Board of Education Livestream - 08/08/22

001[Music] good evening everyone and welcome to the regularly scheduled board meeting on 8 august 2022 it's good to uh have everyone here today and we're going to go ahead and start off with a roll call mr pendleton dr akbar here mr alexander president ms autry here dr hall aye ms jackson present mrs mckittrick here mr perry i'm here thank you thank you very much we uh now will uh stand if you can as we do the pledge of allegiance and mrs jackson do you mind leading us i pledge allegiance god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much we now move to item 1.3 which is community and school reflections any reflections from the board members miss autry thank you mr president um since we last met um i was able to

002attend one of our mystery camp showcases and i chose to attend uh schumacher clc because that's close by where i live so i dropped in and i just wanted to commend the front office staff who wouldn't let me in because i didn't have my badge and so luckily uh principal haynes could uh vouch for me and so but they did a really good job and it's nice to know that our children are being kept safe but they absolutely wouldn't let me in i got to visit mrs connolly's class and their theme was where food comes from and so the students were able to visit farms throughout the mystery camps did a lot of work about dairy products and meat and etc and they had a little song that they did at the end so it

003was really nice to see you know some of our funds at work with those summer programs i'm also i met with a rising third graders and their theme was let the games begin and they just demonstrated a lot of knowledge knowing the terminology around computers i mean their field trip was at a location called oh snap and i guess that's a place where you take lots of pictures so the kids really love that so but it was just nice to see the young people engaged in some of our programming seeing our dollars at work and they also had a really huge be kind banner as you walk in so it's nice to see that they're you know involved with that so and that's all but a good job to schumacher clc and mr haynes and

004his team thank you very much ms autry anyone else uh doctor okay no all right well we will move to the uh item 1.4 uh request to address the board and we have uh former board member uh reverend byron artlitch if you don't mind going to this podium here um there's you have three minutes to uh share with us we look forward to hearing from you and we just ask that you refrain from uh making any disparaging comments or even complaints about a specific staff member which i know you won't redo that but if you do let us know we will just do an executive session if you have that so you know i want to tell you how excited i am to be back here i spent over 40 years with akron public schools

005either as a board member or as a as a ceo of a mental health agency pastoral counseling which provides service to many many many of your children ending my career with 2500 children a week you have an awesome responsibility and i want to first of all make sure to thank you for what you do and the commitment that you have to this community as being a board member i know what that is like and i have to thank you so much for the all the phone calls that you get middle of the night all the ira parents people don't didn't usually call me in the middle night to tell me how nice i was and and i know they don't call you in the middle of night either to tell you that but we have

006an awesome school system i was president of the large eight large cities school districts in the state of ohio and i could compare cleveland and youngstown we have an awesome system you all are the cheerleaders for this system you are the ones who go out and be seeing community involvement my responsibility that i wanted to give to you tonight is to talk with you about one of the major responsibilities that you have and that is a cheerleader and that is a raise funds pass a levy for this district in the years that i served we had four different we had four different levees we had a bond issue for the schools to be rebuilt it is challenging it's hard there are many many obstacles the economy itself is an obstacle when we started out we

007we could go on rely upon our school family our children our parents staff our last levy 10 years ago ryan reminded me 10 years ago we had less than 24 percent of the people who live in akron had a child in that public schools we couldn't rely upon the family we had to get partnerships with with the catholic diocese with with lions club everybody else my challenge to you is remember that everything that you say everywhere you go remember over your head is levy bond issue levy the major responsibility of the board is to pass the budget also responsibility to secure the funds to pass that budget and i challenge you for that i want you to know that it's a it's a awesome job that you have i want you to know that that

008the community thanks you and respects you for sitting here this community has been very gracious in the passing of celebrities and now it's your turn to go out every sunday to a church churches are usually open on sunday going to a church going to football games community involvement it's never too early to start the campaigns for capital improvement and for an operating levy with akron public schools thank you very much and god bless you thank you very much we appreciate your words as we have no other request to address the board we will move to item 3 communications our update about opening of schools madam superintendent thank you good evening members of the board and also the community with a few days to go until we are welcoming our students back we thought we would

009provide you with a high level update as to what we're doing to prepare for that so i would ask mary outlet i believe to come to the side and also tamiko hatcher they're going to present [Music] thank you mrs fowler mack good evening board good evening aps families who are out there in viewer land as well as everyone who are attending today's board meeting my name is tamiko hatron the director of special programs for those of you who have been working with our leadership team my call name is ghost and you guys will hear a little bit more about that as the year moves through um i do apologize but my slides are advancing for some reason but i did want to take this opportunity to welcome everybody back for the 2022 2023 school year

010we are extremely excited to welcome our halls for the 20 000 students who will be choosing to be educated throughout akron public schools my wonderful partner today to take you through a very short and brief high-level presentation is mary oddly kelly her call name is cornerstone [Music] so good evening everyone can you believe it seems like just yesterday we were saying goodbye for the summer to our students and our families and before we knew it we are here today with 21 days before they return now i must do a disclaimer we do have some schools that are already prepared to come back and one that is currently back and that is i promise so i promise actually start at school and then on wednesday of this week we have akron early college and stem high

011school will begin so part of the work that we have been busy doing impacts many other departments across the district one of our major objectives is to ensure that our students are returning to a building that's warm safe and dry and we cannot give enough gratitude to deborah falk and all of those that work with her in buildings and grounds to help get our buildings prepared for our scholars [Music] so the dynamic staff making sure that they have every opportunity available to educate our students to become the best entrepreneurs the best higher educational educators as well as those individuals who choose to embrace the world of the military so in order to do that our staff has sent you a message to actually make a very strong commitment to empower our students that while they

012are planning their wonderful lessons that they want to do so with a couple of things at this forefront and that is providing our students with an opportunity to have a voice in their classroom in addition to that we've also made a commitment to allow students to see themselves in the work in which they will embrace and the opportunities and outcomes that they will experience throughout their academic year the other portions of that is really creating this wonderful element that you will see in our 330 initiative and we'll talk a little bit more about that in another slide but the ultimate goal is to make sure that we create a positive learning environment and culture so when students enter our classrooms they enter our hallways and they enter our buildings that they have a wonderful opportunity

013to be their best and be who they are when they embrace their education and in doing so that positive joyful learning environment is what we all aspire to have as we walk in and out of our buildings and even in some cases when you need to look through the door and say i am a board member but we want to make sure that we keep those students safe while they're learning [Music] and so we have some helpful tips for our families who are listening in we are asking them to partner with us which they always have been our partners but to help ensure that their scholar is ready to embrace each day this year as last year we have a staggered start i'll focus on elementary and then tamiko will give you an idea about

