to begin the meeting. >> Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Chicago Board of Education meeting. Today is September 25th, 2025. We are holding today's board meeting in the boardroom at CPS Loop Office, 42 West Madison Street, Garden Level. I'd like to note that board members, honorary student board
003member, and senior leadership are physically present in the boardroom. Registered speakers may join us in person or virtually if they've opted to do so. I'm President Shan B. Harden. On behalf of my fellow board members, thank you for joining us today. The regular meeting of Thursday, September 20 September 25th, 2025 is hereby called to order. Board secretary, please call the role. >> Thank you. Member Lozano, >> present. >> Member Smith, >> here. >> Member Lopez, >> present. >> Member Vez, >> present. >> Member Bole >> here. >> Member Wallace, >> present. Member Kuster >> present. >> Member Pope >> here. >> Member Rosenfeld >> here. Member Rivas >> present. >> Member Brown >> present. >> Member Rio Sierra >> present. >> Member Bannon >> present. >> Member Gutierrez >> present. >> Member Biggs >> present.
004>> Member Blae >> present. >> Member Zachor >> present. Vice President Bautista is joining us virtually via Zoom. >> Present. >> President Harden. We have 19 members present. We do have a quorum. I'd also like to recognize Dr. Meline King, interim superintendent, chief executive officer. Liz Elizabeth Barton, acting general counsel, and Destiny Singleton, our honorary student board member. Thank you. The order of the meeting will be as follows. We'll begin with honoring excellence, interim superintendent, CEO remarks, committee updates, public participation, recess, or reconvene from recess, discussion of public agenda items, vote on public agenda items. We'll go into cold session, reconvene from cold session, and then finally adjourn. Today we have someone special joining us today. Destiny Singleton is our new 2025 honorary student board member. Welcome Destiny. >> We're pleased to have you today
005and we welcome the student perspective to the board. Uh you've already made an incredible impression and we look forward to working with you. We like to begin with you telling us a little bit about yourself and when you're going to take over as president. >> Um, hi. I'm Destiny Singleton and I'm a 17-year-old senior at Ogden International High School. Um, I'm a full IB diploma program candidate. I'm a film lover. I'm a tutor. I am a friend. Um, and most importantly, I'm an advocate. Um, I'm someone who speaks up when things are hard and difficult. Um, I I'm incredibly appreciative to step into this role at such a pivotal time in CPS history. Um, and that's why I applied. Um, and I'm so unbelievably excited to hold this position and exercise my advocacy to make
006a real measurable measurable difference in the lives of the students of this district. Um, this is one sizable goal, but I know that during my tenure here, I can make it happen. And I've already begun advocating for the students at my school and pointing out areas where we aren't being heard and providing steps to change. Because to me, advocacy is about action and not conversations. Um, to all the CPS students out there, I enter this role with an open mind and empathy and compassion and transparency. and I am profoundly humbled to to be able to represent your curious minds, your innovative and powerful voices, and your great ambitions. I'm committed to our collective advancement as students, and together we will usher in a new era that prioritizes and centers our perspectives because we are stronger
007together than we are separated. Thank you. >> Outstanding. Outstanding. It's clear your leadership. Board members, are there any comments or questions? >> Yes, member. >> Yeah, I just like to welcome you, >> member Boys. >> I co-sign that sentiment. Welcome. I'm glad you have been practicing your advocacy at your school because we want to hear from you, too. Um, I'm not sure what the procedure is, but after something happens, we all get to chime in. I'm not sure if she does, but if you don't if you don't feel comfortable, if you don't feel like talking in this forum, just come grab one of us and and make sure and you say what you need to say. We're all very proud of you and glad you're here. Thank you. >> No, absolutely. She will be able
008to speak just as any other board member. Absolutely. Member Wallace. Uh congratulations board member Singleton. I'm so glad to hear from you and see that you are here uh in a time when the world is where learning absolute power absolutely corrupts. I'm glad to hear that you're an advocate for your your classmates and your co-workers. I'm glad to see that you're here and you're ready to to shine brightly. >> Member Paul. >> Yes. As a former high school activist, it thrills me to hear you say that you're getting involved in activism as a high school student. and I hope you'll make a lifelong habit of it because it is definitely what we need in this city and in this country. Thank you so much and welcome. Member Brown, welcome Destiny. Um it is it warms
009my heart to hear you uh speak with conviction and confidence. Um and similar to what other board members said, in the times that we are living in, please remember that young people are not the future. You're now. Your time to lead is now. It's not later. It's not when you become an adult. Your your voice is not uh a token voice on this board. Um you need to make sure that we're clear when we're making decisions because you all are the ones directly impacted. Thank you. Thank you, Member Brown. Are there other comments? Again, welcome. We look forward to your contributions. Dr. King. Good morning and welcome board member Singleton. I am grateful for your voice here. Look forward to hearing your voice uh within the meetings, but I also look forward to working with
010you out in community. >> Great. Thank you. We will now proceed with honoring excellence. >> Thank you, Mr. President and good morning everyone. With our school year now underway, we are excited to resume the practice of opening our monthly board of education meetings with what we call honoring excellence. This is an opportunity to highlight individuals and programs that enrich this student experience. I'm Dr. Karim Asaf and I am proud to lead the district's office of multilingual multicultural education OME. Today we are pleased to recognize our district's international teachers and the world language programs they support. To speak about world language programming and the importance of multilingual education, I'd like to introduce Dr. Fabiola Fada Jinski. Dr. Jinski has led the district's enhancement and expansion of world language programming over the past 12 years. Thank you
011Dr. Asaf and good morning everyone. It has been a pleasure and an honor to oversee the growth of world language education in public schools during my tenure in CPS. Teaching word languages is a critical component of building bridges between students of different backgrounds and it provides a springboard for students to become global citizens. In fact, learning a war language has a direct impact on improved brain function in including enhanced memory and problem solving as well as an increased career prospect in an increasingly globalized society. Additionally, it fosters a deeper cultural understanding through direct meaningful access to art, literature, traditions. It also promotes communication skills and personal growth through discipline and adaptability and can even delay cognitive decline in our later years. In partnership with the talent office, OME has increased the number of teachers providing
012war language instruction across the city. CPS is committed to providing all of our students with the academic, linguistic, and intercultural skills necessary to thrive in a globalized society. Currently, we have over 108,000 students enrolled in world language courses. Um, and uh we have some we teach some of the language that you might not think of like Korean, Polish, Latin, and American Sign Language. We also have the largest mandaring program in the country. In addition to building global awareness for our students, our international teacher program aligns directly with the talented and empower educators um which is part of our district five-year strategic plan and it it's also a key component of the teach talent strategy. Our international teacher programs team led by our colleague Paulo Carrera brings top tier teachers from around the the country around
013the world to showcase new teaching strategies and cultures for our students. In the past decade, CPS has welcomed international teachers into more than 20% of CPS schools. This year alone, we have more than 100 international teachers representing nine different countries. All of our international teachers provide instruction in high impact content areas and many support our district core language programs. One of our exceptional international teachers is Miss Aayi Yamamoto who arrived in Chicago eight years ago through a partnership between the CPS talent office and the Japanese consulate. I remember the day well. Miss Yamamoto supports the Japanese language program Elviso and use elementary schools in the Chicago's Rosland community. During her time with CPS, she has taken 27 students on trips to Japan. Each 8day excursion has included a mix of cultural and historical learning in
014Tokyo, as well as student exchange with Japanese students at the local school. We thank Miss Yamamoto for her dedication and for bringing world languages to life through these experiences and for successfully building cult cultural bridges for with the world for our students in CPS. We are excited to have her here and uh with some of her beautiful students and I now invite her to share some thoughts on her experience teaching CPS. Thank you for listening. Good morning. My name is Ari Yamamoto. I'm the Japanese teacher at Langson Hughes and Labazo Elementary Schools. I came to uh this these schools eight years ago through the international teachers program. It was a collaboration between CPS and Japanese council general. Um, thank you so much for giving us time this morning to sh sh sh sh sh sh
015sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh sh share out uh our wonderful Japanese programs at two schools in Rosland. Uh I'd like to talk uh benefit of our school and community. In Japanese class, we start out learning foundational Japanese words and phrases, for example, numbers, colors, and greetings. As we progress, we walk up more conversational phrases. In addition to learning a new language, the Japanese program helps them to learn about new culture and create respect for diversity. We explore traditions, food, art, history, and calligraphy. The student also really enjoy when they are able to discuss elements of pop culture where they are extremely interested and highly engaged in the topics. This helped to build understand and celebration of different cultures. The growth
016of this program have been made possible by strong support of our community, the Japanese conser general and the Japanese chamber of commerce and of course CPS board members. Also, the incredible generosity of Mr. Ichiro Ozawa, a member of Japanese House of Representatives, allowed us to bring 27 students to Japan to explore Japanese culture. We visited landmarks, learned about the history, try different food, visited local shops and markets. The students also visited Japanese elementary school where they had the opportunity to engage in a real uh peer-to-peer exchange with local students and join uh their daily classroom activities such as clean up the classroom or serving school lunch. Now I will sh hear that. Now I uh you'll have a chance to hear um direct from our student about their experience this program. Please welcome Riley Robinson,
017Beverly Williams, Cole Nesby from Labazo and Mariah Lewis, Danishia Williams, Jaden Moore from Lungus Elementary. >> Good morning. Good morning. My name is Kesby. I'm an eighth grader in IB Lavo. Learning Japanese connects me to the world because it gave me opportunity to talk to many people out of every has given me opportunity to talk to people all over the world without a language barrier blocking me from any of them. And I am a firm believer that teaching different cultures and languages all over the world should happen everywhere. And so does my school, my IB school, as they believe that this should also happen while they aim to make students that are scholars be able to see the importance in this program. Good morning. Wantiwa Williams Beverly Des. I am a eighth grader at Lavazo
018Ibn School. One thing I enjoy about learning Japanese is how their culture is celebrated differently from ours. I also enjoy their festivities and how the Japanese people take tradition so seriously because it shows respect. I am also the only person in my family, the first generation to speak Japanese. We are likely the only people in the Rosen area to speak Japanese. [Music] Mariah Lewis. I am in seventh grade at Langst Elementary School. One thing that shocked me when I went to Japan is when we went to Japanese elementary school and they had to clean up the entire school after they were done with their lunch. And that really made my mind want to expand and go to other places because it's a lot to explore in the world. >> Good morning. Williams. I just said,
019"Nice to meet you. My name is Danish Williams." Learning Japanese had made a difference for me because it made me want to explore different cultures and try more of the Japanese food because when I tried the rice ball, it was something that I never tried before. And it makes me want to try other Japanese foods. >> Good morning. My name is Jayen Moore. I'm in seventh grade. I go elementary school. I've learned that to try new things and explore these different words far better than my understanding Japanese class. That's why I'm a standout student in my school. And I believe it's important to know that we're the only class or only schools to have a Japanese program. And that's why Japanese class is so important to me. Thank you for supporting our Japanese program. Good
020morning. My name is Riley Robinson. One thing I enjoy about being a part of the Japanese program is that I got to attend the Japanese I mean the Japan trip in 2023. Let me introduce myself in Japanese. She just said, "Uh, hello everyone. My name is Rob Riley Robinson. I'm seventh grade in Labaso. I'm 12 years old and my favorite subject is math. Nice to meet you in Japanese. Great job. Learning Japanese makes me feel more connected to the world because not everyone speaks English and me being able to speak to people in their native language opens up doors to more meaningful connections. I mean more meaningful connections. Thank you for supporting our Japanese program. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share with you honoring excellence. >> President Harden, before we move um
021on I do want to note for the record that member de joined the meeting at 10:51 a.m. Thank you. Board members, are there any comments or questions related to honoring excellence? Member Brown, >> thank you so much for that presentation. Uh it was inspirational. Thank you for your work. I have a question for the department. Um and uh for Superintendent King. How do we expand these opportunities across CPS? That's one question. And the second question is um often when folks deal with world language and and um African languages are not included. So I'm thinking about Kis Swahili which is the largest second language spoken by people but by African people across the world. Um is any I I remember Kenwood had a Kis Swahili class at one time. I don't know if they still do.
022And I'm just wondering again what are the plans to expand this throughout the district? and then um also to offer African languages or that particular African language. >> So I'm not sure about the Kimwood program, but I was taken aback um by this program. I was invited to attend a um an event at the Japanese consulate and that is how I became aware of this in my own backyard, right? this program opportunity and I wanted to bring them forward because this is our why and this is what we're protecting when we meet every day and we work throughout the day of the weeks and the months is to expand opportunities like this and I think that that's a conversation we need to have because how do we expand the opportunities that are afforded to our
023students across the entire city language culture and so forth so we we I welcome that conversation and I I want to thank the team for coming out. They they left so fast they missed their praise, but they have to get back to Japanese class. >> Member Bole. Yeah, I just wanted to say that uh both Langston Hughes and Lavazo are schools in my district and I've been lucky enough to visit both of them and actually participate in a lesson at Langston Hughes and to um tour the school with board member Smith um at Lavazo and to speak with the students about how excited they are with the program. Kudos to you guys. It was it was a great experience. member Lopez. >> Thank you, board president. Similar I applaud um great program. Uh one I
024guess I can also speak about my own experience going to Bento Huarees. um Bentoes offers Chinese as one of the option of languages and I remember just being learning so much right outside of my Mexican-American culture also learn about the Chinese community and it's important now thinking you know for our students and how do we work towards a 21st century you know world class and this one way we can start right thinking of not just the language giving them more tools as one day when they enter the workforce but also like they said it opens their mind of trying whether it be different quines means open to different cultures and it's something that we need to have a broader conversation not just here in Chicago but in the country of being accepting and being welcoming
025of diversity. Thank you >> member Zach. >> Um thank you President Harden. That was really an awesome presentation and I hope everyone caught that uh those young people had memorized what they were going to say which is extra impressive. Um I just have one quick question. Of the 108,000 students in world language, does that include um students who are taking the required uh languages in high school and or could you break out how many elementary students get to take world language? >> Good morning board members. >> Good morning. >> If we haven't met, my name is Christine Murphy Judson. the executive director of talent acquisition for CPS, a role I've been uh blessed to have over the last 10 years. I'm also the responsible officer of our international teacher program, which is run in partnership
026with the Department of State through the Bridge USA program. Um, so I'm especially lucky that I got the chance to select all of these teachers who have come to work in our district. The 108,000 does include the requirement for the high school languages for graduation. We'd be happy to provide some additional information to you all after the meeting about the breakdown of how many students, which languages students are pursuing. And to answer board member Brown's question from earlier, we do have just a handful of teachers from Africa who are here. We do not yet have the infrastructure to offer African languages as a world language program. in part because it takes a significant investment to start a world language program at a school in terms of staff capacity and resourcing for actual physical materials. Our
027international teacher program is run in partnership with agencies or embassies from around the world. So we actually did not have a CPS budget for our international teacher program beyond the cost of the teacher salary like any other teacher in the district. So, we work really hard with philanthropy and outside organizations to find ways to support and grow these programs. >> Um, may may I say something real quick? Thank you for that. Um, and just for future reference, Africa has a number, you know, thousands of languages that are tribal. The only non-tribal language is Kis Swahili. So, it's it's spoken across the continent. is originates in East Africa but is spoken across the continent. I know Kennedy King had a Kis Swahili program that may be a resource but just just a thought. >> Member Smith.
