001Good evening and welcome to this October 13, 2025 meeting of the Akran public schools student achievement instructional policy committee. I'm Diana Atri. I'm the chair. Um I'd like to acknowledge um exeicio chairman and president Dr. Jackson here. Also assistant superintendent um Dr. Lash, um Marcy Ebrite, and Superintendent Mary Owie. Welcome and thank you um to our meeting today. Um the first item on our agenda are the minutes. And so um I did look over the minutes. I think we will need to uh bring them back for the next meeting for approval because I didn't see the summary of our um I know doc or um the principal from book was here at the last meeting. So I didn't see any uh record of that. So if we can get a summary of that for the
002next meeting for approval. Um but are there any other uh corrections, updates to the minutes? Okay. Well, seeing none, um moving forward on the agenda, um I don't think there are any requests to address this committee. And so, um seeing none at this time, I will turn it over to Dr. Lash. Thank you, Member Autri. So tonight's uh first item, the journey to identifying and assigning CCAAMmies and pathways. I welcome Miss Beth Winter. She is a college and career academy partner engagement coordinator. Welcome her back tonight. Last month we tabled this presentation due to time. And as you recall, I invited the uh college and careermies to have a standing discussion item for instructional policy. And um that was the request of uh you Miss Autri. And so tonight's topics will cover how pathways andmies
003uh were or are established, how pathway partners are paired with schools. And so Beth Winter, our partner engagement coordinator for CCAA, will present on these topics tonight with the support of director Marcy Ebrite. And at the conclusion uh we will uh share anything else that the committee would want to know and understand um next so that the board of education can support the work of CCAA. And so with that I will turn it over to Miss Beth Winter. Right. Thank you everyone. And can you hear me? Okay. All right. Thank you all for having me here tonight. Um welcome or I appreciate the opportunity to speak to our board of education and of course our leadership. um about pathways and partners which are of course near and dear to my heart. So um as always
004looking at how this uh supports our mission and our vision. I think that is very clear as well as the cornerstones. The work that we do supports all the four cornerstones but this is particularly tied closely to the number four partnership family and community engagement commitment. With that being said, as Dr. Lash said I'll be talking about the process that was and that is for selecting pathways andmies as well as how we pair partners and this is specific to high school so that you know that for those of you that don't know me well I always have to start at the beginning like Dorothy at the yellow brick road so I promise to keep it quick but I need to give that context and background so we know where we came from. Ironically, I wasn't
005here for some of this. Um, I hadn't started yet with Akran public schools, but in 2017, that is when we launched at North High School. We were actually approved by the Ford Next Generation Learning Community early in 217. We were designated in midyear and then launched in fall of 17th at North, which was our trailblazer school. And then in fall of 18, as you see there, all freshmanies across our eight high schools. Fall 19, we were wallto-wall, meaning every student in our high school was in an academy. Then in 2021, we introduced middle. 2022, expanded learning joined CCAA. And then in spring of 2024, many of you remember, we were designated for elementary. So that is that real high level background, but we're going to go back again into that early year 2017, excuse me,
006where one of the things that we had to do to become designated for next generation learning community was to create a master plan. So there is this master plan that exists. It's 252 pages long. It includes 16 tactical plans as you see there. It was approved by our board of education in February and then we received that designation in May. So that's kind of the guiding document for how we operate and that's what was approved and how we guided the work that we did. You'll see here just I want to make sure everybody understands the the Ford NGL network has over 40 communities that are members. We are we're the first in Ohio. Uh we're very proud of that designation. And we have it looks like another one down near Dayton or Cincinnati that is
007now a member as well. But we kind of led the charge for certainly the state of Ohio in this. And as you all know, we um are next month doing our fourth Akran action. And the reason I bring that up here is because they're so pleased with the work we've done. They're asking us to share that work with communities across the country. So we are proud to do that. Um so in the beginning the transformation planning included more than 1,500 people. So the documents that the attendance documents etc show that we had not only our administrators our faculty our staff but we had parents and scholars themselves community leaders business partners and the community at large that came together at all of these different meetings that happened over a course of time. So this was
008not something that everybody jumped into. It took years to make this happen, but a lot of different meetings from the CEO study visit that started it in Nashville to all these different community meetings, sessions, planning sessions, etc. that ultimately was 1500 and some people that were involved in the planning determining how we were going to unfold and what those pathways would be. To make those decisions, we started off working with Kexus NEO, who provided data for us around high wage, high demand jobs in Northeast Ohio. Now, at the time, the high wage, high demand, meant $15 an hour or more, which as we know now, that's not such a great number, but at the time that was pretty big. And it also had a career advancement path. So it wasn't just as we would say
009a job working at some restaurant or fast food. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but a career advancement path. It was also that high demand meant there was at least a thousand jobs expected to be projected to be available in Northeast Ohio over the next 10 years. So all those participants I just referenced were asked to provide input about what pathways they wanted in their schools. I think that's important for a variety of reasons. Obviously, we wanted the community to be involved, to make choices, but that high wage, high demand, as important as it was, was not the only consideration. It was also based on what the community of that school wanted. And the reason I say that, there are some jobs, some career paths you might see in some of the schools where
