001when was the minutes before good evening everyone and welcome to this Equity committee meeting April 1st 2024 um want to also first of all before we get start I want to thank Carla Dr Carla Chapman for being here because she had uh some surg and for her to be down here is something big so we want to thank her for being here at this meeting cuz she did not have to be here today so I wanted to say that all right so before we when we we open up the meeting I would say uh we have any questions in reference to our previous meeting minutes any questions once any questions twice any questions three times no questions okay well at this time I will turn it over to Dr Chapman okay thank thank you Mr
002Alexander I did say when I got out of the car this might not have been a good idea as I was walking into the meeting but we're here thank you um so the first thing I wanted to cover is the chief diversity officer report for April first I wanted to because of our last meeting conversation bring to your attention the connections to Dei diversity equity and inclusion within the blueprint for excellence we talk a lot about the Strategic plan having Equity threaded throughout in every Cornerstone so I wanted to highlight for you how in fact it is showing up in every Cornerstone so you can see I've listed the cornerstones on the left and then the blueprint for excellence strategic plan actions and strategies which are an element of diversity equity and inclusion so you
003can see there are three action item connections to Cornerstone one the culture of safety and belonging uh where we're talking about developing orientation programs to support new scholar transitions um and to support diversity inclusivity and awareness among our Scholars and our staff as new students transition into buildings that they had not previously attended um I think member Hall spoke to how we support new students as they're moving throughout the district in a previous meeting I also indicate for you in the third column which APS district and division Partners we would work with on that particular Dei strategy so when we talk about orientation programs to support new scholar transitions we're going to be working with student and Family Services as well as Drea Whitfield and her work with scholar voice we talk about providing training
004on culturally responsive education social emotional learning and the expectations and account accountability measures for all employees we have an office of school climate that we'll partner with as well as our acan public school counselors and other staff members to develop uh trauma informed culturally responsive social emotional learning training for staff um moving to Cornerstone 2 around academic achievement we have been talking for some time about our portrait of a culturally responsive educator staff and leaders and where academic achievement is concerned we want to work with uh in partnership with teaching and learning to incorporate a culturally responsive inquiry based approach to teaching which really Fosters that critical thinking and I know Mr Alexander Mrs ay you've heard a lot about inquiry based learning problem based learning you've heard it uh talked about in that way
005and that is considered a culturally responsive practice because it gives young people an opportunity to discover for themselves uh to be their own agent in their learning to Foster that student agency piece and so you'll see the connections there you'll even see how we want to work with our English language learner division around the sheltered instruction observation protocol so that our non-english-speaking students are also having their needs met in the classroom moving to Cornerstone three on the back page operational excellence you've heard a lot over the past year about promoting Equitable vendor opportunities and our supplier diversity work that we continue to move forward uh right now we are asking for more guidance from our uh legal support around how to ensure that we're being Equitable in our practices around um requests for qualifications and
006responses to bids and notifications so moving that work forward and then under operational excellence there's a Dei connection to the retaining developing and supporting high quality staff who have the opportunities to grow within the organization and how we can create the type of special program geared towards retaining our employees keeping them in the district and also recruiting and growing our own pipeline you know that we started employee resource groups three years ago to support that strategy and another uh division partner would be our human capital division with Miss Atkins and her team the last Cornerstone Partnerships family and Community engagement Cornerstone 4 one of the comprehensive Equity uh areas that we're going to talk about today also includes meaningful family engagement and so we'll be partnering with Dr lash and stancy Sykes on their work
007in that area as we develop training and measures for identifying whether or not we're effectively engaging our family and our community for that matter um and then that last action item around developing an equitable and inclusive action plan to implement Community Ambassador councils another partnership piece with the division of student and family services so that was a very quick overview but I would really ask for you to put your eyes on it and review it to speak to it at your next board meeting but I wanted to take a few minutes to give you an idea of what we are specifically talking about when we say Equity shows up in the blueprint for excellent strategic plan any questions for me question kind a question but a comment um and I and I like this here