028>> Yes. Uh I'm aware that the program uh where the Japanese counselor was working with uh Lizo uh Elementary also offered the grant for them to uh actually go to Japan. uh how has CPS been working with other counselors and through procurement creating other collaborations so that this can continue uh and everyone can share accountability with our children also uh I know we were talking about high schools that's the first question second question I know we were talking about high schools and where teachers are distributed but all studies show that the earlier a child uh learns a foreign language uh the more impactful it is to them. So, I guess I'm more interested in the elementary schools and how uh foreign language teachers are distributed through elementary schools and uh when I visit my schools,
029I visited over 50 schools now. Uh they're struggling to find uh world language teachers. So, I I need to know where this 108,000 teachers uh were distributed because they weren't uh on the deep south side or east side. Uh we we need them at Washington. We need them at Carver. So, you know, uh uh schools, uh underserved neighborhoods, that's where I'd like to see World Languages. Uh how have we moved on that? Uh elementary schools and are we working with other consulates like we do with the Japanese consulate? Thank you, >> Member Smith. We do work with other consulates as well. Um we've had a strong partnership with the Spanish Ministry of Education over the last decade. And in fact, we're going to be hosting some representatives from the universities of Castile and Lyon October
03022nd for professional development for our teachers and administrators at our OM center on the west side. Happy to get you a map of where our international teachers are. As you well know, teacher hiring is a dance every summer. Um, but I've got lots of information I'd be happy to share as a follow-up on that. >> Member Wallace. Um, I know that they've already left, but I just wanted to be on record that it was very impressive the presentation they put on. For the one young lady that said she is the first student in her family to be able to speak Japanese, watching my children come home and speak different languages, two of my boys are in Arabic, it's lovely to be able to learn new things from them. Uh, and also Dr. Smith, I took
031French starting in first grade. So, Jud Foans, shout out to Manmoiselle Jones uh, at McDday Classical. But there are some schools I know that it's been a um like many of the arts and languages have been falling by the wayside. But hopefully we can all work together to be able to build that back up. >> Thank you all for your comments. Dr. King, we're ready for your remarks. >> Good morning. >> Thank you. I'll begin this morning by addressing ongoing conversations around the possible restructuring within our central and network offices. I want to emphasize that no final decisions have been made and that no changes are being implemented at this time. CPS is carefully considering every possible option to strengthen teaching and learning and to help us in our mission of providing all students with
032the rigorous, joyful, and equitable learning experiences they deserve. We are committed to moving forward with transparency and will keep everyone in our CPS community informed and engaged as decisions around any structural changes take shape. I'll move on to our district celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month. These four weeks are a chance for us to reflect on the many ways in which the culture, history, and heritage of our Latinx students and staff enrich our CPS communities. I had the pleasure of kicking off the month at the Mexican Independence Day parade in Pilson and it was great and hot to see so many students and families coming together to celebrate their shared heritage. I was also lucky enough to attend the Chicago Public Library book discussion with Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor about her new book. The audience audience
033was filled with family families, children, educators and readers and a group of students from Cooper Dual Language Academy. Justice Stomayors is the first person of Hispanic descent ever to serve on the United States Supreme Court. So, it was truly an honor to connect with her, especially during Hispanic Heritage Month. Her book speaks directly to children about the ways that they can show love to one another, sharing lessons of empathy, kindness, and the importance of helping others and find their inner brilliance, which is particularly time a timely message given the current state of our world. Joining us at this special event was Commissioner Rachel Arafa of the Office of Office of People with Disabilities at the Mayor's Office. Next month, Commissioner Arafa will join Chief Assaf and myself for a readaloud at Cooper Elementary. Cooper Elementary
034has a significant population of students who are deaf and hard or hard and hearing. Commissioner Arthur will read the just the read Justice Sotomay Sotomayor's book in American Sign Language. Chief Arsaf will share the book reading in Spanish. And no surprise, I will be reading the book in English. September is actually deaf and heart of hearing awareness month. So I'm glad for this chance to acknowledge our district's approximately 1,000 students with hearing challenges. I also want to recognize the dedicated teachers and staff who support our deaf and heart of hearing students in reaching their full potential and finding their rightful presence. Thanks to an investment from the CPS office for students with disabilities, this group of educators will soon be growing. OSD is partnering with Illinois State University to give 23 CPS teachers the opportunity
035to earn their masters in special education in their deaf and heart of hearing endorsement at no cost with the understanding that they will continue to serve in CPS schools for the next at least six years. That is a clap a round of applause. Thank you. I'm excited about this program and I look forward to working with these educators as they continue to show our deaf and heart of hearing students that they are bright, resourceful young people who are capable of great things in arts education week. I'd also want to call out more than 1,300 CPS art instructors who recently completed their celebration of National Arts and Education Week along with our district's hundreds of arts partners. These instructors are nurturing our students creativity and helping them uncover their talents. They are supported by outstanding administrative
036teams including Lillian Blazer, the manager of professional learning for the CPS department of arts education who was recently awarded the arts administrator supervisor of the year award by the Illinois Arts Education Association. The IAEA, which is the premier professional development provider for art, design, and media educators, educa educators in Illinois, found Lillian's professional performance, service, and leadership to be exemplary in every regard. This level of dedication reinforces the fact that at CPS, instruction in the arts is not an extra. On the contrary, it is central to the robust, joyful, and equitable student learning experience outlined in our district's five-year strategic plan. We made our commitment to the arts abundantly clear earlier this year when the board approved cultivating creativity, which is CPS revamped arts education plan. I thank all of the teachers, administrators, and partners
037who are making this plan a reality in our classrooms, and I hope that they all felt celebrated and appreciated during Arts and Education Week. Our most recent September celebration came earlier this week as well for Peace Day 2025 when CPS participated in Peace Day Chicago. Students from 31 CPS schools traveled downtown to join in the festivities and it was gratifying to see so many of our young people rallied around such an urgently needed concept which all the conflict in our world with all the conflict in our world right now including the turmoil many are experiencing in our city. We must commit to a safe, supportive and inclusive climate in all of our schools. A climate rooted in peace is what f allows our students and staff to feel safe at school, which is essential to
038their learning. But we need that feeling, that feeling of safety to extend beyond the classroom. This is where our district's crossing guards and safe passage workers come in. Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of walking along several of these individuals who are serving students in Chicago's Gage Park and East Garfield Park communities. Thank you, board member uh Lopez for inviting me out, and it was clear to me that their impact goes beyond their physical presence. Our crossing guards and safe passage workers build relationships with the students and families they serve, strengthening the bonds bonds within our school communities. I am profoundly grateful for the peace of mind these dedicated community members are providing to our students and their parents, especially during that during what is a very challenging time for many CPS families and
039communities. That brings us to the increase of federal immigration agents we've seen throughout our city for the past several weeks. I know that this continues to be a time of great fear and anxiety for many of our students and families, but I want to emphasize again that CPS is fully prepared and that our schools remain the best and safest place for children in Chicago. Except in the rare circumstances, CPS will not share student information with any federal agent and no federal agent will be allowed to access our schools. We have also created guidance for our families around staying safe when traveling to and from school and in the community, understanding your constitutional rights, and accessing immigration related service resources. During this very stressful time, we are here to support our staff and families at every
040turn, and we will continue to do all that we can to create learning environments where everyone feels safe, supported, and valued. I'll now turn to our transportation updates. At last month's board meeting, I reported that our student transportation team had successfully placed more than 10,800 students on bus routes. Today, that number is 12,656 with more than 98% of students with disabilities now receiving transportation services. Requests for transportation continue to come in daily and our goal is to get all eligible students on a bus within 10 days of those requests. In accordance with Illinois law and CPS policy, we are continuing to prioritize bus service for students with disabilities and our students facing homelessness. But we look forward to relaunching our HubSpot program later in the school year to begin serving our general education students who
041are eligible for transportation services. My next update for today actually has to do with next school year. I'm excited to share that the GOCPS application period for the 2627 school year is now open. As a reminder, GOC CPS is a one-stop shop for exploring the many academic programs our district has to offer, including neighborhood schools, magnet programs, career and techn technical education opportunities, and selective enrollment schools. Families can visit the GoCPS website to explore their options and access helpful training sessions on navigating the application process for both elementary and high school. All GOC CPS applications for the 2627 school year must be submitted by 5:00 p.m. on Friday, November 14th. I'd now like to touch on some recent data beginning with our district's enrollment as of the 20th day of school. Our current enrollment is
042316 224,000 which is about 9% fewer students than last year. Enrollment decreased across the majority of grade levels and most student groups, including identifying as black, latinext, economically disadvantaged, English language learners, and students in temporary living living situations. However, we saw increased enrollment among students identifying as white, Asian, and multi-racial, as well as students with disabilities. Attendance rates in the first four weeks of school are also up across all student groups when compared to previous years. CPS will have additional data to share in the upcoming weeks. This time on the academic side. This will include our graduation and freshmen on track rates as well as some encouraging trends we're seeing among our district's youngest learners. And we expect to again see impressive results when it comes to scholarships and early college and career credentials earned
043by our class of 2025 graduates. Our academic teams are processing this data now and we look forward to sharing with all stakeholders during the o month of October. Finally today, I want to emphasize our district continued commitment to CPS policies that have been called into question recently by the federal government. This school year alone, the US Department of Education has threatened to withhold 12 million in grant funding unless CPS dissolves our black student success plan and reverse our policies around supporting transgender and gender non-conforming students. We are confident that our policies do not violate federal laws. Thus, we find government act the government's actions deeply disappointing. That said, CPS will not back away from our commitments to black, transgender, or any other student groups. We will continue to consider diversity among our district's greatest strengths
044and will move forward with uplifting and protecting the rights of all students. CPS is exploring all of our funding options should these threats from the federal government government become reality and we will keep our school communities updated as these things progress. For now, what I can tell you is that our district will not back away from doing what we know is right. We will take to heart a story about Benjamin Franklin that was shared by Justice Sotomayor. The story goes that Benjamin Franklin left the constitutional convention in 1787. He was approached by a prominent Philadelphia socialite who asked, "Well, doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?" Franklin replied, "A republic if you can keep it?" Our voices matter. They must not be they must not only be heard, they must be amplified.