010you think, is there a lot of job demand there? But it was community and family and student interest that made it so important to be chosen. So each high school created a committee of volunteers who looked at community interest surveys, the workforce data I just mentioned, the ODCTE options, which is really important because if they don't have a CTE option for us, we can't make that a pathway. Um, and also potential partners to the proposed pathways. Then each committee submitted a list of those pathways. They were reviewed by our steering committee and then ultimately approved by the superintendent. So that's how that all unfolded to that point. This of course is the current list of ourmies and pathways. You'll see this um which each with each academy listed starting with freshman academy at the top
011each of the various and the pathways within it for every school and then the sister universities and so on. So that's the current one excuse me. So having said that, just a little bit more background. So a pathway is designed to have 75 to 100 scholars, 10th through 12th grade. And I think that's an important distinction because any number of students you have, you have to take off probably a fourth of them because they're in 9th grade. So that wouldn't count towards that academy number. Scholars will choose their pathway midway through that ninth grade or freshman year. So they will have had a variety of career exploration opportunities and then they'll be asked to declare this is my chosen pathway. So that's how that works. So when it comes um when we have to look
012at potential changes to a pathway that includes these different elements that are considered student interest if we don't see students signing up for a particular pathway and those numbers go down and down and down and we've had um groups trying to build interest and if that has not worked or has not created that greater interest that we need to keep those numbers keep that pathway that's something that we uh look at enrollment numbers those make changes as well community workforce needs. So if we see a huge change in what workforce jobs are available out there, we have to take a hard look at of providing that pathway future opportunities and then of course budgets and staffing and we're everyone in this room is very familiar with budgets and staffing and how that is affecting us
013and our work now. It's been it's been a huge topic for all of us. So in that master plan that I referenced, there is a tactical plan to start, stop or sustain a pathway. It defines the whole process, how it occurs, how it what you do when someone says, "Hey, I don't think we should have this pathway, etc." Um, I instead of going into that, I know you've already heard this. There was a presentation at this committee in March of 2025, but there is a folder that I provided that if you don't have it, you it's somewhere up there um that has the start stop sustain process in it. So you can look at that at your leisure. So then the other option of course to consider is that superintendent may choose to stop or
014replace a pathway again based on that budget, staffing or enrollment factors. So having said all that, here's our pathways. We have students choosing those pathways. So in the beginning, how did we get those partners? So we had a variety. We were generating lists as you can imagine and people were submitting names of of partner potential partners etc to us. We worked very closely with the United Way of Summit Madina um at the time just Summit County but they had a partner leaison. They actually hired someone to do this work. They worked with their business connection. So they were the community convenor to bring in their their business connections that would for and they helped forge partnerships with our schools. So we met once a week for years. We still do I guess um to discuss
015potential partners for each pathway. And what we looked at was each school, each pathway because what we wanted was to make sure we had large, medium, and smallsized partners at partnered with each pathway as available. Okay? So just keep that in mind. But when we our convenor, our partner liaison reached out to prospective partners and would meet with them, discuss the model, what it would we'd ask be asking for from them and from their people. They then were told of course as a part of that meeting these are the schools or the school that had that particular pathway. They were invited to come to the school to tour it to meet the students, meet the teacher, meet the the the uh senior staff etc. to just get a feel for the school or schools that
016we were asking them to partner with. So that's how that part happened. Um the other thing, so we've got all these meetings going on with prospective partners. The other thing that we were doing is the liaison from United Way and myself, we met, we did, we called it our high school tour. We went to every high school, met with every CTE teacher to ask them two things. Number one, if you have partners that you already work with, we'd love to know who they are. we we we will keep them with you. We don't want to take them, but what we would like to do is have them become an official CCAA partners, we can put them on our list so that they get that PR out of it. The other thing we ask for is
017what's your wish wish list? If you have if there are other partners you'd like to work with, who are they so we can make a contact and see if they would like to participate in this model with us. So, that's typically the pathway partners, how we did that. But as you know, we have or probably know we have named and sister or post-secondary academy partners. So again, we're still in the beginning with the named academy partners. We looked typically at large area businesses whose work or network aligned with the puh pathways in a given academy. for the post-secary or sister partners alignment between the pathways at that school, all of them, and the school's majors. So, we kind of did a little audit to make sure, do you have everything there? Who would be the
018best choice based on that? All right. So, now we've got a really good complement of partners at all of our schools and all of our pathways. Our partner liaison, her name is Sarah Palace, attends our weekly academy coach PD meetings and that's one of the standing agenda items. What partner needs are you are do you have? What kind of partner? Is there a specific partner and so on and so on and then she keeps us a breast of her conversations, her meetings, etc. and how they're moving forward. Now there are times when a prospective partner contacts us. So in that case the Sarah will meet with them to discuss the model because sometimes you have to understand the different types of partners. So APS is a partnering place but there's different types of partnering that
019we do. So with a CCA partner there are specific things we ask of them. Sometimes an organization wants to partner with APS because they have services they want to provide and that's a different path. So we can also get them to that path if they wish. So, but if we have someone that contacts us, I've heard about CCAA, love to work with you. We either have them in or we go to them to meet with them about how we might be able to work that partnership. So, today, and I'm sure you all understand this changes by the minute, but we have 247 unique partners. Now, this is all of our partners, meaning high school, middle, and elementary. We have 328 partnerships. And I say it that way because we have multiple partners that partner with
