001Good evening and welcome to this November 10th, 2025 meeting of the Akran public school board's instructional policy and student achievement committee. I'm Diana Autri. I'm here with my co-chair, Mr. Alexander, um Superintendent Outley, Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Lash and Marcy Ebrite of College and Careermies. Thank you and welcome. So, we are going to jump right into our agenda. Um, first of all, we have the minutes um is our first item. Um, and I do want to thank the team for updating those minutes as requested uh actually from the September meeting. I note that it has been updated our discussion um around uh BTO and the cosmetology program. Um I also wanted to note for the record uh that the committee's uh discussion around that included a proposal for.5 community resource specialists uh that was introduced. So
002I just wanted to make sure uh to acknowledge that um from those minutes and hopefully that'll be coming to the full board for approval. And so, um, with that being said, are there any other comments or questions around the minutes? Any corrections? Okay, seeing none, uh, moving on, I don't believe there are any requests to address the committee, unless someone would like to address the committee. Seeing none, so we will move on to our discussion topic. First item [snorts] 3.01, 01 student achievement strategic plan. Um, Superintendent Outley. Greetings, Madame Chair, Member Alexander, Assistant Superintendent Lash, President Jackson. Um and then my colleagues and members of the media, I just wanted to take this opportunity to go over uh our blueprint for excellence. Just some updates so that you know where we stand as far as
003the document is concerned. We are moving into year three of a fiveyear strategic plan called blueprint for excellence. and our team met this summer to update the document, but we also used it as an opportunity to do some consolidation of some of the items that are in the plan. We are still keeping our four cornerstones that outlines our key performance areas. We are currently completing our first quarter KPI reviews. The plan um will go from August to August and so right now we are wrapping that up and we will have that ready to present actual documents to the board. We are connecting the data to each of the four cornerstones which remain as academic achievement, culture of safety and belonging, family and community engagement and operational excellence. Earlier in the year, uh it was the
004last uh board meeting in September, we did go over our report card results, which will also be inside of the updated blueprint for excellence as part of those KPIs. This year's formal update along with a printed copy for board members will be forthcoming. We will include the most current KPIs and report card data so that the information shared with the board and the community is complete. To ensure fiscal responsibility, we opted not to print materials this year, allowing us to manage cost effectively and avoid reprints as new data is released. This information will also be housed on our website. And over the summer, senior leadership conducted a thorough review of the plan to address the state's updated DEI requirements as well. As you may recall, the timeline for these changes was very short, which prompted
005us to take a closer look at several objectives, strategies, and initiatives to ensure they remain aligned with the state guidance and our district's strategic priorities. The adjustments are targeted and thoughtful, allowing us to keep the blueprint clear, focused, and actionable. We look forward to sharing the updated summary and the highlights just a little later this fall and I can open to any questions you may have. Thank you, superintendent. Other questions. Okay, thank you for that. You're welcome. Thank you. Next item on our agenda um under CCA deeper dives uh we will have uh information on entrepreneurship our fourth E and turn it over to Marcy Brightite. Thank you. Hi. We're getting a screen up that way but that's okay. Um good evening uh uh committee chair and members. Thank you for having me here tonight.
006Uh with me I have Miss Beth Winter, our partner engagement coordinator. I have also with us Miss Cora Cooper who is our marketing uh and entrepreneurship pathway teacher over at Firestone CLC. And I also have with us the incredible which will seal the show uh Arpon Tayang from North High School uh and his academy coach uh Ben Effinger from North High School. So, we're here tonight to talk to you a little bit about what we do for entrepreneurship here in Akran public schools, where we're currently at, some outcomes, some of the things that are happening uh to share uh from our teachers and students and uh some plans for next steps. So, of course, we always follow our mission and vision. We want our kids to be those architects thinking about their future, prepared to
007thrive in the everchanging world. uh you know what the world of marketing, entrepreneurship, and business in the next 10 years, 20 years, 30 years is going to look like. One can only guess, right? So, we're excited that we get to uh set some of those foundational visions with our students. Um we're going to hit this academic achievement quarterstone and we're going to get to discuss as I said those marketing entrepreneurship pathways in our schools. Uh how the students experiences in those pathways. We're going to talk a little bit about career technical student organizations, DECA and Aspire with the University of Akran as opportunities where we build entrepreneurship uh ship mindsets with students. Uh we've talked before you about our senior experience around dream days and how we've differentiated those to include entrepreneurship and some plans
008for some capstone experiences in that area. So uh as you can see up on the screen our pathway document across the various uh schools every school it's the only pathway in which we have marketing entrepreneurship represented in each of our high schools uh and uh an academy uh owning each one of those. Uh we have 53 different pathways in the district. So six of them making up this marketing and entrepreneurship. As you we've talked before, those decisions are driven largely in part around the labor outlook and interests of students. And because there's such a positive labor outlook in this area for kiddos and opportunities for them postsecary and also a lot of interest, it's often one of our most popular pathways for kids to take advantage of. [clears throat] So we have four courses that