045Because when we speak together, we don't just make noise, we create change. Let us rise united, unwavering to shape the future our students deserve. Individually, we may be powerful, but collectively we are unstoppable. Mr. President, this concludes my prepared remarks. >> Thank you very much, Dr. King. >> President Harden, the Spanish translator, will now translate um Dr. King's statement into Spanish as a condensed statement. If you wish to receive the fully translated statement, please contact the contact the board office for assistance. potential in Chicago. for the safe passage. Person. Constitutional transport. Go CPS. Fore! Foreign! Foreign! fortoesia. Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Black Student Success Planit. This concludes my condensed statement. Thank you. We have no committee updates this month, so we'll proceed with public participation. >> Mr. President, comments on the CEO's remarks. >> Apologies, member
046Rivas. >> Uh, thank you, Dr. King for your remarks today. Um I just want to note that uh last week was pretty distressing for many of us on Friday uh when we started getting phone calls from uh principles uh and district chiefs um uh regarding the shakeup the change in management. Uh it was a complete surprise to uh to us. Uh we had not received any official or unofficial uh or any indication uh that this that this was going to be happening. Um and notably, you know, our principles were concerned. Um I had several principles who um you know, talked about their beginning of year evaluations and what does this mean with our new contract with our principles um and if their managers were going to be changing and who they could send their tickets
047to um when they have issues that they need to address and whether the wording was firing versus layoff versus um you know, someone has to reapply for their job. uh anyone reapplying for a job seems to me to think that that job may not exist. And um so I just want us to to consider working on stronger communication between the CEO's office and board. Um you know, our board is here uh now representing geographic areas of our city. Um, you know, we have constituents, uh, not just the voters, but also the principles who serve in the schools in our district. Um, in our geographic districts, um, you know, I have, uh, 33 schools, that's 33 principles, 33 assistant principles, uh, some district chiefs, um, that, uh, you know, reach out when there's things like this
048happening that they're concerned about. And I'm glad that they did and that they help felt comfortable to do so. So I just asked that we work on building strong communication uh between the board and management. Um something that I'm fairly uh passionate about and I talk about often is you know what does it mean between uh governance and management and although uh you know a lot of these things are under uh your purview as CEO uh it's still important to have open communication with your board um in in these types of decisions because they affect um you know what we receive and it it felt very uncomfortable to be blindsided by this uh and not be able to give responses to the people reaching out to us about this um and notably that it was
049very upsetting for them. And so uh I just want us to work on communication um and how um you know we work on informing community about these changes because um our goal as board members is that we need to be here uh to be the messengers to community about the district's vision. Um and in order for us to be able to do that, we need the right information at the right time to be able to continue to build those strong relationships with our community. uh and then the relationship between CPS management and our board. Thank you, >> member Lopez. >> Thank you, board president. Um first, I just want to thank you for joining the parents safe passage and gauge park doing walking those routes. I know it was very meaningful to the community. We
050had Alderwoman Ho Gutierrez from 14 also join us along with our EPNC community partners. Um I know that it was very meaningful for me in particular because it was a difficult day. Um as it was mentioned communities across the city in particular southwest side we've been targeted by ICE uh in particular that day my dad was followed by ICE. So um it he's okay but sharing this because I was talking to people that look like my dad Spanish. um thank you working class and this is what my students are worried about right so how do we continue supporting them thank you for everyone who's been supportive not just of the southwest side but also I know the northwest side has been impacted and across Illinois including some of those around the suburbs um so again
051thank you so much um I also just wanted to mention um I am reviewing some of the information that you your uh office has sent us over as it pertains to our IEP and and English learners. So, thank you for getting that information to us. Uh the other is I would I appreciate an update regarding the custodians as well. I know that is something that has been ongoing. I've been hearing from principles throughout the district. um some of the custodians who are still waiting to get a response and many of them as it was mentioned before they've been working for C uh CPS not necessarily directly but they've been working in our schools for 10 15 years some are 50 plus years old and the contract is already coming up to an end next week
052or so um so I will appreciate an update and also an update for the schools are still waiting to hear from that um and just going back into communication among um with everyone Um, I will say this uh openly as I've said it to another board member recently where I said, "Well, it looks like maybe we should schedule briefings with the media because they seem sometimes to get the breaking news before some of the board members do." Thank you, >> member Rosenfeld. >> Um, couple of things. First of all, I'm I'm asking that in October when we do publish those scores, if we can also publish the raw and the scale scores. So, I think that's just very important in terms of clarity and transparency so we can provide a fuller picture of what these
053numbers look like and what they look like across the years. Um, terms of the deaf and heart of hearing, I appreciate you shouting that out. I know Rachel and I love her. Um, all four of my kids went to Bell Elementary and they're fluent in sign language. So, also speaking in terms of sign, the importance of having these programs at the schools and um it's pretty amazing to watch them sign. And then finally, yeah, I'm I'm with member Lopez and Mumbous. Um decisions around structural changes should be include us in these conversations. I didn't like the the phone calls I got. You know, I wasn't even sure what the answers were supposed to be. I wasn't even sure what the policy looked like. So I was blindslided as well and whether that be speaking to
054the network chiefs, principles, other organizations just easier and it makes us a stronger unit if we know what's coming. So I would appreciate um that type of communication as well. >> Member Brown. >> Yeah. Um, so two uh recommendations cuz because first I know that um Superintendent King, your job is not easy. You've taken on an enormous weight. Uh we're appreciative appreciative of that. Um there are people running from Chicago who who who think it's too messy is is is that the the um the muck is too deep for them to consider uh being full-time superintendent. So again, I just want to thank you for that. I think one recommendation because I got a lot of calls as well is to have uh a community conversation about the impact of the networks uh and how
055people feel about them. I got I got calls from principles, but I also got calls from a lot of local school council members and um connected to that, I was at a North Londale CAC meeting last night um and uh Fanny Diego Alvarez was there um who I adore and one of the things that we talked about was really going back. There was a time when Chicago public schools actually put some effort into really strengthening local school councils. That's how I became a trainer. In 1999, we had something called the LSC Institute where community members became LSC facilitators. Um, and just figure out ways to provide more support to LSC's because we know that when LSC's are supported, they work. But then there's a power dynamic between network chiefs and LSC members and that that
056power dynamic becomes well who does the principal who does the principal who are they accountable to and um so I just think it'd be good to have a community conversation to um kind of hear other perspectives and again I I would like to be a part of a conversation to say how do we help maximize the effectiveness of local school Council tells it. >> Are there any other comments or questions from the board? >> Member Gutierrez. >> Yeah. And I would uh echo what uh board member Brown said and love to be part of that discussion because I think um the more and more that I go out to local school councils, right, there's some that are highly functioning, highly performing and then there's others that that struggle, right, to get membership and and and
057I think that there could be a nice round table best practices and maybe it is bringing back an institute and retraining folks in the local community to be part of a bigger dynamic. So, thank you. >> Yes. Uh I want to echo board member uh Gutierrez and board member Brown that stronger community ties all the way around uh really impact students. I've also had an opportunity to attend uh some district network uh training sessions and I've seen how important network chiefs are to how our teachers uh teach curriculum. I've seen network chiefs make sense of skyline for principles who are still trying to make sense of uh how to operate uh that system. Uh, I've seen network chiefs uh bring in parent mentors and community resources that uh so often principles just did not have
058access to. Uh I see network chiefs who have over 34 schools that they're uh helping teachers and principles in alongside teaching coaches. So I see the value of the LSC's. I see the values of our district leaders, our principles, but also our network chiefs. I I just don't want to get caught up in because someone is not directly in a classroom, it doesn't directly affect the competencies and proficiencies of our students. CPS is a uh very deep network with some of the best professionals in the world. This is one of the best uh school districts in the country. And although we are here in the sausage making process, it doesn't mean that we don't produce good product. And in spite of some of the harms that have come from central district, I've seen people in
059community really make amazing things happen like what we see at Leviso with uh our students learning Japanese. So, I just want to just uh uh highlight the importance of everyone in CPS that makes us one of the best school districts in the country. And as a member of the superintendent search team, uh we are really overflowing with applicants. People want to be here and I think that it is incumbent upon us as board members to make this place as attractive as possible. Thank you, >> member boy. Good morning. Um, CEO Dr. King, I just want to say I know it's hard to make those cuts to central office. You're around those folks all the time. Um, but I think it's an important step. We We're cutting crossing guards. We're cutting safe passage workers. We the
060schools, we still haven't figured out this janitor thing. I think it's a good um I think it's an important step to show that everybody's got to take a little bit to to to fix this or take a little bit of a hit to fix this budget gap. So, um I you know I what I'm saying is I think the people I've heard from many folks in the community that the central office is bloated. when I got here. Um, and I don't know if that's true or not. Obviously, I've I've done no studies. I'm just saying what what the narrative is outside. And, um, when I first got here, I was like, have we done any in um inventory on central office? And I was told everything's fine. They could there's there's no possible way they
061could cut anything from it. So, I know that this wasn't easy. And I know that um there's going to be additional pains that happen um because I I'm still upset about the the the few cuts we got on the west side, but we've all got to do what we've got to do to balance this budget. So, I'll say that. Vice President Bautista We can move forward. >> Member Wano. >> Yes. Thank you. Uh, President Harden and Dr. uh, King. I was just worried also because I've met with some parents and um them going to school to drop their children off and how frightened they were because there were, you know, trucks of ice around their building. And uh I was able to help some of them put together like a signal so that they can
062at least tell each other what blocks they're on so that they could get their home uh without getting picked up and stuff like that. But I'm also concerned about, you know, these crossing guards and safe passage because they're so important right now to those families because those are the people that will be intervene if they need to. We have a community now that's wearing whistles so that if the migra comes or ICE is there, you blow the whistle and all the community comes out and and provides the family with some kind of protection while they're trying to get away and get home. So, all of this is going on and I know that there's so much um going on and that also the I wanted to mention that back when Rammy Emanuel was mayor, he
063cut like 50 schools. He just closed them. But I understand there was no cuts like to central office. So, there was still like all of those, you know, people in central office that would support those schools that were still there and they were still working. So, I think that could be looked at if that's true. I don't know. I'm asking you to look into that. But also to keep in mind that these safe passage workers are really there uh and and hopefully there to help our community make sure our kids get to school safe and back home to their families. Thank you. >> Are there any other comments from the board? Member Brown. >> Yes, sir. Quick, very quickly. I I forgot this. Um, Superintendent King, you had mentioned that we lost 9% uh of
064our student population. Was it 9% or was it 9,000? >> The number was 9,000 fewer students than last year. >> Okay. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. That being the last comment, we'll proceed today with public participation. In compliance with the Illinois Open Meeting Act, PO participation, sometimes referred to as public comment, is the portion of the board meeting or hearing that grants district stakeholders the opportunity to address the board with their concerns and comments. Note that public participation is a time for the board and CPS senior leadership to listen and hear from you rather than a time for dialogue with board members during or after your remarks. While we can't discuss personnel matters, public participation is a key component of transparent governance and it provides us as board members as well as senior leadership an opportunity
065to listen to everyone who has signed to speak. The board takes equity of voice seriously and while we may not address your comments directly during public participation, CPS leadership is always present at our meetings and are able to address concerns as follow-ups after our meeting. As a district and as a board, we also have many other spaces for authentic dialogue. For example, each and every one of our board members host board office hours so that we can have a conversation. Please use our website cpsbboe.org if you want to meet with the board member during office hours. We encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to meet with board members outside of a board meeting. Thank you for your attention and consideration. And as a reminder, union representatives will be allowed 5 minutes to speak
066before public participation and elected officials will be allowed at 5 minutes to speak after the conclusion of public participation. Board Secretary, please share the rules of PO participation. >> Thank you, President Harden. Members of the public who registered to speak were given the option to attend in person or via an electronic format. For those who prefer to attend via an electronic format, they were given information to access this meeting by dialing a number and using their phone. We did this so that speakers with limited or no access to the internet or who may have weak internet connection could still participate using their phones. Also, members of the public may submit written comments for board of education meetings via the written comments form on the board's website at cpsboe.org or mailed to 42 West Madison Street,
067Garden Level. Written comments received between the day the public agenda was posted through 5:00 p.m. the day after the board of education meeting will be submitted to the board and published within five business days on our website at cpsbee.org. Speakers, please listen while I provide directions for public participation. I will call your name and number when it is your turn to speak. For speakers joining us virtually, as a reminder to unmute, please enter star six. Once you hear your name, please state your name for the record. I will then start the two-minute timer. When there are 30 seconds remaining, I will inform you so that you can proceed to conclude your remarks to allow for the next speaker to begin. For anyone standing with the speaker, ple note that in order to comply with the
068city's fire code, please stand along the glass partitions on the marked spots to keep aisles clear. Thank you. And President Harden, before we begin calling speakers from the speakers list, we do have union reps who would like to address the board. We'll begin with Jackson Potter, CTU vice president, who is here in person. Good morning. >> Good morning. >> Um, hope you're doing well. Hope you're doing better than me. I uh broke my collar bone and thankfully a helmet may have saved my life. I know a lot of our young men in our high schools are riding around in single speeds with love life skills, you know, PSAs, things like that. It's but that's another topic for another time. I do want to say that it took me a lot to put this on for
069you. So I expect everything I request to be granted. And I want to start by mentioning the contrast. I started this morning at CTU. There was a sustainable community school professional development. It was beautiful, wonderful. You know, new 16 new programs being erected before our eyes that are empowering families, students, parents, administrators, educators to work together on a curriculum that really celebrates our culture, our history, our shared experience. It's birthed out of struggle. Diet High School and the hunger strike. Thank you, board member Brown, Little Village Hunger Strike. Um, thank you board member Lozano and and your contributions over the years. Teo Chali, thank you board member uh Lopez was present today. And it's in stark contrast to what we saw elsewhere in the city. You mentioned it, board member Lopez, there's a fallank of
070ICE armed members across the street from back of the yards. Uh, literally look like an army roaming and roving and striking terror and trauma across school communities this morning. And it's in contrast to the billionaire broadcasters censoring Jimmy Kimmel educators. This board is not doing that thankfully. Uh we are not seeing that kind of retaliation and hope never to and instead we will declare our shared values around academic freedom. Uh we do have a proposal for you along those lines to fortify those commitments. It is in contrast to the Trump administration. Instead of sending the resources to avoid the cuts you're describing, and by the way, I'd be remiss not to mention, nobody said anything about the bombshell expose by Sarah Karp that thousands of students aren't getting sped services that are legally required. And