020more than one school. And I want them to get credit somehow for that because they're providing their services to more kids than just one pathway, which I think is so important. And the other thing I want to make sure I note is that our partners commit to providing time and talent. So I always kind of joke that yes, we are accepting donations, but that's not the purpose of this. It's not about you writing me a check and getting your name on a on a pathway or an academy. It's about you giving your time and talent to work with our kids. Help them network. Help them build relationships, learn the real world relevant skills that they need to be successful in that career path in your industry. So that's why I put that there. And then
021as of June 2025, we try we track partner hours and our grand total from the very beginning until this past June was 180 almost 183,000 partner hours that they've given to our students. And then that's a value of over $21 million. So we're clearly very grateful to all of our partners who who work with us so closely. We have um great relationships with with our coaches, academy coaches, our partners, our teachers, and of course our scholars. And we're really pleased with the work that they do and so grateful that they spend their time and talent with us. So with that, I know there's this next piece on here really gets into the piece I think that my colleagues are going to be talking about. So I will leave that there. But there's I know you
022have um access to this and there's a link in here with background information which is just kind of all that deep stuff that would have kept me here another 20 minutes or an hour. Yes. Oh, sorry. Yes, member Hall. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um quick question. Yes. You when you were just stating about um it's not about the check, it's about the time. Correct. But is there money coming in from our partners to our district? Is it just time? Is it funding? Or is it no funding just time? So the CCAA model is its time and talent. But we have had a number of partners that do make a donation whether it's inind meaning they've given us some material object or they've given us a check. It doesn't happen. It's not a requirement. And what
023the whole thing for me and I think for the model, I'm speaking for the model, not for Beth, but is that we've thrown the world has thrown money at problems for a really long time and it hasn't done anything. It's that time and talent that we need. And so our partners, that's kind of the promise that we make. Not only that do we only ask you for time and talent, want to make a donation, we're open, but we only ask for time and talent, but the other thing is nobody can just write us a check and get their name on things. not for CCAA. So that helps. Just a followup, Madam Chair. Um I'm sorry, I'm thinking we're in committee, but same thing applies. Um but we don't turn down money, right? Because haven't yet
024at this present moment, you know, we are in the crisis that we're in. So if people want to bring money, we're accepting it, right? Because we don't want to say now we don't have money to fund this. No, no, no. So if an organization wishes to make a donation, we will absolutely. We have paths for that. Okay. But the point is that we don't all the companies that we work with like every company in this country and maybe the world are also having their own financial struggles but they also number one are altruistic and they want to help this way. They can and we know time is money but certainly if they have an opportunity to make a donation and they wish to absolutely. Okay. Okay. And then are we moving on to something different
025now or are we still on this? Okay, I have another question. Is that okay? Okay, go ahead. Um, as I was looking at was it page five and you know we know how you know there's been conversation about the cosintology leave I'm sorry not cosintology um the education pathway leaving book and going to Firestone and I'm looking here on page one and it looks like in 23 24 that there was already conversation about the education pathway at Firestone. Oh when they did their stop start and sustain. Yeah. this if and I'm sorry I don't know the date specifically but it was just the last few years they needed another pathway so Firestone is under pathwayed but that was when they did all their pre-work to decide what the what options they they had for a
026new pathway education was one of their choices that was in the top three you said they're under pathway because it looks like they have 11 different pathways no one else even exceeds it's the number of students they have that need a pathway because a pathway can accept 75 5 to 100. Okay. So then, thank you for clarifying that. So then what is the um what is the climate right now about the educational pathway at bookto? Because when I'm looking at page five, I see um like far as the pathway to students and I also see number of teachers requested. So when we look at the book pathway um 0.25 25 number of teachers requested but then when you go to Firestone who doesn't even have that well they're getting the pathway now or they may
027have it now um they have a higher amount of teachers requested for that pathway. Am I saying this wrong? I'm just looking at I'm not sure was provided I can jump in there because I think I the data there was um the original data from March of 24 when we did that presentation. So that was back the sort of the historical context around some of that. Okay. So um we don't have uh the current is that okay doing this. Oh okay. Uh and so the those that was to give the historical context about when we talked about that. So um yes the numbers uh at at Book were down below uh I think the education pathway was in the low 20s. I think overall their pathways are still in the mid60s. We have one pathway
028I think over there that's above 80 right now. So they're a little bit more right-sized than they were with the number of students in the pathway. Uh Firestone at that time had pathways that were topping over a hundred. So they had started a year before the start process that Miss Winter spoke to to want to add another pathway because their pathways were overpop populated. It just happened to be at the same time where we were looking at uh reducing one at Book Doll and uh because education was one that they chose, we didn't want to lose education pathway as a whole in the district. So, it was added at that time. I guess I'm just confused because with with our pathways, it's if a student wants to be in that pathway, they need to go