009are offered in marketing entrepreneurship. During their sophomore year, students take marketing principles where they get that foundational information. During their junior year, marketing applications, obviously, taking all that knowledge that they gained during their sophomore year, and start to see how they can put that into place, and then two courses during their senior year, merchandising and buying and strategic entrepreneurship. Our uh pathway teachers collectively wrote this pathway promise that the scholars will successfully complete the pathway prepared with their credentials, college credits, and community experiences that support any of their future aspirations. They also offer credentials in business of retail, customer service and sales, retail industry fundamentals and uh accumulating uh those industry credentials earns a student the industry credential recognized seal on their diploma. Next, I'll talk a little bit about our CTSOs. Uh those are
010organizations that run during the day and after school. uh Tiffany Lundy in the college and career academyy's office helps organize those CTSOs across the district. Uh they develop career leadership life skills. Um they have can I'm not sure I don't have the clicker the laptop up here. Can you click where it says APS featured CTSOs? Thank you. There is a website that features all the different variety of CTSOs that we have in the districts and uh where they are offered. Uh so there is a page on the website for families to see what they are and schools promote participation in the different CTSOs that we offer. Um in particular DECA is the one that focuses most on this entrepreneurship piece. So we'll talk a little bit about that one too, but it's a very popular
011one. Uh all of our high schools um have some sort of DECA club that's working with students. Can you go back on the presentation please? And we can go ahead and go to the next one. Thank you. So, uh, Eric Matthews, one of our leaders in the in the DECA work, sent, uh, this information to share with you for, uh, tonight that he wanted you to understand what DECA does in this building tomorrow's leaders today where they lead events, manage projects, they participate in real world challenges. Oftentimes we've seen students come in to be recognized before the board and you've seen articles that come out about the competitions that students go to um and show off their skill sets. They attend leadership conferences. So we support um DECA uh membership going to leadership conferences where
012an opportunity where they can learn from um other students across the state or the country. They attend workshops and conventions. Throughout that they build a professional network of mentors and peers. They um wanted you to know that they increase their self-confidence through they have to public speak, have those new experiences and also the value of teamwork and those relationships and really building that entrepreneurial mindset is an outcome of those events. So that said, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Mr. Tay Young here. He's going to come on up because as one of our young entrepreneurs, he wants to share with you a little bit about what he does. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you introduce yourself and your pathway in your school. Yes, ma'am. I wanted to connect this presentation
013I made for you guys. And first of all, let me hand this business card. [laughter] There you go. I love that. I love that. [laughter] That is awesome. I didn't forget about you guys. [laughter] All right. I need help connecting this. Do I plug this? Do I plug this? I don't know. Let's see. He can come out. He may need to grab your presentation and get it up for you. Beautiful. How you guys doing today? It's snowing. It's a beautiful day. Here, I got I can if you share it with me, too. I can probably just link it. Will y'all bear with us for a second while we get Tarpon's presentation shared? What's Can we log in on the computer here? Or do you just want to connect it? Um, yeah, if we can. Yeah,
014copy that and then send that. Oh, no. I can't. Yeah, it's on. Can Can you email Can you email that to Can you send that to an email? The presentation is worth it. You know, it's worth it. [clears throat] It's That's okay. Send that to BR user at bps learns.org. Yep. It'll be our user and you can just paste it in here. It's okay. Yeah. And then you can you can use this clicker to All right. So, I'm going to uh go ahead and This is your um [clears throat] first of all good afternoon everybody. Everybody, I want to thank you for this opportunity. My name is Arpon Tay Young. I am a junior from North High School. I'm a proud Viking 33 baby. This is my business, Arpon's vision market. [laughter] Oh, could you
015click for me, please? Perfect. So what is Arpon's vision marketing? Arpon's vision marketing is a marketing agency where we help businesses and individual grow their online presence through content creation, website development and AI adaption. So about us. Okay. I picked up the camera when I was just 10 years old. I was in the church event. I fell in love. I had a old Canon T8i. Beautiful. I miss her. Look at age of 13 I started working out and you know I wanted to do create content and I fell in love making content. At age of 15 I landed a network and I landed an opportunity to manage a social media for one of the businesses through Jim. Okay. And in 2 months I have got them around 200,000 views and I put them from 25,000
016Google searches 20,000 Google searches and four star to five star review. So what do we do? Let me make this simple for you. Okay. So we help businesses and individual grow their online presence in social media platforms. Anyone can make videos. Anyone can make videos but they cannot make engaging content. That's where I come at. We focus on client niche and we research about what kind of content will work with their field. We convert their viewers into potential clients and leads. So what kind of services do we offer? We offer content creation, website development and AI adaption. So everybody knows what's AI, right? AI is taking over left through right. They going to replace it soon, but they ain't they ain't they ain't smart like us. They not smart like us. But look, AI, if
017we use AI correctly, it has so much benefit. Okay, let me show you. So in content creation, what we do is we focus on our client niche. Three things we do focus focus on client niche. Second, we do research. Okay, for example, Mr. Bruce, you feel me? You look like you work out. Okay, so you at the gym, you wanna you wanna you wanna you want to start your own social media. Okay, you hit me up saying, "How can I grow my account 0 to 10,000?" Okay. And we do research about what kind of things do your viewers want to see. And from that, we convert you your viewers into potential clients and lead. Third, we do script writing. In this generation, our attention spam is less than 5 seconds. It's very bad. But that's
