Board of Education Livestream - 09/12/22

001so [Music] good afternoon and welcome to the regularly scheduled board meeting of the akron public schools board of education today on 12 september 2022. it's good to see everyone here today we will start our meeting with a roll call mr pendleton dr akbar here mr alexander president ms autry president dr hall aye ms jackson president mrs mckittrick here mr perry i'm here thank you thank you very much we now are really excited to have our color guard from brookdale clc air force we have cadet technical sergeant brown cadet staff sergeant rice and cadets staff sergeant tremol and cadet senior airmen no nolam uh we're excited to have you here and they will present the colors and with that we will all stand for the presentation of colors present army one nation under god indivisible with

002liberty and justice for all [Music] oh it works thank you very much you'll be seated and we will here from the cadets now and we will grab a microphone and we want to thank uh colonel uh ar arriego oh don i think i said that uh ariellano yes thank you um for her leadership technical sergeant brown i am a second year cadet and i am a sophomore in high school our program currently has 58 cadets that is more than double the number of cadets we had at this time last year we have 28 first-year cadets and 32-year cadets our weakness is we have no cadets who have been in the program for longer than two years so we don't have an experienced group of leadership our strength is nearly every cadet who was in the

003program last year came back this year so we have good mentors for all the new cadets this year our goal is to go to the air force drill nationals in dayton ohio good job hello i'm cadet senior airman rice i'm a second year cadet i'm a sophomore at book the high school and after high school hopefully i get to go to the army i am cadez staff sergeant trammell i am a second year cadet i am also a sophomore in high school um after high school i also want to go into nursing but if all goes well i want to go pro for track all right after high school i plan on going to the air force academy hello i am cadet senior emma nellims and i am a senior in high school right now

004and after i am planning on trying to go into the air force [Applause] thank you very much we're so proud of you and your tenacity and your leadership rotc is a outstanding organization and program that you will look back on for the lessons that you've learned for years to come i know i do anyone from the board have anything to ask of our great cadets you get one question miss dr hall sorry i'm sorry i've got two sorry got two gotta get two in here uh first uh cadet rice did i hear you say that you were interested in joining the army after you finished high school all right hula hula okay so we're just gonna confirm that all right uh and then my other question is for colonel um erlano um they mentioned that

005uh you've got double the number of cadets this year than you did a year ago what do you think are some of the factors that contribute to such incredible growth in just a year got span factors um one was being in school all year last year so the cadets were able to get out the halls they were able to do some recruiting but we've also got great buy-in from our building administration from the councillors and administration you're really good at identifying cadets that could or should be in the program who will most likely stay in the program so that's helped us a lot but really being in the building last year a full year was what really made the difference roger that thank you man appreciate it thank you very much anyone else all right

006hearing them congratulations and thank you good job thank you very much we now will move to community and school reflections excuse me any anyone wants to give any community school reflections mr perry thank you so i had the wonderful chance today to visit boris community learning center i'd never actually been over there and seen the building it was a very nice school met mrs douglas the principal gave me a tour of the entire school and i want to brag about the t-shirt that i got it's a very nice t-shirt and it says vorace on it clc the boris clc eagles so i have a t-shirt now i was also able to go around and hand out t-shirts to students who have been perfect attendance for this year so far some of the stats stay in

007the game t-shirts we went to about six classrooms distributed those and they were so excited to get those t-shirts so had a great time over there and thanks for welcoming me in your school today thank you very much miss jackson well when i went to voris i got a cup a bumper sticker and a t-shirt okay i gotta go back there that's a great clown my goodness i hope all my time on the board i get another time to double back now that's just the garfield cluster that was a wonderful cluster so i'm sure you had a great time i enjoyed my experience there as well i was fortunate to visit helen arnold actually twice since the last board meeting i came to the clap in which was the first day that they welcomed their

008lower grades of students and it was just it was a wonderful atmosphere was great energy val i remember you told me have you ever been to helen arnold and i said no and you said wait till you go you'll see and i definitely did see it's definitely it was a great energy walking in it was the first day so you know that was a great experience the same as when i went to bukdo for what was that event was like the teachers and the staff the whole cluster was there convocation yet it just was a wonderful experience as i spoke about the last board meeting but um i got to meet some of the students take pictures with the students and you know that's my sweet spot because that's what we do it for in

009my my profession as you many of you know i'm an educator and i'm a administrator now but i was a teacher for multiple years and i used to tell my administrator all the time i don't want to kind of any professional nothing if the kid's not there i don't feel like i should have to be there in the building because it's that that's what triggers everything that we do and i definitely got that sense um with the kids that it was a sense of family at four so that was great and then i i went back and i was able to go into some classrooms and one of the classrooms that i went into it was the gifted teacher um she's a gifted teacher she's only in the classroom for 40 minutes and she was

010absolutely dynamic and i had her name written down i grabbed the wrong just anyway but she is at um like i said she's at helen arner helen arnold she's the gifted teacher i promise i'll say i never tried to forget people's name but um she was amazing complete control the activities she kept the children engaged the entire time when i left her classroom i just left and gave her a high five and she said i said tell me your name again tell me your name again only for me not to remember her name now and she was the math she does math and i get the teaching and she said oh i'm the gift teacher i said you absolutely are because it was clear um of what she was doing and how she engaged those

011learners um and then i was able to go into additional classroom the teacher was engaging the students she was talking to the kids and getting to know things about him and it's just it's a good feeling when you can see young people excited about learning and teachers valuing getting to know their students and you can see everyone is very comfortable in that space and the students feel as though they belong because i definitely got the sense that everyone felt a sense of belonging and what i really liked about hell and arnold is that i just walked through the school i just walked in the principal first the the office stopped me and the lady laughed like no i know who you are and so the principal was in a meeting so i was waiting and

012i said well okay well i just walked on and that's how i walked in the classroom but she had complete control and i'm going to try to get it before this meeting is over so i can say it so i can say the names but that was a very great experience also mr alexander and i were fortunate enough to go into a conference casa cosba um do you know i can use we went to a cosma a conference for um urban education and one of the great things superintendents you probably will be happy to hear a lot of the things that they were talking about as far as innovative practices and things that were happening or that they were trying to have happen in our district we're already doing in akron and so i was

013delighted to see that we're at the forefront of a lot of initiatives that other larger districts such as such as ourself is trying to roll out but another thing which i really liked and i understood from talking to teachers and meeting with teachers some of the resources and things to uplift and to strengthen teachers for mental health and support virginia has gotten that down to a t and i told alexander i can't wait to talk to you all about that to see how could we roll out this is award-winning they were a magna award-winning school for what they're doing for the mental health for their teachers as well as their students and i said this is exactly something that a district such as ours can benefit from when we have wonderful teachers that are pouring

014out you know you can only pour out so much before you need to be filled up again right and so i thought that was good and that's my reflection thank you very much miss jackson anyone else dr hall am i in a workout just want to make sure we get 250 words okay all right tough crowd tonight that was a joke i try to add some levity to these proceedings it's okay to smile those of you who are out there um so uh yeah so i was uh at a number of places since the last one schumacher case king litchfield ritzman um let me go with schumacher first a number of us were actually at schumacher and chomps was there kevin brown celebrating the attendance achievements of schumacher elementary school and i got to say

015that um i continue to be amazed at the level of engagement that you see from the families and kids as they walk up and they see chomps i mean it really is it really is something it really often times when you hear about rewards you know ah is it really is it really a reward to the kids and it was so obvious that the kids and the staff honestly really saw chomps being there as a reward for for their for their achievements and so really just wanted to you know call that out and again thank the cleveland browns foundation for what they're doing to support our schools here in akron number two i was at um i was at case elementary school and had a really great conversation with the school counselor out there i'm

016not i'm not going to get her last name i want to say it's ms schaefer victoria schaefer and she did a nice job of providing me a document that i hope to share without hope to share with the rest of you that that really does a nice job of outlining first off who she is and what value she brings to her building as into her community as a as a elementary school counselor uh really well done document i was really kind of blown away at it and so um so again i'm gonna share it out with with the rest of you um but um but i i'm wondering if that's something that that all of our counselors are actually doing or is that just something that we do oh they're all doing this clover okay

017um well i got hers first so um so so really liked hers it was it's a template um sorry it's a document two multiple multiple page document that allows the counselor to introduce themselves um what value they bring to the building as well as what value they bring to the community so that they serve and so that was a really well done document because because it really told you all about the council that was there like their certifications like their background where they're from um you know also too like you know what they hope to bring to the building as well you know so um like basically basically it's it's sort of the razon detroit document right so why why am i here like what am i here to do what's my mission while i'm

018here and kind of lays it out in very clear terms like what their mission is in that building and it is very it feels very much like a mission document as well so um so again wanted to call that out as well um and then also um ritsman uh one called ritzman so you've often heard us talk a lot about equity in these meetings and we have an equity committee that you hear a report out on as well well i was touring ritzman last week and so um i guess the teachers were they were asked to pick a word that they thought would um that they were they kind of describe sort of what they value and sort of a concept that they want to get behind and so some of the so each teacher

019had a a sign on their door kind of outlining what their what their chosen word was and some some teachers chose the word change and support and compassion and there was one door in the building there was just one that had equity as their word um and and that was mrs owen spoonster out at ritzman said again this is owen spooster spoonster out there so if you're watching again i just want to say her to her again how much i appreciate it walking by that door and see and i took three pictures of the door one close up one five feet back one ten feet back just so i had it uh but again but again her word for the year was equity and so i just so appreciated seeing that um in in and

020so wanted to call that out as well and so i think that will conclude my comments today um so mr president i'll see the four back to you all right any miss jackson so um i don't want to miss vanessa but it's stephanie uh stephanie um she used to get the teacher and when i tell you t my teacher's in the wrong you know what great teacher looks like engaging correcting while she's still in motion like she did not lose a beat she had control of the classroom and she was able to correct behavior without a lecture and keep it moving then she engaged at the end of the lesson when she came back around so i just thought it was just a great example of what was happening so i definitely wanted to say

021that i can't say that right i hope some great great things about arnold additionally i want to give a shout out to one of our own attention office um mary outlet kelly because she is being honored by project brad um [Applause] so i [Laughter] um thank you very much anyone else miss autry thank you mr president and so i had the pleasure of visiting a few buildings in the east cluster um over the last week or so and this is my second go-around with east i had them in 2020 right before the pandemic and so it was nice to be able to reconnect with those folks and just overall i felt like the buildings were really first of all shout out to the custodians because the buildings were clean they were welcoming the classrooms were

022exciting and engaging i had the opportunity to stop by barber i got a t-shirt from barber and so mrs williams and her staff they were really excited they didn't have everyone there just yet but those teachers were really huddled up and engaged and they wanted to thank us for the tutors that they have for each grade because that's really allowing them to do their work on even a better level so they wanted to make sure that i shared that with us for providing that for them also i would visit cyberling clc ms llewellyn dean monica galang was there gave me a tour again re-familiarized myself there their signage was great the leader in me program uh those signage uh the marketing for that is awesome throughout that building so it was really nice to see

023them their this missile was so quiet and quick and i learned that's the only school that doesn't have buses and so that's probably one of the reasons and so that was just nice to hear um and see i'm like wow it's pretty quiet they actually are gone already and so also i visited david hill miss mcintyre and her staff there i know they had a goal of dismissal being done by 245 which they met but it was just so wonderful to see i was with the littles with the kindergarten first and second and they just made sure that those students were handed off well they made eye contact with each and every one of those parents and families who came to pick those students up and it just really meant a lot to them i