071that is a function of incomplete budget. That is a function of Springfield and our billionaire governor not meeting the requirement of fulfilling resources that correspond to the legal obligations that the state requires of the district. That requires taxing billionaires. We know instead of helping support schools, MAGA and Trump have instead decided to give tax breaks to billionaires JB Pritsker's brethren. If you restored those tax breaks in Illinois at eight billion dollars, you could fully fund the school formula, fully fund mass transit, fully fund all those who have been kicked off of Medicaid, restore children who have lost SNAP benefits. Wouldn't that be the thing to do? You cannot surrender before you have stood up and tried to fight. And unfortunately, I think we're seeing that. So, we've got to be the ones fighting together in
072unison. I may not vote for some of you, but we are in a broad front together. Fighting for the schools our students deserve, fighting for public education, fighting for a black student success plan that was enacted by this body that aims to create reparations for the students who've been harmed the most from school closings and privatization. And that runaway train, the wheels are coming off. This body voted four months ago to give a renewal to a charter that is trying to close next month. What's going on here? We know that the promises from that era of experimentation have been disastrous. You you you're seeing it with the second largest chartered uh operator closing five schools in Asero. You're seeing it with Epic. And this is the canary in the coal mine. It is the tip
073of the iceberg. So, we got to fortify our approach to how these renewals go, be much more scrutinous, and ensure that our students, families, educators are protected. Epic deserves better. And I I'll finally close with this, and I give permission, board member Smith, board member Brown, board member Pope, I think if you want to remix this afterwards, you you have my full support. Uh, but it's a remaining old song by Woody Guthrie and it hopefully it gives you some inspiration today. >> Um, I'm going to tell you fascists, you're going to be surprised. The people in this world are getting organized. You're bound to lose. You fascists bound to lose. All together now. All you fascists bound to lose. All you fascists bound to lose. You bound to lose. you fascist bound to lose. Thank
074you, Superintendent King, for also saying that. Take care. >> Thank you for your comments. >> The next union rep is Jen Conan, CTU charter division chair, who is >> I got to say one thing. I got to say one thing. Me and Andre Vasquez is already remixing Fight the Power to Fight the Coward. So, we right there, brother. Let's do it. A little bit of that in there. Good morning, members of the board and CEO King. That's a tough act to follow. Um, I'm Jen Conan. I'm chair of CT's charter division. And today, I want to talk to you about Epic Academy, a charter school on the south side. The school's charter was up for renewal in the spring, and in May, this board renewed the charter for two years. On August 21st, just four
075days before the first day of school, and without any knowledge by Epic students, family, or staff, Epic Academyy's board president informed CPS of Epic's intention to close. And last week, the board of directors officially voted to close at the end of the school year or sooner, and the situation is dire. Epic does not think it can make or keep its doors open to the end of the year without support from CPS. It's important to know that Epic students and staff have been failed at multiple le levels. Leaders made choices that were not financially prudent, like buying property for a new school building that will now never be used. The Epic board of directors failed to exercise proper oversight of finances. But CPS has a responsibility, too. Despite having access to EPIC's audits and budgets, CPS
076said they met financial standards. And people like Paul Val and one Renhell and the billionaires that bankroll them have campaigned for a charter system they claimed would be experimental and innovative. They told Chicago that charters could do better for less money. But unfortunately that innovation just looks like instability without accountability to our school communities here. When Aero attempted to close their schools last year, CTU members and families warned you that this would happen again. And here we are. another charter operator closing a school after spending money on real estate deals that should have gone to our classrooms. Instead of taking steps to avoid this crisis, CPS renewed Epic's charter, like I said, just four months ago. So, CPS has a responsibility to step in and ensure that hundreds of EPICS students don't lose their school
077in the middle of the year. Students and families should not suffer because others failed to protect them and failed to exercise appropriate oversight. CPS also has the responsibility to give this school community an opportunity to remain whole beyond the end of this school year. We know the harm that school closings do to students and communities. We know um that handing parents the gops website leaving each family to find a new school and each finder to find a new job guarantees that we will lose students from the district and they'll we'll watch a school community thrown to the wind. Instead, CPS could make real efforts to allow students and educators to stay together and ensure that these students who are facing a CPS school closing come out with more, not less. You'll hear from educators, parents,
078and students from Epic Academy today about how tight-knit a community the school is, about how students have learned and grown and thrived with the support of the staff at Epic. We are here calling on CPS and this board to create a plan to keep this school community together. You have the tools to do this. Whether that means CPS takes over management of the school in a CPS building or moves the whole school community to nearby Southshore. Southshore has the capacity and resources to welcome EPICS students and staff. And while we're calling on CPS and this board to act to ensure that Epic remains open this year, any support must come with conditions. The additional property that Epic acquired or money from the future sale of that building must either go into the classrooms at Epic
079or back to CPS. That building was purchased with public funds. And so its sale must go back into the public school system. and CPS must look at what administrative expenses can be cut to reduce costs while still providing strong supports to students. Finally, this board passed a resolution in May to reform the renewal process and to provide more oversight, support, and accountability to charter schools and their operators. Looking at Epic, I hope this board is asking questions about what has changed in the renewal process and about what still needs to change. We should not have schools opening in the fall that may have budget deficits that mean doors could close midyear. That is not fair to our school communities. We're calling on this board to act on the same principles that guided your decision last
080year with Aero students and schools and to protect this school community. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next union rep is Kia Banks, CPAA president, who is here in person. Good morning. I would love to continue with the spirit of you know u humor that my colleague had uh and be able to continue in that in that vein but today I'm a little concerned um I'm here to ask and remind everyone on Friday uh Dr. King made some statements about a possible restructure. Um, and it garnered a lot of attention and created some unintended confusion. But we're here today to find solutions and solutions that will guarantee that the programs that were honored today in our schools like Lavazo and Langston Hughes are going to be available in all of our schools
081across this district so that students like Miss Destiny here are continued continuously empowered to be their own advocates and representatives. Um, and I'd like to share with you Miss Destiny, congratulations. I'm honored to be here in your presence. We have come way too far to allow for people to continue to speak for us without calling this out. It is personally disheartening to hear that a number of you all today speaking about concerns uh especially the concerns of principles. I have to remind you that any personal conversations with any in with any individual school leader that excludes their union should not be mistaken as representing school leaders as a whole. Since principles have reached out to some of you about their protections and safeties amidst a rumored reorganization, we are asking you why have you not
082directed them back to the union that protects their their roles, protects their jobs, protects their safety? Our union is consistently in communication with CEO King. And if we want to build the trust and strengthen the communication that you're asking for, the proper way to represent what school leaders needs is to talk to the union who represents them. This is a dangerous practice send signaling a return to the top-down compliance-driven policymaking that led us to unionize in the first place. Not one of you reached out to us. Let's not forget this proposal is not finalized. You gave her a directive. Now she's trying to fulfill it. Here's the thing. Dr. King has the hard work to do. We are not here to chime in the p on personnel matters, but we will always say when those
083decisions are not right for children or not right for our members. While the details are still unfolding, so far I've not seen anything but a proposal that ensures that the resources you're asking for are directly streamlined to the principles who are charged with making those resources realities of student outcomes. There may be restructuring in roles. There may be re reimagining of the district. No one wants to see anyone lose jobs. But I'm not charged with that. I don't see excuse me. I don't want to see the children that we serve lose the opportunities of the streamline resources, the the the redundancies that are going to be cleared up and the inefficiencies that may be cleared up by reimagining what our district can be. So maybe I am misunderstood what my charge was. So I'm here
084to say today that my principles whom I serve, who I represent, our voices have been valued by Dr. King who meets with us consistently to listen to the collective voice of principles. She meets those challenges, those questions with directed responses and action. Our concerns about reimagining this district have been carefully inserted in a way where binding decisions can be made. That's what our union does. She is in an impossible situation. She inherited a structural deficit less than three months ago. A deficit that this board did not create. That her leadership did not create nor the school leaders that we serve. We c none of us created it. The previous CEO left us with no plan to address it. Dr. King was hired to make tough >> 30 seconds remaining. finding savings in implementing structural changes
085to ensure resources are streamlined to schools. And as a former principal, she is uniquely qualified to carry out this charge with principles, teachers, and students in mind. The financial reality that of CPS right now means Dr. King must make decisions that most of us, including myself, will not like, and neither will she. But these cuts are compelled by the district's finances, not by preference. Few of us would want to be in her shoes right now. So before we criticize, we have to recognize that that is her reality. So instead of spending so much energy on things that we are not solving immediately, we are asking you, how will each of us ensure that we have enough custodians to keep our schools clean and safe? Our Hispanic students, brothers and sisters, are under attack. Black student
086success is under attack. How will we build a pipeline that ensures that we recruit and retain qualified educators and specialists to meet the students who have unique needs? And when will each of you actually begin a conversation to identify new revenue and structural budget reform that ensures that each school is adequately funded? So, I will leave you here today that our shared mission is to work together to make CPS a stronger district that puts students first. So, yes, she inherited a deficit she didn't create. Yes, she was hired to make tough calls. She is qualified to do it and our union stands strongly beside her as she does it. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next union rep is Tmaine Reeves, SEIU Local 70 director of CPS division who is joining us
087virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. >> Good morning, President Harden, Vice President Bautista, board members, and CEO King. So, in the June board meeting, I made a plea for the intervention of the direction established by CPS's Office of Students with Disabilities. That direction was to have a ratio of 12 students with diverse needs for one special education teacher and one special education classroom assistant. This is troubling as there are complaints all over the district from parents, bed advocates, our seekers, bed teachers, and school administrators. Presently speakers are forced to choose between leaving 11 students in a classroom in order to safely recall an aloper or stay with the aloper and hope for the best come best outcome for the remaining 11 students. That's just one scenario of many extreme scenarios that I've been privy
088uh to hear from our seekers. Administrators appeals for additional seekers have gone unfulfilled. Parents are outraged because their child's IEP isn't receiving the same level of attention it was in school years past. And why is this? because of phil of a philosophy of not causing an over reliance of support. A philosophy that was not based on cost savings for the dis district. A philosophy that relies on an outdated state minimum that was last amended in 2009. A philosophy that oversteps into the households of families whose ability to make this decision for their child was abruptly stripped from them. Now that we have moved past the budget vote, this is prime opportunity to focus on this dire situation in special education. Please research the ISBY corrective action report submitted in May of 2021 as that is
089more reflective of the needs of fed students today than the 2009 Illinois administrative code. SEIU Local 73 is calling for the reestablishing of the SPED advisory committee, which served as monitoring for the Office of Students with Disabilities, formerly ODLSS, and has not met since this hybrid board came in. The voices and direct input of parents and sped advocates must not be silenced because what we're seeing is the disruption of the quality of learning for sped students and the workers who support them. when this happens. So please let's put an end to this disruption to the quality of education and unnecessary frustration for the sped students, their parents and the staff who support them. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments, President Harden. We are now ready to call speakers from the speakers list and
090we'll begin with the first group from Epic Academy. Aayumed Ola Tunji speaker number one Good morning everyone. My name is Ayid Alatunji and I am a senior at Epic Academy. I have been part of this school community for close to four years now and it has shaped not only my education but who I am as a person today. At Epic Academy, I have been given opportunities that go far beyond the classroom thanks to the close-knit community we have built. I have created lasting memories whether in the classroom where we engage in passionate debates about real world issues or in my various clubs where teamwork and leadership was evident. What makes Epic so special is that our teachers and principles make sure every student is heard and cared for. I stand here today with my fellow
091seniors, all proud to say that we're epic students who look forward to walking across the graduation stage together next year. The thoughts of a midyear closure is sincerely devastating, especially for us 57 senior students. Since freshman year, we have worked tirelessly toward the moment of graduation. Right now, we are in the middle of college applications, relying on the support and guidance of our teachers, counselors, and principal, Dr. Matthews, who began our journey as principal the same year we began as freshmen. She has invested so much in us to ensure we make it to graduation day on May 30th, May 31st, 2026. A midyear dis disruption would would not only take away our sense of stability but strip this very moment we have been building toward for four years this impact also extends beyond beyond seniors
092however freshman's sophomores and juniors also deserve to complete the year they have started athletes who trained hard in the summer for who trained hard in in the summer for their sports seasons drum online band members preparing for schoolwide performances and families who depend on the routines and relationships they have built here. A major closure would fracture that, leaving students and parents with painful uncertainty. Last night, I watched videos of Epic Academy from close to over a decade ago where former principles, teachers, and graduates spoke about the importance of of quality access of education to every student in Chicago. They dreamed that Epic would be a place where generation after generation would succeed. That dream still lives in us today. My classmates and I don't just want to graduate. We want to one day come back
093as proud alumni who can give back to the same school that has given so much to us. >> You have 30 seconds remaining. This clock is incorrect. >> I am asking that you stand with us in this difficult moment. Stand with the 57 seniors who deserve to finish what we started. Stand with the teachers and staff who poured their hearts into us every day. Stand with the epic community that has always believed in its students. With your support, we can ensure that not only we can ensure that not only this year is completed with dignity, but that the future of Epic remains strong for students yet to come. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Andrew Estellante, speaker number seven. Good morning, Chicago Board of Ed members. My
094name is Andrew Escalante and this is my eighth year teaching at Epic Academy. I've had the privilege of watching our students, CPS students, grow into confident, capable young people. I've seen the way Epic helps students find their voices, whether in the classroom, the soccer field, or board meetings fighting for their school. Just last week, 50 students staged a walk-in at the Epic board of directors meeting and spoke about why they didn't want the school to close. Epic is more than just where I work. It's my community. Staff and students were extremely disheartened by the news that Epic would be closing. Students that I've been teaching for years have already begun to transfer to other schools, afraid they will not finish the year. And our seniors who have worked so hard to reach this milestone, deserve
095to graduate from their high school. They should not be forced to finish their journey somewhere unfamiliar, especially in the middle of their senior year. That is why I'm asking this board to make sure Epic remains open until the end of the school year. A mid-year closure would be devastating for our community and our students would lose stability, relationships, and the momentum in their learning. Looking beyond this year, I urge you to consider keeping Epic open long term. Our community should be kept together, whether it's inside our current building or inside another community like Southshore. I also have questions that deserve answers. CPS just granted Epic a 2-year renewal. How was this approved if Epic did not have the funds to operate? What concrete steps is CPS prepared to take to ensure our students and families
096are not left scrambling if the school closes? And most importantly, how will the board protect the community and our students rely on every day? Our students, families, and staff deserve honest answers and a path forward that honors their hard work. Again, I urge CPS to support Epic to ensure we can remain open until the very end of the school year. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. The next speaker from Epic is Aurelio Baraha, speaker number 11. Hello, my name is Aurelia Braz. I am a I am a 2024 graduate from Epic Academy and I I am currently attending her Washington College planning to transfer to UIC. Without the help of Epic, I don't think I would have made it this far. I'm now in my second year of college pursuing a degree in education.