018good for us though. Look, in script writing, we help you grab our grab this generation attention. We we call them hook. Okay? So, for example, if I just say, uh, this is how you will create your business to next level. No, nobody's they're going to skip that. Okay? The hook will interact with the viewers and snatch their attention. If you want your business to go next level, watch this video. Boom. Here's the reason you're not the top sales leader of your sales team. My name is Kemp Perry. I'm a general agent with Bold Life. I've been with the company now for nearly a decade. I've seen the underdogs become the main dogs. I've seen [music] the main dogs become the underdog. I've pretty much seen it all. The reason is we doing content creation. Next
019thing, website development. Two things, main two things. Okay? We focus on clients, business, and idea. For example, uh Miss Diana, you know, you look wonderful. You want to start your own hair parlor. Okay. So, you talk to me, uh, so Arpon, I want to do this. I want like my customers to book an appointment through website. How can they do that? Okay, first. Second thing, we make it easy. Even a 5-year-old can go to the website. I want to book a hair appointment by the best, Miss Diana. Okay, boom. They click it. Boom, boom, boom. It's easy. For example, this is one of the website I made for local Mexican restaurant is located in Akran, Ohio. It's simple and easy. They click, click, click and order. Boom. Third thing, AI receptionist, which is AI adaption.
020Okay, AI receptionist is you guys know what's receptionist. They pick up the call. Hey, how you doing? Boring, boring, boring. But no more boring. Okay, how do we make it interesting? Okay, every time you call a customer service, press one to get connect with. No, they talk to you like a human being. They interact with you. They don't even make you feel like you're talking to a robot. Okay, three things. Client, we focus on our client niche. Okay, for example, Miss Mari, you want to open your uh glasses shop, right? You come on. You I see the glasses looking wonderful. So, we focus on that. How can we make the receptionist interact with customers, not make them feel like we just want to focus on getting their money, right? So, we make it. Let me
021show you an example. I just made I made a local receptionist for a barber shop. It talks to clients like a human being. It answer my questions. It helps me book. This is Andrew from tells me what's available. What can I do with I just wanted to book? If you use AI property, it's going to be the best thing. Hey, Arpine. Sure thing. Uh, do you have a barber you'd like to book with or should I just So this we have four different packages in content from basic to gold. Okay. From once twice posting twice per week to posting every day take a look please. Beautiful ain't it? [laughter] So you can contact us. My email is [email protected]. My website is arponsvisionmarketing.com. My phone number is specially just for you guys. Okay. 3309 3876. And
022beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my gosh. [applause] Well, um if you could bring the other if you could bring the other presentation back up. Thank you. Uh I appreciate that. And it's just a great example of the young entrepreneur spirits. We have a whole pitch presentation um as part of our one of our pathway students and we're glad that he was here tonight to be able to share that with you. I also wanted to share that over the summer we had students go uh a group of students under the leadership of Miss Carmela Cooper. Cooper, would you like to come up? Uh went and uh attended the College of Business a summer aspire camp. Would you like to talk a little bit about what the kiddos did there? Hello everyone. Um, just to reiterate
023on Aron, I just want to say I got a call yesterday and I totally forgot about this project we had done. Um, and I had students go into local businesses and revamp their business. And you would just be amazed at how our local businesses appreciate it. It was free, but she was hitting me up to see if we could do another contract that she was willing to pay for. They revamped her social media, as he said, um their menus, um the face of social media, the um pricing and showing them how to connect to the customers. It's different now that we're in 2025. So, that's one of the main reasons we need entrepreneurship. We have students like Arpon who need a place to be able to expand on their talents. And what I had happen
024was we were going to APA University. um they also help us with DECA, but they started a program that they had me sit in on and help them. And it's a week-long competition with scholarships and prizes for the winning. But the reason it was so um it was such a key um aspiration for my students because they actually did uh mock businesses and that's what we teach in DECA. So the students did competitions amongst all the other high schools that were there. Um and we got the first pick. Akan public schools. I think um we ended up landing the first pick of the 10 students to be able to go. So they went for a week and you know that was serious for the kids to give up their summer. They learned um real financial
025and marketing decisions, um business leadership and mentors, real world problem solving, leadership and team activities, but the real killer of the whole situation was our students knew the stuff. So they were very impressed. They're going to do it again. And we just went to Kin State. I had to throw this in. Um, we went to Ken State for a marketing class to sit in on. And the professor pulled me to the side. He's like, "Your students know everything. I don't know what to I don't know what to do." He was like, "I did basic marketing and our kids literally know all of these things." So, what we're trying to do with entrepreneurship is if the students go to college, that is great. If they don't, they have a backup plan. But now, college is so
026expensive, most of our students are starting businesses before they leave our high school to help fund college. So we teach in entrepreneurship, business, marketing have two things going on. This is the world we live in. You're going to college, but you need a backup plan. And Aspire helped uh move our kids to the next level, showing them actually college classes, interacting, um how to present yourself. But the main thing is that they were so impressed at Akan public schools. We knew most of everything they taught us. And that's what we're doing. We're trying to take our kids to the next level. As you can see with Arpine, he's not regular. [laughter] Okay. So, this is what entrepreneurship is needed because we have students like this that we are taking to the next level. North and