024guess they had a process during covet where the pickup was you know they didn't have that one-on-one interaction um and they insisted to their principal that they wanted to return to that so it was just nice to see them carry that out also visited east and it was the first day back for their high schoolers and i just want to give a special shout out to mr nolan larissa brown mr carpenter over there you know the reality of high school in urban education is that it's challenging and so i witnessed them ushering you know 660 students through two metal detectors they did it efficiently the students were cooperative they understood it was just understanding that this is what we need to do to keep our students safe and so that's just a reality for us

025but for them to be able to function within that and still make those students feel welcome i just wanted to give a shout out to that team because that's not easy a task to do i just i couldn't believe it was 660 students that they do that for every single day and so again shout out to all of them i still have visits forthcoming with mason and robinson i'm looking forward to visiting them and again i know i'm in the east cluster but you know i cannot leave the table without mentioning my alma mater this past weekend we celebrated our fifth annual banner program where we showcase seniors that are graduating the class of 23 and so five years ago it started off with 10 polls that we put these banners up and it's grown

026to over 25 scholars that we're able to feature all along copy road and so it's been a great program we arrive early in the morning the students are camped out by the pole that they want they want the pole that's by their street and so the city of akron was a good partner in helping us get that done as well so it's a special shout out to those seniors and those families who participated in the pta who keeps making that happen thank you thank you very much ms autry anyone else mr alexander okay um as as uh ms jackson said we were able to go to a conference and i did find the name of it so i'm going to give the name because i can't remember all these acronyms there's too many it's called

027the consortium of state school boards association and this is their first year and their first conference it was uh started by a group of state associations that used to be under the national school board association and they broke off and they started their own organization and they had some very very good speakers some very good presenters some of the speakers were just dynamite i mean they set the conference on fire especially the first speaker who came up and spoke and he set the tone for the conference there were about 380 school board members slash superintendents at the at this conference and there were again there were a lot of great breakout sessions i didn't keep all of them that i didn't write them all down that i attempted mrs jackson and i did ten one

028together and it was very good uh but they talked about a number of different areas i think we could all learn from from going to those sessions because they were just so so good secondly one of the things that you know i'm just a child advocate and i'm always talking about kids and our focus should always be on our kids and there's a group of kids that we we should never leave out and never throw them away because they are kids as well and they can possibly do some things and maybe do some things along the way that we may not think of and most of you know that i work at summit county juvenile court under judge linda teodosio she's very very uh innovative uh very caring about families and kids in the community

029and we had thus far six kids who were housed in our facility there who actually graduated from akron public schools they got their diplomas and i was fortunate uh to the last one that this young man uh and this situation was so unfortunate it wasn't his fault uh in particular but he did what he was supposed to do he came home he buckled down and he got his diploma and i was able to to present his diploma at the court and they had a graduation ceremony for him and so for me that makes me lets me know that that's what it's all about staying focused on our kids no matter where they're at where they come from and so these young people you know deserve uh the the education like all the others because just

030because they got in trouble maybe and had a little difficult time as young people doesn't mean that they can't break out and be outstanding individuals later so we need to make sure we take care of them so i was very pleased that we had those individuals who graduated also the last mrs uh chapman and i had an opportunity to meet with city of akron officials to talk about the city of akron racial task force equity equity task force committee the education committee and we were able to give them a little bit more of what they wanted to see about what what our recommendations were and we had some very strong recommendations that the city of akron is proud of and mrs sibley did a very good job of presenting this information to them and they

031presented to us this past friday all the chairs and they're going to present it out to the um to the rest of the the city and uh they were proud of what we are doing here in akron and miss mrs uh sibley mrs chapman she went on to the there were five different uh focus areas that she talked about and that's academic achievement equity climate and culture operational efficiency and effectiveness communications partnership and community engagement and they were very impressed of what we are actually doing already in akron public schools they wanted to kind of be a model for local schools here in akron i know we don't control all schools in the city of akron nor does anyone else but the city control but it's good that we're doing some good things and and

032people need to know that we're doing good things uh just like ms jackson said when we're uh at the conference there are people we're listening to what people are trying to do and we're already doing it and so we're a model and so i'm going to suggest to us as we move forward that we take our show on the road that we let people know that what we're doing here in akron because there are people who will take what we've done and get credit for it and we should be the ones getting credit for it so i want to make sure that we get credit akron public schools get credit for what we're doing and being the trailblazers throughout the country and believe me these are school districts and throughout the united states they're looking

033to to akron i sat with three i'm gonna leave leave with this i sat with three board members uh from virginia and we're just kind of talking about a couple things at lunch and they uh would start asking more questions the more questions they asked the more i answered and they said do you think that you guys allow us to come to akron to see what you guys are doing because what you guys are doing we're trying to do and so that's that's a that's a a testimony of how well we're doing here in akron so i want to make sure we continue to let people know that akron is the leader of a lot of things are going on not other school districts across the country thank you very much miss alexander i think

034we all agree i'll agree we're leading we're we're ahead um anyone else any other community school reflections hearing a thing none we will go down to and 1.4 requests to address the board we do have two four five six uh addressed to uh requests to address the board today and uh so i'm gonna just give a brief overview of of our participation policy for everyone so i don't have to do it multiple times but each person who wants to speak today will have three minutes maximum to speak before us it is not customary for the board to necessarily give responses to people who speak we do often give recommendations for follow-up from different staff members through our superintendent so that's what we do we also ask that you keep all comments to limit complaints around

035specific staff or not include any student information or issues and if that is a need that someone has please let us know beforehand and we can deal with that in executive session because student information is protected and that is all that i have uh so we are going to go with the first person which is ben gifford is ben gifford here thank you very much you can go to that podium make sure the mic is on because i don't know if anyone's used it yet hello hear me okay all right so you have uh three minutes thank you for joining us um my name is ben gifford i'm the finance chair of akron dsa um i want to again ask the board to sign on to i'm sorry do you mind grabbing the microphone i'm

036sorry i can't hear you um i want to again ask the board to sign on to vouchers hurt ohio which is a collection of school districts joining together to sue the state over its harmful private school voucher program that it continues to push and expand through hb 290 the so-called backpack bill and hb 583 these like all voucher programs are clear violations of ohio's constitutional requirement for the funding of common schools school vouchers funnel public taxpayer money away from public schools and into private coffers sending children to schools that have less public oversight in their curriculum and may be profit driven and even fraudulent it's important that akron public schools not remain silent or impartial on this issue school kids in akron and throughout the state of ohio stand to lose much through the voucher

037system acropolis school specifically stands to lose about 20 to 30 million dollars annually if you remain complicit with these vouchers you are worsening our children's education you are helping to elevate the disparity between school system systems you are slighting taxpayers and future generations so that ohio's political machine and its allies can extract profit from education and push a radical conservative agenda to school children using public money more than 120 school districts in ohio have joined vouchers herd ohio and i urge you to do the same the website is vouchershurtohio.com for more information thank you thank you very much appreciate you joining us today we will now have jodie branca i believe i said that correctly did i say that correctly branca sorry good evening i'm here to voice some concerns that my colleagues and i

038have regarding the mandatory teacher training and professional development and the curriculum adoption we believe that this administration is either inadequately addressing our concerns or are completely not responding to us in a meaningful way at all my name is jody branca i'm a kindergarten teacher at david hill as my colleagues and i arrived at school several days prior to our students arriving we were met with boxes of the new english language arts curriculum sitting it boxed in our classroom again this was only a few days before students were to arrive at school it was the first time that many teachers had even laid eyes on this curriculum on this material that we were expected to then utilize to teach students in just a few days and in the coming weeks in addition a great majority of

039teachers unless being aware that they were able to attend a training in the summer a few weeks prior over summer break have not even been trained to use the curriculum professional educators deliver high quality and rigorous lessons to our students after researching studying and planning the use of the curriculum in the classroom providing this board adopted material at such a late and before training at such a late date and before training is not only an ineffective way to start the school year certainly not best practices but also clearly not in the best interest of the students that we serve it also places an unbearable burden on our educators who now must spend countless hours outside of the school day to review develop and plan lessons for which they will be evaluated in a completely unreasonable

040finite amount of time my fellow colleagues and i are expected to accomplish all of this while also being recalled being required by the administration to complete alice training horwin teacher clarity training plc training hoover training social emotional learning training cultural competency training vector training modules school improvement planning and on and on in addition this school year kindergarten and first grade teachers are expected to complete 18 hours of dyslexia training amazingly to meet this requirement the district is not only 18 requiring 18 hours of training but 120 modules three extensive case studies and multiple observational videos to be completed as you can imagine these tasks will be impossible to complete within a workday and are exhausting stressing and causing many of my fellow educators to seriously consider leaving the profession board members when addressing these concerns

041with the administration the response i am receiving are simply acknowledgment that the initiatives being rolled out are certainly challenging that the teachers are heard and will be supported and that we are all aps and we will find a way however many of the teachers have learned that these type of responses are are simply condescending remarks which ring hollow in the absence of genuine action to fix the problem we need salute i'm so sorry um you've exceeded your time over a minute my apologies thank you thank you i do encourage you to schedule a meeting with the uh superintendent fowler mack and or uh one of our other administrators uh to follow up on uh many of your concerns we next we will have um amy fevi's fijis i'm sorry thank you very much amy feed

042this right good evening my name is amy fieges and i'm a first grade teacher at rimer clc i've been in aps i've been a teacher here for 25 years and i love it but i'd like to share with you some concerns that i along with many of my colleagues have regarding the ever-increasing expectations that this administration is placing on our teachers to schedule and complete professional development and training after hours on our own time while i acknowledge that the state mandates some of this training we believe that the administration is completely out of touch with how negatively impacted our teachers have become with the implement implementation choices of our district's administration is making we believe that given the choices available to meet this mandate the apa's administration has far overreached the requirements and in doing

043so has placed an unsustainable and unnecessary burden on our teachers for example in january of 2021 the ohio legislator passed a bill which requires all k-3 teachers to receive 18 hours of literacy training focused on teaching students with dyslexia by the end of the school year all kindergarten and first grade teachers must complete training all second grade and third grade teachers will complete the trainings next year what is so very frustrating is that while the state is requiring 18 hours of mandated training our district is placing the burden of 120 hours of training on our primary grade teachers these types of invasive overreaching choices are exhausting and our educators to the point of negatively impacting not only our ability to deliver the very best education to our students but also their ability to balance our

044life and attention to our own personal health and our well-being i implore you encourage all of those in this administration making the decisions to hit the brakes on this continual barrage of unreasonable demands on our teachers and to work with our leadership to develop both short and long-term solutions to this emergency thank you for your time thank you very much [Applause] i offer the exact same suggestion as i did was mitch brenka we now have melanie johan yum thank you for correcting me melanie young good evening members on the board my name is melanie yeom i'm a first grade teacher at findlay and i'm here to speak because i cannot be telling about the growing concerns i have from my fellow teachers myself and our students about the curriculum adoptions professional development and mandatory trainings