014our secondary staggered start at the elementary level it gives our students and our teachers an opportunity to develop relationships with their students in a one-on-one environment with appointments and we also give an assessment to our children so that we know exactly where they are early on so that we can provide the necessary interventions right off the bat and also enrichment opportunities at the secondary level i think we've all experienced being the person that's at the high portion of that totem pole in elementary grades you leave fifth grade and then you all of a sudden go from hey i understand the campus i'm ready to navigate and then you transition into those middle school years and all of a sudden you're not the biggest you're not the fastest you may not even be the smartest because

015you're in a very unfamiliar environment so when our stagger starts we begin with our earlier grades to provide them an opportunity to navigate the building and in some cases it's only a third of the school there and that is where we rally our staff to really welcome those students and to give them an environment that they don't have to worry about navigating the higher grades and then on day two we slowly fill the halls as we move from either sixth seventh and eighth grade or as we begin from ninth grade we transition everyone in until we reach our full capacity that is intentional and deliberate because we recognize during those state stages of high transition is very difficult to navigate a foreign environment and our stagger starts allow us to do that [Music] so while

016our fourth fifth and elementary sixth grade students are back in classes starting on august 29th our kindergarten first second and third grade students again will be meeting with their teachers in a one-on-one environment also we wanted to give our parents an update [Music] i feel like it's magic an update that we are the board has agreed for this academic year to suspend our uniform policy so we will not be in uniforms for the 22-23 school year and math currently are optional we also encourage our families to check out our website where you can find open house information many of our schools have open house before school start and that is intentional because we provide at more accurate supply lists that you'll need so please wait and see your teachers before you go out and spend

017a lot because we are really going to work on making sure the kids have what they need and then if there's any additional items that we need our parents to provide you'll find that out from your teachers but i know if you're anything like me and you have a neat i have a niece in the house and she cannot wait to get to my money on back-to-school items there is a generic uh a general list on our website where you can go if it's just burning a hole in their pocket to spend some of that money on school supplies because we know it's an exciting time of year so the message to our students as we get prepared to embrace you in our halls we want to make sure that the time is now as

018mrs odley kelly said we have 21 days and we recognize to get prepared for the summer it might it might include staying up late hanging out watching youtube videos it may even include some form of esports or just communicating with your friends but it is so important now that we begin to transition into our scholar mode and that begins with a nice healthy routine small adjustment to getting to bed early and being able to wake up during the times to catch that bus in addition to that chromebooks we mentioned our technology team really putting and equipping our students with an opportunity to interact not only here locally but also globally and it's so important that those devices work and sometimes a nice little plug into the wall helps us ensure that that happens throughout the

019entire day so if we could begin to charge those in the event that they find that there's something wrong over the summer let's get those into our schools so we can get those necessary repairs prior to the start in addition to that we really want to emphasize how important it is to be a leader and in many cases that we all have an opportunity can make a choice to be first be the first to class be the first to smile and more importantly be the first to be kind and i mentioned before that we talk about that be kind 330 and it's almost as important as saying you need to be kind 365 days a year but we really wanted to put some emphasis on what happens in our area code so with all that

020being said as you guys are out there in student land and as we continue to as the adults influence the students and getting them ready for a scholarly mind it begins with that 21 days and making the necessary adjustments so that they can put the right foot forward as we will open it up to any questions that you may have at this time thank you very much any questions dr hall so first let me say thank you for a fantastic presentation i just have one clarifying question it was in regards to the staggered start um i think it's a great idea i would have loved to have had a couple days especially in junior high before the 8th graders got there and you know so what's what's the lead time for the stacker start so

021if you're a sixth sixth grader or fifth i'm sorry sixth grader now junior high how many days do you get in the building before the the big kids come is it one day two days three days like yeah it's one day so in middle school we'll begin with sixth graders and then the next day it's ticks and seventh grade then the third day at sixth seventh and eighth grade um at the high school level begin at ninth grade level and then slowly transition in to make sure that everyone gets acclimated gotcha and then um i'm sorry one one more question if i may um i brought the chromebooks um [Music] what's the process for uh orienting families on sort of the proper utilization especially new famous to the district whether it be kindergartners or folks

022if they're just getting a new chromebook what's the process for how we orient them around you know proper utilization of it and then also if you have repairs that need to be done like here's who you call that's i guess that's my other question so we have what we call tss at all of our levels k-12 and they are awesome at preparing working with our families around how to maneuver our chromebooks we actually trained them last year for when our parents came in for the one-on-one appointments they actually did a session with the parents while the students were working with their teachers and so also when we go back to school our teachers also give them information on the home access center which we also call hacc so that they understand how they can see

023assignments online so it's a partnership thank you very much any other questions okay hearing and seeing that i want to say thank you uh for the presentation and the information about opening school the one question i do have is about mask considering the higher rates of transmission and whether or not we're going to send a message or if we've sent a message on that yet we do plan to send a message um updating you know the parents on where we are both in terms of the trends in the community and also what our stance is so our stance at this moment is still encouraged but optional and so we did find that while still encouraging that but leaving that to families even in the spring there was a great deal of mask wearing that was

024occurring in our schools but we're expecting some updating from the cdc so we've been notified to expect information any day now from them and we have been in contact with the local authorities as well so we will be providing some updates to families yeah just a quick follow on to that are we going to continue to supply mass for for students and staff that would request them we do still have a supply of mass yes thank you very much [Applause] thank you and now we move to item four approve of the previous meeting minutes for the regular meeting on 25 july 2022 is there a motion on the table iso move properly moved by mr perry [Music] miss audrey okay i'm like i heard something but i didn't know who it was thank you very

025much uh seconded by ms autry uh any discussion on the approval of the minutes okay hearing none we'll do a roll call vote please mr pendleton dr hall aye ms jackson hi mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes thank you thank you very much we now move to personnel recommendations madam superintendent yes uh prior to um asking for approval of the personnel recommendations we do have one recognition that is extremely important and i'm going to ask dr hall to join me to the right podium and also mrs outlay to also join me at the right party [Music] this very very special recognition was actually highly encouraged but easily embraced by the administrative team but was encouraged by dr hall right away because we have had a special