027Firestone made it to nationals. Um, and it just opened our kids up to see it's a bigger world out there. But everything leads to entrepreneurship. Even if you're working for a company, you're always looking for a way to create your own business. And that's what we do. Any questions? No. Thank you so much. Go ahead. Yes. Oh, I think my thank you. Um, and thank you, Arma. That was a wonderful presentation. Everyone knows I love the fourth E, entrepreneurship. I think it's very vital and important. Now, all of our high schools, um, Marcy, you said that all of our high schools have this have DECA. Um because we had a student board member that was here uh just last board meeting and he actually was inquiring about having some type of program but he went
028to either Akran Early College I believe or STEM or STEM right but then they can come and join Firestone North East. Okay. So they would have to so the school itself cannot is that a possibility for one of those schools to have their own DECA program because that was his ask actually to have like something um entrepreneurial focused within their school. I don't I didn't bring his exact notes but I'm wondering is that something that can happen so that so that in fact all our schools do have right we put out um applications each year for teachers to say if they want to open any CTSO. So if a teacher feels like they have their talent to run an entrepreneurship club uh just teachers are just naturally lend themselves to it. I got you. So
029the the students would can recruit a teacher to be like an adviser of the club. Yes. For DECA. Yes. Okay. That um Okay, that's cool. That's what I wanted to know cuz when you said all students in VIN, the students who are able to take part in the pitch contest um not in the pitch contest that were able to do the mock businesses what you described um which I think is phenomenal because I love experential learning. Um were you all did was that across the district or was that just Firestone for the summer Aspire camp or No, it's two-part question. the the event that um that you explained about your students helping to revamp some of those local businesses and you recently got a call. Is that DECA APS-Y or DECA Firestone? Um so it
030was DECA Firestone because we were a part of the trial. So they chose us to do a trial. So now they're I think they're going to open it up next summer to all the schools. Okay. The Thank you for that. The they is that the um the acronym you Yeah. Okay. With the spire. Okay, great. Thank you. Yes, that's fine. So, I just wanted to show in each pathway. So, each pathway um all the students do something different to help the school stores if they have a school store. So, our students go out and they actually create their logos, print it on or they they have to go out and find a business, the cheapest business that print on for us. Um, so in entrepreneurship, we're actually doing businesses. We're not just doing book because
031that's just not you got to have the real connection of the world for them to understand how to do it. So we're in the classrooms, but we are also having them create their own businesses, do marketing plans, business plans. By the time they leave us, they know how to do a business plan. They know how to um start a website, cards, flyers, everything they need. When they walk out that door, they can create a business. and most of them create it while they're in the classroom. Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Yeah, I'm glad you said that because most people who even adults when they um start a business, they have no idea how to write a business plan and that's a critical piece of starting a business, having your business plan, how it's going to work,
032and how everything will flow because everything flows through that plan. So, I'm glad that you guys are doing it. I think the the real world experience as well is really good for them. get it in the classroom, but get out there and get the real experience because the book in the real in the field is really different. So, I thank you for for for doing that and we'll hopefully get more students involved. Yes. And it's very effective because I had a business for 26 years. Well, I still have it. Um, but if I would have had a tenth of the information that I'm giving my students, my business would have went on another level a long time ago. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, it was a reason why your business didn't go far a long
033time ago because you wouldn't be here right now to educate [laughter] our students. I still go back and forth. So, we thank you for that. I know when I was in high school, I went to BTO. Um, no surprise. Um, we didn't have DECA. Firestone did. So, all of my friends that went to Firestone, they used to talk about competing and doing this and that. And I used to be like, why we can't get Deca? What is DECA? You know, I was always trying to inquire, what is DECA? why can't we have it? So, I do appreciate it that it's at every school, but also I want to make sure that teachers have the um enthusiasm and love as you do to continue to push the students forward. And then secondly, you said that um
034when you guys do your prints for your shirts or whatever that is and you go to businesses to get it printed, are you paying those businesses to print? Well, now we're going to do it a little different, but yes, we would. So, we like to do local businesses and Frank um at RCloth comes into the classroom and he because through DECA we um we hire him through DECA but he comes into the classroom and he does a presentation for the students and helped me create a contest. So, it was my class plus it was also fashion and design. Okay. So, we made flyers um two of my students did designs for her students did designs and then the students were responsible for the marketing. Okay. the can I follow up? The reason why I asked
035that question for pain because I know some schools and it's so funny that the principal of East just walked in while you were talking and it was going through my mind that um they have like their own like full store where they can do the prints and things like that. Have you thought Okay. Okay. So that's why I was like why are we paying companies to do what we can do in house? Okay. So it's a little different. Okay. When you're talking about Okay. So the students design this, okay? And then he put the layout together. So when we're printing and pressing, if I send it out for a generic print at the time, then I could just press that on. But the way we design these, we needed him to put it together for