045which administration is requiring of our teachers when teachers returned for the school year one week prior to students returning we were met with our first look at the board adopted ela curriculum teachers were tasked with collecting this new curriculum which we are using this school year it was the first time most of our teachers were able to see the new materials and we were wondering how can we be expected to teach the appropriate proficiency with the appropriate proficiency our students deserve and we're being given only days to review all of the resources in addition most of the teachers have not been trained on these highly technical interactive and culturally diverse materials the only training offered has been a brief opportunity during summer break a scheduled training which many of our educators are not even aware

046of or able to attend during the week prior to students arriving we are given three hours of training and review on the curriculum the wonders program has many components in first grade our curriculum has six units there are consumable and non-consumable products for each student for each unit their teacher manuals curriculum website many interactive resources to support it is absolutely absurd to think that we as educators can absorb these materials in three hours then study review plan develop and write high quality and rigorous lessons in that amount of time yet we already begin when the materials when the students arrive don't our students and staff deserve more most of my colleagues and i feel very overwhelmed exhausted and adequately prepared by the lack of support we are receiving from the administration when i reached out

047i was told there was no additional training offered until the october instructional improvement day however depending on your building other training may circumvent that curriculum training as the administration's determined other topics should take precedent over our curriculum training one of those professional development topics for kindergarten first grade is the new letters training which was chosen by the administration to meet the state's fluxly training requirements the problem is the state requires 18 hours but our administration selected a 120 hour module series which also includes three extensive student case studies in various material and video reviews if it's not painfully clear we are educators as we're at a breaking point we are exhausted we are shattered we are drained we are at a tipping point teachers are leaving in record numbers teachers and administrators in akron are

048leaving for other districts and other opportunities hoping there may be another school district where they may be truly listened to and heard we're not saying these news trainings don't hold merit what we are saying is when a mandate comes that requires an 18 hour commitment over a year we should not adopt a 120 hour program just because we can it's irrational unfair and unsustainable close by focusing back on my students aps students and families deserve more from the district if i'm continually stressed and depleted i cannot serve my students in the capacity which they deserve i can't give the attention dedication they should rightfully expect if i'm unable to focus on my teaching practice because i'm continually running on an endless wheel of unreasonable demands and lastly i think my family also deserves more from

049me i have a five-year-old son and he deserves a mom who can come home from work and focus just on him and his needs i deserve time with my family without worrying about paperwork unfinished lesson plans hours of screen time and the exorbitant deadlines that are being demanded of me please know my colleagues and i cannot afford to wait for one more endless committee meeting to study this issue and discuss potential solutions we need action now we need relief now and we need you to hear us now thank you thank you very much we now have don blankney i believe i said that correctly good evening my name is dawn blakeney i'm a first grade teacher at forest hills clc and i'm here tonight to talk about some concerns which many of my fellow teachers

050and i have regarding the board's newly adopted english language arts curriculum rollout and also the district's required professional development and training schedules for all teachers many of my colleagues and i are particularly troubled by the recent administrative plans to meet the state's mandates surrounding dyslexia training for all k-3 teachers i can appreciate the fact that our district needs to follow the state imposed directives which require many of these trainings i also understand that these requirements come with deadlines however i feel the aps administration approaches training and professional development in an inappropriate manner way too often the administration takes a last-minute top-down approach resulting in being reactive rather than proactive instead of taking the time to plan genuinely and collaboratively with teachers to implement thoughtful constructive and most importantly realistic training impossible tasks and unrealistic time

051deadlines are placed on teachers without any reasonable solution to complete such tasks we are told just make it work or we support you we know you can do it i know that you hear loudly and often that teachers had input or that decisions were made collaboratively i am here to tell you that in many cases that simply does not occur more often than not impactful decisions are made by administrators and then simply shared with teachers or on committees or district teams that is not collaboration that is not giving teachers true input and voice time and again we hear about taking care of ourselves and reducing stress levels teachers are told they are heard that their voices matter when decisions are made we do not believe that story line anymore it is time for all of

052us to speak up and work toward changing the current narrative into a truthful and productive narrative i started this school year teaching a new grade level in a new classroom and with new students this school year our teachers have been tasked with learning a new reading curriculum with one week before the students returned to school and teachers were to begin instructing using the new curriculum we were given a total of two hours of training the materials and resources had not been delivered so teachers were forced to watch an electronic overview of the supplies and online resources we had an opportunity to ask questions but because this was our first opportunity to look at the materials we did not know what we didn't know teachers really had no idea of what questions to ask this was

053a very poor way to roll out something so important and impactful for our students particularly as we are working so diligently to recover instruction our students deserve better and our educators deserve better when i asked for more training i was told that that would be happening during future instructional improvement days the first of which is scheduled for october 7th our first quarter interims go out on september 27th students first quarter grades close on october 21st how many weeks days hours of lost or diminished instructional time does this inadequate curriculum rollout cost our students i'll tell you too much way way too much yes additional training has been added for teachers however it doesn't even come close to the amount needed to respectfully implement a new curriculum in addition much of this training is being put

054on the back burner because of all the other trainings scheduled for teachers some of my colleagues here tonight have discussed the 120 hours of dyslexia training which the administration decided upon when the state is only requiring 18 hours is this decision far too overreaching yes where are the hundreds of hours required to complete all of these trainings the assumption quite frankly is that teachers will complete training on their own time do many of these training have merit of course they do i'm sorry to interrupt you but you've elapsed your time by a minute i appreciate it and we encourage you to please speak directly with our superintendent and the administration we now have the final um okay um so my question is do we have anybody else that's going to address the board or is

055that the last person there's one other person there's one more person oh okay i will wait to them last person goes okay okay thank you we now have uh mike harkness thank you for very much good evening uh my name is michael harkness i'm an intervention specialist at glover clc i'm also a product of this fine district i am here tonight to voice the concerns that my colleagues stated to us over and over again first of all we are here to implement a brand new curriculum also i share with you how teachers feel an alarming amount of required professional training and development that has been scheduled for teachers by this administration as educators we know we've committed ourselves to be lifetime learners for the benefits of our students we continually participate in professional development to

056improve our teaching practice however ignoring the balance between work life and home life is not only unhealthy for ourselves but also for our family and the communities we support this school year when we returned just a few days before students k to one teachers were told for the first time they would be required to complete 120 hours of letters trainings that included modules three extensive case studies with students and to watch and review multiple videos to meet the state required dyslexia training the new state law only requires 18 hours how did we get but this administration imposed 120 hours of this training that matt just doesn't add up we have professional etiquette excuse me we have professional educators within this district that make amazing things happen every single day for the students of this school

057we are we are showing appreciation by layering more and more and more training onto our day however the administration just adds hundred plus more on top of that we just can't do it anymore we're tired of it unfortunately our overload doesn't just end there with dyslexia training this year the district adopted new language arts curriculum most teachers have not even received training at all but they are expected to begin instruction with this new curriculum the few teachers who were able to come in over summer break and were met and do this training were met with little or no support materials weren't even available or live for them to get onto teachers were just told the new curriculum could do this and could do this we had no materials to really prove that as we started

058the school year inadequate training did not change then we were hit with alice training teacher clarity cluster specific training plc plus avid vector gifted special ed training ib training ap training and on and on and on teachers are just left to figure it out on their own we just had to put everything else on the back burner but what about our kids right you know i know you hear this over and over again with administration the teachers voices are heard that we have input on the decisions that were made let's pull back the curtain on that narrative teachers are informed of decisions after they are made and then because then they attended an informal meeting or an informational meeting they're told their input was actually brought out it is simply not true and it must

059change during covid we often said things like we're building the plane as we're flying during this time now i feel like we're building that plane again but we showed up with no wings no engine and no pilot i'm a husband a father and a coach i am involved with my family and this community and many others i'm also a dedicated educator i constantly strive to do what's best for my students but i also need to do what's best for my family and myself i will not sacrifice my health and well-being or that of my family because a handful of people in a room someplace make the decisions in a vacuum it's not sustainable i'll just tell you this we've had enough we are sick and tired of being sick and tired thank you very much

060mr harkness that concludes our request to address the board uh we will now move to recognitions which is um let me let me just say um that it takes an incredible amount of courage for all of you to come here and stand up and say what you said so thank you for coming to talk to us um so while we're not going to comment directly on the content of your of your remarks again just want to thank you for having the courage to come out here and talk to us tonight um my my second comment is um you know this board is a community elected board and so many of you not only teach the students who um who teach students who live in the district obviously but many of you also live in akron

061uh and you're voters and part of your job is to hold the members of this board accountable for everything that we do and do not do so again i just want to say that i hear you i think we hear you uh and again thank you for the time that you spent to prepare your remarks and to come down here tonight and to deliver your remarks i applaud you thank you thank you very much thank you thank you and now we move to recognitions and we will have a recognition for our uh outgoing treasurer whose last official day for full-time work was on the 31st of august um but he hasn't escaped us yet uh we appreciate him willing he being willing to stay on uh to support us a little bit longer we will

062uh go in this order we will have recognitions uh by uh superintendent fowler mack then todd atkins our assistant treasurer and then i will read uh the resolution and support from the board for mr pendleton so we'll start with superintendent follow mac thank you very much and good evening to our board and to members of the audience and also those joining us virtually we're really excited to be able to take the time out to bring recognition to the accomplishments and work of our cfo ryan pendleton eight years i'm sure just kind of went by very quickly since you have been here working in the akron public schools and i will say to you much like i said when talking to dr mcwilliams woods it's unfortunate that i kind of caught you at this stage in

063your career where you're expanding your horizons and your reach for your expertise it has been a pleasure to work with you ryan is a cfo that likes so many of us as educators works in an environment of uncertainty and change especially these days as we seek to not only meet the needs of today's system but also to look to the future and to prepare for that future he is one that has been given he has approached his work with a true commitment to our primary purpose so as a financial person to know that really every conversation we have you weave in how is this going to impact teaching and learning and you see past the numbers to see our children that really makes a difference and so we applaud you we applaud you for your

064technical expertise your willingness to be a strategic partner um you're the tenure that you hold that has brought about uh a wisdom and a network that we've been able to draw upon when we've had challenging situations and an openness to be innovative because again we're operating in real times of uncertainty planning to really through the lens of equity to meet the needs of each one of our students so i recognize you i applaud you for what you have done i'm glad you will continue to be a friend to the district and a resource to our administration as well so congratulations mr atkins i don't think it's on all right it's on there we go there you go okay so back in september 2014 we were fortunate to hire ryan as our cfo treasurer for the

065past eight years ryan has grown the finance department hiring the quality staff we see behind us back here he leads the department and district very well we admire his many strengths his calm demeanor and the fact we all are a team under ryan's leadership the finance department continues to have one clean audit after another parting the otter of states awards multiple times our department is a shining example for the state when ryan's involved in a project such as a fair school funding plan it means our entire department is involved everyone pitches in learns about it helps create the presentations but ryan is the one who makes the reality his passion his dedication his countless hours testifying educating others throughout the state contributed to the fair school funding plan formula being included in the state's binding

066budget just now we've all grown and learned so much from ryan the past eight years thank you ryan for your dedication but not just us the finance department but the whole district as a whole we wish you the very best [Applause] thank you very much and mr atkins i think brings greetings from the entire staff in the treasurer's office so if our entire staff at the trader's office who's here we can stand uh please so we can recognize you they're the fantastic outstanding hard-working diligent staff that uh work every day and make ryan look good to us um even though he looks good by himself there's no doubt about that they um they make it happen yes and we hear so much every time when we talk to ryan about the support and love that