097And the truth is without EPIC, I wouldn't have known which college to attend or even which major fits me best. Epic wasn't just a school for me during my four my four years of high school. It was a community. A comm community. a community that brought out the truest version of myself and the and of my classmates and even the students. Every year on the first day of school, Epic holds a picnic outside. Students meet new friends, connect with teachers, and even express themselves with music, dancing, but most importantly, smiling. I can't imagine other schools starting this year, starting their year this way. most probably jump straight into ice breakers or subject material with little room for expression. And maybe that's why uh maybe that's why so many schools around the area have a lower
098graduation or college acceptance rates compared to Epic. But now we're facing something that can take that all away. Buying a new building was a mistake. If the board knew enrollment was down, then why purchase a new building? Why fix something that isn't broken? Epic was founded by teachers who wanted to prepare uh students in the in a in a neighborhood that lacked highquality options. With that legacy, we should respect it. And this is where I want to step in to help us out. >> We don't know exactly when the school is shutting down, but at the very least, I ask that CPS keeps the school open until the end of the school year to give the senior class uh a chance to graduate. Even more than that, I beg you to support Epic to to
099keep its doors open, to keep this community together. Closing Epic will hurt our neighborhood. Epic is filled with black and brown students, and shutting down a school like that damages the reputation of the Southside even more. So, I ask you, please keep our community, please support Epic, and most importantly, keep Epic alive. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker from Epic is Octavius Woodley, speaker number 17. Good morning. I'm Octavius Woodley from Epic Academy. I would like to thank you guys for the opportunity to express my concerns for Epic Academy. Epic has been a family, like a family to me. I live three minutes away from Epic from the Epic School. So, I am a part of both communities the students reside in. I understand it is still business at the end. I
100was told that the beginning of at the beginning of the school year that we would be renewed for two years, then it went to one year and then went to closing. I asked that you uphold the contract. We showed that I asked you to uphold the contract which will show the students that they are worth the investment. The staff will continue to provide quality instructions to the students despite the changing circumstances. With the proper backing, we can complete our mission together. I would like to finish uh my commitment that I started with my kids to provide them with a safe educational environment for them to thrive in. And I would like to thank you once again uh for taking the opportunity to listen to us all. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker
101from Epic is BM Hernandez, speaker number 20. the speaker had to uh leave. So, we're going to have our Spanish translator go ahead and read the statement in Spanish and then in English. Brian, Epic Academy. for Epic in English. Good morning. My name is Ben Hernandez and my son Brian is a student at Epic Academy. He attends 10th grade and is an excellent student with A's and B's. I know with absolute certainty that the schools and staff members at the school do an excellent job with students. The reason why I'm here is to ask that our school please not be closed. It has been part of our community for 10 years. We are deeply saddened by the news. I speak not only of myself but al also the students and the excellent staff at our
102school who like always have kept our children safe and motivated. The news shocked us not only as a school but also as part of the community. Uncertainty among parents has been increasing not knowing where our children go are going and if they'll be as safe as they are at Epic Academy. If the decision doesn't squaltch our children's motivation to learn, it is because EPIC has for years united us as a community to build a stronger and more united future. And so, as a mother, I ask you humbly not to close the school or separate the Epic community. Thank you for your attention. >> Thank you. The last speaker from the Epic Academy group is Valentine Keano, speaker number 29. Good morning to everyone attending. I'm introducing myself with my legal name, Aurora Kihana. I am
103a senior in high school at Epic Academy, and this is thus far the greatest academic disappointment I've been a part of. I will be polite as I pride myself to be, but no kindness will be fine. be found in my words. The time spent at Epic has cracked open the thick shell I had been in before. When I was told by my college careers and skills teacher, a program unique to Epic in freshman year that problems with speaking in front of others will dissolve, there has proven to be no lie. Even if not what I had planned, I do not think I would have found the greatest for myself as I have here. Such has been gifted to me for three full years with this class. I feel far more prepared for where I choose
104to step next, even if I remain afraid. That is something I will find nowhere else in the seventh ward of Chicago where I live. I had planned for so much more to even return to the school to help the upcoming youth and yet now I find myself unable to. In 2013, Chicago made a record of closing 50 schools, the largest in the nation, predominantly in communities of minorities and those of color. Within the following years, students would feel the negative aftershocks of this choice made for them. I do not plan to be part of a record and I do not plan to be on a list. I have to ask which of you sitting on this board will be affected by the decision for the closing midyear ora after. Which of you live on the
105south side of Chicago and who lives in the >> We have 30 seconds remaining. >> Who or whose children will be affected by the loss of a good option where they're limited? And lastly, I ask, should Epic be closed, where shall the funding go to ensure the bright futures of the youth you are guiding? Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Wendy Buelos, speaker number two. King, Board of Education. Interamericia director Juan Sas. network chief Dr. Traos. [Music] Transparenc. investig Carlos collabor Dr. King and members of the board. My name is Wendy Manuelos and I am for a former employee of Interamerican Magnet School and a mother of two students who unfortunately are no longer part of CPS. And even though we are uh we are no longer part of the district, I
106stand here to um today on behalf of Interamerican Community demanding justice. I am uh past July I was dismissed by principal SAS under an excuse of support uh uh supposed budget cuts. That was a lie. Network Chief Travalos himself confirmed it that it was a fault. That it was false. My dismissal was not about budget. It was retaliation. retaliation for speaking up public about the failure of leadership and for cooperating with independent investigation that CPS itself requested. To this day, the retaliation continues. The school has still not delivered my children's transcripts or transfer documents despite my repeated requests. What is even more alarming is that Mr. Juan Saias does not stop the retaliating against adults. He also targets children to those who d um who dare speak out, parents who speak out. That un that's
107unacceptable. My family has forced to make the ret um the pl pain painful but necessary decision to withdraw my children from district because we knew his retaliation would reach them would reach them as well. No parent should have to ever have to choose between their children's education and their safety. My family at IMS remain my family uh many family at IMS remain silent out of fear. Fear that Juan Saias will retaliate against their children as he already as he has already done. Today I raise my voice not only for myself and my children but also for those families who cannot speak. The investigation is complete and the facts are clear. Juan Saias violated Illinois school code and his own contract as principal. Lack of leadership, lack of empathy, lack of integrity and collaboration. This leader,
108a leader who rules through threats and lies cannot lead a school and should not lead a school. A committee that lies in that lies in fear cannot thrive. Our children deserve safety and safe environment with trustworthy leaders leadership based on respect and justice not not an abuse of power which is what sas does that is why I firmly ask you today remove Juan Saias from interamerican from his position immediately the community has been demanding this change for months over a here. You have the responsibility and the authority to act. CPS students cannot wait any longer. Thank you for hearing me and for showing through actions, not just words. That is that the well be done of children's and families is a true priority. Thank you for your comments. The next group of speakers are regarding
109special education. Dr. Angel Alvarez, speaker number three. Hello board. As you know, I am Dr. Angel Alvarez. I want to talk about three things today. the budget serving students with who are advanced learners for opportunities for accelerated uh learning and support for students with disabilities. As difficult as the last budget vote was, I assure you the future budget and finances will be worse. CPS will continue to face declining enrollment for the next decade. I will share with you my report with projections of declining enrollment. Birth rates will continue to fall and they will occur unevenly throughout the city, seeing the biggest losses on the south and west side. This will exacerbate problems of underenrollment where our costs will continue to rise greater than the rate of inflation, particularly for student supports, facilities maintenance, and utility
110costs. The deficit will continue to increase. Now, I have called for school level budget reporting, and I will ask this board again to please have those bureaucrats provide past and future school level budgets because what we are seeing with Epic and Ato is the canary in the coal mine. There are deeper problems in CPS and we need transparency so we can do what's best for our students. Regarding opportunities for advanced instruction, CPS has a policy, but they do not offer sufficient opportunities. I share with you my concerns previously, and new analysis that I will share again will show that only one in five elementary schools in CPS has offered advanced instruction to any student in CPS over the past six years. >> It's only offered to a few hundred students. Despite CPS's equity initiative, black
111student applicants are less likely to get it now than they were previously. Support for students with disabilities is another concern. We have there have been improvements, but we have concerns over SECA positions, cuts, and the placement of them needs to be explained. IP compliance needs oversight, proper investigation, and transparent reporting. As the newly elected president of the family advisory board for OSD, I will continue to advocate for reforms and I'll be presenting my concerns at our upcoming meeting. I will present concerns regarding child find identification and support services for students with autism and I invite you to be there on October 16th at 6 p.m. I hope to see you there. Thank you so much. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker regarding special education is Taylor Spencer, speaker number 14. Good afternoon.
112My name is Dr. Taylor Spencer and I am the parent of a second grade student at South Loop Elementary. My son is autistic, nonverbal, and has an IEP that outlines supports he needs for his safety and learning. Last year in first grade, the school repeatedly failed to implement his IEP despite documentation. He was not consistently provided with the one-on-one paraprofessional that was legally mandated. This placed him in unsafe situations and denied him access to a free and appropriate public education. Now, just weeks into the school year, the same failures are happening again. He has come home with missing items and even missing his Air Tag off his body with no accountability. This is not an isolated issue. It is bias-based harm and systemic abbleism. Now, the school principal, Tara Shelton, has refused to meet to
113discuss my concerns and has worked with the legal department and office of student disabilities to unilaterally decide to ban me from the school and from advocating for my son. I have asked for help from the chief of OSD Josh Long, you yourself, CEO King, Katherine Chang, and George Coleman. I am here today to ask the board to intervene. I am requesting immediate advance enforcement of my son's IEP including consistent assignment of a one-on-one pair professional oversight to ensure accountability of his daily safety consideration of a therapeutic day school placement if his current school environment cannot meet his needs and support in appealing the decision to prevent me from discussing my son's need and advocating for his support. He cannot speak for himself. He depends on me and on this system to protect him and you
114all have consistently failed. I am asking the board to hold CPS accountable so that my son does not face another year of neglect and harm. Thank you for your time today. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker regarding special education is Dulce Dominguez, speaker number 26. Group Parents for Education. CPS. Fore constant. Fore! Foreign! Foreign! implement. CCPS Thank you. We will now have the uh statement translated into English. >> Good morning. My name is Dulce Dominguez, mother of a child of autism and a proud member of Parents for Education. I am here today as a mother, but also as one of many families who face very similar situations. When a child enters a CPS system requiring special education services, they first have to go through a formal evaluation process executed by specialists. This
115process determines if the student needs an IEP or 504 plan. Until then, everything seems to work in theory. In reality, many of these services are not implemented properly, nor do they truly respond to the students needs. Parents like myself are forced to become constant advocates, calling for revisions, stating the obvious, and fighting a system that frequently doesn't listen. Inclusion, which should be an enriching experience, often becomes an act of negligence. I've seen how the lack of real support inside classroom results in deeply negative effects on children's learning and self-esteem. And so I want to make an urgent call to not only examine the students but also the employees responsible for implementing these plans. Just like we assess the children, we should assess the quality and effectiveness of of those in charge of those services. The
116lack of oversight allows for serious errors to go by unnoticed and sometimes even get covered up. Adding to this is a lack of specialized personnel, a serious issue that also requires urgent attention. Yes, CPS offers the services, but their quality leaves much to be desired. And quality is what truly marks the difference between the a child who learns and while who suff and one who suffers the consequences of a deficient system. The trauma many of them undergo should not be part of the educational system. And so I raised my voice to ask for real structural and sustainable changes because if we don't make them now, we'll continue failing those who most need us. Thank you. >> Thank you. Uh the last speaker from the special education um topic is Ivonne Sanchez, speaker number 30. Good
117morning everybody. My name is Ivonne Sanchez. Some of you already know me and have heard me speak before, but today I stand before you with both gratitude and concern. First, I want to uh begin by thanking every single person in this community, our teachers, our principles, our parents, our community allies, organizations, and CTU for standing with my Latino community during the vulnerable time. This vulnerable time as ICE agents continue to torment our streets with massive raids and vi in violation of a and violating our human rights. Our families are suffering mentally, emotionally, physically, economically. Many of of many in my community are even afraid to go to work, take their children to school, or even get their basics needs like groceries um out of fear because they don't know there will be back home. Yet,
118throughout this darkness, your support has been a light and I thank you deeply for that. But today, I also want to turn to a recent chalkby report. um called Chicago uh Chicago school board members questioning special education and staffing changes. There are three points that I want to highlight. First, I want to thank the board members for listening to the community and asking CPS uh the department of special education for more information. This is a step um to the right direction. Second, the article notes that the district uses enrollment data from May and the first day of attendings deciding to know whether the teachers and the classroom assistants are located despite that concerns me a lot because we have a batch of children from early intervention that don't start school until the first or the
119last week of August. So they're not taking in consideration these children that are already registered or are already in taking consideration that they need IEPs. Um I'm going to fast forward because of my time is uh so this is a miscalculation leading to 110 students um being misplaced or in the first 10 days um trying to find locations for these children. Um, another thing that I wanted to uh communicate is that the first day of school, these children were promised busing. The children were waiting for their buses and they never showed up. So, they did not attended school because not because they didn't want to, but because their bus transportation never showed up. >> So, if we're going to take in consideration, you know, May data and the first day of school, that's a really
120bad error. So, I just want to point that out. But um thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Katherine Jones, speaker number four, who is joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. >> Good afternoon. Good afternoon. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes, please proceed. >> Oh, okay. Uh good afternoon. This is Katherine Jones again. uh LSC uh uh Frederick Douglas uh high school. Uh uh good afternoon uh President Harden and uh CEO King and distinguished members. I'm calling in once again uh about local school council. I was calling in to make sure that you all are checking uh on what Miss uh Wanda Hopkins said last month about the advisory board. I did we some of us do agree with what she
121said that a lot of things our local school councils are being threatened our local school councils are being targeted and I heard a lot on this morning too about a lot of issues that we are we that need to be addressed and when I call in I don't call in to try to intimidate anybody or try to throw anybody under the bus but these things are happen seriously and if you really want to know about a lot of these things that's going on call us the ones that be on the meeting that knows this and record the meeting and you'll get the the true aspects of what's going on. I've been a LSC member for over 25 years. I started in the GIA area with uh James Deans and some of you all know Mr.
122Deans. I started way back with him a long time ago and we have been trained. We know what to do, how to do, and how to do our jobs and our uh thing. We have to work together. Uh we are in a crisis. I know you all have a lot on y'all plate. I heard a lot this morning about the art program and all that in the kennel. I still say again Douglas is underutilized and I'd like to know meet with some of y'all. Mr. Harden. >> Okay. Thank you Mr. Harden and and uh CEO King. I would really like you all to meet with Douglas LSC. I am in Georgia right now but I will be back next month. Had to have family issue here. But I am uh like uh the young lady
123said, Miss uh Destiny Singleton, advocacy. You all, that's what it's all about. Advocating for more programs in every public school. Every public school desire, the kids desire a better education. And Douglas is one of those schools. Mr. Harden and Miss King, I'd be honored to hear from you all that you all come and see about what we need at Douglas, what we want because we are steady advocating for that school and we need better resources and coming to the community >> with all the drugs and alcohol on the corner that our kids has to face. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. God bless each and every one of you all. Bye. >> Thank you for your comments. You're welcome. >> The next The next speaker is William Walker, speaker number six. And this next
124group is from Perspectives Charter Schools. >> Morning members Good morning members of the board. My name is William Walker. Despite what Stacy Davis Gates says, we are not the failed experiment. I graduated from Perspectives Charter School and I am now a staff member, restorative coach and dean. I can say with confidence perspective truly changed my life. From the first days I attended, I learned the discipline lifestyle and his 26 principles. By learning about these principles and studying them, I was able to better myself and understand myself. These principles have helped me be successful each day and perspectives. I carry them forward and teach students about the importance of values. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to attend Perspectives and that my family was able to make the choice that Perspectives was able to
125was able to make the choices that perspectives gave me. Please continue to make policies and allow parents to choose make policies and choose the large variety of school options so so families can make important decisions about schools will be best for them. Thank you for your time and opportunity. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Jessica Coington. Speaker number 18. Good morning. My name is Jessica Coington and I'm a staff member at Perspectives Charter School where I have been for over a decade. In that time, I have been I have served as an entrepreneurship teacher and currently as an instructional coach for over the last 15 years. Perspectives has partnered with an organization called networking for teaching entrepreneurship which provides us a curriculum that teaches entrepreneurships to our students. That curriculum allows
126students to learn how to build a business plan and the basic concepts of entrepreneurship and business. and we take those business plans and compete at competition around the city of Chicago. Not only that, teaching entrepreneurship at perspectives allows our students to become agents of change by identifying problems that they see in the world, but giving them the skills to solve those problems through entrepreneurship. Recently, I had a student who graduated in 2020 come back and talk to our current students about her journey as a entrepreneur. And uh at the end of her presentation, I picked up my my copy of my textbook and I said, "Courtney, do you still have this textbook?" And she laughed and we laughed because she still has the copy that she was not supposed to have. Um and I asked
127her, I said, "Courtney, how much money have you made off that book?" She said, "Over a million dollars." So the power of entrepreneurship is stretching wide and going beyond the classrooms at perspectives. We have many students that can speak to the power and the empowerment that entrepreneurship it that they're learning from the entre the power of entrepreneurship at Perspectives. I'm very proud of the work that we're doing at Perspectives when it comes down to entrepreneurships because we're teaching them to be agents of change to go out there and be their ancestors wildest dreams. Thank you so much. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker for the uh perspectives I'm sorry. Perspectives group is Emmanuel Tilman. Speaker number 25. Good morning members of the board of education. Thank you so much for the opportunity
128to speak to you all today. My name is Emanuel Tilman and I work at Perspectives Charter Schools. I have worked at Perspectives for more than 10 years. During my time at Perspectives, I've been a security guard, a dean, and a basketball coach. I can confidently say that Perspectives is a great school. I have seen the students be successful academically, athletically, and most importantly, in terms of their social, emotional learning. Students leave our schools feeling confident, inspired, and prepared to pursue their dreams for their future. I believe that all parents should be able to choose the school they believe is the best for their child. I ask that the board of education continues its work to support students, families, and educators in Chicago. As always, keep parental school choice at the forefront. Thank you for all
129you do for our city and thank you for your time. >> Thank you for your comments. And the last speaker from the Perspectives Charter School Group is Terrell Shaw, speaker number 27. Good morning members of the board of education. Thank you for the opportunity for allowing me to speak with you all today. My name is Terrell Shaw. I'm not only a graduate of Perspectives, but for the past four years, I've also had the pleasure of teaching at the Perspectives Leadership Campus. I've been teaching entrepreneurship, app design, as well as working as a technology coordinator. These days, I don't get a lot of sleep. Um, when I look back, I am so grateful that my family enrolled me in Perspectives. Uh, my parents chose Perspectives because they believed that it would be the best school possible.