026gym in our midst for a very long time that has decided to retire and we could not allow that to go through as just a line on an agenda on a board agenda we just felt like we needed to take a moment to say thank you and to recognize this service mrs phil philomena vincente is a graduate of saint vincent high school she obtained her bachelor's degree in education from bowling green university and her master's degree in principal licensure from the university of akron philomena continued her learning at kent state university earning her master's plus 18. mrs vincente began working for akron public schools in 1970 as an elementary teacher at david hill until june of 2000 in 2002 she was appointed as an elementary principal at leggett elementary school where she has remained for

02716 years to the great applause of mrs outley in 2018 she moved to glover's clc and continued in her principal role until she recently retired throughout her career phil developed and maintained many community partnerships for the students and families she will be greatly missed by all we would like to take this time to congratulate and thank you mrs vincente for your 52 years of service to the akron public schools we want to wish you well on the next chapter of your life in retirement so would you all join me in a hearty round of applause and welcoming mrs vincente i'm going to try to get through a speech i'm not sure that i can but this is something that you always knew was down the road but i never thought that i would be standing

028here today but i want to just start out by saying it's a pleasure to be here i want to thank the superintendent and the board of education and senior staff and the staff at aps for all that they have done for me over the 52 years in my career it doesn't seem that long ago that eugene dominic called me and offered me a contract with aps with a salary of seven thousand dollars i was in heaven i was assigned to david hill school in the fourth grade i walked into the room with 25 deaths and that was it no chalk no erasers no books my mother was actually in the first class to attend david hill when it opened i spent 30 years at david hill and left when it was still the old building

029when they were ready to tear down the old building i went and got my door i had opened that door for 30 years and i realized that i needed to take that door home with me which i did in the back of my truck and it's sitting in my on my porch with the key in the door i started my career in this administration as an assistant principal at roswell kent thanks to richard roberts i told him i never had been in a true middle school and he told me i would do fine after spending 30 years in the garfield cluster and he was right after two years i was selected as the new principal at leggett where i spent 16 years it was so exciting to help design and move into the new building

030the last four years i have been a glover my philosophy always has been putting the students in the best possible place to be successful i was always looking for opportunities for my students my david hill students had pen pills pen pals that were amish we wrote back and forth and visited their school and points of interest around the school and they visited us in the spring with a picnic i guess this is where my involvement in community began we started community support with the chapel my first year at leggett we started community support by the chapel providing uniforms winter coats and bags of love after school tutoring camp learned a lot in the summer thanksgiving dinner carnivals and more for the students many of my students never knew what a thanksgiving dinner was until we

031had the chapel we did an annual walk away from violence with the chapel and the akron pd the partnership has grown and expanded over the years to now include other schools giving give kids a smile day was something that we also did in february because my kids needed to go to the dentist and that is a statewide program and we hosted the statewide program one year at leggett write books and the list goes on we raise money so my kindergarten students could go to the zoo every child should go to the zoo in kindergarten i think that is an important passage for kindergarten students we did make it take sessions and for incoming kindergarten students to work on kra skills meet the teachers and take home a goodie bag and a school t-shirt thank you

032to aps for giving me the opportunity to mentor teachers through turnaround schools of the university of virginia from mentoring principals through my apa work for being able to present to the governor for ready schools when lego was one of the original leaders in the state and then i was also able to present at the o-a-e-s-a convention i can proudly say i've had students become high-ranking members of the air force attending the air force academy after graduation from east high school or proudly teaching and following the career of one of my present board members derrick hall when students have come back to visit they always ask for a hug i made it a point to hug each of my students as they exited the building each evening because that might be the only hug that they

033would get in a day it is always special to have students you had in school bring their children to my school many fond memories i have cherished and i am a proud mother bird that encourages her flock to spread their wings and conquer the world i have seen a lot over the years i have been through six superintendents there have been many people that have made been there to support and encourage me thank you to deborah folk for always taking my questions and answers and approving all of my building permits and encouraging me thank you to kathy mcveigh and todd wams for always being there to answer my personnel questions and union questions thank you to karen gg and her teaching and learning department for their support that they have given myself and the staff

034over the years and giving their expertise to us thank you to howard lawson for your guidance and patience with and techy rookie and guiding me along the way there are just so many fine people at aps that have helped me grow as a person i want to thank my husband for understanding my late nights and making sure my students had what they needed to my children beth who was following in my footsteps as an assistant principal at innis jennifer who is an hr manager and account in her company kristen who is a pharmacist for more than 20 years and my son david who is a math teacher at cancental catholic and to my in my two in-laws johnson josh and karen and my seven grandchildren who i'm sure will keep me in the school mode

035as a grandma thank you for going over giving me the opportunity for serving the city of akron and the akron board of education for 52 years [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] and [Music] you're the expert [Music] as a new board member to clever and to walk around and you know it's the thing you know true vice proves and everything that she read this lady is really that and your commitment to education was so clear i felt so welcome as a new board member into your building and i remember you had called me to your office had a nice little yeah just very classy where i felt like i felt like i should have brought something it was so it was it was her building it was her home and she was welcoming welcoming me welcoming me into

036her home and um the student ambassadors were amazing as they walked me around and so it's just a delight and you know i'm encouraged and sad all at the same time because i actually felt your presence and was able to meet you and i know that you really had a heart for those children and not to say that i don't believe that in her wisdom will you know try to make sure the right person is [Music] how there are administrators and educators who truly care and you know as the fan says it rains on the destination and i understand that we still have work to do but i thank you for your work and your commitment and i want you to know that i value there are a lot of traits that you can say

037you think about a teacher wouldn't bond right um but i think perhaps the most important one is that it's a student that you feel loved and i had her two years in a row i don't know how she got through two years and dealing with me she did not let me go on the sixth grade class trip because i was tripping for the behavior um you know so but again every day i was in my classroom i i went home and i thought i was loved every day i thought i was loved and that makes discipline and criticism easier to take when you know it's being delivered with love and so i love you and i look forward to staying in touch with you um and to jennifer and beth and david you know um

038because kristen and david jennifer's not here um you know you're going to be sharing with her sharing her with me just just so you know so anyway thank you so much enjoy [Applause] miss alexander yes i i couldn't let this opportunity go by either ms vincente um i met her when i first came on the board as well as like mrs jackson and i went to her school in every school that she was in i was in and it was always love for the kids and she said love and that's one of the things that's so important to me that they show love to the kids because when you show that love they feel cared they feel wanted they feel that someone cares about them and it makes the learning environment much better and she