067he has for the staff in that department so i just wanted to give you a shout out and also just share that on behalf of this board before i read parts only parts of the resolution and present to you a token of our appreciation for your service on behalf of the board i just wanted to begin by saying we have been incredibly blessed as a district to uh have uh your leadership and the leadership uh in your office and with the incredible talented staff that you have there has been no doubt when we talked about our financial standing and fiscal management and forecasting that you get it when we i know when i joined the board and i had a conversation with you about what does an equity financial picture look like uh you were

068you jumped right at the just jumped right at it to really work through what that could look like and i appreciate you um i also wanted to just say that there's a few words when you're talking to ryan you're going to hear you will hear uh about the 45-year forecast and all of the uh things that go into that and one of those things are what he likes to say is what assumptions are we adding to this calculation uh and so i just want to say that we appreciate you for uh making sure that we have all the the pieces and parts and components of those assumptions uh as we build our five-year forecast but more importantly uh just wanted to end by saying that uh it has been an extreme pleasure working with you

069uh ryan uh getting to know you and even bumping into you at target where we were both spending too much money it's always a pleasure and so i will on behalf of this board then i'll open it up to the board read a resolution of appreciation for the ryan pendleton uh ryan pendleton has been the treasurer of the akron board of education from september 1st 2014 to august 31st 2022 he has provided unwavering support and direction to the board has demonstrated outstanding leadership in handling the public school finances and has made the financial picture clear and consumable for all stakeholders of the district educating the public about school finance throughout his career he was integral in the district's 20-plus year project of the construction of our new clcs which we just completed the last one

070and also he was integral in the colla the consolidation of our district administration offices at the op building as well as the newly uh acquired um 10 north main i'm sorry the 70 north main building to go into the 10 north main building which we are in today he also was a critical partner for the fair school funding passage here in ohio which hopefully will become a state staple to increase the funding for schools like ours and it wasn't that long ago just 2021 where you were named the treasurer of the year and received the international pinnacle award and so with that being said there's so much more here but let now therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the akron city school district recognized ryan pendleton for his outstanding leadership and

071that we extend our sincerest appreciation and gratitude on behalf of this board the entire staff and everyone in the district and the community whether they knew the touch that you had on our sustainability or not we appreciate you ryan and thank you very much thank you very much thank you very much before i turn it over to ryan uh is there any board members who have anything they want to share with ryan miss autry thank you mr president mr pendleton i just want to thank you it's been a pleasure working with you learning from you i wish you well moving forward you've just been a awesome treasurer as well as you have the heart of a teacher and so educating myself the committee and the general public you've been excellent at that and so thank

072you for all that you've done for the district thank you very much anyone else dr hart um it's hard to say something that hasn't already been said in the last several minutes um so i will because i'm lacking in eloquence at this particular moment let me simply just say thank you i think you've been a a great resource for me personally i think you've done a nice job bringing the board along as well um and i know that that could not have been easy especially when you've had so many new board members come on the last couple years um and so i know that you're moving on to i'm gonna choke on this but bigger and better things for you and so wish you nothing but the best and look forward to seeing you on

073the running trail you got it thank you thank you thank you very much anyone else mr alexander yeah ryan ryan knows how i feel and i feel proud to be one of the original board members who brought him on board here to akron public schools when we had our vote it was a unanimous vote for ryan when he came in he started doing the work right there with us he started helping us to learn a new system which which we we needed to to learn even though his uh the person who came before him was good but it was a little tougher to understand some of the some of the the work that we needed to understand but ryan brought that to us so it was uh made it a lot easier for us to

074understand um of course i hate to see ryan ryan leave i'm a person i i love to keep people around me who've been here and who know what's going on and have the experience and do the things that need to be done to carry things forward but i know there's always a transition time and this is a transition time for ryan and um a transition time for for akron public schools um ryan wish you the best uh we'll miss you uh i know you'll still be around if we need to uh contact you talk to you or anything you'll be there to be there to listen and to help us and guide and just appreciate everything that you brought back from public schools to take us from where we were to where we at today

075and we have a task now this board to hopefully bring someone in just as good as you or if not better and if we don't do that we have not done a a good job so i look forward to to seeing you do the things that you want to do and uh to be able to to reach your endeavors and your milestones that you want to reach in life so thank you again appreciate you thank you appreciate you thank you very much anyone else mr perry thank you so i'd be remiss if i didn't join in obviously ryan's been very helpful to me uh you know being one of the newer board members only been on the board now for about a year uh when i first came on ryan was very instrumental in showing

076me financial you know how it worked how all that looked and it was very confusing it was a lot to take in but it was very uh helpful with me understanding that i look forward to our conversations continuing about things outside of this you know we're both marathon runners we talk about that all the time so look forward to keep seeing him on the trail and running faster than i do sometimes out there i don't know about that um yeah congratulations ryan good for you thank you very much yep thank you very much anyone else okay hearing and seeing that i want to present to mr pendleton this nameplate for your desk your new desk uh i shudder to say the new desk but for your new death hopefully it's just a small token of

077appreciation from the board um for your eight years of service but your many many many years and un accountable amount of impacts that you've made in our district so thank you we turn it over to you for any remarks that you want to make just a few and i'm absolutely certain if this were december uh i wouldn't be able to get through it um so because i'm going to see you all and work with you all i've got the confidence to to move forward and say a couple thank you so thank you so much to this board the board that hired me the board that's in place now um i sincerely appreciate our relationship each and every one of you and i think you know how i feel how our team is diverse and strong

078and i really value that i value that of an organization like this especially akron being my home um christine thank you so much for your kind words thank you so much uh for your grit and tenacity um these are very very exceptional times and so i i really appreciate our relationship um and the the work that we're doing here uh to the staff uh i was super excited to see you guys here you guys brightened my day every single day we have such a great uh time and work and i know you shudder when i say the word project so thanks for thanks for framing that in a way that didn't make me sound so evil but you are truly an extension of this organization and work and and you guys are rock stars you

079never miss a beat you never miss a beat in in light of a global pandemic and we wake up and work from home and and you just yeah you did it with grace um and and few errors that we could ever find so thank you thank you thank you you are so fantastic and awesome and to the staff here instructional staff in the buildings and support staff most importantly i thank you for your grit i thank you for your grit because these are very difficult times um and all the relationships in this room and those out in the buildings interacting with with staff i know your heart's there and i know the aps heart is the strongest i've ever felt and been a part of so for that i thank you and i'm so blessed

080to be able to work with you for the rest of this calendar year at least thank you thank you very much [Applause] thank you very much so we've had a lot going on in a short period of time and so we're going to take a five minute recess and then we will be back at 6 51 so that means every board member please be in your seat at 6 51. we stand in recess for five minutes after the meeting and are we good to go are we recording all right hello everyone and we have just returned from recess i have this regularly scheduled board meeting on uh 12 september 2022 we will now uh move into our approval of our previous meeting minutes on 22 august 2022 uh is there a motion on the table

081i still move to approve it's been properly moved by mr perry it's their second second it's been seconded by mr alexander any discussion on the motion to approve the previous meeting minutes hearing and seeing none we'll do a roll call vote please mr pendleton mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye ms jackson yes thank you thank you very much we now move to item five on the agenda personnel recommendations madam superintendent good evening again i wish to recommend approval of the personnel recommendations presented in categories 5 through 17. highlighting um within those recommendations are two important things one is a celebration the other a bit of sad news the celebration is in item 5.8 we want to celebrate and wish well kimberly summers who

082is a principal in our district that is has accepted a new leadership position out of state so she and her family are going to be moving on and we want to as an aps family wish her well we also in item 16.1 i did send out a note to our aps family at large because we lost one of our own jill reganos one of our maryland park award recipients just last year died on friday and so she has been a master teacher in our district and was a beloved member of the aps family was adored by her colleagues and the students at firestone clc where she taught ib there she has been with the district since the 1990 and so we did have that moment to offer comfort to one another internally but that is

083a part of the board notes today so i wish to recommend approval of the personnel recommendations presented in categories 5 through 17. thank you very much been properly recommended for the personnel recommendations by madam superintendent is there a motion on the table so moved has been properly moved by ms autry is there a second second it's been seconded by dr hall any discussion on the motion to approve the personnel recommendations hearing and seeing none we will do a roll call vote please mr pendleton dr akbar yes mr alexander yes miss autry yes mr perry yes dr hall all right miss jackson yes mrs mckittrick no on 6.4 and 11.6 yes on the balance thank you very much now we move to our resolutions and motions on the consent agenda madam superintendent yes for that i

084wish to recommend approval of the resolutions and motions presented in category 22. they are in proper format and i move for their approval thank you very much is there a motion on the table for the resolutions and motions on the cons agenda iso move is improperly moved by mr perry is there a second second is there any discussion on the motion to approve ms autry thank you mr president i just want to take a moment to acknowledge the many many many donations that we receive from various individuals and organizations listed here tonight as well as a lot of organizations and churches out in the community over this last a few weeks leading up to the start of school um lots of support has been offered you know in the forms of back-to-school items that are

085needed and so just a thank you to all of those donors absolutely yes any other discussion hearing and seeing then we'll do a roll call vote please mr pendleton mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye ms jackson yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes thank you thank you very much we will now move to item number 23 business affairs recommendations madam superintendent i wish to recommend approval of the business affairs recommendations presented in category 23. thank you very much any it's been properly recommended for the business affairs recommendations is there a motion on the table somo has been properly moved by mr alexander it's their second second it's been seconded by mr perry any discussion on the motion yeah i have some questions dr hall yeah my first question is

086in regards to item 23.12 this is the educational service center northeast ohio service agreement just trying to get some clarity around so we're hiring uh eight tutors so is it is the assumption that that i guess is that are we employing americorps because we're unable to find tutors here locally or is this a move to um where we're not sure how long we would be employing these folks and so it made sense to go with a a service contract for temporarily i'm sorry for temporary provided services i i will attempt to answer this and then team you can correct me if i'm wrong i think your your latter statement is we are trying to broaden our pool of persons who are able to tutor for us we are still hiring tutors and so but we

087have not filled every position available so it is a matter of being able to broaden our pool with an organization that is successful and has done a lot of tutoring with school districts in the past experienced i can think of the work sorry about that did you want anything dr gaber okay um so i guess okay so let me ask a follow-up question of that then so um so the assumption being that um the existing pool of applicants for tutors is inadequate to address the needs that we currently have is that is that what we're saying then that is part of what we're saying we do have a high dosage tutoring priority as a part of our esser plan that we really want to spend this time working on academic recovery and acceleration and so

088we want the ratio available i think one of you talked about being at a school and then being able to say how much they are appreciating having the tutors available to support the work of the building so we want to ensure that across the district so these folks are being hired to tutor not to teach right so i'm just i just want to clarify that in my head okay so they're not going to be leading rooms by themselves they are being hired to tutor which in this context they can help me out in this context that means that they are in the classroom at the same time as the teacher often times you might be in other areas of the building but in small group proximity you do push in or pull out depending on

089what how the teacher needs to be supported in the classroom but the tutor will be utilized um ideally with the instruction of the teacher so some it may be pushing small groups and it may be pull out when you think overall tutoring so uh let's see dr caber you you would concur with all that okay well i believe in this chat because we're gonna make her say okay [Music] so let me ask one more one more question on this one that is just so the tutors that americorps provides and those that we're also hiring um they don't have teaching licenses teaching licenses is that is that correct statement okay they don't have to but some of them may have teaching licenses okay but if they had a teaching license we still would not employ them

