Board of Education Livestream - 08/11/25

001Good evening and welcome to the Akran Public School Board meeting on August 11, 2025 at 5:29 p.m. Mr. Bowers. Roll call, please. Mr. Alexander. Present. Press the button. Miss Autri present. Mrs. Hall present. Reverend Harrison present. Dr. Jackson present. Dr. Molinar present. Mrs. Sykes 70 present. Thank you. Um could we all stand for the pledge of allegiance? Uh led by member Hall. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, member Hall. Um, we have uh rec uh our recognitions with from our expanded learning college career academy summer 2025 uh presentations at this time. Superintendent. Thank you, President Jackson. We are excited to present on our summer programming this evening. We

002have Tiffany Lundy who's our CCAA coordinator for expanded learning and she will present what she actually had an opportunity to present at our instructional policy last week. Uh she has permission to give highlights this evening and we are going to open it up for Q&A. Miss Lundy is responsible for organizing summer funding as allocated by APS community partners in and out of schooltime space and grant dollars throughout the year. Miss Lundy also ensures organizational systems across all departmental programs and departments including grounds, transportation, nutrition services, special education support, staffing and technology. So at this time I will ask Miss Lindy if she would please come up. I'm going to turn the mic over to her and she can continue with introductions of our community-based organizations that supports our programming. Absolutely. Thank you so much. All

003righty. We did present this uh slideshow last week, but I want to kind of go through it quickly today. I have some guests here um today to speak with us. Uh we always lead off with why summer. Um summer for us is a time to build relationships between our students, our scholars, and adults. It connects them with their community, provides a safe environment for them when they are away from their families, engages them in things of interest to them, and of course supports academic and enrichment growth for our kids. This summer uh we had 43 or I'm sorry, 48 programs that were offered um our seats available for all seats available for those 48 uh programs was 4743. We had 1771 for kids that were registered and they were in 3598 for seats. That just

004means that out of those 1,700 plus kids, they registered for more than one camp at a time throughout the summer. We were able again this year, just like last year, to fill 75% of our available seats. This is just a simple list of all of the 48 programs that we offered. uh elementary in light blue, middle school programs are in yellow, and then any of our high school programs that were available are in orange. Um all 48 are represented there. So you can see what programs we had available for our scholars. For marketing strategies, this was a question that came up before IP. um marketing strategies for these programs. We started out with a postcard mailer that went out um months before it actually became available on our district website. Um on August or April

0051st, we had all of our programming available for parents to see on a program called Schooljoy. It's our registration software with APS. Um we had uh building posters in all of our schools. We have parents uh called by principles. Direct invites were made by principals and all throughout the summer we had all call reminders go out to our families of what camps were coming up, when camps were actually starting. Uh, and social media also had documentation of when our programs were available. A little bit of data collected from this summer. Now, our summer programming actually just ended last Friday. So, this data was right before it ended. Um, out of our 1771 unique students, you can see our ethnicity uh breakdown that matches the ethnicity breakdown of our district. Uh, we did include uh inclusion

006uh for our special needs children's. 24% of them came with uh IEPs of some sort. Our refugee status would be our kids who are ESL. 9% of those children participated in summer programming and we were able to support 8% of our homeless population with transportation, getting them to the programs, anything that they actually needed, getting rid of fees, anything that was there. Couple of our summer highlights that we had. Um we had our summer learn and earn. Last week I had Mary Tvari with me. She did actually head up this program. Um we targeted children from um AAA, APS online and East and we were able to invite 44 students in to earn academic credits that they needed um for graduation and we were able to pay them for the work that they actually did.

007We called it SLE, the summer learn and earn program. Um and we also were able to run our first ever driver's ed program this summer. We still offered the scholarship that we offered during the regular school year. We were able to support 33 students um at Garfield. Well, it was districtwide. We held the course at Garfield. Uh we had 131 applications for that. The very last question on the application is a um essay on in which they write down what their statement of need is that they compete with their peers in the same building that they're in. Five students from each building are selected. That's how we get our 30. There were three extras because I just couldn't say no. Okay. We had a few city accolades this summer. We um we're going to be

008talking about my adventurers camp in just a moment, but one of the articles was on a culinary camp that we offered. You may have seen it a couple of weeks ago. It was on the Sunday's front page. Um and then we also had our safety around water program. We served over 250 kids in our swim program this summer. A lot of them actually took advantage of the June offering that we had with six free lessons and then they took advantage of the July offering that we have with another six free lessons. Um let's see here. Data collection. So last week at instructional policy we were asked about collecting data uh to show the impact of the summer programming that we offer in CCAA. We call that the ABCs of student growth. The A is for

009attendance, the B is for behavior infractions, and the C is for curricular excess, which is like academic success. Um, I have some preliminary data from 2024. We do not have the data for how this summer affects our kids because we have to get to the end of the school year. But last year with for 2024 data, we did show that kids who participated in summer only accounted for less than 10% of the APS disciplinary infractions and they had higher ABC averages during the school year. Um this year we are looking to target some of our more atrisisk students to see if we are seeing growth with those kids. And I did mention last uh week that that is because I do have a small theory that sometimes our higher performing kids are the ones who

010do do summer. So what I would like to do is invite some of the kids who normally wouldn't participate in summer and we did that this year and we will track them through the end of this school year to see if we had an impact on their ABCs of growth. Okay. All righty. So also we will be doing some internal tracking of course of our kids but we also use Summit Education Initiative. We've been using them for years. Everyone in Summit County uses them. We submit all of our goals or all of our data to them so that they can tell us what the impact of the learning is. Right now, just last week, I think they we just sent five years of data, the credits that they earn, um their work-based learning and the

011access or the activity codes for our kids that participate in summer. We did that for the last five years so that we can get a better picture of the impact of learning compared to Summit County. So, they are a data convenor that we use also. summer showcase will be adventurous camp. Um I did I'm just going to remind you of what this is. We last year uh piloted a three-w weekek program where we had a collaboration with the youth success summit. Youth success summit pairs us up with community- based organizations. We as AAN public schools brings the teacher who we can pair up with that community organi or organization. We do a three-week program where they come every single day and we call that ex like a sneaky learning that we put into their exciting

012enrichment um activity. We have two of those. Oh, well wait. Last year, let me tell you, we had just two of those type camps. This year with uh grant dollars, we were able to expand that to eight adventurers camps that were available to our kids. We have four for middle school level kids and we have four for elementary kids. They are listed on those uh programs that we have. We call them all adventurers camp. I did bring in some of our leads today. Our goal was to bring in the CBO and the APS teacher, but I have one CBO. I have Dominique Waters. He's the founder and executive director of Akran Sneaker Academy. He did an adventures camp that we call sneakers. It was actually on polymers if that was the topic. And then we

013have and his teacher was unable to make it today. But for Tim Anderson's group, um our CEO and founder of Fallen Fathers, he wasn't able to make it, but his teacher is here. Deanna Badley is here. We had a basketball camp with them that was actually to give our kids um resiliency, right? Uh this was to teach resiliency outside of the classroom. So both of them are going to talk to you today. For fallen fathers in particular, they work with many of our youth. This was where I was targeting children, doing all calls to any kid who had uh low attendance and low scores. Uh this summer, a lot of those kids did end up in the fallen father's group for basketball camp. Um they work directly with our kids that are furthest from opportunity.

014Okay. So, she's going to just speak to how that uh went without those students. And then our sneaker camp, which is a returning camp from last year. We're going to talk about the growth that he experienced this year and why we want to continue and expand these programs for an extra week next year. And with more children, he wants to double what we are actually serving. By the way, our adventurers camps and those eight different camps that we offered, we serviced over almost 200 children just for those three week availables. Um, so we have more camps, we can do more kids, so we'll do that. Okay. Does anybody have any questions though before I bring them up about just summer and a quick little review? Um, member Hall, did you have something? Did I look

015like I had Thank you, Madam President. Just a quick question. the first slide that you showed with how many kids attended and how many spaces you had open. Um, and then you had, if you don't mind, and then you had another number where some kids signed up for more. Um, so out of 4743 seats, but we had 90, we had about 35. So the 3598 um, that still counts towards the 4743, right? It does. That's the number that I actually divided into the 47 uh 43 available seats was whatever they told me their camp capacity was and so we didn't fill them all to capacity but we filled 75% of what we had available. Right. And that's that's wonderful. I did have um a few people ask who kids don't go to APS like hey

016if there's seats that are not filled by kids can people on the outside pay at this time to fill the seats? At this time, we don't accept kids that are outside of APS. It's a liability issue for having them at camp. Um, is what I was told by business affairs many years ago. Um, but right now, we only have our camps available to our APS scholars and we have all of their data information because the school joy registration that we uses use, it actually links to our e school registration. Okay. Thank you for that. So now parents is watching it because a lot of people do watch our y um board meetings, they can know now. So thank you. You're welcome. Trying to be more intentional to make sure I'm looking around the horseshoe. Uh

017Dr. Molinar, please. Thank you, Madam President. Um, I don't have questions, but I am always um I think our summer programs are one of the most amazing things that we offer as a district and I I want and hope that we can share this as much as possible. I I visited the some of the pre-fall camps had their presentations on Friday of last week and I continue to be impressed and enjoyed. Right. I saw the second graders presentations on their community and how they'd give back to the community. And of course, we had police officers, firefighters, we had teachers, pet rescue. I thought that was neat. We had um someone who was a hotel owner. She was starting a bed and breakfast. And it really at first I was surprised and I thought it really

018got to the concept of nurture and care and community um and building up and increasing. And these were seven year olds that you know are having these giving the presentations, having these ideas, having the creativity. So, thank you. And to all of our partners and everyone who's involved uh for our summer camps, the showcases of learning are a huge deal. Like we do those even with our adventurers camp. Each one had a showcase of learning um at the very end and they can speak a little bit more to that once I pull them up. But the whole I do believe in our summer program, our afterchool programming. I just believe that this gives enriching opportunities for our kids while keeping them safe when they're away from their parents and then of course continuing their academic

019learning even if they don't know that that's what they're doing. That's the whole point of having programming that's outside of the school day um to benefit our children. Thank you. And thank you Dr. Mo Dr. Muller always gives a um a very indepth um reflection on the summer camps because you've been your children attend. So she gives not only insight from the point of a parent but also as a board member. And I think that's good because in real time you can talk to what's working and what's not as a parent and as a board member. So I think that's great. Are there any other board questions currently? All right. Then I want to bring up some good news then. So I'm going to bring up I do you guys want to come up? Okay.