036us, if that makes sense. So now if I go online and I put in Firestone or I reach out to a company that now will do [clears throat] the labels or basic I can print those on. So at this point we had did it with a collaboration to show kids how business is run. So he gave us a lot of his insight um and a lot of knowledge you wouldn't get just from anybody's just not going to give you the knowledge of their business and that's what he did for us. So going forth now when we go and order a massive amount of prints um that I send out to a company and they'll say they'll do this design, we can now print them on. Okay, we're on it. [laughter] Thank you. You know, I'm
037all for you know our kids doing all the work and local Akran businesses to get the work too. So thank you for that. Good job. Okay, just a last couple few items. Thank you, Miss Cooper. Um as you're aware, we moved to that dream day 2.0 O, which was incorporating that fourth E because we've always done our enlistment, enrollment, um, and employment. And then, uh, really took time to make sure that we were taking that fourth E and giving, uh, seniors the opportunity to dig into what it would take to get ready for that. So, that is part of their senior countdown experience and those checklists that we've covered with you in the past. um and they're linked in your presentation as well for you to reference if you'd like to take a look at
038them. So, and my question to us and all of us, our next piece, you know, we have so many uh opportunities that we're building and moving in the high school, but really thinking about how we're offering some of those younger students opportunities to start building those early aspirations around entrepreneurship and get those ideas set. A lot of our inquiry work helps them think about problem solving and how to come up with solutions and starting to think about how do we build those earlier for students. We're also looking at how we can build out plans in the future for some senior capstones. You're aware that we have the amazing shake as sort of that fifth grade summitive defense of my portrait. I'm leaving elementary. I have all these skills. We have our changemaker at 8th grade
039summitive experience. Um, so we're looking at how we could have a more formalized way that students are exiting high school and being able to defend their portrait of a graduate. And one of those things that they could do is participate in a senior capstone experience all around entrepreneurship. And I sort of envision that for any student in any pathway, not just the marketing students, but students who are in a different pathway who are like, I want to learn more about this business aspect and do a little deeper dive on it. So we're looking at how we can add that as an opportunity for students uh as their senior summitive exit experience capstone. Okay. So I think that we're all done unless you have any other questions for us at this time. Thank you member Hall.
040Thank you for this presentation. Um sorry I came in a little late. Um, but I appreciate this presentation because I know when I was doing my first year as a board member and I did the graduation at BookTo and I saw so many students as entrepreneur it kind of made me upset because I'm like h do we really have the pathways that is needed at all schools especially BookTo and I felt like oh we just threw entrepreneurship there as a whatever you know what I'm saying and I was feeling some kind of way about that cuz it was So many students had the entrepreneur um what is it the sash on and I was just seeing them walking. I'm like what are what are they getting out of it? I didn't hear of any students
041creating businesses. I didn't hear of any excitement or hype about it. I didn't hear anyone say anything on the mic that a student, you know, did a business or future or whatever it was. I heard none of that. So I kind of was thinking sounds like entrepreneurship is kind of like a copout. But with this presentation kind of really opened my eyes a little bit more and I thank you for that. Um especially our own student here um you know creating his own business and learning through this pathway. I can appreciate it more. So um I just would like to hear more exciting things from you know all the schools north firestone bookto ease Garfield all our schools and even you know uh STEM or Akan early there still our kids right and I understand
042that STEM is um you know science math technology engineering and Akan early is more focused on college readiness but those kids still have they may still have the aspirations of being entrepreneurs and starting businesses too. So I would really like to see this in all schools, you know, cuz they're there all the time and not knowing what time DECA may start at Firestone, it could be during the day. So now the kid at Akan Early or STEM has to try to come all the way back to another side of town to just try to participate in that. So if we could try to look into that for 2026. Absolutely. That'd be great. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions, Dr. Jackson? Just for clarity, the so the students all that they need to find for
043these other schools is a teacher advisor to have DECA. That's all they that's the only they just have to do that at work. So that can be a response to the student board member that one question as far as how they can get these programs. So it's finding the enthusiastic teacher. Um, as member Hall was saying, I just want to reiterate that because the action steps can start happening now because we have some really dope teachers like Mackenzie Wagner at Book Do I think of her. Um, and she's not DECA, but I've seen her at every youth every youth entrepreneur event that I've hosted or been a part of to through through my own affiliation. She is there with her kid with APS kids that are not in a DECA pathway, but they're entrepreneurs. Like
044I talked about for years, I've talked about these various the Bailey brand, you know, and different students who are doing things from lace front wigs and they're not in a pathway, but they have grit like Michelle Dougworth's book grit. And so when you have teachers like a Mackenzie Wack that identifies and knows STEM or Akran Early may have these teachers like the teacher who did the track um because they didn't have the track team. It's just really finding those teachers who have the hard work because then it becomes to the hands and they'll work with the kids and they'll be committed through. And I think the best people to find those committed teachers are the kids because they know who are the real deal instead of people trying to recruit people, the learners, if they