008it's always I think we really need need this more and more uh especially with our with our teachers and with our Learners is a critical thinking piece uh because I think that's really important and I I I think um with our our um staff getting them to think critically as well and thinking outside the box when we're working with uh with our students in the classroom um so so I guess part of my that and saying that my question would be where will the teachers learn to intertwine this critical thinking everywhere okay right and and so part of our challenge is to make sure that people don't see our division Wilma and myself as the only people who do Dei in the district it has to be embedded in the way we adopt curriculum and
009the way we train on delivering content area academics it has to be embedded when we first hire it has to be embedded in the way we Monitor and support and Coach so it's really it's it's everywhere it has to be everywhere yeah and I do like that that that that it'll be entwined with everything because we talking about equity and Equity movement it has to be entwined in everything in order for every every aspect of the district to move forward especially with our kids and it has to be owned by everyone and and that's the biggest biggest piece question yeah good question yeah you're very correct about ownership we all have to own it in order to make a change um but with Cornerstone number three um regarding operational excellence retaining develop support um our
010staff also I know that we have talked before about how do people become teachers how do we get more students or more people wanting to become teachers what are we doing to create that type of Engagement um I know we talked once before about the become scholarship that was active years ago where um teach people would take advantage of that scholarship and sign a 2-year contract with Aron Public Schools um once they graduated to work for APS for 2 years um haven't heard much about that or anything like that so is there any way you know we're able to do things to help incoming teachers because it is seems like it's getting slim when you talk to kids about you know what about being a teacher you know they're like uh I don't want to
011do that but we need more teachers more um Educators to continue to educate our children without that we have nothing so yeah I I am expecting much more in that area and we'll be working closely with Larry Johnson who is our new executive director of talent development retention and support I think I can't remember the exact description but that is one of the areas that he will be working within now I could tell you what we have done in collaboration with our former Human Resources office we developed an alternative resident educator lure program and I know that you probably have recalled reports on that Mrs ay and Mr Alexander in years past but a r l and it stands for the alternative resident educator license your program it is in its third year now maybe
012three and a half years Dr Erica Glover spearheaded that program while she was a Dei learning specialist here and also working in the Human Resources office but it is a program that allows non-licensed staff to pursue education as a career and it if you will Fast tracks them through this program also with coaching and support to help them pass the test to gain their lure and then move into employment with the district if I'm not mistaken Mrs arrey you can remind me maybe at the last report that Angela Carter provided I believe we're at 10 maybe a little more than 10 folks who have Gra graduated from the AEL program and are now APS teachers so it is opportunities like that that we need to do more of and of course there there is a
013budget attached to that which would need to be considered as well because the coaching the support the The Taking of the exams the courses that we might be able to assist folks with registering for all take resources and typically when you're trying to get folks interested in education who aren't already in college and pursuing that pathway it can be a barrier to go back to school and encumber you know the cost of uh going back into a field to get a particular license so but it's very effective and it's effective because of the coaching and support that have been surp uh provided after Dr Glover left the district Angela Carter picked that up and so I believe that that will possibly land with Mr Johnson in his new role and we'll be working closely with
014him because I remember the meat and the bones of it being at the table when it was first created and then there are things like our employee resource groups which are run by our staff managed by our staff who act as ambassadors to other employees uh based on their common interest so our APS Pride ERG our acran Educators for social justice our new and existing employees United ERG all of those employee groups work to support other staff engage other staff create that sense of belonging connection for people our ergs are actually listed on our human capital website as a recruitment tool and I've heard more than one ERG um members say people have told them they chose this District because we had ergs because we had employee resource groups and so that's a real plus
015we like to support our ergs our office supports our ergs to the best extent possible but they are awesome and wonderful ambassadors to our district and to people who might choose our district as an employment option so it's things like that and then doc if Dr Glover were here she would say what you're discussing is called the pipeline Mrs Hall and the pipeline should not necessarily start at high school or in college the pipeline to becoming an educator she would say should probably start an elementary school so even Thinking Out of the Box in that way how do we encourage our youngest Learners to be interested in being a teacher is something that would be Forward Thinking and Progressive but maybe really helpful because even in our um teacher Academy programs and we have one
016at bookal but not all of the students graduate and go into education as a as a m and so how how do we disrupt that and ensure that not only do we want them to pursue their dreams but we also want folks who want to be Educators to participate as well so we have some work to do at the front end of the pipeline earlier Middle School sixth grade fifth grade to start to fill that pipeline in a way that sustains this interest of young people becoming educators M you have any questions no I mean you already touched upon it you know when I hear young people when they complain about school I look at that as an opportunity as well what would you change about it you know and that's an entry point into