029to that school. Correct. This is correct. They would enroll to that school. So why didn't students that were interested in the pathway that were at Firestone then go to BookTo? Why are we that's part of saying oh okay well bookto we're just going to take it from you. So does it look like what does it look like? Are we keeping the pathway at BTO or are we taking as of this time this is their last year with the senior students? They're still there finished they finished out the kids that they had enrolled there. Okay. And then who makes those decisions just to pull it? That was a s there the recommendations that were made across all pathways because we had two pathways that closed that year. One at East and one at Bookal and that
030was given to the superintendent who then improved it. It's a sound system. I don't know if he's in there. Oh, he's there. I don't know if he hears he's Yeah. Okay. Okay. So, I I'm just going to speak to that and I'm not going to be quiet about it until it's satisfactory in my eyes because there's a lot of different factors that were going on at BKO. As we know, it was a lot happening in the district in March and April um at the time these decisions were made. Um we still have this national teacher shortage. I I'm still not clear as to why the students interested in education were not directed to BDO. I'm I'm not sure why that that is and why we feel like it's a done deal because it it shouldn't
031be. Um there was not a permanent teacher in place for quite some time. I know they worked hard over there to come up with a plan to improve the enrollment in those pathways which did happen and maybe not to the level that we needed but I don't know that we really took into account the fact that there was not a permanent teacher in place for some time in that pathway. Um and then for the growth that they did see um it just seemed like it was all for not for it to just well it's still not enough. Um, so I think those types of things should be taken into consideration. And again, I'm not clear why those students interested in education were not directed to the pathway at BKO where it existed. Just as if
032someone's interested in performing arts, we're not going to move the performing arts program to a different school. They're going to try to go to Firestone where it's housed. So, I'm not sure. And I I just have to say historically speaking, this is just something that I know the community has seen over uh quite a number of years, the appearance of things being taken um and put somewhere else. And I can I can name a number of of examples, but I won't. Um but given our education shortage, it appears as if we should have some type of flexibility or room for there to be more than one program. And so I just want to leave that there for the superintendent's consideration and your team. I know we've been having some email communication about this. Um and
033I'm personally just not satisfied that this is just how it has to be. So um are there any other questions? Dr. Jackson, I don't really have a question. And I just want um either Miss Ebrite or any of her team may be able to speak um more clearly to this point because I remember in instructional policy this being unpacked at detail in detail excuse me but it was centered around interest originally and that's when you had pushed kind of back on that that it was not enough interest at BookTo that there were not enough kids um getting into the pathway which is what you've mentioned and at that time you mentioned it also um member Autry what are we doing to kind of engage and promote with that we saw some slight improvements but based
034off of the um overflow of students in pathways at Firestone they it just for it to remain in existence. Um, they thought to move it over to Firestone. Am I kind of like walking with that right? Yes. I don't remember, but it was actually their third of their three choices. I think criminal justice was in there, a healthc care one maybe, and then education, right? And so then they made a decision and then then even at that time, I want to say that was like a year and a half, two years ago, it was said that it probably would move to Firestone. And we talk about the um the e the how was it uh the fairness of that when we talk about fairness and accessibility, right? So how is that fair as far as
035programming that's accessible to students at BookTo? because we see the cosmetology situation and just the accountability where people are overseeing the programs um with intentionality to make sure that they're functioning at the level they should so the students can have the proper credential credentials that they need. But all that said, I just wanted to summarize what's already been said. But I want to talk to uh you Miss Ebrite because you maybe understand or and the superintendent can weigh in. The reality is most students that's going we have to have this real conversation if they're at Firestone they're not gonna want to go to open enroll to book and I think that's the elephant in the room that is not being addressed that if the program is at book would those stu students who now attend
036Firestone open enroll to go to this pathway or would rather be in an overcrowded pathway at Firestone that's the real discussion And then we have to then unpack that as to why would that be? Because if we're one APS, then what is the structure? What is the what is the culture? was a climate in the building that would make a Akran public school student not feel as though they can go across the gambit to any high school to take what they desire because they have the same f um sense of safety, belonging or that that's the real question I believe that we that needs to be addressed more so like you know if we can examine that because if that's the reality that's the reality um but then we as the adults need to look
037at what we need to do on the board as far as with organizationally to where it's continuity across all of our high schools to to where every place is safe. Every place is getting the coverage, the positive coverage about the programming because we do have great programs. We have award-winning robotics programs at Bookto. We have students going on to the Ohio State University with fullright scholarships and getting to law school for bookto. But that's just not the narrative that has been pressed throughout um media and even word of mouth. And so we have to do better in that area so that it's desirable. So I just wanted to put that there. So it's just not like it's some grand plan or something where it's we have to talk about the stakeholders and the customer which
038are the families and the students and why they wouldn't choose if it was there or did we do any type of survey work to see would they be willing to go to Book if it was offered there. Um, I know we talked about half a day. I think summer I remember Hall and I were talking about in our days if you went to Gar if you went to Book Joy, you want to do cosmetology, you came half day to Garfield and you know people used to do like half days for their pro program. So I just wanted to posit that here in this discussion so that we can look at those real situations that are realities cuz if you in the community talking to people in the community, I mean this is conversations out here.