045desire it, they need to tap that teacher that they know is going to roll with them through this. And then we'll see I think that leveraging um cuz we have a lot of entrepreneurs like you talk about the tassels the uh stalls I'm telling you it's a lot that that ain't have stalls on within our district and I'm really thankful shout out to um East principal. It's some great things that I think is going to be coming out of East. I'm looking forward to that member hall for you to report out about that and the collaboration um with what's happening there. So, just thank you and thank you again, young man, for the presentation. That's dope. Yeah, excellent job. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you to the team. Um, seeing students like Arpon makes me really hopeful
046for our future, not only in our district, but our city. And so, thanks again. Thank you. Okay. Um, Superintendent Outley, just one other thing. I believe I heard uh earlier in the year, President Jackson mention another way for younger kids to enter entrepreneurship is through the lemonade day or stand idea concept where we teach them how to open up their own lemonade stand. So like elementary just started their amazing shake. I think this would be another great idea to teach our students how to own their own business, getting them ready for the summer, opening up their own lemonade stand. I was reading where it said that there's actually a program that goes by this name and it serves 1.5 plus million students right now in 97 communities in two countries. and the students have raised
047over one $184 million by opening these lemonade stands. So, that's something else we could consider. Thank you. Thank you. I do have the it's called it's National Lemonade Day and I actually have in my office a couple proclamations because I've been having students participate in this for years and I have some students actually in their books. When you open her book, you'll see Kasia Williams. She's in there, but she she's a graduate from BookTo, but I had her younger cuz I've been doing this for a long time with younger kids through. So, you're absolutely right. It's very easy, but they have I can't even bring you the book. They give you everything that you need um to go to it for the littles and then make it be something and then as the school year
048starts or ends, that can be the project as an introduction for them to have National Lemonade Day. So, I'm glad you brought that up, but it is a great segue into the introduction. And usually the whole city gets involved like usually the mayor of the city and will write a proclamation about National Lemonade Day. you can advertise it on your website so that people know within the community to stop by these various sites throughout the um Akran city and it's a great way to engage community partners because what you would do like a lot of beauty salons I wish I can remember some that I uh Liz a lot of beauty salons were really anchors for that some people that had beauty salons allow students to be set up outside their shops Henry's Acme at
049the time was also a location um Kimmore I Kimmore Ice Cream you can find Kimmer freeze yet. You find different businesses that would allow students to be like in front of their like a Rockos Pizza or um Goss, you know, just local places that it's accessible for the students to get to. And I even thought with with coming into Akran, it may even be advantageous for because of the safe serve if the lemonade could be prepared like the volunteers like our parent liaison like if we um partner with somewhere like Acme 1 for the resources and then it was prepared in those kitchens, the district kitchens because then you know the environment was good. it was prepared properly and we are not looking at the um resources individual student resources but we leverage our partnerships
050with various um stores like you know Acme and Albbright families or something like that to consider. So excellent thanks thank you for that and I hope that this committee moving forward will continue this focus on entrepreneurship. Um, I know we briefly talked about Kaisenat and how he came to the university and I just think that's a mindset of a lot of our our young people. So, this 4th E is really important. I hope the work continues around that and thank you. So, moving on in our agenda here. Um, and so we heard about the Ron Clark Academy visits and so I'm excited to hear some feedback uh, some true implementation that we've had from our teachers here uh, after having that visit. Dr. Lash. Yes. Good evening everyone. Um, and uh, Miss Entree, we are
051excited as well. This summer, we had several um individuals attend uh the Ron Clark Academy to learn practical insights and tools to create positive inclusive school cultures that promote student engagement, increase student achievement, and develop meaning um meaningful relationships. And so we are excited that principal Grace Tome uh and her team uh they are here tonight to um let us know about the exciting work that Glover CLC um is doing to launch the ideas and takeaways from the professional development this summer. And so with that I will invite uh Principal Tome and Mrs. Merryweather. Uh like do you want me to stand? Yes. [laughter] I know right. Hey, so when we went for our visit, um, we all received a shirt. I wore mine on Friday because I do think it's important for my kids
052to know where they're going. So, um, yeah. Well, thank you all for inviting us. U, Mr. Johnson, would you like to come up as well? Okay. All right. So, we were able we were two of a team of five that went to uh, Ron Clark Academy. And so I am you you are going to be and thank you for inviting us. You you are going to be our quick dry run through because I have this presentation on Friday for Akran and action as well. So here's where the excitement began. We were invited to attend the Ignite the Classroom on April 14th and um through that they at the end they had these four slides. They said three and then four popped up. And if you were 100 of the 200 people sitting there, you received
053a scholarship to take your team to go. And so like the first slide goes by and I don't even remember who's on the first. I was it you? It was Grace. I was on the last slide. So we were like we see like one of our team members go and like the next slide another team member goes. And so like I'm just excited like some of my team is going and by the last slide like all five of us were invited. So there was some um very colorful excitement vocabulary out of from me that we all got to go. So this was actually from the newspaper. Um so you see Miss Nolan and Christie and then we did have a few other team members go as well. So I could go through these bullets and