130It would allow me to learn, to thrive, and achieve my dreams. And that's exactly what Perspectives did for me. It lined me up with an amazing program, a nonprofit, Genesis Works, where I learned my IT skills. These skills have been in instrumental not only in my work as an app design teacher but also as a perspectives leadership campus technology coordinator. I am so so grateful to have the ability to have chosen perspectives and for allow and for perspectives for choosing me. Families should have multiple schools to choose from including charter schools when they make the enormously personal as well as consequential decision where they send their student. Day after day, students go to school to learn. As the board continues its work, I ask that it continues to support all schools and continues to parents
131school choice despite what Stacy Davis Gates says. We are not a failed experiment. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Adeline Ogbar, speaker number eight. Good morning. Uh my name is Adeline Obor. I'm a parent and a board member at Great Lakes Academy um located in Southshore area. We are a small school in South Chicago, but if you visit and hope you will, you will see that we are doing big things there. We have created a community space in our neighborhood and have a waiting list at almost every single grade level. Our beautiful building provides a place of neighborhood to gather and inside our classrooms. There is joyous learning happening. Great Lakes is able to do with with our amazing staff and leadership, but it is hard. And as a
132member of the board, I know that we have had a had to make hard tradeoffs because we are not funded equitably. State law says charters should be getting 97% of what the district is spending on neighborhood schools, students, but we are not. But we make every dollar count. Our students have high AAR scores than the district as a whole. We are 10 percentage points higher in ELA and 3% points higher in math. And our community is 87% low income, while the district as a whole is 76% lowincome. We also serve a great percentage of students of color than the district. Imagine what we can do if we were truly fully funded. >> You have 30 seconds remaining. >> Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you for your comments. >> Our next speaker
133is Wanda Taylor, speaker number 10. >> Hi. Good morning. Um, my name is Wanda Taylor and I'm here today to stand in full support of Pamela Price, the former director of Parent University. She deserves to know that the very parents she fought for are now fighting for her. Many of us only recently learned that Miss Price was stripped of her title and near elimination of her staff at the start of this school year. This decision was made quietly without transparency and it has left us with serious concerns. Additionally, with Miss Price's staff being nearly eliminated, she is still expected to meet the same performance metrics. That is unreasonable and borderline sabotage. Other programs within her same department haven't had to f uh face the same level of cuts. Why parent university? From the outside, this
134does not look like restructuring. It looks like eraser. Miss Price co-developed Parent University along with Dr. Sha Jackson, current president of Truman College, and she developed the specs for the call center. She cultivated parent university as a space where families and community, especially those on the west and south sides, felt seen, heard, and empowered. I found out yesterday at the North Londale CAC meeting that um parent university is still scheduled to open and be housed in the new Collins or the revamped Collins High School. Who is expected to stay parent university? Who's going to run it? This is exactly the kind of inconsistency in communication and lack of transparency that erodess trust between CPS and the families it claims to serve. Pamela Price has been a bridge between CPS and parents for decades. She deserves
135better and we the community members and parents deserve answers. We call on CPS to commit to transparency and equity and departmentally departmental restructuring. Reinstate Par Pamela Price as director of parent university and restore the staff and resources to parent university necessary for the program to thrive. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Christina Gian, speaker number 12. Good afternoon. My name is Christina Gillian and I hail to you from Atlanta, Georgia. Um but I was actually born here in Chicago and looking back over the nation I have been um remissed at what I see and so seeing the board members leadership um Dr. King I'm honored to be here today and that's what actually caused me to pull up roots and to return to the sanctuary city that birthed me
136to bring the skill sets that I developed in one of the blackest cities in America back to Chicago to continue the fight. And so I was very excited when we found our home that all of the elementary schools online show to be IB schools. And as the mother of a two two twoe students, which is twice exceptional students, I was excited that they would have their needs be met until I went to enroll my ch children into Smith Elementary, which is my neighborhood school. What I found out the only school available to them at this current time, because we just moved here two weeks ago, and the choice applications, although we completed those, we're on weight list for every other school in our area. Well, my daughter has already completed pre-alggebra and is in line
137to take physical science and algebra 1 where we were informed that no one at Smith can teach that school uh course because there are no one there's no one there certified to do so. So, the only option available to me would be to put her in private school to the tune of $24,000 at St. Ignatius. And so, I am here today asking for the board to consider different pathways for those who are coming to this city to bring our skill set. I'm honored to be here because my two children couldn't have a better mom because my specialty is in education and in neurotypes. And so to have two E students, meaning that they are twice exceptional, both gifted and highly talented, and also having um ADHD and on the spectrum, it is important to me
138that their needs be met. So I have requested office hours with my board member. I have sent in um comments as well. And so I'm hoping to find a way to enroll them so they don't miss any more school because currently their neighborhood school does not offer the programming that they have. and we are on weight list at all of the schools in the surrounding areas. But they stated because we were not here the year before to apply for them, we will not make it into their classrooms and my daughter would then fall behind and therefore not placed in the high schools that she needs to to go further. So we have to work together because I believe in what you're standing for. I came back here because I was so proud to see that
139what this city is doing in the face of tyranny, in the face of fascism, and I want to be an advocate and support to finding solution. Um because that's what I'm here for. Thank you so much. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Dr. David Lewis, speaker number 13. >> Good afternoon, board members and Superintendent King. My name is David Lewis. I'm the principal of CICS Wrightwood and I've been the principal there for close to 10 years. At our school, we service children of color. We have 98% of our children who are students of color. 90% of them receive free and reduced lunch and we are in the Alorn Wrightwood neighborhood. A few weeks ago, we had the pleasure of having board member Dr. Smith visit our school and great things are
140happening at Wrightwood and I invite all of you to take an opportunity to come and see us. I'm here to discuss two important matters for us with you today. First is that charter schools have never been funded equally. Um, the law actually gives permission to CPS to fund us at only 97% of what district students receive, but CPS funds us at an even lower rate, taking another 3% for admin fees and more long-term pension costs and other um holdbacks. This means that we are not allowed to do the things we'd like to do for programming, afterchool programming, before school programming, supporting our parents and our families. and it says to us or sends a message that we are not as important as other schools or our children is not as important as other students in
141the district. The second thing is we would like to have you consider looking at how gops is operated. Go CPS as we know opened yesterday and importantly those gops does not provide families with complete transparency about schools around them. As an elementary school, families don't go through the system to enroll their students, but we know that GoCPS is a first stop for families as they think about where to send their child. Charter schools are hidden on the system, especially on GO CPS, school locator, which puts us at the very bottom of the um locator, and it's hard for families to identify us even if we are in their districts. We ask that you address these issues. We would like to know that we could partner with you in making a change and ensure that all
142students are funded equitably and receive the same considerations. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Derek Harris, speaker number 15. Good afternoon. I'm going to preface my remarks by saying that if you want to understand any problem in America, you need to focus on who profits from that problem, not who suffers from the problem. I have been trying to speak before this August body since August 19th, 2025 during the budget hearing deliberations. I haven't been to a board meeting since Rufus Williams was the president. I was shocked beyond belief when I stepped into this room and I saw the composition of this elected school board. I fought for meaningful parental involvement and local community control of schools for years. This is not what I imagined. What I
143see is a compodium of special interest, political hacks, and egoomaniacs. Back to the budget issue. This body approved a 10 bill250 million budget with a $700 million deficit. There was no discussion about theft, fraud, or gross mismanagement. I I I didn't understand that. >> You have 30 seconds remaining. >> Any comments that I cannot address in this body. I will deal with the US Secretary of Education. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next group of speakers are from Noble Schools, beginning with Darko Shimunovich, speaker number 16. Right. Good morning, President Harden, members of the board, and Dr. King. Thank you for your uh opportunity to speak today, and also just want to personally thank many of you who have come to our schools across the last couple of months. Um, and definitely
144would wish more of you would come as well. Um, my name is Shimunovich and I'm currently the chief operating officer at Noble Schools and one of the functions that I oversee is enrollment. So, as we start the GOC CPS window this week, my team and I are here to raise concerns around the full GOC CPS process and the lack of transparency on how both enrollment offers are made um to families and then how we are seen on the actual Enroll Wise website. So, there are three main concerns around OCPS that we want to collectively address today. The first one is the current map school location software on the gops portal that another one of our colleagues talked about today. The second one is the placement of noble schools in enrollies. And then last but not
145least uh the communication regarding application um to offer ratios for charter schools versus district schools. So first the current mapping system like you heard already uh does not work in favor of charter schools. Instead it actually favors district run schools. While we are not district-run schools, we still consider ourselves neighborhood options for schools for every single family. And we believe the search engines should utilize actual proximity to the home address rather than favoring the CPS district schools first. For example, when we enter the actual address for one of our schools, in each instance, CPS district schools come up first as the option, even though it may actually be much farther away from the actual home address of the family. Mian College Prep, as an example, is located at 1 North State Street, right down the
146street from here. When we enter that address in the search engine, the first school to show up is Phillips, a school that is four miles away and then Mian comes up as a second option. We do not believe that this is acceptable as it favors CPS districtr run schools and does not provide an honest portrayal of the closest school to families. Our request today is simple. Please modify the process to allow gops school locator to function as it was actually intended to provide a list of all schools closest to a specific home address without favoring CPS district run schools over CPS charter schools. >> Please do so is misleading to Chicago families. Thank you again and we welcome having you at any one of our schools. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker
147regarding Noble Schools is Robert Amy, speaker number 22. Uh afternoon, President Harden, members of the board, and Dr. King. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Uh my name is Robert Amy. I currently serve as the director of network operations with Noble Schools. As we begin GOPS this week, uh my team and I are here to raise concerns regarding the full GOCPS process and the lack of transparency regarding how enrollment offers are made to families. You've already heard from my colleague to address the map location software and I would like to discuss the significance of school ranking. When logging in, students must select between three options. One, guaranteed offers programs, choice high school programs, and third, selective enrollment programs. Charter schools do not appear under the guaranteed offer programs, even though we can guarantee an
148offer up to our capacity. Just like any CPS district run school, we do not test any of our students for enrollment, nor are we allowed to as a public school. Yet, we only appear under choice high school programs where it indicates that a high school admission test will be administered. This is false and could deter families from choosing a charter school. This must be changed this year because it is presented as misinformation being as presented for families. When a student selects a guaranteed offer program, only the district-run CPS schools will be displayed rather than the closest school to the family's address. In the example that my colleague gave earlier, a student whose home address is War North State would only see Phillips High School, an option that is four miles away versus the campus Mian
149College Press, which is closer. >> If families choose Choice Heights programs, they are asked to rank up to 20 schools. when they browse for schools and enter their school address, they still only see districtrun school options as the closest. Our request today is simple. If we are going to continue using the GOPS application, we must have a level playing field with other schools. Currently, it is not fair to charter schools and this information is simply inaccurate, painting a misleading picture to families who are trying to make an informed decision. Thank you for your urgent uh attention to this matter. Thank you for your comments. The last speaker from the Noble Schools Group is Claudia Rodriguez, speaker number 24. Good morning, President Harden, members of the board, and Dr. King. Thank you for the opportunity to
150speak to you today this morning. Uh my name is Claudia Rodriguez, a Chicago resident, a Chicago public schools graduate, and current chief of public affairs for Noble Schools. Uh, as we begin the GOCPS window this week, my team and I are here to raise concerns about the full GOCPS process. Specifically, I would like to discuss the algorithm used to extend offers to students after they have submitted their applications. Since the inception of GOCPS, we have asked for transparency and clarity on how offers are made to families. Recently, we heard from our partners at CPS districtr run schools have significantly higher application to offer conversion rates than charter schools. SCPS district run schools are often considered neighborhood schools. We request that we be provided with the algorithm used to generate these offers. Additionally, we will submit
151a request for the past two years for every Noble School and CPS district school to assess the application and offer conversion rates. We hope that you will share that data at your earliest convenience so we can continue to ensure that families can make informed and equitable decisions about one of the most important aspects of their students education. In closing, like my colleagues have stated, we are making three asks of the board today. One, update the current map school location software on the GCPS portal to display an accurate representation of schools available and closest to families based on their home address regardless of school type. Two, allow charter schools to appear under the guaranteed offer programs during the school rankings process on the GOCPS portal. Communication about the importance of school rankings should be prominently featured
152on the website. Three, share how the GCPS algorithm works and the data alpha ratios for charter schools versus district schools for the last two gops cycles. Thank you for your urgent attention to this matter and we look forward to working with you to make OCPS more transparent, equitable, and familyfriendly. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Karen Allen, speaker number 23, who is joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. Good afternoon everyone. My name is Master Sergeant Karen Allen, United States Air Force retired. Until August 15th of this year, I proudly served as a senior aerospace science instructor at Air Force Academy High School in Chicago, which is the only Air Force Junior ROC ROTC program in Chicago. However, on August 11th, that program was deactivated. This was
153not due to lack of interest for performance, Air Force funding cuts, nor was it Air Force's will to close the program. This was a result of CPS Department of Grot's failure to comply with federally required compliance policies despite already having a memorandum of agreement signed by the then CEO of CPS agreeing to the outline disenrollment policy. Despite multiple deadlines, multiple warnings, and multiple extensions granted by the Air Force, the ROSC department still missed the deadline. Instead of working with me, the subject matter expert to meet compliance, my proposed solution, which was agreed to by the Air Force, was repeatedly rejected by CPS. Ultimately, the CPS, Department of Jotc, missed every deadline. And the result, Chicago students, hundreds of them, just lost a unique pathway to opportunity. Air Force JTC offers more than just drill and