039has been that type of person i just couldn't let it go uh without saying anything and one other thing one year it's been sue probably about six seven years ago i was in a very bad car accident i couldn't go to work i couldn't do anything and so i went to portland oregon and it was a group of teachers there and principals and mrs vincente was there and i just observed what was going on how she treated the teachers how the relationship was with her and the teachers and it was just so so nice and you can tell that all of them learned but it was because of her leadership and her being there guiding them teaching them mentoring them it was very very nice to see and that was something i didn't plan on

040seeing but i did see and it was very very good so thank you for everything that you've done for the akron public schools and every single student that you've made who they are today such as mr hall thank you thank you very much everyone and uh also just on behalf of the entire board again uh great job well deserved retirement we know that you're probably one of those people who won't truly retire completely but we definitely appreciate you and the years of service that you've given to this district and we talk about what excellence looks like and ms jackson talks about it all the time but i believe that you are one of those examples so thank you again for your service and with that we will um i'm sorry do you have anything else

041i'm sorry yes so um again um thank you board leadership for um for that very appropriate recognition and before i officially ask for to or i recommend approval of the personnel recommendations presented in categories 5-17 we are going to make some important announcements so i'm going to ask kathy mcveigh to come to the side because we have some administrators that complete our organizational restructuring and so we want to and also our backfilling some retirement positions so we're going to make those introductions and then we'll go ahead and request approval of the personnel recommendations thank you tonight i have three brief introductions for you the first is an introduction unfortunately he had to leave but it's of dr stephen thompson dr thompson tonight we are recommending him for our new chief operations officer position he has

042a bachelor's degree in social studies a master's degree in special education and a doctor of education in k-12 educational leadership along with his superintendent certification he is the current superintendent at willoughby east lake schools and prior to that was a superintendent at chagrin falls exempted village and west liberty salem schools he is currently also filling the role of director of operations in addition to his current duties he also served as a district representative during construction of two new high schools at his district and one new elementary building along with the renovation of 12 other district facilities and developed and implemented their district's five-year strategic plan but as i said he unfortunately could not stay for the rest of the board meeting so he had to leave early uh next i'd like to introduce uh nicole

043vitale nicole if you could please step up to the podium there please ahead of time this time nicole was born and raised in cleveland ohio she has over 25 years of experience working in education including educational leadership experience her experience in education has included serving in multiple capacities with the cleveland municipal school district she's been a classroom teacher instructional coach interim deputy chief of curriculum and instruction and lastly executive director early childhood and literacy tonight we are recommending her for the executive director of teaching and learning position replanting replacing karen ggq recently retired good evening thank you for this opportunity can i pull this out there that's better thank you for this opportunity when i saw the job description i really felt like it was a great fit for me but then when i was

044able to meet the team during the interview process i was excited about their enthusiasm and i could tell that they have laid such great groundwork to move the vision forward so with that i just want to say thank you for this opportunity and i appreciate the consideration [Music] thank you donald designer if you could please step up to the podium donald has served in different positions related to safety and security he has started as a pro he started as a parole officer for kent state university and then held several positions with the tallmadge police department patrol officer detective bureau patrol sergeant lieutenant captain and he retired as the chief of police there he then worked for akron children's hospital as a security officer a special duty with summit county sheriff's office and court security office

045officer with for the u.s marshals service with walden security lastly he's been employed by the akron police department as a police liaison with akron public schools tonight we are recommending him for our new director of safety and security position good evening everyone i'm very excited about this opportunity i'm very grateful and i can't wait to get started [Music] thank you with those uh introductions made i am going to recommend approval of the personnel recommendations presented in categories 5 through 17. i did want to bring to the board's attention though there is one unfortunate we've had lots of celebration and introduction but also within the personnel section in item 16.1 we we regret to report the death of daryl zeno who passed away on july 27 of this year mr zeno was an employee of the

046akron board of education for only one year he's been a part of the he's been a part-time male truck driver with us though since 2021. his wife is a teacher at ellett and so because persons knew him through his wife and also through his short but impactful service we just wanted to send our condolences to the family and to draw that to your attention as well you very much madam superintendent so we have uh the personnel recommendations in categories five through 17. is there a motion on the table i still move it's been moved by mr perry is there a second second it's been uh seconded by mr alexander any discussion hearing seeing none we'll do a roll call vote please mr pendleton ms jackson hi mrs mckittrick no on 5.8 6.1 6.3 6.4 yes

047on the balance thank you dr akbar yes mr alexander yes miss autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye thank you thank you very much we will now move to resolutions and motions on the consent agenda madam superintendent yes i wish 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 we have the resolutions and motions on the consent agenda is there a motion still moved is it improperly moved by ms mckittrick is there a second second seconded by mr perry any discussion on the resolutions and motions hearing seeing now 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

048jackson yes thank you thank you very much we now move to business affairs recommendations madam superintendent yes sir i wish to recommend approval of the business affairs recommendation presented in category 23. thank you very much been properly recommended for the business affairs recommendations are there is there a motion on the table so moved and properly moved by mr alexander is the second second seconded by ms autry uh any discussion on the motion hearing cena roll call vote please mr pendleton dr akbar yes but i'm staying on 23.12 thank you mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye ms jackson yes mrs mckittrick no on 23.7 23.21 23.30 and 23.34 yes on the rest thank you very much we now move into our superintendent's report madam superintendent yes sir tonight we're going

049to be providing the board with a brief uh but important update on the racial equity policy that the board has put in place part of that policy requested that the superintendent and then by extension staff be prepared annually to update the board on particular items and so i'm going to be joining my colleagues here at the side podium but this evening we will our report will include items requested then by the racial equity policy or the resolution on racism tonight you will hear about our equity work taking place within our human resources office i will get a brief review of some disaggregated student level level data on discipline and learn more about the professional development and training taking place throughout the district we'll be starting with a update from angela carter our recruitment and retention

050manager good evening um just so we can go back to the last slide so i just wanted you to just like an overview of who we are as a district we are a diverse district as it relates to our staff and our students and we know that we're trying to become even more diverse within our workforce and so i just wanted to show you where we are now and where we are now as it relates to aps educators when i say aps educators i'm talking about all of our faculty and our staff and so this is just a comparison from 2020 2021 school year to 21 22 school year and this is at the end of the school year and so what this is is a a picture of who we are from june excuse

051me july 1st to june 30th because that's our calendar school year and this data was pulled from our tableau system which communicates with another system called munis but that's just a bunch of [Music] stuff you really don't need to know but anyway i think i'm telling myself that so i'll know where where to pull this from next year when we put on 2223 so just making a note to myself that we want to make sure that we're consistent with how we're tracking our our data because data is very important and so you can see where we were as a staff in 2020 76 percent white 1.3 percent agent 21.7 percent black point eight percent hispanic and then more than one race we have point two percent and if you look at twenty one twenty two