039I don't know about everyone else like I wouldn't leave Firestone or vice versa and some people have bookto pride or their legacies at BookTo and they may want to do fashion and merch because I don't know as fashion forward as they are in bookto I don't see how that wasn't one of their pathways fashion designer uh merchandise but just kind of for us to look at that angle as well. Thank you Dr. Jackson. And I I definitely appreciate and respect that. And it did it does touch on what I was talking about historically. This is not brand new, but at some point in time, we do have to acknowledge what it is. But the district should be doing what it needs to do, you know, regardless for all of the schools. So, I mean, I
040think we probably could could guess why um people have the feelings that they do. Um, but until we set the standard here, then it's going to continue on that way. So, that's why I'm speaking up and saying what I'm saying now. Why can't there be two programs at the school if there is an interest there? So, um, member Hall, did you have additional comment? Yeah, I was Thank you. Um just looking on the pathway flyer that we have and it looks like you know marketing and entrepreneurship is at every school except for Garfield. Well, not every school. It's at 1 2 3 4 5. It's not at Garfield. It is. Is it at Garfield now? Yes. Okay. It's not on this list. That's why I didn't see that. Okay. So, oh shoot. Right there. Oh,
041right at the top. Thank you so much. Hey, we need each other. Right. Um, so if we can have one pathway at every single school, then we should be able to have another pathway at, you know, at two different schools. Um, I mean, is marketing and entrepreneurship just the basis? Like every school needs to have that or could we do keep education at BookTo, put it at Firestone also? So, I think I'm out of my Bailey Wick here, but I will say this again to go back in the beginning, the marketing was one of those things that was popular at all the schools from the groups that that we brought together. And again, I wasn't here then. This is the story, right? The lore. I don't want to make things made up. But I will
042say this, and I'm going to ask Marcy to jump in about the the having a pathway at more than one school is not the problem. You still have to be able to fill it. We have a a fiscal question. Yes, I would agree. Thank you. That, you know, we can staff things however we want. Uh you we can add as many things as we want, but it's also looking at, you know, reductions and and and budget concerns, right? So, it's it's whatever you want to staff and the superintendent agrees to staff, we staff it. But it's also looking at a balance of many factors at play. So it's not all it we talk about student interest. We want kids to be interested in the things that we're giving them to do obviously. Uh and but
043we also have there's you know a thousand other factors that also go into that place. Sometimes you can't staff a pathway. Sometimes we had a hard time finding a teacher in a pathway for a long time. Fire an EMS over at Elllet was a great example of that of getting someone stable in that pathway. And now we feel like we finally got a really high quality stable teacher in that position. But that took a long time to the point of do we keep it because we can't find somebody to stay to staff the pathway. So there's those sorts of other considerations come up even though there might have been a lot of student interest, a lot of high demand, a lot of uh high wage opportunities, but there's other things that also come up occasionally
044that we have to take into consideration. Thank you. Thank you. And I know we've been touting Mr. uh Savon Wright, who I know is extremely busy, but maybe we need to tap into what motivated him to be so um passionate about going into education and he was right over there at Bookto. I think some of the changes that they were trying to implement were starting to work. Um I think they were starting to work. So I think we're a little bit premature in my opinion. Um, and I know that coach over there at BookTo worked really hard and we should be looking at ways to tweak it to make it work. So, superintendent. So, we have been having this discussion also as a leadership team as we're preparing our budget reductions to bring forth to
045the finance committee and then onto the board and reviewing all of our pathways and enrollment within those pathways is one of the tasks that's ahead of us. And so uh def most definitely we can always have a program at multiple schools. I just think that we just need to make sure that there is uh enrollment that will sustain them. So I would like to take the discussion back to the team um and then be able to come back to you with some additional information. Thank you superintendent. Are there any additional questions Dr. Jackson. Yes. So to to the point when we're talking about two teachers booked and when it was at booked it was 0.25 that's means a part-time um person and then to summer's point I guess when it moves because of the number
046I guess of students of interest it goes from part-time to a full-time person at the fire if it's in the Firestone pathway. Is that that's been the same teacher she's been uh servicing both schools over the last 3 years as she uh but she did halftime at correct but when she moved since it's moving out of book she goes to fulltime she go to fulltime so it was like okay as the program built up because we start with 10th graders so she only had 10th graders while she still had 11th and 12th graders at BDO and then they you know and now there's just seniors left at Book Doll and she's got 10th and 11th graders over at Firestone. Okay. because it's always the financial question and it's okay to just say it straight like
047tell it plain that financially if we're like to hire two employees in two different schools for this pathway can the is it sustainable for the district to do that or to leverage and build up intentionally to build up the program at bookto is the thing like are we being intentional to build it up to pour into that to make it um advantageous for student and want to take part of it. The next part when we talk about staffing because I want to stay like to the point. I understand EMS but for education because that's what we're talking about the educational pathway. Um, if the talk is teachers don't get paid enough or teachers are tired, if I'm a a student, I'm getting in the hallway, it's different. Like when Seavon talks, he talks about Larry
048Johnson. He he talks about Ramsay. He talks about educators that impacted him that had a a finger their fingerprints are on his life. That's why he's inspired because he was fortunate enough to like when I I'm almost 50 and I talk about Adam M as a that's why I became a history teacher. So it depends on the people you know who's before these children and how they're speaking which can impact the desire of the students wanting to be them. Also the quality of the service rendered to them because no matter how you want to look at it the student is the customer. You get a customer a good product they want it. They stay there. They're invested in it. you don't serve the customer right, then the customer doesn't really want to participate with you.