090so we would still not ask them to do anything that would constitute a teacher licensed activity okay okay so that's this contraband i'm saying but the tutors that we already employ and this contract aside the tours that we haven't that we have employed so we have a range of tutors for quite a few different purposes so it just depends on what the type of assignment is for for those folks so yeah we'd be happy to look into if there's okay just like the substitute teachers um for this year and for last year because i've come to and we're able to hire non-bachelor degree to uh subs okay so we have tutors in the district i don't know with this organization because that didn't come through that came from school right because that's what you were

091asking yeah yeah because yeah because i just want to make sure i understand the difference you know as far as what the word tutor means right so because it's so to that point and again i'm not trying to be funny i'm just saying that something we have we have three buckets of tutors we have tutors who are licensed teachers or have a teaching license we have we have substitute tutors that are not most of them do have licenses and then we have this third pool which are americorps supply tutors and these folks we assume they don't have teaching licenses many of them are degreed right may not be would not have a teaching exactly okay roger that okay and so so i guess it gets back to what i was trying to clarify and that

092is you know obviously we have a teacher we have a contract with the teachers union right that you know that teachers provide services that only licensed teachers can provide so i just i'm clarifying that even if we have a tutor that has a teaching license because they're in a job code of tutor that we would not be asking them to provide a service that contractually is supposed to be provided by a licensed teacher correct okay all right okay thank you that's that's that's what i was trying to get straight okay all right all right thank you very much dr hall and i have a question about another item too but i've heard the rest of you all have questions about something else any other discussion do you have your last item dr hall yes my

093last one was 23.18 the the the question i had here was um my understanding is that this is a project that would create sort of a it's out of school time network and that we're committing to essentially do you have this right uh is it two years of funding on this yes okay the initial design phase of the network roger that and then my question i think um goes to sustainability on this particular item so and understand that there are other organizations that are providing funds to support that thank you for that follow-up um and my question is that beyond the two years and also understand that there are other districts that multiple as i understand that employ a similar concept yes roger that okay um and so beyond the two years um is there

094a commitment from any organization to keep this in intact or to grow up beyond the two years or um i mean that may be unofficial right because we're talking about two years expenditures but beyond because i see that we're using sr3 funds to fund this and again those funds won't be available in two years so in two years then how would we be funding our contribution to this in two years right and so our contribution is around the startup design phase of that and so there are organizations that are talking about any uh long-term overhead that this might require but the goal is to have knitted together a kind of a governance approach and and to have tools available so that programs can be transparently accessed by our entire community so that when a parent

095is wondering about things like additional tutoring or enrichment options it's not limited to only what that parent knows but they can go in and see what's available across the city and it also gives providers that may or may not have the ability to be seen by different you know stakeholders the ability uh to be at the table and to have their resources um accessible and provided as well yeah i appreciate that um i guess i guess what i was driving at again back to sustainability is that beyond this expenditure again because this is an sr3 tagged item so those funds as we all know are gone after 2024 correct how would we then be funding this beyond beyond 2024 is that something that we're to your point are you saying that this will be built

096by then it will be self-sustaining it will be built and is intended to be self-sustaining by that point so that's the hypothesis going in we'll continue to learn about that but usually in other cities the sustainability is more about the you know in the nonprofit land and in the school district land it is about sustaining to the degree it can many of its offerings because we are both participating in the design we also are we offer a lot of options and so you recall that we talked a lot this past year about how we expanded the number of offerings both for in the summer but also in our after-school space during the course of last year that we've carried on even until this year so mainly our contribution will be to determine to participate in

097that governance structure but will be to continue a range of offerings that leverage then our college and career academy different programs tools equipment so this is not so this is not something that so connexus couldn't do this because because it sounds like what we're creating here is is another convener or commuter or convener like entity we we are working together with many other parties and so i'm not sure um you know to what degree connexus i believe is also uh playing a part in this but what we're trying to do is to braid together all of our resources so yeah no no no i think i think i think the mission is crystal clear i'm just trying to understand so we're not taking the lead uh we are participating in this process roger that so

098so if we didn't have s or three funds would we still be contributing to this initiative we would be looking to see if we could still contribute because i think our students we we are the main entity that has students attached to the organization and we want them to have easy access uh to all of the resources available to them in the city so we we absolutely would find a way to be at the table so that would probably happen through general fund i'm assuming then through whatever means we we could okay it just it's beneficial to us okay gotcha and then um last but not least is there a timeline i know i've asked um uh about who would be so so it sounds like this is meant to be up as an independent

099nonprofit moving forward yes it would be administered by that would have its own board of directors ostensibly and have its own executive director is that's my assumption is to the degree and i don't know again how um complex the you know organization will be at the end of the day but um we will it's usually this is intended to be a shared governance model so we will continue to be at the table uh continue to have a say so about our set of offerings and how it is we continue to collaborate with others across the city so do we know who who the main person who's driving the day-to-day movement on around this plan would be well we don't know right now there are in terms of um who's participating in the design process so

100we have uh the gar foundation united way is participating in this process we have some spin-off are dr ellen mcwilliams woods when she left you recall we talked about her um using that knowledge and expertise to be a part of the out of school network so she'll be involved in this process as well okay and then we will be involved roger that okay no further questions on that particular item thank you very much um before i go to doc i'm sorry mr repair i just want to say since we were talking about the akron out of school time network if you know if done right it could serve a great benefit to this community so many of our organizations outreach and reach is limited by the span of their network and if an organization like

101this can expand those networks and also offer resources for their sustainability it could mean much more support for our young people so again i'm not involved i don't know what's happening but just the premise and the idea to me does sound like something that as superintendent father max said that i would support us getting behind personally and because our our kids need it our community needs some type of coordinated effort around all these resources so mr perry i'm sorry so i have a comment on a question on item 23.19 the university of akron tuition payments for the akron early college high school students my comment is what an awesome program one of my my son's babysitters did that a couple years ago and she got two years credit i believe college while she was in

102high school and i thought that was amazing that she was able to come out of high school with that much college credit already and the question is how many students does actually cover i see the amount there about how many students that does that cover for next school year sorry i know you yes thank you early college has an enrollment of about 400 students right now i think they're sitting right at 378. they generally get taken here that's awesome thank you so do all so do all so and i'm i'm again i apologize for the multiple questions on this topic but um but does every student at akron early college they're all i guess we're paying tuition on all of them or is that just the students who are taking the college classes because isn't

103it a mix yes so starting with freshman year they are immediately enrolled as part of their acceptance to akron early college they also are accepted into the university of akron and they start freshman year taking courses of course your freshmen are only going to take like one course per semester as we're teaching them how to be college students and then by the time they are juniors we're looking for them to be full-time college students so they're going to be taking a minimum of about 12 hours per semester roger that but but so so freshman year like they're mostly going to be with dps teachers and they may have a class or two that's at the end of the level okay and so so this dollar amount is demanded to cover the university of akron portion

104for the entire school correct roger that thank you thank you very much um and are there any other discussion points uh i only have one additional just wanted to get clarity on the edmentum uh agreement i know uh superintendent we talked about it uh previously but i think what we talked about the last meeting is this agreement and the something else is the other agreement so if you could just since that was talked publicly if you can just provide that clarity for us sure um i was uh clarifying with dr akbar that in the last board meeting there also was a resolution that dealt with edmentum and but the conversation that ensued about that really was talking about the numbers of students who are enrolled in our online school format and so that program whereas

105that particular resolution at that time was more about the credit recovery software and the opportunity for students at each of our schools to access credit recovery this particular resolution does support the programming that is associated with the students who have chosen to take aps online this year as a part of their academic program thank you very much and it that also court corresponds with the amount differences so it makes it makes sense to uh to me why this amount is higher i just wanted to make sure that we shared that since that was a public discussion any other discussion points on business affairs recommendations so i have a follow-up question dr part of yours on 23.11. is there a plan for us at some point hiring um aps teachers to provide these online courses or

106are we talking about sort of permanently employing groups like edmentum to provide online education i just want to understand sort of what the future holds like this is kind of the plan definitely or do we have a plan to bring this in-house at some point yeah we don't have a defined plan at this moment but it is something that we have been talking about that we've been talking about at the district level we've talked about um with our teachers union things of that nature so but there are no definitive plans at the moment we really last year focused more of our efforts on ensuring that we were bringing students and staff back into a more normal school year and just really you recall how unstable last year was so our priority was really knowing that

107we had a viable solution was you know kind of working in the format we have currently but we'd love to be able to explore the option you know with no guarantee of um what that outcome would be roger that so if we were not so again i see this is we're using sr3 funds to to fund this as well if we did not have so3 funds we would still be finding a way to fund this we would because we we actually now and especially so after post covid there is increasingly a population that this format just works for families and so we do want to be a system that is has multiple options to be able to support our families but i think we're still learning you know kind of what what that population really

108is so last year there were many more students who took advantage of that this year the numbers have decreased from that and still aren't what it used to be as low as it used to be but have leveled off from how high it was last year so i think within the next year or so we're going to have even a better picture of who is the audience that we need to be planned to serve thank you very much uh is there any other discussion hearing and seeing then we'll do a roll call vote please mr pendleton ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall uh no on 23.5 6 11 12 14 and 18 yes on the balance thank you miss jackson yes mrs mckittrick no on 23 5 6 11 12 14 and 18

109yes on the rest thank you dr akbar yes mr alexander yes thank you very much we now move to superintendence report madam superintendent sure and i'll be briefing the report today first of all we are just wanting to recognize and thank publicly our parents and our scholars and our educators in all facets of the work both in classrooms and also those in support roles we have been having a really smooth opening to this school year and that really takes the energy and efforts of everyone working together so we just don't want to act like we take that for granted and just thank everyone for their attention to details their intentiveness about building relationships things of that nature and we really hope to keep things going because we we are right now exemplifying at a high

110level what be kind 330 is all about so congratulations all around to our schools and to our families with that type of environment it brings good will and so we've really enjoyed a lot of goodwill in the last couple of years by many of our partners and you saw that in the donations and this week will bring even more reason to celebrate so tomorrow is a big day for us in collaboration with the cleveland browns organization both the foundation and the organization at large we talked in the fall or in the late spring i believe where we had broken ground at brookdale high school and were able to accept a gift of a field a turf field and so we'll be really pleased tomorrow to have chomps back on hand and several of the player

111and persons from the organizations as we cut the ribbon on that field so that we can get out of the way so that the athletic contest can begin so the football team in particular will be able to open up on on the new field and then all of the different sports you know for our band for our soccer teams uh for our uh littles that uh also play football or the community at large will start to be able to access that space so we're really excited about that and hope that the weather cooperates on us tomorrow we also though prior to that we'll start the day at east clc where in the summer you recall the browns organization used as its volunteer day that's organization-wide volunteer day they did a summer blitz of projects and

112they chose to focus uh on on us here in the akron public schools and did that at eclc so we will cut the ribbon again tomorrow on a first of its kind stay in the game room and so i won't give away too many details about that we'll talk about that afterwards but also we will be officially dedicating our restorative resource room that we're hoping to replicate at many more of our schools as well so that we can have many more alternatives to suspension and planning that takes place with our young people and then we can also see the final of the courtyard refresh that took place at the two courtyards at east high so that will be tomorrow at one o'clock and then we'll zoom across town uh to celebrate at the other location