020So, I'm gonna bring up Dominique Waters with sneaker camp and I'm gonna bring up Deanna Badley with our basketball camp. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for the time. I just want to share as an intervention specialist at Lichfield, I do have the opportunity to look back in the background and say that I have to be very creative at times when being able to work with children. So, during the camp, I was able to see that a lot of our students did have IEPs. So, I knew that there were some students that did face some challenges academically, but being in an environment where they are comfortable because we're playing basketball. We're not in the classroom. They're on a basketball court. So, the two things that we were to focus on was teamwork and building leadership

021skills. And that just doesn't go in being an athlete on the court. It also teaches you a lot of skills out in life. how to handle different uh different motivational techniques, different opportunities, different um problematic areas that come towards you in life. So, it wasn't just the entire day. We're going to talk about how to dribble and shoot the basketball. When we had to do and focus on our presentation, there were four areas. We focused on nutrition, we focused on uh physical fitness, we also focused on mental health awareness, and we focused on basketball IQ. the children were able to focus um pick their own groups, so they took ownership. They weren't told where they had to go. Um it also showed that some of the young ladies, because there were males and females, we

022saw some that were always stuck together. But when it was time to pull themselves into a group, they gained their independence. So that opened our eyes to see that, you know, we do have friendships, but we do have to focus on independence to get where you want to go. And that's a thing that we wanted to instill in them. So, um, with I want to focus on two young men, a lot of times being able to do a presentation, some do not speak out loud. Some do not want to speak in front of anyone. Some just want to fall back and take the the background role. But there was a young man that was a little hesitant. But then when it was time to do the presentation, he stood forward and he memorized his. He

023was able to give the definition the basketball IQ being able to tell everyone this is the importance of it and how it relates to me in my life because basketball we heard plenty of times is more than just a game. It's not just a game on the court in life being able to once again being able to be a team and also have the leadership skills in yourself. Another young man had just went through his best friend being killed and there's a lot of violence going on in communities. But how do you motivate a young man that just lost his best friend and yet he chose to be in the group of mental health awareness? He chose to pick sorry he chose to pick a song in this group. It was by NBA Young Boy

024called drawing symbols. They were able to play a song because a lot of times as adults we want to tell the children what they should listen to. Tell the youth this is something that you should listen to. But they were able to pick a song that related to them in life, drawing symbols how to come and face adversity, how to push through. He had to speak on that after losing his best friend to violence. Unfortunately, right at that time when we were getting ready to do the presentation, he was called to uh go to a dentist appointment, but he was able to tell another teammate, another teammate, I'm going to reel you in and tell you what we have to talk about. I'm going to explain everything to you and give you your part that

025was mine, but I'm passing a torch to you. And he did that with excellence. And when he came back, he said, "How did it go?" instead of just shying back and being in the mode where I yes he was grieving but he we were able to pull him out of that and he chose to be part of mental health awareness. Now this is a basketball camp but mental health awareness is is is very important as we know that the mind the body can't go anywhere without the mind and he was able to fight through that and be able to push through and say I'm going to be here for my team and I'm going to show show leadership skills. So in our basketball camp, in those four lines of basketball, we were able to stop

026and talk about these different points in life to bring light to our young men and our young women about being able to persevere, being a teamwork, and show leadership skills. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here tonight. Um I'm Dominique Waters, the founder of the Akran Sneaker Academy, and I am still gleaning from this summer camp. Um, and I want to leave with just thank you all for your investment. You know, fifth quarter learning is essential to our community. Having having our young people engage in high quality programming over the summer is just essential. So, just some a quick recap of this year's sneaker camp. Again, we piloted last year, but they blew me away this year. We went bigger and better. Uh, we kept 85% attendance over 3 weeks, which is really hard

027to do in the summer, but I guess we were doing some things right with our with our young people. Uh we had on average I would say 27 to 28 uh middle schoolers a day and also 12 youth volunteers. Uh so we had anywhere between 45 kids with us every single day. Um the other thing we had them on a college campus. You know we spent the three weeks on the University of Akran campus. That early exposure to a college campus as a middle schooler was very valuable. And a highlight of that experience was we took him to the Meer School of Art to do a hands-on activity with their staff creating this wonderful ceramic Air Force One, which is my personal favorite uh sneaker. Um and then our our sneaker expo, we had over

028100 community stakeholders, funders, partners come to see the students learning and they showed up and showed out. Um, I got great feedback of how they presented their learning, their confidence, the experience and the energy in the room was infectious and our mayor was able to come and present and also they got to present in front of the mayor as well. So, the investment is just crucial because we're building momentum. Um, we're having that impact. You know, I want to go 50 kids next year if possible. So, another APS teacher would be critical to that. Uh, so we can keep that quality there. And again, we're bringing kids from all over the district. We got I promise kids with Lichfield, with Hire, with Book, all in one learning environment, leveling the playing field to show what

029our brilliance in our inner city and in our urban communities can be. So, I'm on fire about the work and I'm excited for this investment. And just thank you guys for your time. Thank you, Mr. Waters and Miss Badley. We appreciate your work, Miss Lundy. Um, are there any requests to address the board? Is there no signups for anyone to address the board? All right, board member reflections. Yes. Uh, Vice President Alexander, please. Thank you. I think this my uh presentations fall right into what has just been said uh with the the two uh presentations that's been given already. Um I I had opportunity uh to attend two events and one was uh um both of them were really good, but one just kind of blew me out. I'm going to talk about that second.

030First was the Akran Zoo, the backpack adventure at the zoo. Uh it's always fun to me to see a number of kids having fun being out there learning. There were teachers there, there were counselors, there were principles there, there were uh community agencies there. Uh the kids got books, bags with supplies they need. Uh there were uh participation from uh ECLC's marching band, from Firestone's vocal jazz and marching band and from Garfield's marching band. So they they got a chance to play uh music at the zoo as well. But I I think there was the the wolves that were there really didn't like the music too much cuz they kept howling when they kept hearing music, but the music maybe they were just tuning in themselves, singing to the music. But it was very nice

031uh event to to to see our kids having fun and also learning there at the juke the zoo cuz all of it is uh uh about learning. The other one was I went to um project grads uh bridge to kindergarten uh summer academy u um graduation per se and uh this is the 17th year I guess they've had it with Akran public schools. Uh they had about 44 students who completed three weeks. Uh they were from Pukto cluster, Firestone cluster, Garfield cluster and east cluster. They focus on kindergarten readiness and learning activity, literacy, math, color, shape, social emotional uh skills and and trans and transitions. Um they also had partners. They partnered with Red Oak. Uh and Red Oak was was part of the uh mental health piece to help the kids and the families

032there. They had Art Spark, which is nice program. I think the kids really like that cuz they get involved. They do fun things. So, it was really nice. Um, they had four classroom assistants. All of them were project grad graduates. So, they came back to help with project grad. Uh, the parents and caregivers uh attended a workshop that was pres put put on by uh Red Oak uh health and summit uh educational initiative early learning project. And Mrs. Stansy Sykes, our own Stansy Sykes was there to help put this on as well. Uh the students received backpacks also with supplies, materials that they needed for this upcoming class, uh this upcoming school year. Um they um also had a picture of themselves, which is really nice. They had a picture of each kid and these

033kids will be the class of 2038. Wow. And so they had a picture of them with a tassel on it with showing that they're the class of 2038. I thought that was really neat. It was it was nice. They also one of the the fun part the kids I think had a lot of fun with this as well is that they crossed the bridge. So they went from prek to kindergarten but they had to cross the bridge, walk across the bridge, say hello and then sit down. Uh so that was really good. Um I thought it was really good. I want to also show this t-shirt. I have about five five seconds. This was a t-shirt that every kid had received. Okay. And it's uh and so each kid receive received this this t-shirt and

034all of them will be uh participating also in a year- round program that their their family or they need help also that uh the uh social and emotional learning will individuals be there. The last thing I know I'm a little long there was a poem that uh Mrs. Jackie Solace Butler gave out. I think every adult who was dealing with any kid no matter what grade need to read this year. This this this entails every single person who deals with kids. I'm taking it to my job because I think some of us need this as well, but I think everyone can use this here. Anyone who's working with kids or dealing with kids. Thank you, Madam President. I went over Thank you, uh, Vice President Alexander. Maybe that's something we can maybe post or send

035out um through our communications. Uh, Dr. Holden, maybe can send that out to our families so they can have that. Are there any other board member community reflections? Yes, Dr. Molar, please. Thank you, Madame President. Um I'll just quickly talk on two um events. One, I went to the um Akran Inner City Soccer hosted a tournament tournament um this weekend and we it brought in students from districts all over. So kids from Norton, Kaga Falls, Brexiew, Broadview Heights. There were so many kids there doing exactly what we want kids to do is be kids, come together, play sports, and work together. And there were so many people. I said, I don't think I've seen this many people all in one spot. There was nowhere to park. And I go to Copley Soccer Complex a lot.

036There was nowhere to park. It was so wonderful and beautiful. And best of all, our kids were highlighted. Our Akran kids winning lots of games. So that's always good to see, too. Um, but speaking of nowhere to park, I also went to backpack at the zoo and that's another place that I have been a whole bunch of times and I have never seen so many people. I had to park somewhere that I didn't know existed. Um, and I want to just say I agree with everything that uh, member Alexander said. He's spot on. Thank you to all of the volunteers and the partners and especially the volunteers and the volunteers that made that happen because there were so many people and without um it I don't think the average volunteer could have been able to

037handle that amount of parents and students. We had trained educators who could navigate those spaces and we were very very lucky to have you and to have them. So, thank you to everyone. Um, I was shocked to see it didn't make I didn't see it on like the TV news. I don't know if we didn't invite them or what, but it would have been great to see that on the news because it was such a beautiful event. There were groups of students that came together and navigated through the zoo together. So, it's like a coming back to school event uh for them also be as they're spending time together. And of course, there was a free carousel rides. So, I've also never seen such a long line for that carousel. Um, but it was it

038was such a beautiful event. So, thank you everyone. Thank you, Member Molard. Member Hall, thank you for that. I kind of wanted to piggyback on when the two presenters presented when they talked about more than a game. Um, you know, just learning basketball is just not playing basketball. It's learning fundamentals of basketball, but it's also learning to work together, create leaders, and thinking. That's pretty much what they talked about. And the reason why that's so near and dear to me is because my oldest daughter went through basketball, you know, with uh Miller at Miller South, but it was through Ladies First that's heavily involved in our community. And we have a lawyer now, you know, so it created outside of an outstanding mom and dad, it created this this outspoken young lady to know that