054I and I could share with you, but I actually am going to have um Moses go ahead and click on Mrs. Craig cuz she is a kindergarten teacher. So to tell you that the house system can go all the way down to kindergarten and that it works. She is going to summarize basically every bullet that is the purpose of the house system that we brought back to Glover. Hi, my name is Grace Craig. I'm a kindergarten teacher at Glover CLC and over the summer I had the incredible privilege of getting to visit the Ron Clark Academy on a conference sponsored by Huntington Bank. Um, one of the biggest takeaways for me personally um through my attendance at the Ron Clark Academy conference was seeing their house system and how it really truly does transform the
055school culture. The system really um created a sense of community by connecting the students and the staff members truly across all of the grade levels within their building. Um, and it built these smaller and supportive families that they call their houses. What really stood out the most was just how the friendly competition is used to build unity but not division. Um, students really celebrate each other's achievements regardless of what house they're in. Um, they earn points for positive behavior, for teamwork, for academic achievement, and they learn that really everyone is contributing to the greater good of the house, but also to the greater good of the school as a whole. Um, it's really a model that encourages belonging and motivation as well as school pride all while keeping learning and leadership at the forefront and
056keeping it engaging and fun for students. My kindergarteners already just two months into the school year have really bought into it. They really show their pride and support for all the houses and it's really built a strong sense of community with us and other classrooms within the building. So, Mrs. Craig is actually presenting to the whole school tomorrow. So the first Tuesday of every month at Glover, we all come into the gym for a house meeting. And now that all of our students have been housed, all of our staff members are housed. Our goal now is to for our students and staff to understand that each house means something and represents something. So our first house is Amastad and Grace is the house leader for Amastad. So, we did an activity at lunch today talking
057about friendship and kindness and then um she's going to charge the students and staff with an activity for the rest of the month. So, here's some pictures from our visit. There's Mr. Johnson. Thank you for making this happen for all of us. Um, my team up in the corner, Miss Otley, thank you for uh taking time out to join all of your staff that were able to go. So, we snuck a picture in with her as well. And just uh two pictures from the school cuz it Here's the one thing too. When you go down there, you have to um kind of get past the awe, right? Yeah. With that, right? Like it's like, you know, like this. It's huge and it's beautiful, but they will remind you that this is year 18 and you
058have to think that at one time it was just a plain warehouse where it all started and it's grown after 18 years. So, some more pictures. Um I made I listen I I made Mr. Johnson get a couple pictures with us. Um there is u Mrs. Craig, myself, and um another one of our team members, me with Mr. Clark, and then of course um the kids are phenomenal there. So engaged with you. This is actually they're on summer session. Part of their requirements are to come back and work with staff. Um this is kind of our timeline. So when we got back, the five of us started to get together and plan what it could look like. Um, instructional improvement day, how would we start to bamp that out with the staff? And part it
059became part of our one plan. We started wearing stuff. Mhm. So she's on Bendy. Everybody likes Bendy because the chair is probably the best. And so the kids, she would go ahead, tell your story about going to the parking lot. Kids get so they get really excited. I think for me, I'm I'm the kidnatured one. So like I do love that I'm short and sometimes I I feel like one of them. And um so we we're house and we're wearing our shirts and the kids start are starting to learn our chance. And I'm walking to my from my car into the building one morning and there's a group of girls walking the sidewalk and they see me go in and they scream. So they're like, "Miss Merryweather, B I N D I B." They just
060start chanting first thing in the morning. They're so excited. They're not even housed yet. This is just their way of showing me love for the house that I'm in and their excitement about what we're trying to build. And they got they got on the train right away. They did not care what house they were in even the day they were housed. They just rooted for everybody. So, it really is transformational and it's it's a rightaway thing. I know we talk about going to these conferences, we got to have a meeting after the meeting and then there's a meeting for that meeting and then not a lot gets accomplished because we're done meeting. But in this situation, as soon as we got back, we were ready to go. And there were there were six of us
061that went. So the teachers were that went were like we're going for it and the kids have been riding with us ever since. So it is an immediate turnaround in terms of impact and that was a big standout for me. Yeah. So we rolled it out um we got you know uh I we do announcements on video so I put the wheel behind me and the kids were like what is that wheel like walking around like what's that wheel for? So we did small things to hype it up and then um instructional improvement day our teachers like rep or they announced what their house was. We had our first house competition with each other and then if you could the day before so we had house week. So the day before our kids housed they
062knew it was coming. Um, if we can play the hype video. This was played right after morning announcements. [music] So that was Monday and we housed all of our kids. Sorry. on Tuesday and our kids made their teachers play this like over and over and over again um because they were super excited. And then I'll show you that. So the next day we had uh our gym set up. So, they came to the the gym. We had our team meeting, showed them what it was going to look like to be housed, and then if you uh this is they would spin the wheel and they kind of ran the the loop and then by the time they came in, they knew what house they were. And so, this is what the kids experience. So, if