113so both of those celebrations will be brief but we're really excited to have the ongoing partnership and encouragement of the browns organization along with so many of our partners at large so with those two announcements made i'd like to ask dr caver to come to the mic and we're going to do a presentation because you know one of the things that will occur this week is also going to be the release of the state report card and it is yet another new format and so tamiya is just going to ready us to receive that information from the state dr caver thank you good evening everyone as the superintendent has stated i'm going to go over a preliminary report of our report card that should be released this thursday on september 15th we wanted to take

114the time to take this opportunity to share our results with the board before the actual release of the report card so today i'm going to share with you a little information about the new ratings the report card timeline for the reform that is taking place in our state we will look at some of the weights and the measures of the new report card system as well as dig deep into some of the components of the actual report card and also share with you our preliminary ratings what we expect to receive when the report card is released on thursday as stated we are in the middle of a report card reform in the state of ohio as you can see we will be releasing the report cards will be released this thursday and so that's where

115we are in the timeline however there are other additional changes that will also take place from the state over the next few years that that are in addition to the the report card that's being released today but again we are in this phase of the report card reform timeline with the state of ohio so one of the primary changes that you will see in the new report card is the style of the ratings previously we will receive ratings in our components and an overall report card with letter grades of a through f with the release of the new report card the style of rating is moving from a letter grade system to a star rating system anywhere from one to five stars so that will be new in addition in the past we had six

116areas on the report card that were being rated and with the new report card we are moving to again six areas however there are changes in the naming or the title of the components and there are also some changes in the component calculations as well so before we had k-3 literacy which is now early literacy and and we also had prepared for success which has now become a category called college career workforce and military readiness quick i'm sorry to interrupt you dr caver that just you go back a slide sorry the early literacy is that is that something beyond k through three like are they added fourth grade or is it still k through three it's still k through three but i am going to go through each component for us individually too okay is

117that okay yeah okay so again i just wanted to point out that now with the measures in the prior system the measures will receive a letter grade or rating as well and currently uh with the new report card the measures don't receive ratings only the components themselves will receive an overall rating and then we will also get an overall star rating for the district with all the components combined this is not our report card but this is what the new report card will look like when we receive it so this is just a visual for everyone to see you will notice that there are stars next to the six components and then also the sixth component which is the ccwm again college career workforce and military readiness data will not have a rating it actually

118won't have a rating until the year 2025 although the state is collecting data as we build up to that time period a summary of the stars in terms of what they mean pretty much you want to start with a three-star rating which means that you are meeting your state standards and achieving and doing what it is that you should be doing as a school district anything above three stars mean that means that you are exceeding state standards and then as you start to get ratings below three it means that you need some support in order to meet the state standards so as mentioned previously the ccwm area will not be rated so as we look at the rating currently our report card will only have five areas and each of those areas are weighted differently

119as is stated here on this slide so we will only be looking at five areas that will lead to our overall star rating and again achievement and progress as you can see are rated heavier than the or weighted heavier not rated than gap closing early literacy and graduation rate this slide is to look is so that you can see what measures actually contribute to each component and as i stated i'm going to go into detail a little more with each one of these but as you can see overall there are measures and percentages of those measures that actually go into each of the component ratings so in general or in brief i should say these are our ratings that we are expecting on the report card once it is released this thursday we got a

120three we got three stars in gap closing we have two stars in the areas of achievement and progress and then we earned one star in graduation rate and early literacy and now i'm going to take the time to actually go through each one of these five areas so that you can see how we receive these ratings so the first area we're going to look at is the achievement component the achievement component measures students academic performance on each of our ohio state tests so those are the tests that the children take starting in third grade going on to high school so those are all of our ost tests that we receive as well as our end of course tests at the high school in order to determine your achievement rating they look at performance index first

121let's give some highlights for the 2022 report card that is being released some of our highlights is that we have increased in six out of seven areas in english language arts we increased in five out of eight areas in mathematics we increased in two out of three areas in science and overall our performance index rate increased by 19.5 points again performance index is what we look at in order to determine our achievement rating here is a recap of our performance index over the last four years so as you can see we were hit hard and when we test we were hit hard after the pandemic year and when we took our test in 2021 our performance index for the district was 39.21 so in a year's time we have bounced back and our performance index

122rate has increased by 19.5 points giving us a 58.71 performance index score as you can tell we are trending in the right direction we've shown tremendous progress and that goes to the work of our teachers and our building leaders and our central office staff that are supporting these individuals but i do want to take a moment to just recognize the hard work that has taken place in this school district over the past year and being able to achieve a 19.5 increase is a great feat for our for our employees of this school district we also know that we are still in our road to recovery so we are it appears that the systems that we have put in place are working but we still do have a little ways to go to get to where

123we were pre-pandemic in our school district in the area of achievement oh i apologize too fast the second area we want to look at is progress and the progress area we earn two stars progress is looking at the academic performance of the students compared to their expected amount of growth it is basically looking at a scholar from one school year to the next and saying did they make a year's worth of growth it is actually not measuring a student up against a score or a standard it is looking at where the scholars are academically on their own performance and then recognizing how much growth that they make to the next school year and the expectation is that they would make one year's worth of growth this is also commonly referred to as value added this

124is an example of how the score is actually calculated this has been changed and there's a two-step process so everyone starts out at a three the assumption is that a scholar would make one year's worth of growth i'm just coming to school every day and um getting instruction so everybody starts at a three then there's something called the growth index that is calculated and what we are looking for is they are looking at the evidence or statistical evidence that the that the observed growth in that scholar is indeed above or below the growth expectation if it is above the growth expectation for a scholar that's how you move from a three to a four if it is below the growth expectation is how you would move from a three to a two and then the

125second part of this calculation is differentiating based on effect size with the effect size they're looking at the magnitude of the growth to see if it was large enough to basically move from a four to a five or from a two to a one but again everyone starts with three stars and then the data analysis or this two-step process determines if our rating is moved the progress component eventually will be a three-year component this is our first year with progress so therefore the rating that we receive this year is a hundred 100 percent of the the score that we received this year is 100 percent of the rating that we will receive as we go into next school year then we will have two years worth of data being the current year will be weighted

126at 67 percent and the previous year will be rated at 33 percent until we eventually get to the third year of progress information which will then be broken down into 50 percent current year and then 25 percent for each of the two previous years a highlight that we want to state while the district received an overall two stars we do want to recognize that our elementary schools in 24 out of 27 buildings in our elementary schools earned three stars or above so some of them aren't three stars some of them earn four stars so we do want to recognize the work of our elementary buildings at this time mrs outley again we are well on our way the third component that i want to discuss is gap closing this is the area where we earn

127three stars and gap closing measures the reduction in educational gaps in student subgroups in our school district you can have up in our school district we have nine subgroup categories that we're rated in you can have up to 10 in the state but we only have nine here in akron the items that are measured in the gap closing area include gifted performance chronic absenteeism english learner proficiency graduation goals for student subgroups academic performance or achievement in ela and math according to subgroups and then also academic progress or growth like we were just speaking about previously in ela or math for certain subgroups so here's gap closing overall and i'm just going to go through each section really quickly so first with chronic absenteeism as i stated in a previous presentation we have a new baseline

128in chronic absenteeism this year chronic absenteeism although we know our number is not being included in our report card rating but it will be included starting next year the next area is english learner proficiency improvement indicator this is where we are looking at the olpa scores of our scholars and seeing how much improvement or how much progress they are making on that assessment so that's another area i do apologize city go to a different one oh and i should state with the english learner proficiency improvement indicator we receive the maximum amount of points that we can receive in that area graduation also has individual sub goals and those nine categories that i was referencing which would include things like economically disadvantaged um english learners it will include subgroups of scholars by race and so this

129is another area where there are there are specific rates that are specific goals not rates goals that are that are set in terms of meeting those and you can earn points by actually meeting those goals by subcategory english language arts looks at both looking at those subgroups and if they are meeting the goals in not only achievement but also in progress which again indicates growth the same is true for mathematics at looking at mathematics achievement as well as looking at mathematics progress or growth and then last but not least is the gifted performance indicator which is new to this area and it looks at three items one is the performance of our gifted scholars again achievement looking at their test scores the second one is progress again how much growth that they make and then

130the third area is gifted identification and also servicing of those scholars so some of our gap close and highlights um are on this screen now so we receive graduation points for meeting the for exceeding not meeting for exceeding the goals for for graduation rate for our black scholars economically disadvantaged and english language learners we also receive point a point for exceeding the ela achievement goal for our black scholars we got poinsent gifted for progress and we got the maximum amount of points for identification and services of our gifted scholars we also as i already stated received our maximum amount of points on the english english language learner progress for on the alpha assessment and then last but not least we also receive progress points for ela and math achievement or progress for our asian and

131english learner scholars yeah hi let me jump in with a question here so so we're highlighting that we received an led achievement point for black students so understand that what is the magnitude of one point so because because you didn't say star you said a point right so we're talking like we're on a zero to 100 scale and we went up one point so you're talking a zero to nine scales you're to nine scale okay and we went up one point on a zero to nine scale on that area on that area okay and then you said we got gifted points plural for progress and identification and services again on a zero to nine scale okay so i mean so we call out the point for black students we'll understand for the gifted did we

132go up two points three points did we know so for identification and services we had five points out of five um that you could receive on that one uh for the gifted progress unfortunately i don't recall off the top of my head exactly what those numbers are but all of these items add up to the points in each category it is a massive component here that all of these things kind of add in but again in those categories for instance in the ela achievement there are nine subgroups that we could um there are nine subgroups that we can earn points in right and so to your point in that one specific area there was one point for our black students that met the goal okay so okay 09 scale okay so i guess what was

133what was the baseline so we went from one to two seven to eight so when we say that we received a point for black students like where do we go from what to what so there so there was no there my questions are because i'm seeking to understand not going to try no problem be difficult i just i just want to understand what's in the slide right so this one we could have a full session but like you were stating i'll just go into i'll give you an example so there were nine areas right so let's say that the graduation rate or the graduation goal for black students could have been this is just my example because i don't know the numbers off the top of my head but the example could be that the

134rate um was 67 percent that they had for black students to meet the state goal and then by exceeding it that means that we scored above 67 or black students scored above 67 percent or they had a graduation rate higher than 67 percent and that would be an area where we have exceeded or met the state's goal and those numbers change every year right so they also increase in terms of what the goals are um for each sub category in these areas every year as well so in your example let's just use your example what in your example would have gotten me the additional point actually meeting that goal whatever the goal that the state lists this wasn't a growth this isn't the part of the that's you know measuring growth this is the target

135set for a subgroup for so there might i'm sure there are other districts that also met or exceeded the goal for certain subgroups so in this particular instance that was one of the um things that distinguished this new report card for us is that for that particular subgroup for the goal set by the state for all of its schools we we exceeded that right so so so my assumption is that we want the board to understand this right yeah um right so so my so again at your point there's a lot more detail that we could go into right so so that's what i'm saying like i don't understand um some of what we're covering and so i don't know that means that you say hey dr oh this is a preliminary slide deck right

136and we're going to come back and do a more in-depth uh position later on that would allow us you know to you know have some time in between to kind of pepper you with questions offline so that way we understand more of the backgrounds that way when we see the slides you know the slides make sense right because again i think the goal is we we're doing this tonight because we want the board to understand it right and so i think i'm i'm more confused than i feel like i should be as i'm walking through this and so um there are some of you who probably seen well no this is the first year we're doing this so people can't say well i've seen this before that's what i'm saying before so that's why i'm