039she could do anything and everything. And I think I know Ladies First really played a major impact in that. So sports is very very important. I think that's why I'm always asking, well, what about the field? What about this? Why does the school have a track? You know, so sports really do a lot for our kids because sometimes that's all they have to look forward to, you know. Um I did want to also talk about um last week I for well the last time we met I forgot to speak about it but um Yeaw um Yeaw has been going on for almost 40 years now and um a lot of our students participate in it and it's from kids from 5 to 18 and it really really gives them a sense of um family spiritual

040um you know a lot of them learn about God and or whomever it is you um may pray to, but these kids become grounded. They begin to learn about themselves and learn how to ask for help and ask adults for help and each other. So, they play the drums, they sing, they dance, they do step, they do all of this stuff, which opens the door for when they come to school and they have the step team and things like that. So, um, next year you guys all look into getting your kids involved in either Weepaw, which is 5 to 11 year years old, or Yeaw from 12 to 18. And it's very diverse. It's kids from all walks of life. The chapel supports them. And this is all started by Leslie Parker Burns um, from

041Arlington Church of God. Um, also um, Temple Together is back again, which is a free community wash day. Um, so I want to make sure that all of our families know about this. Um, it's through the city of Akran, um, yours truly. Um, where the city pays for the residents to wash their clothes up to three loads, provide all the detergent, and they also provide, um, a meal. You never know, this might be the only meal someone gets that day, but it's a it's a nice dinner. So, it's a free event. It's July um, 14th, I'm sorry, gosh, August. I wish it was still July. August 14th. So this coming up Thursday from 2 to 6 um at Wash West I'm sorry, Westside Laundry um 853 Copley Road. So again, Westside Laundry Mat 853 Copley

042Road this Thursday, August 14th from 2 to 6. You can wash up to three loads, no charge to you. Um free meal and free detergent, so just bring yourself. Thank you, Member Hall. Are there any other board member reflections? Uh, member Altry. Thank you, Madam President. Um, I just wanted to give a special shout out to uh Shoemarker CLC PTA um who was uh recognized again uh as being a national PTA school of excellence. Um and so for those of you who are not aware of this program, it's a national uh program, a recognition program, and it's a commitment between school administrators and parents and families to create a welcoming environment um based on the PTA's six national standards for family school partnerships. um that include welcoming families, communicate effectively, support student success, speaking up

043for every child, sharing power, and collaborating with community. Um and so those steps include enrolling and you get a toolkit that guides you in gathering and analyzing feedback from the community um in the school. Um you create and implement an action plan. You reflect and summarize the progress and then you celebrate your success. Um, I know we've spoken a lot about Shoemarker CLC over this past academic year because they do so many great things as a result of being a part um of this uh program. And so I wanted to acknowledge them. Um, their outgoing principal, Mr. Hayes, and their PTA president, Janess Gilbert Mills, and vice president, Jasmine Baker. Um, and encouraging everybody as we go back into our school years, um, to get involved with your local PTAs. You don't have to always

044be a parent or a guardian. Um, if you're just concerned about kids and want to be part of the solution, that is a avenue. Um, but any PTAs out there who are interested in this very valuable, helpful program, um, can go to pta.org to get more information. And again, congratulations, Shoemarker CLC PTA. Thank you. Thank you, member Autri. Are there any other board member community reflections? All right. Thank you. Seeing none, we'll move on to uh the president's report. Um I'm so grateful to hear all everything that's been shared. And I do um have a question. And I think you highlighted it cuz part of my report is I was going to inquire about PTAs. Um because this weekend I went to there was a housing symposium and we had the president of Helen Arnold's

045PTA there uh Shemica Pullum and um she was talking to me. I didn't even know she was the president of shoot um sorry Helen Arnold CLC who does a lot of those things that you mentioned. And so I'm glad you get information about PTA.org for because I did tell her as well as I understand that but is the president now at BUTO as far as how to connect on a larger scale to be highlighted. Um I know many things are happening um at C um Helen Arnold CLC that aligns with that and so I would like to make sure that it's uniform as far as the PTAs is getting connected and highlighted and they have they know the flow of the rubric to get the same recognitions because these things are happening um in our

046active PTA. So I definitely wanted to shout that out. Um, as I stated, uh, this past Saturday, Freedom Block hosted the housing sympo symposium at Emanuel Christian Academy. And the event, it brought together housing advocates, educators, parents, and community leaders to address housing instability. Um, a far-reaching issue that touches the lives of many of our students and families. And as you may recall in my previous report when I highlighted and we talked about I promise the I promise village and how it's very important when we have these certain wraparound services and that we have partners that are able to offer housing stability to some of our students um because it's more than just a social issue when we talk about housing. It is also an educational one. And so as a school district and a

047board we should be just as much as engaged. Um, as I understand the last data that I looked at, nearly 10% of APS students, which was approximately 2,000 at the time, um, when I inquired of Project Rise, are homeless students. Um, however, I always question that number because if you're from this community, you understand that homeless and transate students, especially from a certain cultural background, are taught not to share information. So, you can be sleeping on your friend's um floor or auntie's floor and no one knows that you're homeless. So the the number the 10% is only what we have that's documented. Um some of these students are in shelters, they're in hotels. Um they just lack permanent housing. And these situations often result in these students having anxiety, uncertainty in the classroom, which then

048leads to absenteeism, learning de delays, and behavioral challenges. The reason I thought this was very important and I was very engaged because the freedom block did a phenomenal job with the symposium is because since I've been on the board and this is the end of my ter my first term. Every time we had student board members come and even some teachers they talked about the mental health. That was that's a recurring theme is mental health. And so these students we know and even some teachers are facing mental health issues and traumas and how are we dealing with that? We know in education we have a lot of buzzwords, trauma informed, right? And so teachers become aware, some teachers that have the character in their heart to engage of what they can do to help meet

049the needs and navigate some of the traumas that their students experience in the classroom. But I can't help but to recall the the um counselor from East when she came and presented, Courtney, I'm sorry, I cannot recall her last name. um from East and she explained how we are ill equipped to deal with these a lot of the trauma that these students face in a way that can help them to thrive in a classroom. And so not only are the co counselors not equipped, the teachers are not either. And so this spills over and it does impact the overall educational experience and landscapes in our school. um board colleagues and um members of our organization. I think this is important because how can we collectively come together to seriously address this that has been presented

050to us in about the emotional health of our students, our teachers and other staff members within our building because we know that this overall impacts the whole learning experience. So what themes and mechanisms can we put in place? How can we leverage our relationships? Cuz we understand there's a cost associated with everything. So, how can we properly leverage our community partnerships in order to put things um that are necessary to improve the the overall mental health of our organization, students, and teachers um so that they can be positioned to thrive and to do well. Um, additionally, we know as a district we have Project Rise, um, which is our McKenna Veto funded program, which is great and they're doing a lot of great things. We also have collaborations with the United Way. We know we

051have our different pantries and at our various schools that offer resources. Um, but again, it's about being very intentional to leverage even more relationships and wraparound services for our students. Um lastly uh this week I also um attended a professional development that aligns with our focus of whole child development and it was a workshop presented by Johnny Reid of project healed and it aligns with everything that all of us have been presented with today board members and even the presentations of our summer program and it deals with a healing centered learning approach and this this approach moves beyond trauma trauma informed education by focusing on assetbased strategies that affirm student identity, build resilience, and strengthen community connections, emphasizing collective healing and the belief that every child has the capacity to thrive, I'm sorry, to thrive

052despite challenges. So, it's basically just in informing and equipping students with the proper tools that a teacher or um the type of counselors that we have in our buildings would not be equipped to necessarily address when these students face traumas as far as murders, students who unalive themselves. I had a student share with me a couple weeks ago that was at a summer program that she was really in the way because one of her middle school classmates at Bookto Middle unal alive themsself and she I said, "Well, we have services. How how did that work for you?" and she said, "Well, well, originally they came and they talked to the whole class and met with us, but it was nothing after that." And it's a capacity problem and resources. And so, again, this is why

053my charge and my challenge to us all is how can we effectively leverage relationships that necessarily does not have to come out of general funds, but with all these community organizations and partnership that can help us service this need. Lastly, I would like to congratulate Dr. I believe the name is pronounced Yanick Rice Lamb who was a 1976 graduate of BTO High School on being named the journalism educator of the year which is a prestigious award which recognizes exceptional service commitment and academic guidance in the field of journalism. Dr. Rice Lamb's career as an independent journalist, author, professor, and former chair of the department of media and journalism and film at Howard UN University has paved the way for countless African-American journalists to enter newsrooms across across the country. Her achievements are a source of

054pride for Akran public schools and an inspiration to our current students. So again, that's a 1976 graduate from Brook High School. Great things are happening in the district and will continue to happen. That does conclude the president's report. Um, we do have now the superintendence report and uh, Superintendent Ali, you have some updates. Thank you, President Jackson. First, I would like to uh put a spotlight on our G Foundation and Akran Public Schools, which are proud to announce the three-year renewal of Essential Experiences. The Elementary Essential Experiences Learning Initiative guarantees that every preK through fifth grade APS scholar can participate in a high quality curriculum-based learning experience outside of the classroom. The experiences are designed to deepen inquiry, build community connections, career aspirations, deepen academics, and promote our portrait of an elementary scholar skills. Each

055elementary grade level is paired with one Akran area arts and culture institution to host scholars on site each year serving around 9,000 students annually. We recently completed the sixth year of the essential experiences. Both the board of uh education and the G foundation approved another three years of this collaborative initiative. It is a joint pre uh press release which was released uh recently on July 29th which was also included in your Friday notes. So, at this time, I would like for us to take a moment to enjoy a video of our students. Could we put together a program that serves every single kid? Some children in our own community have never been to some of these cultural landmarks. It has really helped teachers open their eyes that the whole community is a classroom. I feel

056like there's a spark that can happen. Getting kids to ask, "What if? What can I be? What else is needed in the world that maybe I can contribute to?" The growth in students is incredible. And I I love the fact that it's for every kid. And they get to have a full experience because we're touring them around the zoo. We're doing all of these really cool stations. They're fun and they're really surprising. You learn a lot of stuff. This program really feels like our community just opening its arms to the children of Akran public schools. And these aren't just field trips. These aren't just learning experiences. These are essential experiences. At this time, please help me welcome and recognize our G leaders who helped to ensure this work is possible for our scholars. I see