052uh we really didn't change that much we have seventy five point one percent white one point six percent asian twenty two point four percent black point eight percent hispanic and point 0.1 percent more than one race and then now we're just going to look a little deeper and so if we look at our administrative staff administrative staff as relates to everyone that is coded as an administrator within our district that's us in the room as it relates to being the recruitment retention manager carla being the officer of diversity equity inclusion our superintendent as well as you as our board members and so we had in 2021 72.5 percent white one percent asian 26 percent black and hispanic we had point five percent white for the 21 22 school year percent asian one percent and then

053black 24.8 percent and then now let's look at our members of our teaching staff members of our teaching staff includes our teachers and our tutors and then all students all teachers and all educators that fall within our aea union group and so in 2020 2021 we had point three percent more than one race 84.4 percent white point eight percent asian thirteen point nine percent black and point six percent hispanic and then in the twenty one twenty two school year we did drop a little bit and we'll talk more about where we are as a district next board meeting as it relates to where we are with our three and three advanced plan because that's one thing that we know that we're working on and so right now we're looking at where we are right now

054we have 11.7 percent black 0.7 hispanic point two percent more than one race eighty six point two percent white and one point two percent asian and then our paraprofessional staff looks a little different paraprofessionals are our um teacher assistants our teacher educational assistants that are within the classroom are lrc technicians and so we have 52.3 percent white in the year 2020 2021 5.5 asian thirty nine point eight percent black point one percent more than one race and then two point three percent hispanic in the twenty one twenty two school year six point four percent asian thirty eight point eight percent black 1.6 percent hispanic and 53.2 percent white and so the policy reads the district will review its current recruitment screening and interview processes and procedures and where possible will implement updated processes and procedures

055that are racially equitable across the district so some of the things that we're doing as it relates to making sure that we're living out what the policy calls for is that we are looking at our data using our data to help with forecasting staffing needs determining who is underrepresented and then also using that information for our marketing campaigns to appeal to diverse populations also we have our ar el process in place that's the alternative resident educator licensure program where we have provided alternative teacher preparation programs for some of our substitute teachers and our educational professionals which is awesome because it's kind of like a fast track for people who have a bachelor's degree who are currently working for us as a substitute or an educational assistant paraprofessional to get licensed as a teacher also we're

056looking at our hiring practices and this is something as educators we know that we are reflective within our practice and so that's something that we're trying to refine and get better at doing as it relates to early hiring when possible and so the best practice is hiring new teachers at least one month before the prior of the next school year and so we are getting better with making sure we're identifying who's leaving early we're reaching out to school principals and asking them to reach out to their staff so that we know who's retiring who's who needs to resign because they're moving or something other kind of situation that's going on so that we can plan ahead and then also our interview process we're looking at our interview questions making sure that we're capturing questions that

057are going to let us know the mindset of our candidates that are coming in as it relates to dei diversity equity and inclusion and then also we're making a practice to have diverse interview diverse teams for the interview process so having a diverse panel on the interview teams and then also and in the hr department as well as in the community relations department we are a part of the tntp program where it's an ongoing collaboration of other school districts across the country where it's a professional learning community because again we're always trying to get better we're collaborating with people they have the same kind of goals that we have as it relates to diversifying the educational workforce and so it's a consortium of educators and hr recruiters and in hopes of coming up with creative

058and innovative ways to diversify our workforce and i'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to mrs fowler mac you need a quicker movement um okay i think i'll be good thank you um one of the things in addition to really being asked to be very intentional about our recruitment and hiring practices the policy also asked us to review disaggregated discipline data by violation at a minimum but not limited to factors of race gender race and gender combined to look at our data by school and then even to get more granular with our data and to begin to address disparities within that data i will say we appreciate the leadership and charge of the board that is really embodied within this policy and we are on the path to being able to do just what

059you ask what we'll be able to do today is to share some high level summary data that really shows that we are beginning to look at our disciplined data and to better understand it as we get into next board meeting talking about an update on the advanced aps 3 3 and three goals that went even more specific into some other pieces of data and information that it wanted to make sure was being monitored and responded to will even be able to give more information so we're not going to go into today every single category but we will be able to share with you at a high level some of the categories one of the things that we're monitoring very carefully as was requested is our out of school suspensions making sure that we are aware

060of whenever students are excluded from the educational process being aware of what that means what it looks like who's being impacted and really even beyond that making sure that if there are any barriers to our students being able to maintain appropriate behavior or teachers who might need supports in supporting our students that we are very proactive and aware relative to that so on this slide you have the information you can see our out of school suspensions by grade and if we look at those grade bands we will say our most pronounced out of school suspension trends continue to be i think developmentally where we would anticipate are our middle grades and so we are continuing to think about what it is how it is we're responding and to evaluate that we also looked at our

061alternative out of school suspensions to say that not all suspensions were suspensions where students were sent to their respective homes we do have a number of alternative school programs and supports available to our students and you can see by grade bands how it is especially with our earliest learners that we do utilize as well alternative out of school suspensions and not just the more traditional types if we were to break down that data even further and to look at our out of school suspensions by gender we would see that predominantly students who are being suspended are are males and that has been more so a consistent trend so really thinking about how it is we are supporting our young men and asking what data should do is to drive us to additional questions as we

062really think about the success of our students and the supports for our the success of our staff and supports for our staff as well alternative suspensions again by gender again males are more of a predominant in in that category as well when we look at the out of school suspensions by race we also have some trends that we are spending time exploring even more deeply our out of school suspensions by race predominantly impacts black students in our district who make up about 46 percent of the student body within our district as well do out of school suspensions the alternatives by race there is a noticeable trend that the team uh we're starting to really dig into even more they've been having conversations and digging into this data but myself being a new member of the

063team is becoming very familiar with what our data says one of the other pieces of data that we monitor pretty closely is not just the discipline itself but we also look at some of the outcomes some of the strategies that we're using as a result of the discipline or behavior and so one of those really has to do with our transfer of students especially the transfer of students who have been involved in any cases involved with assault and so we are taking a look at where are those great bands of occurrence and then where do we have students who have then been moved from one building to another building and we you know part of our responsibility is definitely to hold our students responsible but also to continue to look at the equity in in