063we can click on the students who as they spin the wheel. Oh, no. Oh. Oh, no. Oh, there. Yay. I was like, so gonna be so sad. [music] So, our kids when they circled back, the kids were waiting for them and they knew what house they were in and they were all excited and it was it was amazing. So then um and this was before they even knew what it meant. Like they're still getting ready to learn the first house. So that's that's what I mean when I say it is transformational right away. They did not care. They're like this is exciting. We're going to be housed. We don't have a clue what that means. There's a color involved. There's some chance happening. The music teacher is teach taught them all the chance before they
064were even housed. But they did not care. They are just waiting for this moment of unknown. and they were willing to walk with us wherever we went. So, our enthusiasm really set the tone for it, but I I feel like our little dose was not couldn't even compare to the level of excitement they had. I mean, we had our own little leaders that are typically quiet when the kids were running, uh, a teacher gave him a light and it was blue cuz he was the blue house. And when I say he took that task so seriously, like any kid that won blue, he walked up to him, he shook their hands, welcome to the blue house. This is your house. And he's getting up, but I'm like, what is he saying to him? because they're
065all corraling. He's like, "This is your house. This is my house. We're in the same house." Like that's all he could offer. But they were like, "Yeah." So excited about being in this blue house. So, it was really neat to watch that happen like right away. Like I said, before they even have the context of each of their individual houses, they just took it a took it took on a new level of of momentum through. So, these are the original four houses. You we chose not to like create our own houses. There's eight that uh RCA kind of offers and we're like let's just do the the original four. When we went to RCA, we actually got together and housed each other like where do you see me? Where do I see you? Um and
066we actually walked away all being in a different house. So that was really cool for us. And then we let our teachers choose themselves. So, here's just some pictures of uh the house. So, the teachers housing, that's um Amastad. Uh I always make Mrs. Merryweather take pictures with me. Um yeah, I dress really crazy like tutu. I have this like my friend has husband has this 3D printer. I have this crazy river chain like uh necklace. Um the Okay, so little G, Mrs. Craig, who's talking about her kindergarten class. This is Yosani. She's in. And so anytime I go in Mrs. Craig's class, so part of River is howling cuz there were the wolves. So we're always like, "How?" So I walk in the room and the all the kids howl at me. So she
067every time she sees me, she always like looks up at me and howls. It's great. It's so great. And then these are some things we're starting to transform our building. So we have a leaderboard. Um, I have to shout out to Mary Tarty and Will and CCA who have like taken us under their wing and Mary has um they bought those crest flags for us that are now hanging in the middle of our hall. Um, listen, that that's my uh Joanna Gains trying to do in our showcase with the curtains and stuff. And then um when kids do a great job, there's the crest hanging up in the hall. And then I guess questions, try to be short and sweet. Thank you so much, uh Mrs. Tom and to your team. This is the excitement
068that we need to keep our kids engaged. And so we definitely appreciate you um and your energy behind this because we know when our students are excited, then they're open to learning. And [snorts] so I know we're a little bit over our time here. Are there any questions to wrap this up? Member Hall, I just one quick question because I know we've talked about this even with uh I Promise about the house system. Has our kids ever been encouraged to watch the first Harry Potter to understand what the house is? I mean, I understand we're bringing this there, you know, to them, but have they ever like you ever said, you know, watch the first Harry Potter for them to totally understand? Like I don't have I I mean I haven't considered it because I
069guess for me I mean I guess that's probably where it stems from. But I want them to understand that it's really each house has this trait or this character trait like I'm rever like the house of dreamers and I just um I have this vision and like I will just keep it going till I make it happen kind of a thing. But I also have a lot of things through Isabendi and I so that's our goal of teaching the kids the traits of all the houses in the next um team meetings cuz I want them to understand that even though you have been randomly housed in Isabendi that might not be where you always sit but you're going to you're going to learn those traits and this family is going to stick behind you and
070build that and we're going to help you build that because we all have all of them but we might be stronger in one of them. So ours I guess I've never really thought about it because I want them to identify with it in a different way. Create their own Yeah. image. I understand. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Thank you so much. Anything else? Oh, Mr. Alexander. Yeah. I just want to say thank you too because I I I believe in when the kids are excited, they're going to come to school and so that'll help with attendance. So if we can keep them keep them excited, they'll come to school and attendance will get better. Oh yeah. So we our attendance is up a little bit because we sadly did not make our indicator last year.
071Can I should I even say that? Probably not. Um but our attendance is up percentage-wise right now. And our uh Miss Walker who spent the whole day with us helping spin that wheel. we she worked with uh tech and if you look on you look up any of our students she has housed each of our students. So if I click on like Yosani it will say that she's the house of Amastad. So we do run reports by house. So that's how they're on the leaderboard. So we celebrate that. That's good. Good stuff. Thank you very much. Thank you. So there's some updates that you guys can look at um on the agenda here under teaching and learning. Um but if there's no other comments, questions, concerns, we will adjourn at this time. Thank you. Thank
072you.