057Laura Dola, who is the G's senior program officer for education. If she would please come forth and share a few words with us. Thank you so much, uh, Superintendent Outley, and, um, thank you to the board for, um, renewing this investment in this deep commitment. I'll be super brief. Um, all I want to say is that G, I'd love you to know, is extremely proud of this program, of this partnership with Akran Public Schools, uh, and with the cultural institutions that we partner with. Um, we're honored to, uh, see that all children, not just a few, all children in the elementary grades get to have these experiences in our community that are memorable, um, and that do exactly what we want that to do. Experiences that deepen their learning, open their eyes to the possibility

058of what if, um, spark that natural curiosity, and make learning deeper and and, um, and of course fun. Um, and so I'd also like to thank uh in addition to you all in the leadership at APS um three of the APS folks who are closest to this work and who really make the magic happen. Uh, and that's uh Marcy Ibra, uh, uh, Beth Winder and Trisha Kelly who has some sort of magic wand that makes all the kids go everywhere and do everything and everything runs smoothly. So um, thank you all. Um, we're proud to be your partner and we're happy to see this continue on for the next few years. Thank you. At this time, I would like to uh provide a presentation regarding our retention and recruitment efforts. So, if our team could

059please come up after the presentation, they will field any questions from the board. Good evening, board president, vice president, board members, superintendent, and treasurer. Tonight, we are here to share our recruitment strategies for both staff and students. Before we discuss the specific actions, initiatives, we want to emphasize one key point. our number one recruitment strategy. That strategy is ensuring that every single person in Akran public schools understands that they are an ambassador for APS. Regardless of your role, whether you're a classroom teacher, you're in the classroom, on the bus, in an office, in the cafeteria, or maintaining our facilities, you represent Akran public schools every day. The way we interact with families, students, colleagues, and our community shapes the way we are seen by others. With that as our foundation, we'll now walk through the

060targeted strategies and concrete steps we're taking to actively recruit and retain both students and staff. Good evening, board members. Uh, Superintendent Mr. Bowers. Um, uh, so we're we have a a a slideshow obviously with a lot of information. Well, I didn't break it. She's Oh, it's turned on. Got back up. Okay. Um so we we have a slideshow with uh with a lot of informations and and dense explanations. There will be an opportunity at the end to ask questions. So not to stick a pen in it when you see it, but stick a pen in it when you see it. Uh jot it down and then when we come back to the end, we'll be able to answer your questions in full. Uh we're going to live a lot in this theory. If we recruit,

061retain, and develop staff and deliver quality instruction, engaging experiences, and welcoming environments, then the community of Akran will thrive. We're going to talk a little bit about and mostly about cornerstone 3, but you will hear all of our cornerstones woven through, every cornerstone woven through uh this presentation. What Mrs. Carter talked about was every employee, every educator, every opportunity. And so my partner in this work and now newly um joining this recruitment and retention effort is Mrs. Wilma Alexander who's going to take us through these first this first slide first. Okay. So good evening everyone. I'm Wilma. As Larry said um I'm just joining this year and so there's a little learning curve here for me. Um but before I get started let me say that I am a product of this. I actually started

062uh here in Akran public schools as an educational assistant. I have worked my way through to be here today and I shared that with Larry a little bit ago. So under the recruitment and retention, we're looking to attract, engage, and employ highquality talent to serve our students. Implement a multiaceted strategy that combines universal, targeted, and creative initiatives to build a robust and diverse talented pipeline. And under that, we're going to proactively build relationship with our candidates, and I'm currently working in that space right now to enhance our district's reputations as an employer of choice. Candidate care streamlined that process to improve the candidate experience that they have here in Akran to where they want to return to work here in Akran. Thank you. She said she was just going to do one slide, otherwise she'd

063be doing this whole thing. Sorry. Uh so, uh one of the things that Superintendent Outley has charged us with is to make sure that we all see everybody in this work. And so it's not just that this recruitment lives with Mrs. Wilma Alexander, I'm sorry, Mrs. Cohen Alexander or Mr. Johnson or Mrs. Carter. It's that everybody sees this work in every part of their in every part of their departments. So uh we worked tirelessly this year with our communication department to ensure that we had a comprehensive communication plan so that we had better online presence uh and the information was streamlined. You do not want me marketing really important information because marketing is an is a professional skill and there are things that our marketers see that I just I just don't see. and and

064so they we they've been great partners making sure that we get the right information out to the right people strategically uh aiming at the people that we need, the candidates that we need. Uh our goal this year was to expand our candidate pool. Uh we worked with neighboring districts through uh partnerships with Camera. Camera is um a joint effort was a joint effort with uh a lot of minority um groups to a lot of school districts to recruit minority teachers to our profession. This year we did job fairs, we hosted quarterly talent fairs and employment fairs uh to try and recruit really the highest quality of candidates. And I talked about it just a little bit, the messaging, every employee, every student, every opportunity. That means when you're in the when you're in the line

065at Walmart or Acme, when there's an opportunity to talk about Arkham Public Schools, you talk about Aken Public Schools. I talk about a public schools all the time because I live with educators um and and partners uh targeted. So that's this is a little bit a little bit more uh honed in uh we worked we work with university partners to ensure that our pre-ervice efforts lead right back to an application with a public schools. That means strong relationships with our schools um pre-ervice commitment so field experience student teachers. We have metrics now that we haven't had in the past with our um with our partners in the University of Akran uh and Kent. We also work with Walsh and Ashen and all of the all of the uh surrounding uh universities, but our our commitment

066is with our closest our closest universities. Um and we have some metrics to support on that. Um this year we did some on the spot hiring much to the dismay of our hiring coordinators. they were coming back and I said, "Well, I got a couple more letters of intent. Uh, if there was a candidate that jumped off the page at me and said, I want to be in Akran public schools, we're hiring on the spot." And we have we're we'll be interviewing another candidate uh another kiddo that we just a former Akran Early College alum who is coming back to Akran to teach uh in one of our middle schools. Super excited about that. I remember him when he was just a little fella. No, don't knock him. He's another one. Um, and then the

067the last one on this one is to really attract interested candidates to our alternative pathway. If you graduated in something other than education, but you find your calling back in our classrooms and Akan public schools, uh, we have a pathway for that and we're looking to build on that and I'll talk about that a little bit later. And then our more intensive efforts, and we've talked about this a lot, our grow your own pipeline where we're enhancing our employee development. There are a lot of other districts around us um in this area, and I say this with great pleasure and prejudice. I do not believe that they have any they're anywhere close to our professional development. The professional development that our teachers and our staff get is world class and we are looking to reef

068that up even more. uh superintendent has given us some charges to be different to be innovative and that's exactly what we plan on doing. Uh the last thing that I want to say about this slide is uh we we are going to talk a little bit about uh collaborating and recruiting our own retired teachers. Uh there is a process that is spelled out. There is more information um that we'll talk about a little bit later on if there's questions, but you're actually going to see the first step later on today in your agenda. Um, I think that's it. Oh, I'm sorry. And we talked a little bit about staffing agencies. I know uh member Autri has challenged us to to look outside to see if there are other staffing agencies that can support our needs

069and there are uh Teach for America is another one of those as for example is another agency that that specializes in recruiting teachers, training them and then bringing them to to districts. That does come at a cost somewhere between per teacher anywhere between $3 to $5,000 per per candidate. Now, there's a deal if you get 20 candidates, you know, there's there's a little bit of a a break on the cost, but with any staffing agency, there's going to be a cost. Teach for America offers it per per candidate. There are other staffing agencies that we are working with now that we would look at it will be per hour but there's we we don't have that information yet that is to come. Um and then this this piece here is it says investment and innovation

070intentionally. Uh Dr. Hodto has challenged us relentlessly to look at what is it how do we increase revenue and you know that's not about a levy. It's about how do we get students back into our district. And so what what this talks about is how do we keep teachers so that teachers want to stay and how do we move students into coming back to Akran public schools. We talked a little bit about some opportunities today in superintendent uh in the superintendent's office. None of those are ready to share out. We just asked permission to to go through the design process and think that through so that when we have the innovation to share it is ready and the cake is baked for you. The next thing that we're going to talk about that we not

071we but Dr. Lash is going to talk through is the student recruitment piece. U be before you take your seat, can you um just give the board an idea of what's coming towards them regarding growing our own. Yes. Like how we talk with our eyes. Yes. Uh so we we are um when we talk about growing our own we're talking about high school and so and and further. So there are a number of students that that I've met. One you just saw you probably saw an article today um in the in the signal. I believe it was on seon. He's he's one of the students that we are recruiting to return to a public schools. Now he has said un unforgivingly that he plans on being the superintendent of backon public schools. So um we

072we are absolutely 100% recruiting him to return. We will keep our hands wrapped around him and support him. He'll be a k on a full ride close enough so he can do his field experience right here in a public schools and hopefully hopefully we will be able to offer him a position right here in a public schools. It's not just save. Part of this grow your own is to keep our babies from kindergarten all the way to employment. That would be me. I was a I was a a student in a public schools as a kindergartener and and I'm I'm now still serving the district. So, it's it's more than just grow your own from outside, but it is taking care of our own. Uh you'll see a little bit more about Savon um maybe

073a little bit later next week. Dr. L. Dr. Lash. Good evening. Oh, there's another I just wanted to thank Thank you, Mr. Johnson. That was excellent. Dr. Lash, tonight um I would like to provide a brief um kind of highlevel overview of student recruitment and uh where we are now, what we're doing, and where we're headed. And you can see that this work uh ties directly to our strategic um plan and specifically cornerstone 4 that speaks to our partnerships, family and community engagement and this objective specifically around increasing the number of um Akran resident scholars in our uh public schools. And so I've uh highlighted here three strategies uh that speak to a fully funded communications and marketing plan uh countywide awareness uh that highlights the uniqueness of our um district and the the programming

074that we offer and looking at our enrollment data to really kind of delve into reasons why um our families choose outside of of Akran public schools. And so uh with this goal of increasing enrollment again we'll talk through the current uh enrollment landscape and our efforts and opportunities. So this chart right here is the district's enrollment trend as reported on the state report card. So you can see uh kind of um and it goes back the last five years. So you'll see the year postco where we were and how things have uh transpired uh up to last year. We ended the year again this is um what's reported to the state and comes out on our state report card. We ended the year with 19,737 students and according to our student information system uh right

075now our current enrollment is around 19,300. And I say that but I can tell you that our engagement center is busy busy busy. This is that time of year where um our families kind of uh kick it into gear. It's like it's August. It's time for school. And so uh we see I had a phone call with a student um just today uh that is coming back from Topath to uh North High School. So those things are uh we will change the number tomorrow will probably be 100 or 200 more than than where we sit. And so um when we think about uh our recruitment um efforts, we know that recruitment matters. And so we've really thought about this in the sense of a yearlong campaign with um key points if you will key kind