049They don't want to probably stay in your organization, things of that nature. Now, this is my next point. Retired teachers, we get a lot of retired teachers coming back in different capacities. How great would that be to get some of these excellent retired teachers with their strategies that connect with kids um to come out of retirement to serve as the instructor? I think if we can tap into that because most of the retired teachers that I've met, I mean, great. I've learned a lot from very good retired teachers and they tell you stuff just off the top of their good, you know, when they were the real deal teachers. They could just you tell them something, they tell you off the top of your head, oh this is you need to do that or they'll
050tell you a strategy and it doesn't matter that they if they started teaching in the 50s 60s7s good teachers are pra great practice is great practice and they will give you good strategies and they can relate to students they understand structure and accountability they don't make excuses you understand so if we can tap into our retired teachers I think that's the goal old mind old school teachers to cuz that's what's going to inspire cuz you know when you see excellence you want to be it not to say new teachers are not that but y'all know what I'm saying so if we can I don't know how that will work marketing but get some of those old school teachers in there I'm telling you that would leverage up those I I I feel very confident that
051then we can build a program and they come from a time where we go to work if I commit I do right and so you never have to worry about cuz if they commit and able to I'm very confident that they will do. So that's another angle that we can look at cuz what you see you can be and old school good teachers make you want to be them cuz they know their content. They're professional. they show up looking like something like I and and that's not oh gosh please don't put me on the blog and say I just remember going to school and you saw your teacher and they looked like a professional and they looked like someone you leaned into and that you they were prepared they knew the content. So when you
052bring in that type of discipline and that structure I think that that would change it too. No shade to any teacher that was there before. I'm just when we talk about staffing and who would come. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Jackson, and I look forward to more discussion. Uh, superintendent um chair um Autry, I just wanted to also say in your next committee meeting with uh member Hall, we're going to talk about a grow your own program. And I think it complements the conversation that we're having now. And so again, once we get a chance to talk about all of this, we can certainly as a team come back with any additional findings and recommendations. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so next on our agenda, um Dr. Lash, I think we have something from our
053uh career tech planning district report card. Yes, thank you, Miss Autri. And so last month uh we heard the district's results on the state report card and Odo uh Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has also released um as you stated the career technical planning district report card which evaluates our district's performance in career readiness and student outcomes. The report cards are intended to promote transparency, identify areas for improvement, and encourage conversation among our educators, our parents, and community members. And so, uh, Miss Ebrite tonight along with, uh, Nate Ruan, CTE coordinator, are here to share the results for this 2025 report card and answer any questions. And uh again at the conclusion um we'll be prepared to share how we can continue to promote our AC academyy's successes and support their next level outcomes.
054And so with that I turn it over to Miss Ebrite. Thank you Dr. Lash. And good evening uh instructional policy chair and members. I'm so glad that uh Beth got a chance to share with you, Miss Wter got a chance to share with you the partnerships and the work that we do because it is such a vital and important part to the success of our kids. It is a leg on which we stand. It can't be done without those partnerships working with our kids. When they come in, they don't just come into our pathways. I go out, they're in chemistry classes teaching alongside the teacher. They're coming into the language arts classes talking about the literacy that they use in the workplace. They're working with the whole academy. So sometimes we talk about the pathway
055partners, but we forget that pathway is an entire team of teachers, counselors, administrators that wrap their arms around those kids. And these partners are so passionate. If you ever get a chance to sit in an advisory board meeting and just sit in the back and listen to them, they are so passionate about what they're doing. So, we're very thankful for them because the results that we're getting with our students is in large part because of the work that Miss Winter does with the coaches and all the partners, United Way, all the community that's rallied behind our kids. And I I also have to give a huge shout out. You guys know Mr. Nate Rian, right? Fantastic uh gentleman that he is. Uh leads our CTE side. That's all the curriculum side. So we the teachers
056have to have high quality curriculum, materials, resources. Every inch of those labs and every piece of equipment that you see in there goes through this man's approval queue to make sure that we're being uh good uh use of the dollars, that it's aligned to their standard, their curriculum, that the teachers are using it and getting the professional development that they need and every opportunity that he can find in the state and national he makes sure that's brought to the classroom. So, uh, I get to stand up here and share the results. So, the hard work of lots of lots of people, but I'm glad that these two are here tonight to, uh, to take some credit for it because they deserve it. Um, so, as you're aware, we done we did this presentation last year.
057We are a career technical planning district. We're the largest one in the state of Ohio because of the number of students that we serve. You know, prior to college and careermies, we only had about 300 kids. So you figure we quadr quint how many five times it right quintupled it is that the word uh so we greatly expanded the number of students that we served. Uh so as a result even then and now we have state accountability and we have federal accountability for the Perkins dollars that we receive that help support the the learning in the classroom. And all of these things help us look at how we're strengthening those connections between what students are doing and how well they're prepared for life after high school. So we of course in district have lots of
058nuanced ways that we look at that. But the state and federal accountability measures are like sort of our hard academic numbers, right? Very similar to when we get our state report card with our achievement across the board for, you know, early literacy or um closing gap measures and all those pieces. So our accountability measures come from two classes uh the class of 2024 and the class of 2025 and consists of concentrators and some non-conentrators. Uh concentrators are kids who have taken at least two CT courses. So you can imagine most of our kids wind up in that bucket of concentrators because if they've taken it their junior uh and senior year two classes, they become part of our concentrator status. So almost all of our kids in high school who graduate wind up in there.