017the field of education and we have to kind of figure out like how to do that you know we do have a teacher Academy as we mentioned at bookal you know a lot of those students yeah um aren't necessarily it seems boring to them but then they have strong opinions about school and education but convincing them that well this is your opportunity to help transform what education looks like you know in the future and just keeping in mind uh for us adults that we are the greatest salespersons for the field right and so by the time you're a ninth grader and you've had 10 years of experience in an education system system we want it to be as positive affirming safe and supportive so that folks really do feel good about the field enough to
018want to pursue it and there is a lot of competition out there for other career paths that make education more difficult to to grab uh students away from Tech and Entrepreneurship and some of the other paths that they could take but I think think if we start younger we're probably going to see more success that's just a feeling and a thought a theory but we would love to test it I have another thought too um um these kids who are in education field if there's some way that we could uh help them to get monies for school as long as they're standing in education or maybe create some scholarship somewhere along the line and say okay if you're going to be in education then uh you can apply for this this year but you have
019to stay in education as soon as you get out you lose your money but if you stand education and you go into teaching then you you you have your scholarship taken care of basically but they also have it connected to maybe the University or someone that once they get that point that they have to go into education you so they got to be employed by a school district for certain period of time so that might be something we can look at too down the road that's what the become program was yeah was right that was become program was something like that uh where signed a twoyear contract exactly and you came back to APS yep and take it cuz you can take it a little further you know making sure that they yeah full ride
020scholarships right exactly is scholarship but it wasn't a full ride but somehow we can help them get Monies to be full get full rides to go into education so just a thought all right I'm sorry go ahead Dr Chapman yeah um and so if there are no other questions about that report I'll move on it will be in your um April 11th update document as an attachment if you want to reference it this will be included in that um Sydney's going to show the training topic so you all remember that I think it backs up if you refresh yeah you're on okay okay no it's there all right that's it okay so um I want wanted to remind you that everything we bring forward in our Equity work has to do with what we call
021comprehensive education equity and we'll make sure we share this presentation with you so that you can get to the hyperlinks within it but if you click on that comprehensive education Equity link there it will take you to the the Ohio Department of Education Equity Gap analysis tool and this is the tool that we use if you could just scroll down Sydney this is the tool that we use to identify keep scrolling the factors that are associated is it just one page oh okay to identify the factors associated with comprehensive education Equity um and again we'll make sure that you have a link to that but what you'll see is for each area of comprehensive Equity this is a good place to stop there are indicators that we would want to look for in that particular
022area so this is an indicator I believe of Equitable student access I believe that was the one at the top um and keep scrolling Sydney you'll see indicators for every single area of Education equity and it is these indicators that tell us what we should be doing and looking for in our system so you can escape out of that I'll give them a chance to look at the indicators for each area here are the eight areas of comprehensive educational Equity when we are doing these things in our district and monitoring ourselves and looking for the evidence for each area within our district then we are taking action on being Equitable comprehensively because each one of those touch almost every area within the district and so next slide today I wanted to talk about family and
023Community engagement as one of those areas and again comprehensive education Equity is threaded throughout our blueprint for excellence next slide so I wanted to talk about family and Community engagement that particular area because of all the conversations we've been having at the board and by members of our community I want to bring forward and make everpresent the fact that being Equitable in our family and Community engage with engagement is an equity strategy and when we um assessed ourselves six years ago nearly six years ago 2018 a group of Administrators and leaders came together and we looked at each of the indicators here on the next two slides and we determined if we were in development making good progress a best practice or in need of more support and you can see that that first indicator
024our district SL School Improvement plans Andor Equity plans support the concept and Comm definition of family and Community engagement in 2018 we said we were in development it'd be interesting to see how we would assess ourselves today I'm not sure that we have a common definition that everybody in the district agrees on yet our district our school has developed and implemented a supportive process to engage students and Families in various settings throughout the community including the board meetings right um what does it look like to engage our families and communities in supportive ways we said we were in development that's what the ID stands for this was six years ago how we rated ourselves taking proactive approaches to meaningful and varied student engagement activities I would say we're further along now than we were before