076of happenings in in the district. And so um open enrollment generally uh starts in October and we run that through December. And so that's where um I think you all are very familiar with that. We um run intradistrict and interdist open enrollment and I'm going to show you on the next slide, but we're very excited um to showcase the programming at each of our high schools in a different kind of way than what we've done in in the past. So, I'll save that. And then we get through open enrollment and we kind of gear up and get ready for preschool kindergarten registration. So, we hit that pretty hard. And typically in March, we um have a district-wide registration night where all of our elementarymentaries are open. Uh we market that and encourage our families to

077um do kindergarten registration early uh so that we can kind of get them in the system and then they're they're also um able to take advantage of our summer programming as you as you just heard. And then when we kind of gear down from preschool kindergarten registration, again there are pushes and different things happening throughout the year. Uh we start to look at our summer outreach and different events that we uh will have a presence at through the summer. Last summer, thanks to um Laura and the G Foundation, had dollars to be able to do some different interesting things with with programming over the summer to push kindergarten registration. Uh this summer we've been to the remedy church, back to school shoe giveaway already, the West Akran 5K, the you matter um at Joy Park,

078uh backpack adventure at the zoo, and we have a host of other events coming up. Uh the faith place block party, the Akran City Festival, Hoops for Homeless, uh there are several if we learn about events. uh we we try to tap uh different people to um represent Akran public schools, but we like to have a a a presence of the school district um within our community. And I should say that this is not just a student services or student and family services um initiative. This is as Miss Carter opened up, this is all of our our jobs. And we'll um talk about that in a little bit. But um again the community showcases um crossdep departmental work here with college and careermies um the various other uh departments communications of course um to really

079look at how we've done the eighth grade showcase in the past and um really getting our families out and thinking how can we make it more meaningful? uh how can we get them into the buildings? Because having been um a principal in recruiting students, sometimes it makes a difference when you're in the building. We might have our perception of what happens there, but when we can physically get into the building, kind of feel that culture, see the programming, interact with the adults, we kind of walk away with a different feel. Um and so we're very excited to um have each of our high schools host a showcase. So you see the dates, mark your calendar. I expect to see each and every one of you there. Um but we are excited to open up the

080schools uh invite not only our um current or rising eighth graders to come and check out our programming, but also um our families that live in the the city in within the district boundaries. um but again are choosing to educate their students elsewhere, we invite those families in and we will also have of course our um human resources department available um to again just showcase the the district. And so again very um very grateful for our grant dollars with the expanded opportunities grant um and our partnership with CCA to sustain that work. And so behind all of that, um, you might be thinking, well, how do you get, uh, these things pushed out? We have had, uh, a long-standing relationship with with.org, uh, to help us with our marketing campaigns, um, and Dr. uh, Hodo

081with the communications department in uh, folding into some of that work also and and helping us. And so, um, within our marketing and communication strategy, of course, we have our internal, uh, sorts of things that we do. We can send email blasts out to our families, texts and all calls, um, to let our families know, hey, this is open enrollment season or this is kindergarten registration or we have this event going on. So, we have those internal pushes, but we also utilize traditional methods, uh, billboards and postcards. I don't know if you've ever been dri uh driving down market and have seen um some of the the billboards. Uh I know I feel pretty proud when I see them that not only yes is that my work but I didn't design it but um definitely

082uh work with the partners to do so but also that that's our district. We're up there. We're um you know uh showcasing who we are and then our tra uh digital marketing with our landing page. Last year we created um a YAPS page that our families could um be driven to so that they can see why why do you want to make that choice for Acronic? Here are all the wonderful things that we offer uh Google searches where um I know many of you I'm sure go to Google um and type something in when you're searching. Well, we pay for our information. If you search for kindergarten, Agram Public Schools pops to the list. uh we pay for organic and uh paid social media advertisement and also uh video shorts on on YouTube. So if

083you've ever been on Facebook um and seen our posts come through and and Dr. Hodo andorg can uh speak to this best, but there are a lot of things that happen be um behind the scenes that you can kind of push and target different areas. And so you may or may not see um videos depending on what you know your your feeds typically uh look like, but I have seen them and uh they've been uh pretty wonderful. And so um those are some of our our current efforts. And so when we think about our opportunities, um so we know that there's always more work to do, right? And um places where we can grow. And so we're looking for those ways to strengthen the promotion of our programming and our district opportunities because one of

084the things that we realize is we know the wonderful things that happen in the district, but how do we make sure that our family and the the broader community knows? um understand reasons families choose outside of APS. We started uh with.org um some work around um a survey and then uh picked it up with communications to develop a postcard that we mailed out to families that we know live in district but attend out to understand from them. What made you make that choice? Um what is it that you look for um in your your uh schooling for your your student? what would um make you want to come back to Akran public? Those kinds of things. And so we didn't get the response uh number-wise that we were looking for compared to the number of

085postcards that we mailed out, but we did get good information. Um and one of the things that we've learned is that uh direct mail is is one mode. And so we need to figure out how do we get to um those those families. Um again ongoing general and targeted recruitment, retention, reclamation, marketing uh plan. So in addition to those events that happen at different times, you know what are the in between pushes that that we're doing. And the final point um that we are all walking billboards. Um we carry that that power in how we message the district, how we um interact. I won't reiterate the words that Mrs. Carter said, "But we are all walking billboards for the organization that we work for and that we we represent." And so we have a a

086great responsibility there. And so with that, um, we are APS forward. We know that Akran is a great city, a great community. We know that Akran public schools is the cornerstone of the city's success. And so how do we get that um message out to the the broader community that Akran public schools is the place uh where great things happen. It is the place to work. It is the place to live, thrive, grow, and achieve. And so with that, we will open the floor for any questions that you might have. Yes, member Hall. Thank you, Madam President. Just two quick comments and one quick question. Um, first I would like to say thank you both for all of this. Um, I appreciate the recruitment. Um, I saw a really nice article on a APS celebrate

087seven scholars recipients for grow your own program. Um, and I would like to what you guys are doing is changing the trajectory of when we have people from Akran that go to school to become teachers. they come to APS for um student teaching and especially our men, they don't get hired. They go to Cleveland cuz Cleveland takes them. We don't accept them. So, they're good enough to come to APS for student teaching, but not good enough for us to hire them. And I've heard more than five to six different male teachers that have said we don't get the jobs at APS. So, I would love to change that um and just make a difference. So, I'm excited to see um some of the data, you know, in the future. Also, thank you um Dr. Lash

088for uh giving the information about Topath with one student coming back. That's still huge because as I said before, a lot of our students leave because they cannot afford the $50 credit recovery classes. So, you know, I'm still, you know, wanting to hear how we can change that to keep our students here at APS versus them going to Topath. I think we've lost likeund I can't remember the number missley that you had sent me but about 120 something students that have left the district to go to toe path because of the credit recovery. Um so if we can pull some more back in that would be awesome news. And then also as you stated um celebrating you know APS and so forth. Do we have any yard signs that say um APS or APS proud

089or something like that? I think I saw one in your yard. But do we have some um that we can share or I'm looking at Dr. Hodo. She's like, "Don't look at me, Dr. Lash." Um that's part of our multi-prong approach. um when we think about a countywide kind of awareness, how can we get APS proud or whatever that um bill um little yard sign or whatever looks like in our businesses where our families frequent in yards. Yes, it's part of our approach. Um so that uh contract will will be coming uh for for approval. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Member Hall. Uh, member Harrison and Alexander. Member Harrison, please. Thank you, Madam President. Madame President, um, I I would really love to have this in a committee where we can really start to

090unpack um, some things um, and and certainly um, one of the questions and I I know it's not not to be answered here, but uh, three people come to mind. Darnell Phillips, Courtney Brown, and Bryce Harris. um who um hopefully we we we can keep them in the district or we have them in the district, but we receive a lot of um information about someone who wanted to come, who wanted to stay and but I would love to have a more robust conversation in a committee meeting um because it uh really goes to question how much are we losing when we lose a teacher? How much do we lose training a teacher for a year then losing a teacher? But I would love to have that conversation. I'd love to see this presentation in a

091committee. Thank you, Member Harrison. Um, Vice President Alexander. Yes. Thank you, Madam President. I um I have a a a comment and a and a question too. Uh the comment is um we got to educate our our parents too and that doesn't come just from inside the district. That's going to be all of us who are outside, all of us who are board members and those who are who are in in contact with people. So, we got to we got to sell uh the district. So, we got to educate parents about the district and educate them about things that they don't know about it. They have questions, give them the answers they need so they can uh be aware of what's going on. And the other my question is I know we look at uh

092H.B.CU, but I want to say how many do we look at outside of Ohio and how many of those have we um got invol or tried to make contact with to to develop a pipeline from that university to Akran public schools. I think if we look at some of those outside of Ohio uh and and and make a contact, maybe they will push some of them to us and we can get more males because we need male teachers. I mean, women are doing an outstanding job, which they've done forever, but we need some males and I think some African-American males would be perfect. So, um maybe looking at some of those H.B.CU that are outside of of of Ohio as well to build a pipeline so we can have a direct pipeline to Akran from

093those universities. So that that's a question and a comment, but you don't have an answer right now. No. Yes. Superintendent uh just charged us with that. It it's how do we invest and recruit minorities uh to public schools and part of one of our strategies is to is to find the incentives to bring those students to Ohio. It is it is not easy. um bringing bringing males to education is not going to be going to H.B.CU. It is going to be a longer it's going to be a longer recruitment plan. I think Savon is one of those. We'll be hiring another one here in a couple days. So, I I think it's there there's going to be a lot more strategies around how do we invest in our minority males to make sure that that

094that we are we are a destination for them. because there's some statistics that's been out there in research that all kids, you know, uh when they have African-American male learn and they talk about all kids, whether they're black, white, Hispanic, uh uh le Oceanian, whatever they may be, uh that they learn well with those individuals. So maybe that's something we can go back and look at the research as well. Maybe that can tell us something as well. Thank you, Madam President. Member Altry, then Dr. MR. Thank you, Madam President. Thank you for this information. I really appreciate it. Um, and I just wanted to make a few comments and I think I've shared with my colleagues before. You know, we have all of these scoreboards that we invested in about 10 years ago that are