137saying like i'd like to i think it's probably advisable that we come back and do another session like this um but again i'm gonna let you get back through the slides but again my questions are that i just don't follow this and so when we're so we're talking about this is how i'm wired right if if we're if we're going to discuss scoring i want to understand the scoring methodology right and if that's too complex to cover in a board meeting then let's find another way to get that information out otherwise we're just sitting here with our eyes glazing over because we don't understand the methodology that's that that's up on the slides in front of us right so i want this time to be value-add for you all presenting it and value-add for all

138of us hearing it thank you this is none of us are really going to understand this first when we got the first report crowd when i was on the board yeah we had no idea but what we may have to do is go to dr cavers and sit down with her so she can explain a little better and then we get a deeper understanding then when she comes back again then we have i totally agree with that approach yeah totally great approach good because because it's our job to understand this folks right right it's the board's job to understand it and it's it's our job to work with all of you to make sure that we all understand this stuff right you know so i i i don't need to be an expert but but

139when we're putting slides up i have to understand what we're what we're walking through so let's say also yeah thank you at the committee meeting i was able to ask dr king a lot of questions about these slides and i got a really good understanding of her just being there asking those questions yeah like what bruce said you know making an appointment and asking her those questions probably will clarify it for you yeah and and so let's recall our committee structure right we assigned two to three board members to a committee right and that's for a reason because again just as you all have other responsibilities so members of this community like the board right so you know so again so i don't think that what we should do is point the emphasis on board

140members that hey you got to be at every single committee meeting because above and beyond the ones that you're assigned to i i will try to make those means that when i can but it's also helpful to to consume this as a group also um you know so again you know so again it's just not me you know again i appreciate what's what's going on here but i want to make sure that we all understand we that there's a avenue for us to understand this and that means emailing out homework or pre-reading before we get here i think that would be awesome that's what i was going to offer we we actually will uh share there are quite a few resources and i think um imagine having not had this preview and just having received

141the report card itself and so one of the things we're trying intentionally to do is to give you some degree of understanding both you know in the committee structure and in the board meeting knowing that it is going to take several iterations i can't tell you how many webinars meetings i've attended over the last even two years leading up to this point where we've gone through and most of the times they only go through a section they don't even go through the whole report card it's a meeting where you only talk about gap closing because there are layers of nuance in what's being calculated and measured and communicated through the tools but we will share because our state has done a really effective job at having some support resources uh available for those that want

142to go at a granular level and we will continue to not only this isn't a one-shot because we consider this to be a piece of information while we also pay attention to many other pieces of information that give us feedback on how it is that we're doing in terms of meeting the needs of our students but we will continue to use this data and information um as we talk to you many more times over so um yeah and i appreciate that and again you know this is more of a help me help you moment right i mean in that you know and i i say this all the time you know we're community elected right so when someone so when this report card comes out they're going to be folks who reach out to us

143and say wait wait we got graded what right so tell me why is our score what it is in this particular category you know or why is our overall score this right and so you know candidly it's embarrassing if i can't if i can't explain that at least i'm not trying to say i need to be explained as well as you do dr caber um you know but at the same time you know as school boards are held accountable for how schools perform school boards are too not just senior staff school boards are um and so i'm i'm very interested in you know being held accountable at the community level but i just want to make sure that i'm also being positioned to succeed as well with regard to that so okay yes and at

144the end there's a qr code also that was put in the presentation so that it can take you to the department of education website where you can see the tech and the technical documents as well that can help you to understand how these ratings are calculated and what information goes into coming up with each of these ratings as the superintendent stated today the presentation was intended to give you a preview of what's going to be on there and try to a high level explain what goes into each one of these areas but as she stated also there are sessions that are two hours long to just go over one area to explain in detail from our esc or from the state at times so that we can understand how these calculations occur as well so

145we didn't see that as something for this venue to be able to go into in death but definitely i'll make sure you have those resources and if you would like we can also schedule additional time to go over additional questions okay all right so let's move on to the graduation rate where we receive one star and new this year is an overall component rating for the graduation rate where we combine the four-year and the five-year graduation rate this is not our data this is actually an example that's given out by the state of how it is calculated so the four-year rate is weighted at 60 percent and then the five-year rate is weighted at 40 percent and then you add those two together to determine what your overall component rating is for graduation this is

146our actual data and i want to point out and remind you all that graduation rate is reported in arrears so this information comes out after the graduation rate has already been achieved so our four-year graduation rate is based on the class of 2021. our five-year graduation rate is based on the class of 2020 and when we put those two calculations together we receive an overall graduation rate of 83.14 that is the the rating that we are receiving on this report card that will be released this week i want to point out that we are one percent away from receiving two stars we would need an overall rating of 84 percent in order to receive two stars so we are very close to moving to a new a new rating i also want to take this

147moment to talk about our trend data and graduation this is both our four-year rate and our five-year rate on a graph for the past five years the 2022 data at the very end has an asterisk by it because that information is preliminary that information will not be reported until the report card is released next fall but that is just information that i'm sharing with you based on what we are submitting to the state and what we have on internal systems currently so again we can see that we are trending in the right direction and that overall our graduation rate has improved about approximately five percent over the past five years hey dr caver can you go back to this one slide for me please go to the previous slide yes ma'am yes so do we

148know how the state arrives at 84 percent is one star or 90 to 93 these numbers that they're pulling out of the hat or is there some sort of national benchmarking that they're using it might feel like they pull out of a hat i'm just wondering is there some sort of like how do i like how they i mean how do they know to set three stars at 90 percent for example like that i guess that's my question yeah i don't have that exact answer for you no worries okay right so they set these terms um and then sometimes they change they set these rates and they change but i think that some of that is what they kind of describe in technical documents which are kind of thick for each area but yes i'm

149not sure exactly what they utilize to set these standards okay and another area is early literacy in early literacy i'll speak to this one dr hall i know you asked about this one previously so now we're looking at reading achievement as well as reading improvement i should say as well as achievement meaning proficiency for our scholars in grades k through three there are three areas that go into this component the first area is looking at proficiency on the third grade reading assessment so the third grade reading assessment has several categories to it so in order to meet this or to come up with this rating we're actually looking at only the reading portion of the english language arts assessment and what is the reading sub score that a scholar has in order to meet this

150standard they're also looking at promotion fourth grade how many scholars are going to be promoted to the fourth grade and then the last part is called improving k-3 literacy and this actually has to do with again looking at scholars who are off track to being proficient in reading and then how do they perform the next year in terms of moving from off track to possibly being on track for reading proficiency now let's look at the aps data so for third grade proficiency 40 percent of our scholars were proficient on the reading sub sub score in the reading proficiency test 99.6 of our scholars were promoted to fourth grade last year or this year currently and then improving k-3 literacy from the scholars this is a metric that is going from fall to fall so when

151we say that we move 31 of our kindergarten scholars to from off track to on track when they became first graders these are looking at orange this is looking at our instruction from the fall of 2020 to the fall of 2021 this is another one that's kind of reported in arrears and so what we are looking at in these right here in these results is how did our scholars perform or how did they advance during the year of remote learning normally our scholars in the past have been our scholars our scores have been higher in the past and we do expect this area to show significant improvement when we finish testing our scholars this fall and looking at the diagnostic scores that we'll receive just based on the fact that now they've had a year

152of in-person instruction behind them so again i just want to reiterate that those scores right there have to do with the year of of remote learning when you add those together that's how we get the one star the last category we will not be rating and again i just want to reiterate that it will not receive a rating until the year of 2025 which is the college career workforce and military readiness component this is that timeline again that shows you that that's when we'll actually receive a score in this area and then these are the types of areas that are recorded or that go into this actual component so these are the measures looking at a remediation free score on the act or the sat this is where it comes in where our scholars earning

153industry credentials this is where we are also looking at their scores on the ap and their ib exams so those are they will also be tracking military enlistment those are all of the areas that you see up here that go into the measures that actually feed into this component so you get this to you so that you can get your rating however we will not receive that until the year of 2025 but they are collecting data on us year after year so as i stated in the beginning those were the five areas and these are the percentage weights that go along with each of those areas to come up with our overall rating we will not receive a over an overall rating in the year of 2022 when it's released but we will see these

154stars as i stated at the beginning on our report card when it is released this thursday in the presentation here's the qr code where you could scan and it will take you to resources as well as technical documents to get more information where we can really dig into some of those questions that even dr hall presented at tonight's presentation so i have a few follow-up questions um so first off is there a plan to come back to this board again to talk about this topic we would ordinarily have you know more of the in-depth conversation at the instructional policy committee meeting but if there are particular questions because again this content is is dense and so um and part of what we've been doing is as well already sharing both and through our our esser

155plan because we we also saw our trend data uh you know kind of how it is we had dedicated programs resources staff to recovering lost learning and getting kids on track so um it might be challenging in this format you know just for a more kind of work session type of discussion uh but willing to work with you also i know i meet with you all board leadership this week um maybe we can go into some more detail about that sure sure thank you so so okay so so a few more follow-up questions um so what i think would be helpful to know and again was not expecting this to be part it's a nice presentation right um but i just understand where do we rank right compared to other urbans where we rank compared

156to other districts that's sort of question one um number two um i know that in the past we've all been critical and i think rightly so of certain portions of the report card right um you know um for varying reasons whether it be methodology concerns or sort of the mechanics of some of it right so i guess what i'm interested in is that is we sort of as you all have time to kind of unpack the contents of because i know that you are all still unpacking this right see also seeking to understand it right um i'd be i'd be interested to hear with this new report card you know um which of the area which of the identified areas of opportunity are areas that we feel um are fair call outs right um and

157which are the areas that we say well you know what like that area just there's something either inequitable or something inherently flawed from our viewpoint in the methodology that they employ to get to x y and z sort of metric and or report right so that so that so that would be helpful for me to know as well and then um and then last but not least um you know do we do we do we understand the methodology right behind the measures right because you know how else will we plan to to improve if we don't understand the you know the you know the mechanics and the specs right and and and thankfully that's not my job um you know so that's all of you at senior staff you know that's that's that you get

158to unpack all that and have to be able to reach expert level and those those tech specs um but again just but that's my question right because and also too i know alternatively you know what i what i don't want to do is have us say hey there is particular category where we just flat out disagree with the methodology and so we're just not going to really address it right because these are the grades you know and so um but again you know i want to i want to balance that too and with that okay what's a fair call and what do we think is a co-op that maybe is not fair you know because i think that helps to manage the expectations of the board and allows the board to help assist you all

159in managing community expectations around some of these measures right so it's kind of that jerry maguire help me help you kind of a thing so um so those are my so those are my concluding sort of comments and so i i do very much appreciate your presentation i know i asked you a lot of questions but but your time and effort that one of this was certainly very much appreciate dr gaber thank you dr hall and and your questions are appreciated it keeps me growing and also keeps me on my toes dr hall but also know that we are definitely looking as a senior team looking at the at the data and also just like we set goals we're just like we have goals and expectations that are set by the state we are digging