064the data and then also to ensure that we have proper supports so that our students once at their new building can get off to a better start there the discipline transfer trends by gender again continue to uphold you know kind of similarities to the students who are being disciplined by gender so more of our males by gender are being transferred as a result of this assault in particular in our system so that is the beginnings of looking at some of our data again we are going to get even more granular with with looking at the data as the policy calls for and both in next week's when we're talking about some of the goals that was set forth in the advanced aps three and three we will be able to give more information and then

065as we go along we will also begin to share you know um the research and best practices that we're finding as we begin to work through issues of climate culture behavior and equity the also embedded within the resolution on racism in section 8 there was a call for the superintendent and team to publish student rights and responsibilities when engaging with school resource officers charge this item is in progress so we do have some draft information around what that student rights and responsibilities might look like we really believe this is something that requires really needs input and feedback so we're in the process of gathering input and feedback from parents from our educators we will with our board through our the board's committees so we have addressed this as the policy is asking to do so

066but we do feel like we need that information prior to sending that out to our students and our families okay carla so one of the items in the resolution on racism as well as the racial equity policy spoke to mandated required training for our staff and we have started that work especially with the adoption of our new vision of excellence through equity and we wanted to give you just a snapshot of what has taken place as part of this first wave of equity training in our district which is centered around the vision and the uh theory of action and so between june and august 30th of this year we will have touched 2870 [Music] staff members and you see the breakout there and i think dr caver and rachel i should add today's session with

067about how many administrators about 220 administrators and so we have a team that is very committed to this work and i guess i need to say that they are also team members who have other responsibilities in the district but they feel so strongly about the work that we are doing that they're committed to doing this on afternoons early morning saturdays and so we are here moving through the district with our racial equity training more extensive work will be offered during the school year at school buildings and for 100 percent of our new faculty entering their new roles in our district and the objectives of this work will include developing the shared understanding of our aps vision of excellence through equity and the theory of action co-creating a common language around diversity equity and inclusion what

068we mean when we talk about culturally responsive practices implicit bias understanding the historical and systemic racism and marginalization in our community as well as exploring self-awareness as the first level of being culturally responsive and engaging with our scholars and families and then finally after august 30th we will begin the work with tntp stands for the new teacher project that is not solely what they do now but after august 30th we will begin the work with tntp on further designing a district-wide implementation strategy for supporting equity work throughout all of our roles and then half of the tntp staff will be working with us to co-create this new strategy they have extensive experience as a national non-profit founded by teachers to work alongside educators in schools and in district offices and so what we hope to

069gain from that is to be able to identify our trends across our district as it relates to how we're implementing the work of equity throughout every division we're excited about it this new work with tntp will be led by wilma alexander as our new dei learning specialist and we'll be supporting wilma in that work [Music] thank you very much carla and so board members we we wanted to provide the update as the policy request we are really excited about the opportunity to continue this line of inquiry to continue using best practice research input and feedback from the field from our classrooms as we continue to work on our climate culture and our support for our students so i think you know we're trying to build off of what we're doing successfully but to also figure

070out where we need to spend more of our time energy and resources so i think in the spirit of the the resolution uh policy uh the spirit is uh one of continuous improvement so none of the data is being shared to you know lay blame or you know point anything it's really just to point out here's where we are we have our eyes set on excellence through equity so it really gives us a bit of information not the only information that we'll need but a bit of information to continue to move our practice and to support our staff and our students thank you very much madam superintendent any questions mrs miss jackson and then dr hall thank you mrs carter and miss chapman as well as madam superintendent i just had a couple questions when

071we look at the clusters that you all put up and it showed us the percentage of students in the building by race as well as administrators i'm sure that we have the information that shows us what clusters and buildings are certain races more consolidated in correctly and also how the administration or teachers in that area in those clusters then represent or do not represent the population in the buildings we have that right we can get that type of information one of the things that this is helping us to do is to think about how it is our data and information is set up what kind of dashboards that we need to be able to watch in an ongoing way so i know we have the ability to get at that we would have to organize

072uh organize the data in that way okay the reason why i asked that because the next question was then how is staffing done to balance representation to promote diversity amongst the students and the staff and also my other question is which either are you making answers what role does teacher background experience schooling etc play in their building placement because outside of um just which i know you guys are looking further than just race because it could be a black teacher put in a black school that doesn't connect with black children so i'm just wondering how um within that you know when we're talking about um we're looking to about diversifying the workforce which part of that is really knowing like getting into more so the background of the person or the administrator going into the

073building and then how they're connecting and able to serve those in whatever cluster or building they're going to no absolutely and i think that is one factor and i don't know one of the things that we knew we would need as a result of sharing this information is it really begs you know kind of a follow-up a deeper conversation so we are going to plan on as well having an extended conversation through the board's committee on equity you know that sort of thing but in relationship to your question about um what factors are you know kind of considered in our matching of staff to buildings things of that nature so we are looking at all of that information so we're looking at experiences that would add value to the work of a particular building and

074it might match with the broader work of the cluster the academic program specifically in that building definitely a commitment to the vision and strategies being used in the district but also we know that representation matters it matters that students see persons that look like them and so one of the things we are also trying to do is be very thoughtful in ensuring um you know diversity in the staff um in in our building so it it is complex the whole process we are taking that into consideration and what we'll have to do is monitor the data over time okay and lastly my question has to deal with um resource office resource officers and student interactions yes um and you had read earlier that it was part of the resolution as far as that it be

075posted as far as how students i can't recall that direct the um right henry thank you thank you so much about students rights and responsibility as it comes to resource and their resource officers in the building their interactions and you may have i felt like you may address something like this but i because i missed it a little bit i think i want to just ask this question is it are we looking to have um [Music] outside when i was in middle school i remember having civics and i had great teachers i was at goodyear middle school and i remember learning about my rights and responsibilities and actually my teacher at the time gave us a bill of rights and kind of talked to us about our interactions and think rights that we had as

076citizens and i'm just curious are we looking to because resource officers then reflect how students may interact with police outside of schooling so i wonder are we going to have any people outside people come in outside of just posting that to kind of really um explain to students maybe their their rights not just what they should do but what their rights are when they need to speak when they have to speak what's their right as american citizens in general and how then to interact from like out maybe an outside source your your question is a great one i think one of the things that we started to better understand as we were addressing that charge was our need to make sure first of all that we were interpreting the charge really accurately that we were