095in all of our high school gyms and I think that's just something we're missing. You know, we have captive audiences at these sporting events. So maybe we can utilize uh those scoreboards uh even more um at halftime, etc. Um I also just this weekend I was looking at some uh postings for on the housing market and I saw several companies, you know, they list the schools in the neighborhood. They don't even mention Akran public schools at all. And I think that's a shame for any real estate company that's doing that because it takes a lot of work to list every other school except Akan public school. And so I don't know what the relationships are, who the person is that we can connect with. Um but they should be happy to share um that this

096is a viable district to come to. Um and then just lastly, no not lastly, Akran action. I know that's upcoming. I know I attended one and it was absolutely amazing commercial for our district and I'm hoping we get some footage this next time so that we can showcase that. I mean it was just I was blown away at the acron action event. So hopefully we'll utilize that. And then and in terms of Teach for America, I know I keep bringing that up. I know whatever it is about Teach for America that people don't like, I don't know what it is, but I'm thinking about the staffing at these schools who have been inconsistent for years and years and years and years. And my understanding, one of the benefits of Teach for America is that they

097have to have a two-year commitment. And so with teachers, you know, that sometimes leave turnover, etc., Um, I think that could be a benefit to some of our schools who are struggling with keeping teachers in place for a minimum of two years. That could be helpful. And so, um, the cost associated with not having consistent teachers, you got to weigh that out, too. So, that's all I want to say. And thank you again. I look forward to hearing more. Yes, Dr. Molar. Thank you, Madame President, and thank you everyone for the presentation. Thank you for telling me about the YAPS web page. I did not know about it. And for anyone else who's visiting for the first time, there's a video that will automatically play as soon as you get to the page. So, you

098might want to have your laptop on mute for that. Um, but I do also concur what uh member Harrison said. This both of these I think are separate topics and both of them need dug deeply into in committee. Um so in preparation for committee um I am I'm sure all of us around this table are keenly aware of the cost of mailers. Um, so I think I would agree that the mailer might not be a viable uh data collection point in the uh future, but I'm very curious. Um, is there a grade level that there is a drop off of students? Um, I know that generally as a city there are less students. that I live in a neighborhood that there are 80 homes and when that neighborhood was built 75 of them were families

099of three and families of four and right now there are eight families of kids in my that whole neighborhood. Now we're the only ones that go to Akran public schools. So there's there's also challenge and opportunity. And so I'm wondering if if there's a grade level that's drop off. One of the things I forgot to mention during my community reflection is an ongoing question about um whether students get uh busing or transportation if they go to a different school. Um so there are people going to different schools. So I wonder if there's drop off when there's a transition of school. So that is just um in preparation for that. I do have a couple questions for today on the other presentation. Um and so the first is um for you Mr. Johnson. you made a

100comment and I wrote down in my notes. You said the first step is later today in the agenda. So, if you could let me know which part of that what what part is late in is is in today's agenda for that. That's my first question. Then I have a follow-up. Thanks. Uh you're you're referring to recruiting retired teachers. The first part in that process is to I believe it's 60 days, Mr. Wamus, if I mess this up. I believe it's 60 days prior to um you're actually taking action, you ha we have to notify the public that we we are we intend to hire a retired public schools teacher. Thank you. So in our agenda today, what we're doing is we are providing notice that we intend to hire retired teachers. Correct. So, thank you

101for letting us know about that relevant part of today's presentation to today's voting items. I really appreciate that. And then I have a follow-up question on Teach for America since it was brought up. Um, I think I know a lot of people the cost is the problem, but also knowing that we do have a very successful grow your own program. Um I remember when we got our new desks, whatever this is, um the teacher who made the desk and then it was a different teacher who made the uh metal work there too. That both of those were in our grow your own program where they were earning their lensure while they were teaching here in in a similar fashion that a teach for America type program does. Um for clarification though, do we currently contract

102with Teach for America? No. Okay, I'm asking that because at 5:16 today, um the district put out a statement that said I'm going to try to find it. Uh that we the district also maintains its collaboration with Teach for America to recruit recent college graduates to teach in underserved communities. So is that statement that just went out basically in the beginning of our meeting, is that true? We we are we are in contact we have been in contact with them. We do not have a contract with them. We have we have not hired anybody from teach. It's a possibility. I think November is the deadline when when all those contracts have to happen. So to the to the extent that we are exploring options, yes, that's very confusing, but thank you for saying that we

103do not currently have a contract. Thank you, member Sykes. Thank you, Madame President, Madame President, members of the board. Uh, so we it is important that we do some of this work in committee. We started this board meeting at 5:30. It is now 6:55 and we have not gotten to our main agenda items. Um, I saw on the presentation and I've seen presentations throughout since 530 529. uh I have seen very few numbers. So if we're going to talk about our summer camps and what's happened with that, then how many how many children do we actually have in summer camp? What was that? But but on your presentation, I'm I'm looking for some measurable outcome as I am with everything. Measurable outcome. Why? Because that's how we determine how we're going to pay the costs

104of doing teaching our children. But I have not heard any measurable outcomes. I saw one slide that talked about our children and where we were and what has happened. I think you said that now uh someone we have 19,700 children we was thought to have but we actually have 19,300 children. And so what happened there? So how many children have we lost? And I thought when we started the beginning of the year, we started off with close to 20,000 students. So what happened there? So, and how many teachers are we trying to recruit? Did we try to recruit? And how many did we actually recruit? A measurable outcome. How many students did we try to recruit? And how many students did we actually recruit? A measurable outcome. And how do we know if we're being

105successful? How do we know what's working and what's not working? You know, we have to determine what it costs to educate our children. And and we know that the more children we have and the more children we're able to recruit, then the better we can educate our children. But I'm not hearing that. I I I have no doubt that we are all engaged and we're involved and we're happy and all of that, but it costs to educate. So, how many teachers were we planning on recruiting and how many did we actually recruit? How many students did we try are we trying to recruit for this new year? And how many did we actually and what is the actual number of students that we lost this year? And what do we plan on doing about that?

106That's a measurable outcome. And when you tell us you want us to show up for an event, then what do you want us to do with that event? Measurable outcome. And when I talk to the voters in the city of Akran and ask them to support what we're doing in the school system, I need some numbers to be able to say if I'm asking you to pay this much in millillage because we have this many children and we want to be able to treat them to and teach them so that they are able to pass our proficiency test. Then what will that cost the average voter? And we can do that if we find out how many children we have, how many children we recruited, how many children we lost, the millage that they're expected

107to pay per for a $100,000 home. that way. That is the way I feel comfortable talking about what this school system who has a budget of a half a billion dollars is doing with the monies. It's words. I see a lot of words on the on your presentation. I see very very few numbers. But when you talk to the individuals that pay for educating our children, they want to know how much is it going to cost and how much did it cost us to recruit two or three teachers and what did it cost us when we lost four or 500 or thousand students. So again, I would agree with uh the members that have said that this is the kind of information that we need to dig into in our committees that we need to

108be able to while we're feeling good about what we're doing to be able to say if we're able to show to the voters, to the individuals that's paying for all of us to be here, how much is it costing them to do that? And what are they really getting for their money? Thank you, member Sykes. Any other board member questions? Well, wait a minute. Yes, Madam President. Do you not any answers tonight on measurable outcomes? Yes. So, I could speak to um a few uh member Sykes. So you mentioned uh we did start the year last year with just over 20,000 students and the slide that um was shown was where we ended the year according you got the clicker uh according to the um secure data center. There we go. We ended the year

109with 19,737. So of course um you know there are a lot of uh changes in there with students moving. So yep we can surely uh pull the the data to let you know um the change and where students if they open and rolled out or moved out or withdrew to charter schools. um that is data that we've been working with um our technology department so that we can uh again as I showed you um one of the strategies for us to be able to analyze our own enrollment data so we can understand better what's what's happening with the movement of our students um I do have and I can uh share this with you I do have the report of our open enrollment campaign last year and it will tell you exactly um what we

110paid for the campaign ain the goals that we set in terms of um enrollment, the goals that we set in terms of the number of applications and how we met each of those goals. Um and um it also has metrics on the digital marketing that we utilize. Of course, we can't tell how many people saw the billboard, those kinds of things, but we do have metrics that we actually did um back down to what did that mean for the number of dollars that were brought back into the district. So I can make sure um that we share that. Uh we also have metrics on our kindergarten um enrollment campaign. This was high level so I um didn't I knew we were on a short um time frame but I do have those metrics um that

111we can definitely bring to committee and delve into and in the meantime um circle back to some of these other questions that you had so we um can share that with you especially about the change in the numbers of where we started last year versus where we ended. So, great questions. Uh, member Sykes, the the question about where did we start, it's a complic it's not complicated, it's a sliding answer. So, where we started in the spring of 25 um let's say we were we were recruiting I think we were short 20 pair of professionals. Um and I think we had 30 I think we had 30 intervention specialists openings. Um so the the number the numbers move and they slide throughout the course of the year. So there's not I mean my answer would

112be we would recruit 300 teachers. The goal would be to recruit as many every person that I spoke to. Um the answer a more specific answer to vacancies. Uh we started this kind of hiring season with elementary vacancies of teachers. 93 elementary vacancies uh 61 filled. We have 32 left to fill. In middle school we started with 59 vacancies. We filled 31. We have 28 left to fill. And in high school we had 48 open vacancies. Uh we filled 34. We have 14 left to fill. And in college of careermies we had 16 openings. We filled eight. And we still have uh eight left to fill. There being I mean another answer could would be somewhere in the in the metrics of applications and time to fill and all of those things. I can get

113those I can get that information I can get that information to you as well. Thank you. Are there any additional followups? Okay. Lastly, I would say I think what I'm hearing is like it's data driven decision- making. At the board meeting, when we have the board meeting, it's a action meeting and that's why I think the student success committee when that's rolling, a lot of stuff can be rolled out, but the committees tell the story and then at the board meeting the decisions are made. So, the story everything is laid out. And so what I'm hearing and my understanding because you you all start you started off and you stated we have metrics metrics metrics but it's just not printed the numbers because you stated that the metrics exist. Um and the the uh summer

114programs they listed the numbers because it was a 25% that was not filled and it was over 3,000 students who attended the summer program. Um I think it's just easier when we see what we spent and what's the return on our investment. But I also in the community to uh member Syy's point uh the qu what I hear how was posited a little different from how Miss Sykes framed it which is also a valid point is I'm paying this money and these kids ain't can't even read like what are y'all doing that's how it's presented to me or I'm paying we paying I don't want to pay any money for this levy and these kids blah blah it's negative right so I think when we tell the story and how we frame things up is