025because we have scholar voice and it's intentional and it's deliberative it's empowering and it's owned by the students our district school has a family and Community engagement team or coordinator yes we do and stancy Sykes works with the entire School Community to implement our vision and a collabor a leadership team approach we're making good practice here I would think I've asked Miss Sykes to put her eyes on this to give us more feedback on that but when we were assessing ourselves in 2018 we did not have a coordinator in that role so the fact that we do I would say we're making some good progress and then we go to our school having supportive ways to engage in conversations with our stakeholders so we can figure out how to work together to support learning I
026think we have varied approaches and levels of expertise and development there some places do it very well others maybe not so much right and it can even look different within schools across classrooms right and we want to be more consistent in our approach to that Mr Alexander did you have something every school makes every parent SL family and Community uh Partners aware of their role and being an asset to the building and building capacity to engage and support student learning so being an asset to each child's success probably making some progress there but still work to do our school our district or school has determined a way to identify using a comprehensive approach approach to the greatest needs and effective ways to engage our families and Community to address those needs maybe still in development
027I'm not sure our district school has implemented a number of successful strategies to incl increase family attendance and participation in our initiatives activ ities and daily practices I would say we're moving towards good practice around our attendance strategies under Dr lash's work um and really working to engage our students in better attendance family attendance in our initiatives activities and practices so I wanted to lift and Elevate amplify family and Community engagement as one of the eight areas is of comprehensive education Equity today because there's been so much discussion about it next steps for us Dr lash myself stancy Sykes we've already had email conversations about putting our eyes on this for any edits additions changes that we might want to make um so that we're sure we're thinking about all the indicators around family and
028Community engagement any questions and then the last slides are just all my research references everything I do has to be research based because if it's not folks May question the validity of this work and so we always want to be sure that we are identifying the ways in which it is connected to research okay you can flip back um Sydney to the indicators yeah any questions any questions Madam president thank you I guess it's more of a comment a lot of these uh indicators say District SL school so I know that can be a challenge because you know I know you guys have been training lots of folks and does each building like have a champion so that it's there's alignment between you know what they're saying at the building level versus what we are
029doing you know from the district level yeah you know um you might also recall that we have I believe the number is maybe 31 family liaison in schools of our 45 schools um 41 schools we um have part-time family Liaisons who understand what those indicators should be and the work that they should be doing um it varies it varies one of the Strategic plan goals within the um Cornerstone one I believe Cornerstone one is the yep culture of safety and belonging speaks to comprehensive customer service training around family engagement but it also speaks to having family counsels for each school and identifying specific strategies and supports that increase the transcend data's affirmation of safety and belonging for families and so we're getting more strategic and specific and targeted in our approach but it it's there's
030it's a lot of work it's a it's a heavy LIF thank you for that so you you touched on family liaison and I had wrote that down and then you said it so you said there's 31 Liaisons M part- time part- time so that's not even enough for all of our schools right and I know some of the schools that I visited they wish they had one mhm yeah I think didn't we roll out the liaison in 2020 during like the pandemic Chang the name okay that's like the big talk during the pandemic family aison everybody wanted to apply for it and things like that yeah how can we bring that back to be attractive as it was in 2020 when you did the name change cuz that's all I heard about was and then
031you know people were calling saying hey you should do this you should do that how did we get back to that and make it more attractive for people to do it saying that's it it is a part-time position you know you are in the schools CU it also plays the part with PTA you know we we have what 19 schools that have ptas so I think the family liaison and ptas can play hand in hand because as a parent you're getting access to more information and more knowledge by being one of these two you know so if you don't want to work a full-time you could be a part-time but being your kid's school yeah um we've had parently aons for as long as we've had Title One funding okay so during the pandemic we
032changed the name to family Lee aison to more appropriately represent the way our families are structured today um they're not all biological parents and so families look different act different um and have different ways of being in our district so we changed the name with the additional funding that was afforded Us by arpa we were able to expand the number of Liaisons but they've always been Title One funded and they've always been funded based on a district Andor buildings funding plan um I think that uh wage and salary rate is an issue has always been an issue for part-time family liaison positions who probably represent the lower end of our Sal uh salary hourly wage earners so it's difficult to be attractive at the wage rate in which they are paid so that's an issue