059Occasionally we have a few that aren't uh reasons we may have kids that are different uh who are not concentrators with us is because they came back their senior year and we couldn't get them through the classes or they're at early college where we don't have pathways there. We got you know hundred or so kids every year sitting graduating out of that class. So those kids kind of come off the top right away but the numbers are very similar. So when you see these numbers now is pretty representative of our population of kids. There's uh four different areas that we get evaluated on just like the state report card. It goes from one to five where one saying significantly need support up to five we significantly exceed the state standards. So we are always looking
060for that five right we want five stars as many as we can get for an overall rating of five stars. But we're going to see how we did today. We get rated on four components equally. Graduation of how well our CTE concentrators graduated, how well our CTE concentrators achieved, how well they were prepared for career and post-secondary readiness, and then how well they reported their post-p program outcomes. On this report card, uh the class of 2025 is represented in achievement. Everything else lags a year behind because just like on our state report card, the graduation rates always for the class before. Same thing with our CTE concentrators and the career and post-secary readiness and postprogram outcomes are how we look at a bunch of factors after they graduated and it counts how many kids were
061in those cohorts. So they lag a year behind as well. So for uh this uh report card result is achievement is based on the class of 2025 and everything else is the class of 2024. Okay. So let's start with our um graduation rate. So I compared last year. So our concentrators last year uh four-year graduation rate 91.4%. Uh and to the right side in the green box is the most recent results on this fall's report card. So, we jumped up to 93.3%. And our Yay. And you see that starts to become very close to our uh our current kids, right? We're seeing as these numbers go up, you know, when we only had 300 kids in the pathway, our our uh graduation rate was like 98%. But that kind of makes sense, right? They were
062usually probably the most stable kids. They were there the whole time. It was a smaller group of kids, very intensive. And one of the reasons we go districts lean into this college and career academy model is because they know when kids have an interest in something in school, they're more like more likely to stay and graduate. So now we're starting to see the numbers sort of look the same. We're seeing our our full all of our kids graduation rate come up and look more like our CTE concentrators. Our 5-year graduation rate also up another 6%. So overall, our graduation rate is four stars. Uh we're really close to hitting five stars. Uh we got a couple goals. If we keep that 93% and we get the next one up to 94%, the five-year will be
063a five-star graduation district. So we're super close for that one. And I did pull up just to remind you where we landed this last year with our graduation rate. So just as an example, so these are all students. So concentrators and non-conentrators fall in this number when you talk about our state report card for graduation. Okay. So um achievement of our concentrators. Uh the top boxes are last year's achievement. So on the left we have our technical skill assessment. You may have heard us talk about web exams before, right? those end of course assessments that our kids take in every CTE classroom um over the course of their sophomore, junior, and senior year. We had a goal to hit 70% this year. I am happy to tell you we hit 75.4%. So, we had an
064uh 7 and4% jump in our technical skill attainment uh and how well our kids were able to demonstrate the knowledge on those end of course assessments in their career training pathways. We also get rated on how well our kids do on the performance index which is the OST test. So every concentrator and the related test that they take in English, math, science or social studies, how well are those students performing? So 80% of our grade for this particular indicator comes from technical skill attainment because it's the bulk of what we're doing with students. But the state also said a couple years ago, your kids also have to be performing well on the state assessments. So, uh, we said a, uh, we jumped from 52.9 to 55.2. So, a slight bump up there, but those two
065bumps and how well our kids do bumped us from a two star in achievement to a three star in achievement for our concentrators. We also get rated on career and postsecary readiness. Now, this one I just love because that number is right. We are 115% this past year on our career and post-secondary readiness. This is very similar to our CCWMR, but the state allows us to double dip some points. Remember on CCWMR, I told you we get one point no matter if they do 10 things, we get one point uh for that kid, right, out of the denominator. So they get one point in the numerator out of how many kids are in that graduation cohort. Career and post-secondary readiness is another way to look at this, but it looks at multiple ways. And uh
066let's say Miss Audrey does um her gets proficiency on her her CTE assessment and she gets her uh credentials done and she gets her OMJ and she does her internship, we get bonus points. So that's why our students excelled. We got a five stars obviously, but they earned so many points that there were more uh number of kids in the concentrator. So we wound up with 115%. So which is very similar when we talked about how well we did on CCWMR. So two different data sets, two different ways of evaluating our kids preparedness for life after high school. Um both of them we just really knocked couldn't I don't know how we could knock it out of the park anymore. I was happy last year and we had 107%. Then they came back with 115%.
067So, they just keep excelling and earning those items. Um, show you a few of them. For example, uh, one way that they can do that is they can get a point for any of those items on the top. A student does an honors diploma, um, and then does an internship, that student is worth 1.33 points rather than just one. And so, that's how we get a lot of bonus points there. And so many of our kids did multiple items that that's why we got so many extra points. Uh there's other ways that students can either even earn fractions of the points. It used to sort of be all or nothing. You got even if you did some of these things, you got zero points because you didn't do enough of them. So, uh there's other
068ways that kids can earn uh uh uh partial points inside of that. So, we were able to take advantage of that as well. And then there's a breakdown of where we had some gains across that and where we got the more points at. Oops. Sorry. Go back. Clicked too many. Did you want a picture of that? You got it. Okay. All right. And some highlights. Uh 60% of the class earned a 12point credential, 82% an OMJ seal. Uh 13% uh earned their 250 hours work-based learning, and 17% earned three or more college credits. And so those are where those data points sort of came from. And then the last piece, post-program outcomes. And I uh believe Miss Jackson, you asked me about this question the other day, and this is we can get we can
069pull some of the details around where kids said that they were at, but last year we were at 90.7%, we jumped up uh to five stars this year. um we were able to identify in the graduating class uh we have to reach out to them and see what they're doing six months after graduation. We were able to reach 98% of them and because that we did that we got a bonus star because we were able to track down so many students and find out what they were doing 6 months after graduation. Um and then uh we also were able to see that we had a a 90% or better uh placement rate. So because of those things we were able to uh jump up to five stars on this rating from four stars last year.