154ceremony. It provides a flight academy which students compete nationally to earn an eight-week fully funded summer program. >> You have the J100 character and leadership scholarship, a full four-year scholarship, the Air Force ROC high school scholarship program, the leadership and STEM opportunities, advanced enlistment opportunities. All of this is gone. Chicago is a nation. Chicago JROC program at Air Force Academy high school was the only military academy in the nation. Not to mention the only air force air force program in the city of Chicago. Now there is no air force program in the city of Chicago at all. And I must stress this was preventable. >> Conclude your remarks. I asked the board to acknowledge this gap, explore options to bring the uh program back and to provide transparency on what happened. We need to know
155how this happened and who is being held accountable other than myself who is now unemployed and the other instructor that was there with me. I beg the board to get to the bottom of this and find out what happened. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. And our last speaker is Kristen Hilleman, speaker number 28, who is joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. >> Hello everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Hogan School and our school community. My name is Kristen Hillean. I'm a kindergarten teacher at Hogan Elementary School and an Albany Park resident. In my nine years at Hogan, I have watched our school grow from having three or four home rooms for preK through 6 to having four or five home rooms for preK through
1568. Our neighborhood students are choosing Hogan and our school is growing rapidly. As I am sure you are aware, a neighborhood school is not allowed to turn residents within their boundaries away. This has forced some of our youngest students to be packed in a room like sardines. As myself and my monolingual counterpart each have 29 students in our kindergarten classrooms. Our bilingual first grade rooms are also overcrowded. We desperately need a fifth home room for both grade levels. However, physically we don't have space for one, let alone both. Our space issue is affecting how we are able to provide specialized services and care as our 16 member leadership team has been forced to take over our former library as an office. Clinicians in MTSS provide services in the hallways and there is no available classroom
157for our art teachers. So, they are teaching from a cart. There is a school down the block across the street from my house that has an entirely vacant third floor. We are requesting the support of the board on our appeal to colllocate our middle school in this nearby building that I would like to note was originally designed to be a middle school for the Hogan School community. By supporting this proposal, you are ensuring all available resources in our community. You have 30 seconds for our community students. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Thank you for your comments, President Harden. This concludes public participation. Thank you. Board members, do you have any questions or comments related to public participation? I really appreciate the epic um school community um testimonies today and the smoke they've
158brought to the board. I ask that they continue to share that smoke with their state legislators, with uh the Epic community as well because this is a shared responsibility. I think this board has proven that we love and care for all Chicago public school children. We have revived some of the schools that were let down by charter school systems. We've also shortened renewal um dates for schools because some trust has been broken in this community. So, I just uh want to remind all charter schools that are looking to have improvements made that we are not the last stop, but we are fully willing to join you and having all your needs met. Thank you so much for your representation and we care. Member Lopez. >> Thank you, board president. Um, thank you for everyone who
159participated in public comment, especially the students. Your voices matter. Also, I want to thank uh the various schools in from community schools to charter schools that have opened their doors for me to visit them in the last month and a half of the new school year. Um, thank you for the conversations, the honesty and also including difficult conversations that we have had. Uh, also I want to say earlier this month I had the opportunity to attend a portion of the family advisory board meeting. Um, I want to thank secretary and past president Luis Navayz for his invitation and for the thoughtful conversation. I also had the privilege of attending the Chicago Multilingual Parent Council which for many of you who might not know which plays a critical role in advising the district on the development,
160implementation and evaluation of bilingual education. The voices of those parents and families in those spaces like FAB or CMPC remind us how important it is to participate. So, thank you to those parents for their time. And lastly, I want to address um what board member also Barry Barry mentioned. You know, it is beyond disappointing to once again see a community impacted by the abrupt closure of a charter school. This is we know it's not an isolated issue. It seems to be a recurring one. It is clear the process to needs to be revisited because here we are again hearing students that don't know if they're going to be graduating and they're building at the end of the school year. During the renewal process, we heard from stakeholders including the charter operators on board advocating strongly
161for continuation. Fast forward and we find ourselves here. The disconnect must be acknowledged and addressed with all different parties involved to identify solutions to make this process better for everyone and more transparent. Thank you. >> Member Smith. >> Yes. Uh I want to thank all of the students of Epic uh that came and presented. I know to speak in front of a audience like this is not easy and you all did it with courage and grace. So I want to thank those students for their courage. Uh I've EPIC is a school in the 10th district and uh I visited that school many times and one of the things I love most about Epic is that out of all the schools in the district, they're meeting their five essentials. That's one of the best schools in
162the district. Not only is it one of the best uh uh teaching and learning schools in the district, that school, I don't know if you saw the students, it's 50% Hispanic, 50% black. That's cultural immersion. That's what charter schools said they would do. They would innovate in ways that uh district schools could learn from. I I do want to correct some misnomers. Charter schools are CPS schools. Charter school children are CPS children. we are helping to pay the bill. We expect the result as well. So, you know, I know that some of the things that we heard around the closing is not what I had been seeing on my multiple visits to Epic. Some of their issues are historic harms. How they're placed on on the CPS GO site that matters. There's only so many
163students in the district just to, you know, not to prolong it, but there are only so many students in the district and Epic is not presented as a choice of school in that district where parents can see even though it's closer and it has better outcomes. So, I support uh the the principal Matthews. I support Epic. I will be looking deeper into it and and communicating with uh other board members who have expressed concern about this issue so we can all approach it collaboratively. Thank you for your courage. >> Member Bannon, >> I just wanted to um follow up on a speak uh speaker from local 73 sui local 73 uh about the incoming uh or the ongoing in-housing of the custodians. Um just want to let our union um partners know and the board
164members know. I've done some preliminary followup on some of those concerns and met with CPS staff. Um CPS staff I think is doing a really admirable constructive job of addressing some of those concerns and I think they're going to do a presentation at the next meeting. I'm sorry I'm announcing this in front of everybody because we don't often get a chance to speak as one. So um uh and um and I think there'll be an upcoming resolution about this matter that I'll be distributing very soon and welcome all your uh feedback and participation. Um and and once again I just wanted to uh compliment the the constructive uh participation of of the talent office of labor relations uh and the law department in in responding to those concerns. And uh I think it's going to
165be a a more transparency for for us as board members to know that schools are clean in this transition period. And um I think that's that's going to be a a great thing for for us in the schools. Thank you, >> members. >> Thank you, President Harden. Um I also wanted to uh address the situation at Epic and of course thank you to the people from the Epic community for coming out here to speak to us. Um, a number of people raised the issue that, you know, we we just voted for renewal and now here the school is saying they can't afford to continue. How could that happen so quickly? Um, and I do think that's a huge concern. Um, and it's not like we didn't raise some questions. Um, you know, we could see
166the math all the way back in March when we were talking about it and Epic had lost about 52% of enrollment over just a few years. And I know I asked, well, how are we comparing um, you know, the financial situation with the minimal number of students needed in order for a school to continue and and I was told, yes, all that gets looked at, but but now here we are. So, I do think the call for um a more precise scrutiny of finances um is, you know, is a a call that that we really need to follow up on. Um, and I also want to address um the community's call for keeping their school community together. Um, it's also what Asero families and staff have asked for and it doesn't seem like uh that
167is strictly what has happened. Um, we here at CPS, we need to think beyond how we usually do things in these situations and work with communities on how they can be kept whole. in particular if there's a situation, a solution that would not cost money as perhaps moving an entire school body into another building uh would not cost money. Um we talk a lot about building more trust in CPS, about making sure our schools are truly serving all our families, about how we can increase enrollment, and this is how really by thinking outside the box and working with families in a true problem-solving manner. Um, at least one of the speakers addressed that families are are not feeling confident now about what will happen to Epic and some are already leaving the school. So, if
168we can do a better job at being transparent and collaborative, families will have more trust in CPS and this kind of exodus is less likely to happen. Member Blaze. >> Um, uh, I'd just like to tell, um, board member Smith that, um, thank you for the insight about what a great school Epic was. We had to learn that as well. When we when the Aero um, information was coming into me, we our understanding was they were all underenrolled. There was no way to save them. there was nothing we could do. But um I'm happy to get down with you. Like I know the seventh ward needs great schools. The kids today were super impressive. Um, and it the whole senior year thing really got to me to be honest with you because that's heavy for
169a kid to just show up at another school and now they're graduating with a bunch of kids who've been together for four years and they don't know who they are. So, um, or you know, they haven't made those bonds. So, I'm I'm ready to roll when you are on the epic situation. Um, the Air Force Academy. I would really like some answers as to how we lost that. That sounds like a star in our portfolio. I am a pilot. This all ask somebody. I um, this sounds like a critical program and I'd love to hear who dropped the ball on that one. Um, and then I would also just like to send shout outs to the Westside. Um yesterday was a busy day. We had the North Londale CAC and um the portfolio folks came
170out to um Austin High School and it was just a collection of community members trying to do all of the things that we want community to do to really think comprehensively about getting folks into the grammar schools but also encouraging them to go to the high schools to stay on the west side to invest in their communities. the print the CPS is investing into those schools. So, um you can see the changes, you can see the attitudes um from the school leadership and and even just the school leadership themselves. They they feel inspired because their their schools have investment. And so, um just big shout out to the Westside. Um, and then and I'm curious about the Epic buying a building. Um, if we are to give them money or we do have to compensate
171them to stay open for a little while longer, can we get in can we get any of the proceeds from the sale of that building? How does I'm I'm interested to know how all that works. I know it's probably a big economic conversation, but if someone can explain that to me, that would be great. And that's all I have. Thank you, >> Robert Rosenfeld. >> Yeah. I also want to say to the 55,000 charter school students, including the ones from EP Epic, that were here today, you are not a failed experiment. That is true. We at the board, as you can tell by all of our voices, are committed to figuring this out. You know, we've been in our seats now for nine months and um started with charter renewals. So looking forward to a
172committee where we can sit down and really figure out what's going on here and provide those 55,000 students and all the others that are interested in school choice. We're a portfolio district um that opportunity. And then just second I need to say that parent university is straight at my heart. It's a priority to me. Um to Wanda Taylor, thank you for highlighting what's going on there to um and with Pamela Price. I'm committed and I promise to dig deeper into parent university, see what's happening there, how we can do better by our families at parent university, see what happened at Michelle Clark, one of the best PU in the entire district. So, we'll be back to you with that information. >> Member Singleton. >> Yeah. Um, I also wanted to speak about Epic cuz as
173a senior myself, I couldn't fathom leaving my school and leaving my friends and leaving my teachers and having to graduate with people I don't know. Um, so that really stuck with me. And additionally, the student who said that she won't be another name on a list, that also stuck with me because as a person of color, I feel like that's a thing that we are often told. Um, and I hope that that person knows that she will not be another lame name on a list. Um, and for the go CPS issue, looking back to when I um applied for high school, I recognized that charter schools weren't um recognized as much on the website compared to other schools. So, I really hope that issue can be rectified. >> Member Paul. >> Yes. Uh, I wanted
174to speak a little bit about the situation with Hogan Elementary School. Hogan is in many ways an exemplary elementary school. It serves a tremendously diverse community with a very large number of English language learners who are speakers of multiple different languages. The school has grown and thrived and is in affordable community where very many CPS families live. And I do hope that we can find a way, whether it's colllocating space with North River in the former Hogan Charter building or whatever it does turn out to be to allow Hogan to have the facilities that they need to educate the students in their community. I'm going out to meet with the Hogan LSC soon and I look forward to working with them, possibly with uh Dr. Carona and others on how to best uh accommodate everyone's
175needs. Thank you, >> member Gutierrez. >> Yeah, I also want to thank everyone who came out today to speak, especially all the students um to hear your voice, know that we are listening here. Um a couple things I think that we'd like some further action on. One is I think um as board member Singleton highlighted right something seems to be off with go CPS and being able to try to figure out what that is and how we can get the end user ultimately families to be able to access the full portfolio of CPS been great. Um in the midst of talking you know the issues the financial issues with Epic I think Dr. Alvarez brought up a good point as well in his comment, right? We need budgeting information on all schools, right? Because the
176m the there there are different funding models um by which CPS local schools are funded versus those of a charter operator. So wanting to make sure that we're getting all that financial information to and then I also want to echo Debbie's point. I think uh Hogan has come to this board over the course of the last month, last nine months, maybe three times to talk about the same thing. And I think it's time to get the ball rolling to figure out what solution for that particular uh community can be, especially if there is a uh a a option not right down the street. So those are my comments. Member Brown I also want to thank everyone that came out today. Um I'm particularly moved by the world language presentation. Um and also dreading uh young
177people and parents having to fight for their existence and the epic situation. I don't think I think we fail as a district when we put people in those situations. Uh I am not an anti-charter school ideologue. Um I know that there are some great charter schools. Um but I I do believe that there is a charter industry and that charter industry has had an impact on our communities and it has not been a positive one. The notion of charter schools or charter school operators abandoning those children and families in the middle of the year is not a local issue. It is a national issue. in Florida, Texas, all over this country, Ohio. If you doubt me, look for this blog called Another Day, Another Charter School Scandal, sponsored by the Network for Public Education, and
178you'll see a laundry list of these operators who who operate that way. That is not the fault of the teachers in those schools. That is not the fault of the children. It is the fault of a of a country that ignored inequity and went towards this model that said that people just need more schools instead of communities actually being able to choose what happens in the school. And so now we have a district really with too many schools. And so I think it's going to take some courageous conversations. And I know what's going to happen next year. um those interests like the commercial club of Chicago which closed over that which facilitated the closure of over60 schools in this city 88% of them in black communities and see when I say that I say that