033um and I believe that in order to do as much work is needed to do it would be be awesome to have them as full-time people which is also a way to attract more folks so it's a dual edge sword um they are phenomenal the 31 that we have I know at least 25 of them now that they have moved to a different division I'm not as connected to them individually although I talk to them often and uh Dr Walker still oversees that part of our District's work they work hard they hit every Mark in terms of engaging with some of our most challenging families who have had a difficult way um to engage with our schools and they they are the ones who are trusted they live in the community they have relationships um
034and they do great work but there there's a lot more to making it attractive than just a marketing campaign or we want you we've got to do some deep work in the district but there's people that know about it and there's people that don't know about it so how do we get the message out to the ones that don't cuz people you have 31 people so somebody wanted to sign up and they and they typically don't leave and so when there are postings people apply they don't happen to be postings right now because it's all budgetary a school determines if they want the family liaison in their budget Andor Title One determines or English language learning Department determines for our North cluster whether the budget can support it and so when there are openings there
035are lots of applications but it's not the kind of thing where just we're hiring all the time for family Liaisons that's that's not how it currently operates one more question um in some cases are there more than one family leaon at a particular school no not typically I don't know of any okay I don't know of any North High School may have folks who operate as duel English as second language interpreters slamily liaison but not doubled up family Liaisons in the building not usual if it is I wouldn't no I would know thank you not familiar president questions I do have one question with this entire uh uh piece here this indicators of where we at you said you let me back up you said you guys are looking at this now you Dr lash
036and Mrs hkes okay so you guys are looking at this to see if we met these points and you can come back where where are we now because at the last time we reviewed it was 2018 right okay okay cuz we may have met some of these indicators but we got to we don't look at it we don't know so I'm glad you guys are looking at that to to find out okay that was my only question yeah we were going back and forth with email over the past couple of days about it so we'll have an approach to how we evaluate and provide evidence as to where we are okay great on indicators any more questions I just want to thank you I know there's definitely going to be some growth you know from
0372018 definitely yeah yeah yeah I think so in some areas and then in other areas I wouldn't be surprised if there wer as much wasn't as much as we'd like because we've had lots of change we had a pandemic we are still in recovery and so you know we've got work to do to write this ship all right well Dr Chapman I'm glad that you're doing this work I mean remember years ago when we were talking about equity and it was just at the the tip of the was even in the tip of the iceberg when we were talking about it and we were bringing it here and and and uh Dr James was having you and putting you in charge of somebody that was a lot of work for one person but from where
038we've gone from that point to now I think is very good and you deserve that that credit cuz you've taken it from you and your team have taken it from where it was to where it is today and I think we're going to projectile it to the Future which will be good well we're definitely on a road yeah we we are on the road okay a lot of lot of traveling to do yeah so always traveling any other questions anything we need to do before we end the meeting I also say thank you too you know it starts with someone's goal or a dream and then you get the right person to execute it and you're the right person so thank you for this thank you for you know making sure that everyone understands what
039diversity equity and inclusion means cuz without that we cannot build and make this place a greater place and I'm I'm going to tell you Mrs Hall what you just said is so critically important people have to understand what we mean and is not always the case um there are very uh evidence research specific and strategic definitions of that work and you know if if we haven't all gotten on the same page with what we mean right then half the battle is lost yeah and and I really need all of the board members to understand what we mean as well that's important for you like you said it's important for all of us to understand because if we don't understand we don't know what's happening how how can you ask questions how can you get on
040board with it if you don't know what's happening so it is important that we know yeah I would ask if you get an opportunity to look at that comprehensive educational Equity link Sydney we can make sure we share the Google slides with them so you can get in there um I was a part of the team at OD that developed that to our district participated in how to define the indicators what we should be looking for and so you know akan has it stamp even at that State level on that work that's great great okay well I guess if we don't have anything else uh we'll end this meeting thanks to everyone who's coming thanks to everyone who may have participated or watched us here at home all right thank you and everyone have a
041good evening thank you thank [Music] you e