070So overall we were at four stars. We were exceeding state standards last year. We've moved up a half a star because just like on the state report card we can get half star measures. Uh they take the four areas that we had and divide them out with their quality points. And so now we are exceeding state standards again. And we are inching tour. Our goal is by 2027's report card to be a five-star district across the board um in incrementally moving each one of those pieces up. We know we had great success in our career and postsecary readiness and graduation and we know that we've got some refinements to continue to push that academic achievement for our students and then we will hit that five stars. Um I did put by your desk this achievements
071document uh which is about the class of 2025. So um this is nice to have as a reference because we get our 2024 but we of course know some early numbers from the class of 2025. Um and I want to point out that graduation rate. You see that right there. So we know that next year our graduation rate numbers we kind of we start to know where they're going to fall. Um I think they've officially closed here on October 15th. So, we worked all summer long to get some more kids across the stage um and get them the rest of the things that they needed. So, this gives you some little bragging rights about how the most recent class did um as well as the report card piece. And I think I might be Oh,
072the last piece I want to tell you, we do get rated by a federal report card as well. We didn't make any changes here, but we did inch up across the board. So, um, you know, our graduation rate, uh, the federal indicators look at, we did go up there. We went up in our OST proficiency, which you saw. We went up in our post-program placement. Um, and non-traditional enrollment. Our participation in work-based learning doubled from 4.6% to 9.1% and I happen to know it's 16% this past year. So, I'm fairly confident we'll see another check mark in that box uh, for next year for sure. and we know we had a jump in our technical skill attainment. So even though we still are at um five out of the federal out out of the nine
073indicators, we made improvements across the board and everything and believe we'll be able to knock a couple more out next year. All right. And so there we are. Anything answer for you? Thank you so much. I just um I just want to thank you and your entire team. We don't hear enough. I know sometimes we can be super critical um even internally, but I mean it's a part of the process, but we should certainly be um happy and commended for this work right here. And again, I'm proud of this. I hope we get more stories uh out of this because it's certainly uh deserving of the hard work. So, um are there any questions, Member Hall? Thank you, Miss Marcy, for this presentation. Um I'm excited. I'm excited. I do have one question. Um, and
074I know I've said this before about us losing students to to path, right? Do these scores, the stars, all of that affect like our students that are now seniors that have to repair some credits. They've been with us from 9th through 12th grade and then they decide to leave. Are these numbers affected by when these students leave? Yes. if they're if they're considered dropouts, they stay in our denominator no matter what. So, part of the work we do in the summer is um some students might leave and we have to find them. We'll find them living in Florida and they've enrolled in school in Florida, which is great, but we never got enrollment records. So, some of that data clean up and why you see some of these things lag behind is because it gives
075districts a chance to make sure that they've cleaned up all and closed some of those loops um and finding students like that. But absolutely when we lose students um who uh do not enroll back into a traditional school to finish schooling someplace else they count they continue to count in our denominator. So they they're considered dropouts if they leave APS and don't come back to APS but if they go to like Topath or a charter school we still consider them as dropouts. If they go to a charter school and enroll and finish there yes then they're then they're their student. The same is in the reverse right. So a student comes from a charter school back to us their senior year, then they're our student to graduate and we finish them out. So in Topath,
076Miss Dr. Dr. Ash could probably You said the word dropout. So that's what I'm kind of stuck on now because if they're a student and they're no longer at APS and they leave to go to another school, why do we use that terminology as a dropout? But they're true. That's true dropouts. I mean, they did not enroll someplace else would be a student who has dropped out of high school. Okay. not enrolling somewhere else. But if they go to another another school, what are what do we consider them as? They're they would be their graduate. Okay. Right. So, they're no longer AP students. We don't hang that word drop out over their head, right? They enrolled to Kaga Falls, for example, their senior year. They're Ka Falls graduate and not ours. But if they leave
077us and don't enroll any place else, then that would be a dropout student. And sometimes we don't know if they, like you said, someone could move to Florida and we don't know because they haven't what requested transcripts or something like that or how do we know that they truly dropped out? We do a lot of investigative work. Oh, okay. It's a whole team of people that do a lot of work, a lot of work to find them. Yeah. Okay. Well, you just used that word and I was like, wait a minute. You know, you don't want We and we try to get him reenrolled with us or go to AAA to finish his fifth years. Obviously they we want them here with us and a lot of some of the work in that is getting
078the student getting the counselor in front of them getting them reenrolled giving them an option to finish school but um you know say some some go and move someplace also live someplace else and never finish school unfortunately. Understood. Thank you. Thank you Dr. Jackson. Do you have anything? Thank you. Got a big old line out there. Right. And so um I know there's just one last item here under business affairs. Dr. Lash, did you want to speak to that? That's going to be on our upcoming agenda. Um, say that again. Yes, Marc license. Uh, I'll let Nate speak to it real quick so you guys know what it is. Good evening. Um, we do have a board recommendation at the next meeting to purchase about a thousand seats of licenses force, which is an online
079curriculum package we use in all of our pathway courses. Um, so we did have an increased need this year for additional seats, which is why we'll be presenting that to the board. Thank you. Any questions? Thank you. So if all minds are clear, um our next instructional policy meeting is November the 10th at 4:30 here in this room. Um uh we are expecting a presentation around expanded entrepreneurship pathways. And with that being said, if all minds are clear, uh we will stand a journ. Thank you.