115when we show percentage-wise our um our yearly pro our AYP our annual yearly progress. If we can show data points where our students start from kindergarten through whatever grade, this is the average of how our students perform if they start at APS and stay at APS for this long, which is some of the data that I inquired about as far per cluster because then it can tell a story of the improvements if we're putting in this program, right? And this is how the gains that we've had as a result of like the letters program when we can say hey we implemented this and now we've seen gains in literacy and this is the percent the people who approach me that's the type of data that's what I quote it's like oh we did like we

116had this improvement you know this is what happened at Helen Arnold the academic growth to show this is a direct return on your investment because what comes out the school directly impacts the outlay of the city so it's all interconnected just just I just want to say that the story can be told in committee and then the hard facts, the data, the measurable stuff presented here and it can be quick and succinct. But I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you. Um, President Jackson, that does conclude my report. Thank you, Superintendent. At this time, I'll take a a point of privilege. I do see that Mayor Malik has uh come and so at this time uh we'll have uh the mayor to present uh as far as a comment to

117share uh with the board which you need to share. Thank you. Your council coming with you or I don't think so. Okay. Yeah. He'll he'll he'll come grab me if I say something. I can't. Uh good evening everyone. Uh it's good to be with all of you this evening. Um just wanted to to come and speak just briefly. Um I know we've been working throughout the summer on the school resource officer contract uh for this upcoming year and um hopeful that we can get that uh finished tonight uh so that we can move forward in in two weeks as we begin the new school year. Um I think this is an important program the city's had for many years and I'm hopeful. I know we've had some back and forth today and I think uh

118summer vision's coming to you later today. Uh but um I think this is very essential for our our school and our district um and our students and so uh we appreciate the dialogue and I just want to come and uh share that with all of you tonight. Thank you um mayor and just for clarity we just for transparency present like this because this is not something we would discuss in executive session. So if anyone is inquiring thank you uh Mayor Malik. Um any comments or member Harrison? Um thank you, Madam Chair. Um and thank you to Mayor Malik. We certainly appreciate him taking the time to come down. Um and we certainly appreciate all of the dialogue that we have had um since January of 2025 to try to um put this agreement in place.

119Um and the um um we have really as a board have expressed uh our appreciation to the SRO program and how much we are grateful to the city of Akran for the partnership. U we certainly want to um continue um to provide um for our students, our staff and to the board u for the SRO program. And um I would hope that we would be able to certainly come together and come to an agreement. Um I I just don't think it's going to happen tonight u because there are still some things that we have to um go over and we have to get some language together and we want to be fair to all parties and we want to certainly u be ready to go with a clear understanding of how we're progressing forward. but

120certainly want to say that we look forward to the SRO's um returning to APS um as we would welcome them here and we welcome the partnership with the city of Akran. Thank you. Thank thank you uh member Harrison uh Mayor Johnson you know this is very unconventional but you can have your followup because you can stay at the mic. for your follow-up question. Thank you so much. Your followup. I just want to note that the the next board meeting is in two weeks when school will have started. And so I I would, you know, really strongly say that if we want to move forward with the program this school year, we do need to have a contract uh today. And uh I know that uh our legal council has been in touch with with APS

121legal counsel all day today and that there have been several back and forths. Um, and I believe we're in a place where we can move forward at the end of the day. Obviously, that's the sports decision, but uh really for all the parties involved, for our officers who have to make arrangements for our students, for everyone, I think we do need to move forward today. So, that's just my two cents. Uh, but uh I appreciate them. Thank you, Mayor. We appreciate as well. Thank you. Okay. Currently there is no treasurer report. So we'll move on. Is that correct? Uh Mr. Bowers, there's Okay, thank you. U we'll move on with the approval of our previous um meeting minutes. Is there a motion to approve the regular board meeting minutes for July 28th of 2025? I

122move to approve the July 28th meeting minutes. It's been moved by member Altry. Is there a second? Second. It's been second by member hall. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none, Mr. Bowers, roll call, please. Miss Hall, yes. Reverend Harrison, yes. Dr. Jackson, yes. Dr. Molinar, yes. Mrs. Sykes, yes. Mr. Alexander, yes. Miss Audrey, yes. Motion carries 70. Thank you, Mr. Bowers. Next is our personnel recommendation. Superintendent Outley. Thank you, President Jackson. Does the board have any questions about the personnel items for section 10, professional staff and administrators? Member Hall. Thank you, Madam President. Just really quick, as I read through our agendas and other agendas that we've had in the past, um where we have replacements and we're hiring teachers or staff, I'm curious to find out what schools they're at. So we and I'm

123not maybe not asking for it to be in the agenda or it can be but it would be nice to know especially where we have some schools that don't have consistent teachers have substitutes always in the classrooms. Um, it'd be nice to know where we need teachers at with schools. And it'd be also nice to know that if they're being replaced or if they have substitutes because if we're doing this grow your own and all of this, um, it'd be nice to see that teachers are now um, filling the spots where there's substitute teachers that are consistent. Um, so just a report maybe November, December would be nice. Thank you. Thank you, member Hall. Any other personnel recommendation questions? All right. Seeing none, is there a motion to approve the personnel recommendations presented in categories

12410 through 20? Remember how you have another question? I do. Usually when she says like 10, 11, 12, but we're doing all personnel. We keep switching it up. So I'm just No, that's me. That's not her. That's me. I'm trying to So just a really quick um uh section 16. Um, I know I've said this before and I know that we're at a deficit and, you know, trying to cut back, but when we have these professionals and we're paying $13 an hour, I really, and I know this was brought up years ago, um, regarding with the city trying to get people to organizations, businesses to start hiring at at least $15 an hour, which is kind of a decent wage for some. Um, I just really want us to look at that. Um, because these

125teachers, peer professionals, um, whomever at $13 an hour, I don't really think that's feasible, but we can also look at that um, at a different time. But I would like to see maybe $15 being a at least a wage for our teachers or our staffing. Thank you. Thank you, member Hall. Superintendent. Yes. Thank you, Member Hall. Superintendent as member Hall reminded me uh because I tried to lay in the plane and just vote on this if there's no other question. So my apologies moral. Are there any other questions for any section? All right. Seeing in hearing none, is there a motion to approve the personnel recommendations presented in categories 10 through 20. So move. It's been moved by Vice President Alexander. Is there a second? Second. It's been seconded by member Hall. Any discussion? Seeing

126and hearing none, Mr. Bowers. Roll call, please. Reverend Harrison, yes. Dr. Jackson, yes. Dr. Molenor, yes. Mrs. Sykes, yes. Mr. Alexander, yes. Abstain from 12.2. Miss Autri, yes. Miss Hall, yes. Motion carries on everything but 12.2. 12.2 is 6 to1. Thank you. Uh Mr. Bowers, next will be the approval of the divisions, recommendations, resolutions, and oh yeah, resolutions and motions. Superintendent Outley. Does the board have any questions about the division recommendations, resolutions, and emotions for section 22? I wish to recommend, if there's no questions, the approval of the division of recommendations, resolutions, and motions in section 22. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the division and re recommendation and resolutions in section 22? So move. Thank you. It's been properly moved by Vice President Alexander. Is there a second? Second. It's been second

127by member hall. Is there any discussion? Seeing and hearing none. Mr. Bowers. Roll call, please. Dr. Jackson. Yes. Dr. Molinar. Yes. Mrs. Sykes. Yes. Mr. Mr. Alexander, yes. Miss Autri, yes. Miss Hall, yes. Reverend Harrison, yes. Motion carries 70. Thank you. Next, um, we have our business affairs recommendation. Superintendent Outlay, does the board have any questions for section 23. Thank you, member Hall. Okay, I have a few of these. Thank you, Madam President. Um, do you mind if I just kind of go down the list since we're just all 23? Okay. um for 231. Um well, really this is pretty general for all. Do we still have that committee? I know um previous Superintendent Robinson had a committee of people looking over contracts. Yeah, we still have that. Yes, we do. Okay, wonderful. Thank you.

128Um 233 with the Apple purchase of Mini MacBook 29 MacBooks for Firestone CLC. What class is this for? it. Thank you for stating the school. I appreciate that. But um uh what class will these 29 MacBooks keyboards um be? It's the visual art and design pathway at Firestone. This is their 5-year replacement cycle for their Mac. Okay, wonderful. Thank you for that. Um Okay. Okay, see that right there? That could have been right right in there and I could have read that not even, you know, had to ask that question. So, thank you about the replacements, right? So, thank you for that. Um 235 um when it talks about the the gas um and it says board owned vehicles. What does that mean? because I know we tend to use um you know board a

129lot and I don't want um the community to ask like what is this for our vehicles things like that. So I know I know it's not but it reads in here board owned vehicles. So, I just kind of wanted to be intentional with asking that question because even when kids come down, they say we got to come down to the board, you know, and sometimes they're think they think they're meeting with us and they don't. And I know that's been, you know, brought up too before. Um, are these vehicles for um maybe maintenance and that type of thing? Is those correct? Maintenance vehicles. Okay. Do you need to say anything other than correct? Thank you. Okay, that's fine. So, I would just probably encourage and these are like my little sticky notes. Maybe we change

130that language. Okay. Um just get away from always saying board because they can think it's us seven elected board members that things could be. So, I'm just trying to, you know, help people with that. Um not privately owned. They're not privately owned. It's that would be helpful. Akan public schools vehicles. Yes. Um, district vehicles. They say district district vehicles or something like that. Yeah. Um, 239 we have leader in me. Um, and maybe I should have reached out to you ahead of time to ask about that. Was that something presented to our committees about the leader in me? This is a continuation. This is not the first year. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Sorry guys. I'm Let's see. 2310. Um, it has the asbestous removal. Is this just a contract that we just keep them

131on on hand with that or is this a particular building or buildings where we're going to be paying um not to exceed 45,000 for um asbestous removal? Uh, Miss Fault, if I'm not mistaken, this is just for as we need it. It's districtwide for any building as we need it. Okay. Do we still Oh, never mind. Okay. Um, and I think last question or Oops. um about the Chromebook repairs. So, I just had a quick question about the Chromebook repairs. These students, do they get the same Chromebooks every year? And is it leading all the way through high school? Same book. Correct. And we're just repairing what's broken? Yes. And except for like when they're exiting at high school, we clean them and then they get recycled. Okay. So, they do turn them in. They

132keep them until they need to replace them. Okay. Have we ever thought of um maybe gifting the students when they graduate since they have the same book all the way through? Just something to think about. The Chromebooks that they use all through and then give new students fresh books where we're not paying so much in fixing them all the time or refurbishing a rehab because maybe that cost could potentially be a new book. We could look at comparing costs and let you know. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, last one, I promise. 2320. I just want to say thank you because this right here is a very, very good definition of what we're saving. Like Mrs. Sykes talked about measurable outcomes. Here it says, note, this is saving $130,000. Thank you. Um because it's showing that

133if we're switching and doing different things, we're saving money. So although 130,000 doesn't put a huge dent in the what 10 11 million, it's still something. So thank you for highlighting that um in this uh AT&T global service contract. So thank you guys for that. That's it. Thank you. Member Hall, are there any other questions for B in business affairs? Just for um also a point of clarity that can be re revisited at a different time um maybe an instructional policy, but about the Chromebook statement um with member Hall. Um as I understand in some schools where they receive Chromebooks and if they qualify for title funds, Chrome Chromebooks are considered like a textbook. They are. is qualified the same way. So we would you don't know what what does that mean, Miss F? Okay.