179with pain and I would feel that same pain if those schools were being closed in Edgewater if those schools were being closed in Pilson and I know that that same commitment is not shared when those schools black communities. And I want to say that I think it's very important that we that we prepare next year to make sure that we're not sitting up using privatizers language that privatizes language like we got to make tough decisions when their children aren't the ones that are impacted. Um the privatization movement has an ideology. They have talking points. I know them well. Um, and I I I I commit to making sure that when I hear them, I'm going to call them out. So, we have we we have we've as as board member Ebony said, we've made some
180when we got on this board and we saw the contracts for charter schools with no accountability in them. Just like the Wild Wild West, come do whatever you want. I commend this board for having the courage to begin to change that. This is a yman's job. It's a yman's job. And um but we have to be committed to, you know, being honest and telling the truth about what's happened in this city. And that that mean, you know, I'm not I'm not talking like that because I like hearing myself talk. I'm talking like that because I I don't know if we all understand the history and the trauma that has happened in this city. And for me, no human being's pain is negotiable. None of it is palatable. Um, and last thing I want to say
181is is I'm going to humbly ask um our chief of staff, FA, if you could please connect with President Banks and make sure that I have a meeting with her ASAP, if that's okay because I I I do know that she's been asking and and I respect that. So, I wanted to make that point. Thank you very much. >> Member Rivas. >> Uh, thank you, Mr. President. Um, and uh just just to respond on the uh lack of accountability piece that member Brown said, I believe our general counsel and I and I would disagree that uh our contracts don't have accountability in them uh for our charter operators. Um I just like uh to be able to get information regarding um the fee structure that we charge our operators in terms of the 3% administrative
182fee. I've met with a few that are struggling um as it relates to the gops issue even last year. Um and so, you know, enrollment uh is not where where um they'd like it to be. Um so that leads obviously to less funds going to those schools and uh it's a distressing financial situation. Um, I also believe that we're charging uh these operators a uh per student pension contribution that's separate from the employer pension contribution and the teacher pension contribution. Um, and so I'd like to understand more about that. Um, some documents that I've reviewed with operators has been that uh they're losing nearly $3,000 per student um in um in these contracts, right? And so, uh, when you have $3,000 per student times 400 students or so, that's a lot of money, um, that,
183uh, you know, these operators are struggling with. And we we struggle with the same, right? We're losing, um, our $800 million a year just in debt service. And, uh, we're in our city double paying into the pensions when, you know, we have our own pension fund and yet we're also, you know, supporting the TRS system for the full state. And so, um, more I'd just like more information on how we can support to ensure that, uh, we're not setting up, um, these financial, um, situations, um, for these schools, uh, for our 55,000 plus students. Um, we are a portfolio district. As member Rosenfeld said, we have lots of options. I'm very privileged to have graduated from CPS and very priv privileged to have had the opportunity to go to the high school that I went
184to. and I want to ensure that our families continue to have those opportunities um across our city. Thank you. >> Uh the the issue of gops continues to be a a theme uh that has been presented to the board several times. So, Dr. King, is it possible for you to make this a priority so that we can take this off the agenda and it doesn't continue to be an issue? We don't want to be unwittingly contributing to any of the hardships of the charters based on uh access. Um and so if we can make this a priority, that would be great. We'll now move into a short recess. Board member Lopez, do you have motion? >> I move that the board take a 30 minute recess. >> I second that motion. >> Thank you. I'll
185proceed with a roll call. Member Lozano. >> Yes. Member Smith. >> I. >> Member Lopez. >> I. >> Member Bellos. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. >> Yes. >> Member Wallace. >> I. >> Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Yes. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon. >> I. >> Member Gutierrez. >> I. >> Member Biggs. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> I. >> Member Zachor. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. I >> vice president Bautista. >> Yes. >> Thank you. 19 eyes, zero nazs. This motion is adopted by the board. This meeting will now go into a 30 minute recess. >> Dr. Glass, I see you back there. Dr. Glass, >> the meeting of the board of
186education is reconvened. Board members will now open the floor for questions or comments on items on the public agenda. I would like to note that the following public public agenda items. PR2 amend report 24425 PR3 authorize a new agreement with Budsman Educational Services Limited and Pathways and Education Illinois for alternative learning opportunities. AR7 authorized continued retention of outside counsel. There will be separate votes taken after RS5. So you can provide your questions and comments for those items before we proceed with separate votes. Are there any comments or questions on on other agenda items that you wish to be moved from consent as a separate vote? If not, we'll proceed to vote on public agenda items. Board Secretary, please proceed. Thank you, President Harden. I'll proceed with the items on the public agenda, read the board
187report numbers, and brief titles. I believe board member Lozano has motion two regarding record of proceedings. I move that the record of proceedings of the agenda review committee meeting August 13, 2025 and board meeting of August 28th, 2025 prepared by the board secretary be approved and that such records of proceedings be posted on the Chicago Board of Education website in accordance with section 206B of the Open Meetings Act. >> Is there a second? >> I second. >> I'll proceed with a roll call. Member Lozano. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> Not here. Member Lopez. >> I. >> Member Velz. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. >> Yes. >> Member Wallace. >> I. >> Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >>
188Yes. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon. >> Hi. >> Member Gutierrez. I >> member BGS. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> I. >> Member Zachar. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. >> I. >> Vice President Bautista. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> Voting on the motion for a record of proceeding. >> Yeah. Oh, >> yes. >> Well, yes. >> Thank you. 19 eyes, zero nazs. This motion is adopted by the board. President Harden will continue with items that do require a vote. RS1, resolution to request the PBC to transfer title of real estate for various school sites to the city of Chicago. RS2, resolution authorize appointment of members to LSC's to fill vacancies. RS3, resolution Ray, appointment of chairperson for the LSCAB for the current term of office. PO1 amend policy and auditor
189independence and provision of consulting services. President and harden this amendment is necessary to update language and processes. I'll continue with PO2. Amend policy on imposition of charges on return payments. President Harden, this amendment is necessary to recommend schools follow instructions on return checks as defined in the school business and internal accounts manual. I'll continue with PO3. Amend pay time off paid time off policy. President Harden, this amendment is necessary to include new paid sick and paid leave carryover rules and entitlements for covered employees. I'll continue with EX1, transfer of funds. EX2, ratify the fifth final option to renew the intergovernmental agreement with the Department of Family and Support Services. EX3 ratify the fourth final option to renew the intergovernmental agreement with the Department of Family and Support Services. PR1 authorize the first final renewal agreement
190with School Links, Inc. PR3, authorize the first and second final renewal agreement with Umbbudsman Educational Services Limited and Pathways and Education Illinois. PR4 authorize the first and second final renewal agreement with various vendors for cost estimating services. PR5 report on the award of construction contracts and changes to construction contracts for the capital improvement program. PR6 authorize the second renewal agreement with Apple Inc. PR7 authorize the second and final renewal agreement with Accurate Biometrics Inc. President Harden, these items do require a vote. >> Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> I second the motion. >> I'll proceed with a roll call. Member Lozano. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> Hi. Member Lopez. >> I. >> Member BZ. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. >> Yes. >> Member Wallace. >> I. >>
191Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon. >> I. >> Member Gutierrez. >> I. >> Member Biggs. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> I. >> Member Zachor. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. I >> Vice President Bautista >> yes >> 19 eyes's zero nazs these matters are adopted by the board president Hard and I'll continue with additional items on the public agenda that do not require a vote PR8 chief procurement officer delegation of authority report for July 2025 and chief financial officer report for July 2025 ex4 report on principal contracts new EX5 report on princip principal contracts renewals AR1 report on board report recisions. President Harden, these items just need to be accepted
192by the board. >> Please mark received and filed. >> President Hardon will continue with items from the acting general counsel that do require a vote. AR2 amend continued retention of various outside council law firms. President Harden, this this amendment is necessary to increase spending authority and adding one outside council law firm. For the record, I would like to note an extension for board member Gutierrez for the following law firms on ER2. Burke Warren McKay and Saratella PC Meer Brown LLP and Greenberg Trrower LLP. I'll continue with AR3 approved payment of proposed settlement regarding John Doe. AR4 approved payment of proposed settlement regarding Eric Luxano Lux Lexano. AR5, property tax appeal refund, authorized settlement for 840 North Lakeshore Drive Condo Association. AR6, property tax appeal refund authorized settlement for the Legacy at Millennium Park Condo Association.
193President Harden, these items do require a vote. >> Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> I second the motion. >> I'll proceed with a roll call with the noted abstensions for board member Coutieras and law firms on AR2. Member Lozano. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> I. >> Member Lopez. >> I. >> Member Belz. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. >> Yes. >> Member Wallace. >> I. >> Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Yes. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon. >> I. Member Gutierrez again with the noted abstension on the law firms on AR2. >> I. >> Member Biggs. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> I. >> Member Zachor. >>
194Yes. >> Member Deberry. >> I. >> Vice President Bautista. >> Yes. >> Thank you. 19 I zero nazs. These matters are adopted by the board. President Harden. I'll continue with items from the interim superintendent chief executive officer that do require a vote. EX6 approve and ratify tenative interim collective bargaining agreement between the board of education and the service employees international union local one. EX7 warning resolution Kina Woods tenure teacher at Dunvar Career Academy High School. President Harden these items do require a vote. >> Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? I second the motion. >> Thank you. I'll proceed with a roll call. >> Member Lozano. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> Yes. >> Member Lopez. >> I. >> Member Veles. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. >> Yes. >> Member
195Wallace. >> I. >> Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon. >> I. >> Member Gutierrez. I >> member bigs. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> I >> member Zachor. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. >> I. >> Vice President Bautista. >> Yes. >> 19 eyes, zero nays. These matters are adopted by the board. >> President Harden. I'll continue with items from the board that do require a vote. RS4 resolution approving interim superintendent chief executive officer's recommendation to dismiss educational support personnel. RS5 resolution approving interim superintendent chief executive officer's recommendation to dismiss probationary appointed teachers. President Harden, these items do require a vote. >> Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Is
196there a second? >> I second the motion. >> Thank you. I'll proceed with a roll call. Member Lozano. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> I. Member Lopez. >> I. >> Member VeZ. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. >> Yes. >> Member Wallace. >> I. >> Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Yes. >> The vote was uh yes in case the court reporter didn't hear that. Member Rio Sierra. >> I. Member Bannon. >> I. >> Member Gutierrez. >> Hi. >> Member Biggs. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> I. >> Member Zachor. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. >> I. >> Vice President Bautista. >> Yes. >> 19 eyes, zero nazs. These matters are adopted by the board. I do want to
197note for the record that board member Thodakura has joined the meeting at 2:20 p.m. Thank you. President Hardon will now proceed with the separate votes as noted earlier with a separate vote on PR2 amend report 240425 PR3 authorize a new agreement with unbudsman Educational Services Limited and Pathways and Education Illinois for alternative learning opportunities program services. President Harden, this amendment is ne amendment is necessary to increase the spend authority. This item does require a vote. >> Is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Is there a second? Second. >> We'll open this matter for discussion before going to a roll call vote. Are there any comments or >> member boys? >> No. >> There being no comments, I'll proceed with a roll call vote on PR2. Member Lozano. >> Abstain. >> Member Smith. >> No.
198>> Member Lopez. >> Abstain. >> Member Veles. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. Yes. Member Wallace. Yes, >> member Kuster. >> I member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Yes. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon. >> I. >> Member Gutierrez. >> I. >> Member Biggs. >> Yes. >> Member Thorakura. >> Yes. Member Blae >> I. >> Member Zachor. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. >> I. >> Vice President Bautista. >> Yes. >> 17 eyes, one nay, two abstension. This matter is adopted by the board. President Harden will now proceed with the separate vote on AR7. As noted on the public agenda is to authorize continued retention of outside counsel. So the action before the board for AR7 is authorize continued retention of the
199law firm Kos and Okconor. This item does require a vote. >> Is there a motion? >> Some moved. >> Is there a second? >> We'll open this mart for discussion before moving to a roll call vote. Are there any comments or questions? There being now none, we can proceed with the roll call vote. >> I'll proceed with a roll call vote on AR7. Member Lozano, >> yes. >> Member Smith, >> no. >> Member Lopez, >> I. >> Member Veles, >> yes. >> Member Bole, >> no. >> Member Wallace, >> I. >> Member Kuster, >> no. >> Member Pope, >> yes. >> Member Rosenfeld, >> no. Member Rivas. >> No. >> Member Brown. >> Yes. >> Member Rio s. >> Member Bannon. >> Hi. >> Member Gutierrez. >> No. >> Member Biggs. >> No. >> Member
200Thorakura. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> Yes. >> Member Zachor. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. >> Yes. >> Vice President Bautista. >> Yes. 13 eyes, seven nays. This matter is adopted by the board. President Hardin, I believe board member Kuster has motion MO3. >> I move that the board adopt the minutes of the closed session meetings of August 13, 2025 pursuant to section 2.06 6 of the open meetings act. Board members reviewed these minutes and determined that the need of for confidentiality exists and therefore the minutes of the closed session held on August 13, 2025 shall be maintained as confidential and not available for public inspection. >> Is there a second? >> I second the motion. I'll proceed with a roll call. Member Lozano. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> I. >> Member Lopez. >>
201I. >> Member. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. >> Yes. Member Wallace. I member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Uh, was that an I? >> Yes. >> Okay. Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Yes. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon. >> I. >> Member Gutierrez. >> I. >> Member Biggs. >> Yes. >> Member Thorakura. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> I. >> Member Zachor. Yes. >> Member Deberry. >> I. >> Vice President Bautista. >> Yes. >> 20 eyes. Zero. Naz. This motion is adopted by the board. >> President Harden. There are no further items on the public agenda. >> We'll move into executive session. Board member Bole. Do you have motion MO4? I move for the passage of motion number 25 MO4 and the
202commencement of a closed session to consider matters permitted under section 2C of the open meetings act subsection 11 as specified in the motion. >> I second the motion. >> Thank you. I'll proceed with a roll call. >> Member Lozano. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> I. >> Member Lopez. >> I. Member VeZ. >> Yes. >> Member Bole. >> Yes. >> Member Wallace. >> I. Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfeld. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Yes. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon. >> Hi. >> Member Gutierrez. >> I. >> Member Biggs. >> Yes. >> Member Thorakura. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. >> I. >> Member Zachor. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. I >> vice president Bautista. >> Yes. >> 20 eyes,
203zero nays. This motion is adopted by the board. >> This meeting will now go into close session. >> Board secretary, please proceed. >> President Harden, I would like to note for the record that there are no items to vote on from executive session. >> Thank you. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Still moved. >> Is there a second? I second it. >> All in favor? We are journ. Thank you everyone.