160enough to determine what can we do what do we put in place are there any adjustments we need to make in order to continue to progress and so in terms of how do we fare against other districts we don't have access to the district's information until it's released so we will definitely be weighing ourselves against for instance the big eight to determine where do we fall and again with the release of this new report card to get we have to wait to get an understanding to see how do we fare in comparison to other districts right now so those are fair questions and there are also questions that we're looking for answers to as well so thank you again can i just add on to that though um one of the things that um i

161believe was uh and a level of intentionality behind this approach to the state report card to get away from the grades the a through f grading and to get to stars was trying to get to a different way of communicating about progress that you know was transparent and gave the information needed both for families and the schools but trying to get out of that sorting ranking uh type of concept we have in our own educational circle said you know it's likely that we will folks will still find a way to say you know kind of where do we rank to sort and rank but what this is intended to do is to give us guiding information as we seek to meet the needs of our students to be able to give more granular ones in

162certain areas whether it's graduation rate whether it is in the early literacy to say as you focus you know kind of hears where you are here's even more particular information of how to move your students forward we are this is a result you saw just a week ago too i think i forwarded you all information about uh the nation's report card the nape scores that for the first time ever you know hit dramatic uh lows in the areas of literacy and mathematics and things of that nature so clearly regardless of district type school type things of that nature we are all feeling the effects of covet and the learning loss which again then you had our federal state education chief talking back to resources and supports that they've already offered and while they're continuing to

163think about those as we move forward because we we do have work to do um and so i think uh i applaud the work of our team we did show some growth in movement uh but we we celebrate that but our nose is down to say what must we do to make sure many many more of our students are on track and thriving both in the academics but also social emotionally and mentally so we we do have work to do moving forward thank you very much any other questions for madam superintendent all right hearing and seeing then can i also thank dr caver though so for just a few weeks on the job to get command of our data and information great job [Applause] thank you very much um and hopefully uh this report card

164will stay this way before a longer period of time than normal so that we can get a handle of it with that being said we'll move to president's report just a few things first thank you to the district for a great opening of school and i was able to go to a few schools for that first week one doing the clapping for the first day for ellen arnold was as miss jackson said pretty energizing um and also got a chance to sit in a classroom and unfortunately the teacher's name is escaping me but she had pictures of every student that she had in uh helen arnold um on her wall and she decorated her room with really vibrant colors and i thought that was really good as she was since it was the first day

165setting expectations for her class i appreciate having that opportunity to sit in that third grade class there with that being said i also got a chance to see chomps and join uh dr hall and superintendent fowler mack and assistant superintendent dr cavers and a whole host of different staff and even saw mrs otley kelly almost knocked down chomps just to get a picture so that was awesome to see um but overall it was good to even engage with some of the parents uh and to see their excitement and also their tears of joy to see their children so that's always a good thing and just want to thank that staff and everything and appreciate the partnership with the cleveland browns though i'm not a football player fan i do love seeing chops um it's probably

166probably the best thing about the cleveland browns but um [Music] anyway [Laughter] so with that being said also um so i also had opportunity i was going to attend miller south we had to do some rescheduling because principal schmidt wouldn't be there uh we have a new principal at that school so i'm excited to get a chance to meet her um and then since our last meeting i was able to join one of our erg groups at the akron uh pride march and parade with the aps pride and it was um i i can't really tell you the exact number but it seemed like it was 40 or 50 uh people there for our aps all together it was a beautiful sight and i thought last year was great this seemed like it was bigger

167superintendent father mack uh joined us um it was really a good thing to see um and appreciate uh the work that they do as well then two other things just about board business uh we have a suit a treasure search um starting we just had a special meeting with the search firm earlier today and we'll be putting out that announcement tomorrow um and excited to start that process even though still sad to see mr pendleton um go and the last thing is we are going to do a retreat we're going to give more information on that later but excited to uh have that meeting with our consultant superintendent father mack and i uh met with her and i think uh you will be uh um you you'll be uh proud and also um you know

168have some opportunities to have some reflection and some thoughtful um facilitated dialogue at our retreat in october so with that being said those are the main things that i wanted to share for the president's report any uh questions okay hearing and seeing done we will go to the treasures report mr pendleton no report thank you thank you very much we will now go to uh committee reports legal contracts and board policy no report but we're working on the date for uh our next meeting thank you very much any questions for miss alexander seeing and hearing none finance and capital management ms autry thank you mr president the committee met on august the 29th and we had a discussion around esther funds including timelines and just as a reminder we have two school years remaining to

169utilize those funds one pivotal date that we need to keep in mind march of 23 the district must know what esser funded initiatives are going to be continued and moved to general funds so that's just something to kind of keep um on our minds as we move forward um one other thing i know we've talked a lot about sustainability as well and one of the things that was discussed in the meeting is that um i believe mr pendleton you said 10 million dollars is i guess sort of set aside per se for sustainability initiatives for whatever we decide so although we don't want to lock ourselves in some of those broad areas will probably be around safety social emotional learning and staffing and so those are just some of the things that we discussed also

170i know dr hall you were there and added some some insight and continued uh focus on our plans around our building kenmore garfield in particular and so i didn't know if there was anything you wanted to add or miss jackson you were there as well yeah thanks ms autry i'll jump in yeah i think one of the things i was just conveying was that um there's still concerns about what we do with regard to kenmore high school that building remains empty um and you know we we don't currently have a plan um don't currently have a plan on um how we improve that building or and or how we think about bringing back educational services you know to that building in its current state so that continues to be an area that um that i

171i continue to push on um you know i think it's it's worthy of conversation um and so you know i know folks who may be doing this tonight you know we haven't forgotten about kenmore as an area that needs attention and so that's the main thing i wanted to say about that um and so um i think to that point i think that there's some um i think i think that we've got some plans to um to sort of continue to get move this process forward as relates to kenmore and i think we're we've got a timeline i think in place at this point to at least ensure that we've got as much feedback as we possibly can have on this particular topic but it does remain um an area of a huge priority i

172think for us so i just want to so miss audrey i appreciate you you know give me the chance to kind of say that and because i do want to keep make sure that this stays top of mind with with with the members of this board um and so uh so i'll i'll conclude my comments with that thank you thank you ms autry thank you very much any other comments any questions for the finance and capital management hearing and seeing none we will move to instructional policy and student achievement we're going to i guess start with miss mckittrick actually we're going to start with miss autry and so actually we already discussed the items that i was going to report out on previously regarding edmentum and also the americorps tutoring and so i was going

173to report out on that i can add that two of those tutors have been identified already for case and forest hill and then they'll be placed at other buildings as the need is identified and as always you have links for college and career academy family resource center and stay in the game updates in your agendas agenda thank you very much any uh questions for instructional policy committee hearing is seeing none we'll go to equity committee dr hall thank you dr akbar so we met tuesday the 6th of september and received a report from the superintendent sort of walking us through a new partnership with netpack international that is consistent with uh one of our goals outlined in our advanced aps document of that of increasing supplier diversity um so i think that was a well-received

174presentation um you know i think we also i think the heart of what we talked about um and i think as far as what consumed the most time was um we had uh miss sykes come and provide a report out on the family and community engagement study so we employed an organization called iel known as institute for educational leadership where they provided some highlights around their engagement and equity audit and so so again i'm not going to walk through the entire thing um but essentially you know we kind of we talked through the process that they employed to to to get to gather the information you know and sort of that that occurred in primarily in four phases um you know a doc first phase one i think for me felt like it was the

175most important because it was foundational and that it was a review of our all of our policies and protocols and data right and that communicate you know our values or refer to or define expectations uh as relates to how we how we do family and community engagement so the second phase was a perception survey um you know and so this was an area that i thought the methodology was sound uh but but we did talk about how do we get more more respondents um for that survey um and so uh we talked about and then of course we kind of walked through uh phase three which is you know site visit um you know and uh which consisted of deep dive uh interviews and focus groups um and then sort of last but not least

176um you know we kind of talked through what the strengths and opportunities were um by category um and so for example you know we kind of their opportunities as related to you know well so i'm not gonna read the slides to you but what i will say is that um there's in short there are some things that we're doing well um you know but i think that i think there are also some questions that we're trying to get that we're need some movement on um you know i know i ask questions because one of the things that you know that that consultants do and this is not a dig at all consultants but but it's consultant talk right whereas they they like to use the word leverage a lot which makes me absolutely insane because

177that word doesn't provide any detail about how you do something right it just says so we for example one of our opportunities was to was to continue to leverage current policies right so what's the word leverage mean in this context right so um you know and so um and there were some highlights around you know uh building on pockets of distinction across the across aps you know and so um so it's it'd be nice to one of the things i talked about was it'd be nice for us to identify what the who and what those pockets of distinction are and you know what if any best practices or cultural norms have been established that can be duplicated um or shared out with with with groups that are out that would fall outside of a pocket

178of distinction right so but um but again overall i mean i thought that the methodology that they employed was was sound um and i know that there's some additional follow-up work that work that that we're going to do as it relates to the engagement and equity audit as well and then moving um to the next topic um we had um uh uh miss alexander sorry mrs alexander um look at that right mr alexander mrs alexander um you know came and gave us a really robust update around the new teacher project and the work that they're doing as it relates to dei um so we kind of talked through a committee that's being established you know it's meant to be more of a cross-functional committee if you will then we also talked about in that block

179we also talked about sort of the professional development approval process right and how do we kind of work to ensure that we've got personal development that is around dei um that is being sort of rolled out sort of layer by layer and so we talked about there being a timeline and that this that this committee is going to work to have in place uh with recommendations to in january which and those recommendations will outline the plan for the next two years um in part dealing with training at a building level you have that right ms chapman okay all right um and then uh last but not least uh we had uh miss carter um that you know uh provided some comments she worked she worked very hard to be brief because we were because we

180were at the end of the meeting so i think we cut her off but we're gonna try to get her some more time the next equity meeting but she gave a nice update around the alternative resident educator and licensure program and and how that how those recruitments are going i'm sorry recruitment efforts are going and then she also shared that she's actually going to be speaking at the university of mount union's school of education symposium on on dei uh she'll be giving a talk called a cultural competence in the educational workforce and so that's going to be on september 30th i think at nine o'clock as a note i have written here nine to ten yeah so so it'd be nice if if some of us could get down there to support i know some

181of us on the board have a school board conference that that happens to be on that day so i know that those of us who are going won't be able to make it but it'd be nice if some of what other board members or other senior staff in the room would be nice so some of you could get down and support ms carter and giving her comments and so that is where we concluded our meeting and we did not get to miss chapman's diversity office report but i did promise her that we would start there um at the next ex equity committee meeting so she will have um you know first dibs on on um on an efficient and effective use of of the time within that that hour i called our our power hour

182so um anyway so so that that concludes uh the equity report and happy to take or field any questions that any of you may happen to have on this topic thank you very much any questions or discussion for the equity committee hearing and seeing none we will move on to the remainder of the agenda there's no unfinished business or new business to come before the board but we do have a need to recess into executive session uh pursuant to ohio revised code uh 121.22 g1 for the purposes of discussing employment an employee of the district and g4 for the purchase for the purposes of reviewing negotiations and bargaining sessions with employees concerning compensation or other terms and conditions of employment is there a motion to move into executive session so moved it's been properly moved

183by dr hall it's their second second it's been seconded by ms alexander we will do a roll call i'm sorry any discussion hearing and seeing none roll call vote please mr pendleton ms jackson mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye thank you thank you very much we will now stand in recess for executive session there is no uh action that will be voted on when we return so i hope everyone have a great day we now stand in recess [Music] you