134So let me let me posit it different. They are considered like textbooks. And so since I already know the answer, I probably should have posited with certainty. And so for those that qualify, replacement funds, if the building when the when the funds are designated to specific buildings, uh to your point, if they need like renewal or they have to replace, they can use some of those funds for that. And then maybe the other part um when the information Miss Hall um asks for is provided um if we start to give away textbooks the cost I'm sorry not textbooks the uh Chromebooks the cost analysis for that versus recycle or is there if it's a time period because just like with books when we renew after so many years we order a new set of curriculum

135like if if the this device has been with the organization so long do we just lack of better word 86 it out and we're buying new equipment any anyway and how could that be um equ consistent throughout like to give those hard numbers if this even a reality or this is not something we do and it comes through title fund we can use a lot of title funds which a majority of our uh schools may qualify for but all don't so that's still a relevant question if we have to replace them because all schools don't get title one um even though it's a few so I just wanted to put that there So all that information could be available because I have so I can have the answers as well. Thank you. Uh member Hall.

136All right. Um is there a motion to approve the business fair recommendations in um section 23? So moved. It's been moved by member hall. Is there a second? Second. It's been second by Vice President Alexander. Any discussion? Seeing you hearing none. Mr. Bowers. Roll call, please. Dr. Molinor. Yes. Mrs. Sykes, yes. Mr. Alexander, yes. Miss Autri, yes. Miss Hall, yes. Reverend Harrison, yes. Dr. Jackson, yes. Motion carries 70. Thank you, Mr. Bowers. Um, next we will have our committee reports starting with uh legal contracts and board policy. Thank you, Madam President. The legal contracts and policy committee met on August the 4th here in this room. We discussed apparent bill of rights policy. Uh we also update updates to that. We reviewed policy uh another policy which was purchasing and bidding uh policy as well.

137Um our next meeting will be uh I'm sorry our next policy uh that we'll be reviewing is policies that are procurement federal government grants and policies. Uh that's one we will have to get taken care of. Uh we will also be uh looking at uh some other NEOLA policies and IOC policy as well. Um our next meeting will be September the 15th at 5:30 in this room. Uh we also have a policy this evening uh that we need to uh have for the third and final reading. And I will make a motion that we uh uh accept this policy. I make a motion for the policy. I'm sorry to accept the policy. So, the step I'm I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm I'm going too fast. My ADHD kicking in. Sorry. Hey, uh I'm

138sorry. We are uh asking for a third and final reading for purchasing and bidding policy policy 6320. Thank you, Madam President. No problem. Thank you, uh Vice President Alexander. Now, is there a motion for the third and final reading of board policy 6320, purchasing and bidding? So, move. It's been moved by member Harrison. Is there a second? Second. It's been second by member Altry. Any discussion? Thank you. Seeing and hearing none, Mr. Bowers, roll call, please. Miss Autri, yes. Miss Hall, yes. Reverend Harrison, yes. Dr. Jackson, yes. Dr. Molenor, yes. Mrs. Sykes, yes. Mr. Alexander, yes. Motion carries 70. Thank you, Mr. Bowers. Um, next we will have finance and capital management over. Thank you, Madam President. Madame President and members of the board. Uh, so the finance committee will meet on August 18th, which

139is next Monday at 4:30, and we will uh meet with our new interim treasurer, Mr. Bowers. and we're looking forward to those various presentations at the finance committee so that we can dig into those those items and uh hear more about what's happening in the finance committee. Welcome. Thank you, member Sykes. Now, next we have it says instructional policy and student achievement. Um I need just some clarification. I know instructional policy. Um did it just pair the student achievement because we talked about the committee which we approved the resolution for being its own separate the student success and achievement unless I'm I'm misunderstanding. I could be am I misreading uh okay cuz I didn't see for the last meeting I said we needed to make sure we had a date. So when we convene here

140as for when and I'll come to you after if it's instructional policy then I'll defer to you member hall. Um so instructional policy and student achievement because it usually just says instructional policy uh member Autry. Thank you Madame President. So instructional policy and student achievement committee met on Monday August the 4th and we had uh a few presentations. Uh one we already received as a full board from Tiffany Lundy. And so thank you for the presentation on the summer uh programming and expanded learning. Um also we received a presentation um from Larry Johnson uh and he shared with us the experience of 120 of our APS teachers who attended the Ron Clark Academy experience. Um we had several partners that made that happen thanks to them. uh Huntington Bank, LeBron James Family Foundation, GR Foundation,

141uh United Way, Goodyear, and Burton D. Morgan. Um a corporate collaboration team did an initial visit to the Ron Clark Academy in January and began the work to identify the the 120 uh educators um who were going to go back to Atlanta to the Ron Clark Academy experience. Um there were over 400 teachers who were identified uh through the criteria using student performance, teacher evaluation, teacher attendance and principal recommendation. Um those 400 plus teachers were invited to attend the ignite the classroom event at house 330 in April which I was able to attend. Um from that 120 teachers were selected by lottery and so um seemed like to be a lot of excitement around the visit. Um principal Haynes um who's formerly Shoemarker's principal who's going to be going to Bookto Middle uh shared his

142perspective on the experience. Again, a lot of of excitement and I'm excited about that because when teachers are excited, students are excited to learn. And so, um, actually after that meeting, I ran into a teacher, Ed Smith. I think he's a business teacher at ECLC. He actually had pictures, uh, and he was just so overwhelmed with what he experienced there and excited to bring it back. So, I'm hoping um, in addition to the presentation that we can actually put some action behind it. Uh, one of the things uh that seems like lowhanging fruit is they just had pictures all over the entire uh facility and he showed me uh the various pictures of students in action. Um, students who had smiles on their face who were engaged in education. He said there was not a

143white spot on any wall in the entire place. And so I know Mr. Johnson said it was like a Disneyland for educators. So that's something I definitely hope that we can uh capture some of that energy and excitement and bring back um to us. So thank you for the presentation. I'm excited about moving forward. Hopefully teachers uh are empowered to take some of these things that they can implement uh right away. Thank you. And our next meeting is Tuesday, September the 2nd at 4:30. Um, and I did take notes based on some of what I heard my colleague say this evening about instructional policy. So, we'll be seeing some of those things there as well. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you, member Altry. Uh, member Hall. Thank you, Madam President. I think as clarification, well, two

144things, instructional policy and student achievement, that was always the full committee name. Um, but what you're thinking about is the student success that Dr. Molinar um created the policy. Um, so we are working on getting that committee established. Um, we need to find out um what administrator will be assigned to that and I know um uh Superintendent Oley is working on that. So I'm assuming we'll probably start our committee in September. Um and I think the first order of business which we've all talked about would be about the honorary diplomas, how we can start on that now to where we're together come graduation next year. Um and then President Jackson, I think you would have to either the three of us that were on the um previous diversity um what was the DEI committee or

145if um we'll be reassigned. So we would need to know who will be sitting the three will be sitting on that committee. Okay. Uh thank you um member Hall. I think it will just since that's the committee that's reconvening to um replace the DEI, it will go currently until new leadership comes the same people will go into that um specific committee and agenda does need to be made I think with some you know to draft up the agenda as far as the focus on that which also includes some of the highlighting things because that's what that committee was about. So like a lot of the presentations even that was here today um some of those things uh could be presented should be presented in the student success committee. Um and so and just to clarify

146we need to that needs to be done and established on the books before we meet again as a board because last meeting we said that we were going to do I and I don't know why it's belaboring but that's something that needs to happen expeditiously. um assign whoever from administration needs to be assigned because it's business that can be like a lot of this could have been cut down because it would have happened at committee and we would have just talked to the facts and that was the goal of that student success committee. I'm keep trying to make sure I don't say achievement. So that's why it's important and I said it at the last board meeting so that we could have dates that when that committee would meet and so let's just make sure

147we have it before we convene again. Uh, superintendent. Thank you, Madame President. Uh, thank you for that appointment. However, I will have to decline that appointment to the student success committee. Okay. No problem. Member Sykes. Okay. Thank you. Uh, all right. Um, next, there is no unfinished business. And there is there any new business? There's no new business that I'm aware of. Okay. Uh there is a need to go into executive session pursuant to Ohio revised codes 121.22G1 to consider the employment employment dismissal discipline promotion demotion or compensation of a public employee or officials and 121.22 22G6 to discuss details relative to the security arrangements and emergency response protocols for a public body or a public office if disclosure of the matters discussed could reasonably be expected to jeopardize the security of the public body

148or public office. Is there a motion to go into executive session? So moved. It's been moved by member hall. Is there a second? Second. It's been second by member Altry. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none. Uh, Mr. Bowers. Roll call, please. Mrs. Sykes, yes. Mr. Alexander, yes. Miss Audrey, yes. Miss Hall, yes. Reverend Harrison, yes. Dr. Jackson, yes. Dr. Molinar, yes. Motion carries 70. We stand in recess for executive session at 7:38. The board stands reconvene from executive session at 10:50 a.m. There is no action from executive session. Um, the next meeting will be Monday, August 25th at 5:30 p.m. here in the boardroom. Is there a motion to adjurnn? So move. It's been moved by member Alexander. Is there a second? Second. It's been seconded by member Hall. Any discussion? Seeing and hearing none,

149Mr. Bowers. Roll call, please. Miss Autri, yes. Miss Hall, yes. Reverend Harrison, yes. Dr. Jackson, yes. Dr. Molenor, yes. Mrs. Sykes, yes. Mr. Alexander, yes. Motion carries 70. Thank you. We stand adjourned at 10:51 p.m.