077leveraging research and best practice that's out there on how rights responsibilities for interactions with resource officers where that has been communicated elsewhere successfully so to answer your question yes i think once we go to roll it out we will do so with support so that we have you know multiple [Music] roles that can help us effectively communicate with our students and families but first we really want to make sure that our first pass at this request is one it's in alignment with what the board foresaw and that we are getting some feedback for those that would need to receive it and understand it so we get students feedback we get parents feedback our school resource officers that they can also look it over we want to make sure that we are able to jointly communicate

078a clear and common message thank you for that thank you dr hall jms yeah so there's a lot a lot to unpack in there in that report uh so first thank you for putting it together um can we go back to the very first slide in the presentation wait a second i mean i mean the very first slide oh you being the one with your photos yeah there's a not that one there's a lesson to be learned yes that one okay okay so this is that's what to my fellow board members i just want to point out i am holding ice cream um and so some friendly advice uh when you're visiting schools um i miss autry i try to i try to make sure i'm strategic about when i go so there's ice cream

079when i get there so so you know i see she's laughing in the back but i was at mason and that's not in that picture there's all right so yeah so it's important to get ice cream um schools are better when there's ice cream so anyway so i'll point that out there so some friendly advice um okay um so i have probably more questions than we have time for so let me try to be strategic in what i ask um so i understand so i think one of the takeaways is that this is meant to kind of give us a baseline picture for sort of where we are right um and so i guess the the logical sort of question would be is and and i'm not asking for an answer here now today but

080just what i just want to float it out there is sort of so people so folks are trained now what um you know we have this data what do we do with it right um how do we go about identifying sort of relevant kpis that help us determine whether or not the trainings that so we've done we've trained 2800 people right so what kinds of kpis you know do we have in place or are we thinking about that will tell us whether or not the training has been impactful right so are we moving the needle as far as how people are thinking um and so we also we also talked about training as well of being offered does that imply and and and this is actually a real question uh is that is does that

081imply that the training is optional for folks well it hasn't been optional okay okay gotcha gotcha okay um and then kind of the next piece you know again looking at the staff disparity between uh white whites and blacks as far as teachers and and staff and um you know on a related point you know we talk so often we talk about the importance of students having teachers and managers who look like them i think but i think but what gets lost in translation there is in the spirit of viewpoint diversity white kids benefit from having black teachers too and black principles too right because they're learning how to interact folks who who are not like them which is also a very important skill set right i think black kids are used to doing it all

082day like almost every day all day every day right but but but how are we trying to create um in our in our white students and our white faculty opportunities for them to get outside their comfort zone and to be around folks who don't look like them and have to figure out how do i communicate right you know how do i get past that initial fear of something being different from me right um so so that's something that you know i don't want us to lose sight of uh and then kind of my last well this is my penultimate comment here um is we talked about the resource officer and we just approved a liaison here tonight um and this is me expressing the viewpoint of one board member um but i think it's great

083that we get you know students within our schools to understand you know kind of the the rights and responsibilities of a resource officer and their rights and responsibilities but but i keep thinking in light of the current environment how do we get more how do we get more police officers around more kids right you know so because it's one thing to get those who are in our abilities but there's some self-selection that kind of goes into police officers who want to be in buildings and it's the those who are for whatever reason not selecting those types of roles right because police officers want to want to do different things but how do we get there to be more collisions between kids and cops you know kids and cops in a in in in neutral positive

084environments that goes beyond the singular interactions that they have from a day-to-day standpoint just in their just in their high schools and whatnot so that's just something i'd would love to see us think more about um and then last but not least um you know i'm really excited to hear um how the um how the how tntp that we're calling tnt okay um so i'm i'm looking forward to seeing um what tntp can become um when it's appropriately um watered fed and watered if that makes any sense um you know so i think i think those are the that's my initial uh my initial comments and questions now exceed my time back to the rest of you thank you very much ms autry thank you mr president so i know we have more information coming

085i just wanted to add i'd like to see some data points around the most uh common reasons for the suspensions and then also who's doing the suspensions um is it concentrated with a certain you know group of teachers and i'm not insinuating anything but that's just information i'd like to know as well yes who's who's doing ultimately the referral i'd like to see some data around that and then also like the average number of days that these kids are getting suspended when they are that's what i'd like to hear thank you thank you very much anyone else i just second everything that ms autry just said i just want to just want to second that because and thank you for saying that because you know just because so you may see a teacher could be

086a white teacher that tends to suspend more students of color black kids right and i think the first thing that we jump to is that teacher is doing something wrong and they may very well be but it also may be a training opportunity too right and so i think i think that gets lost in translation oftentimes too which is why i think it's important i think this one is you already said this it's important that we not weaponize what we see um and see it for what it is and that is to say that these are opportunities for improvement um and now they're now listen you know the law of large numbers dictates that there will be times when there are teachers and administrators um for lack of return have got to go right um

087they can't be rehabilitated with training but i but i want to want to make sure that we're all making i want to make sure that we're all trying to give some grace and saying all right when i first see the data before i point the finger is there an opportunity for some counseling military this is all the time right counseling um so how do i counsel the you know uh the teacher administrator um and then provide ample training and then do i see an improvement in the scores after the fact right and so um now we may look at the data and there might be a long story history of a lot of negative things that are going on that that may precipitate a different set of actions but again i just want to this

088kind of data can be radioactive uh if if not handled appropriately um and messaged appropriately as well so but i i do like to see all the same things that miss autry talked about uh as well because um you know cause you know i don't subscribe to the theory that you know we're we're spending more black kids because black kids do more bad do more bad stuff i just don't subscribe to that theory so so i think i think i suspect what we all probably think is that there's a lot of training opportunities um you know so anyway i've talked quite a bit so let me let me see the rest of the time back to you mr president thank you for your indulgence thank you very much um and first uh i i want

089to just weigh in and first say uh thank you for providing this report an update so that we can begin to to really see the progress that's been made over the last year uh as well as you know still identify what's needed and my comments are multiple folds so after i read after i listened to the presentation i had a few uh thoughts about what's the next level of data that we need but then more importantly as we look at this data um you know my my question is what's next what are we doing with it uh because that is and i know dr hall uh mentioned some of that already but that's really the biggest thing and i want to just say this for everyone um since i live in the equity data world

090every day that you know data itself can tell whatever story you want it to tell if you want to let it and so it's when you just start disaggregating the data and then layering the intersections of indicators that you really truly are able to grasp where the inequities are and then what you need to do to come up with your plan or to just develop the kpis for that so thinking about those intersecting indicators we talked about gender specifically on male female but if you you know one of the things at the next level is understanding gender and race as combined indicators and whether or not there's a more desperate impact uh based off that going to uh schools to uh mrs miss jackson's point uh prior to us having uh the equity committee and

091one of the reasons why we had to uh wrote this in the policy around the discipline and the recruitment is when we were in the uh financing capital uh management committee and uh ryan mr pendleton we were talking to him about how do we develop a uh uh calculator for develop or distributing resources equitably and he began to show us forecast five i think is what it's called um and and and though indicators by school and we spend more money uh for personnel in certain schools because they have an older more tenured not older more tenured service levels and so part of that is that baits some questions around how can we spread the love of that tenured expertise to schools that we see that are struggling the most when we talk about those different

092indicators who have a higher rate of newer teachers right so those are some things that i know four class five um for example can tell us and i don't know if ryan's gonna or we're gonna get a chance to see some of that data but i know that was one thing that i wanted to follow up on the other thing and this will be my last thing that i'll say is um as we look at uh the the data as well uh by uh grade level i think it's also important as we think about the grade level that we see it by actual grade and cluster so for example uh if i remember correctly the slide had uh like k through five and then six through eight or nine through twelve uh but we also

093know that the the earlier that students are suspended in the greater number the more likely that they're going to continue to get suspended and also their disinterest in schools so are there some initiatives or some greater supports we can provide in certain schools that we identify that have greater levels of discipline challenges for those lower grades so those are just some things that i don't i don't have the answers now that don't have that data but if i want to ask for that next level of data that's what i'm asking for miss jackson yes thank you mr president the quite i had this question and you just made me remember because i didn't get to it about the discipline the suspensions um madam superintendent the charts that show for instance k through five suspensions um

094am i to understand that those are out of school suspensions or do those include both in school and out of school suspension the majority of those especially for our younger grades you know you know we have a new um policy from even the state of ohio so we are on the path to honoring that policy and so more of that is in school so when we talk with you again about the kind of so what now what you know those sorts of things we can also share with you you know some of the strategies that are in place because again the request from this policy was very you know kind of explicit and limited in what you requested but we also have a lot of things that are in place that are working finding some

095success and so we'd like to be able to share that with you as well share how we are meeting the state's requirements and where we are in relationship to that but as well thinking about the next level of data that we will need yes thank you um madam superintendent because i think that can kind of answer your question and also for those who are listening as far as um the ohio school discipline laws and regulation the changes that were made like in march um dealing with is it if someone can help me it's either k through third or k through second that they aren't like to like go more towards a restorative practice and them not being really suspended outside of school so dr aguirre i think that would kind of speak to when you're

096talking about that young younger demographic when they start to get resp you know suspended like out of school earlier how that can set up a trend so i think when we hear more about um superintendent you made the statement we're getting to that i don't like what does that what does that mean so again we'll be prepared to have a deeper conversation about that in the um in the boards committee because i really think it's it's difficult to just put up just the numbers without the dialogue and without you know you being able to ask the additional questions and for us to really uh be able to share where we are in the pro in our practice what we're seeing so i think this is really worthy of an ongoing and deeper um a conversation

097and we'd like to share our plans for doing that with uh with others so with a greater representation that is even here tonight so that we have representatives of teachers and principals and um also in in those types of conversations so more to come with that and with that i will say we'll probably need to figure out what's a first set of data that we can feel comfortable with that gives us you know kind of directionally the information that we need it will be difficult to go into everything we could know but i think we'll need to figure out you know kind of what's that as you talked about it dr hall what are those kpis and then we kind of stay the course to kind of watch those and um and watch our progress

098and have some comfort that while that won't tell at all because we we won't be able effectively to monitor everything we should um but with using that data with other bits of information we feel like it's giving us a picture and informing our practice in positive ways yeah i just have one one quick follow-up comment to that you know i think the other reason why i think this is really challenging is because um you know folks are going to judge us by how fast we move on this too right um you know and so their folks are going to say that you aren't moving with the necessary urgency when i say you i mean like this room full of folks right that we are not moving with the right urgency and so i think it's

099a tenuous balance between you know and i'm not saying i'm not here to say i'm the expert in how you strike that balance but i think it's a challenge in wanting to make sure that you have the requisite sort of um buy-in and good data but how do you do those things with a pace that that keeps the community at large confident in our ability to move expeditiously towards the outcomes that they expect so thank you very much any other comments or questions for madam superintendent hearing and seeing none we will move to the president's report and so first thank you to the entire board for um you know getting back with ruth so that we can get us our special meeting uh scheduled we will have our special meeting on wednesday at 5 30

100here to begin the process of interviewing two two firms to assist us in our treasurer and cfo search coming up and so i look forward to having that those conversations uh on wednesday so thank you to the board for that with that being uh also said uh i will you know we also should uh consider um ensuring that we also can get this retreat uh scheduled um even if we have to break it up into two part a and part b but we want to get that scheduled so we can make sure we respond to ruth on those as well and we'll begin working on that agenda once we know how we're going to set it up and so i want to appreciate the superintendent for working with us on that the other item is

101with opening of school there will be tons of opening buildings opening as we heard earlier if we could do our best to try to get to a few of those schools in our clusters to clap them in and welcome them in that will be a great show for the board's presence as well as uh it's just probably the the some of the best times you'll have uh is seeing uh new new clothes new book bags and new energy uh for that new year so i appreciate everyone jumping on that and hopefully ruth one of the roofs can help us get those scheduled and then the last thing i wanted to talk about really with the board is um well this board put forward our bolt vision and priorities in advance aps in the three and

102three plan and we heard about that a little bit earlier today where achievement equity and engagement were foundational to how we see us moving the district forward and so as we're continuing to do that and we have a great opportunity to join together everyone in this room this board and uh the administration to do that um and specifically to to move the district forward around a vision of uh excellence through equity i really think uh one of the ways we can do that together and collectively uh is uh as we move forward with thinking about the engagement of our community i know uh last year i put forward a policy for consideration for live streaming i think that's a great opportunity for us to all come together in engagement so that we can bring that

103excellence through equity for both our committee meetings and our board meetings as that opportunity i think that will be a chance to see those who might not be able to make it to our meetings but still will be able to see how we get to this meeting where we vote yes or no on a number of items that come before us that many of them have had deep discussions in our committee meetings and we don't get that opportunity to really do all of that here so i wanted to open the floor to this body to talk about uh you know your thoughts about us live streaming both our committee meetings and our board meetings miss alexander dr i thought in our last policy meeting that we decided we were going to table that for the

104next meeting and that was what was requested and uh so that we could have a deeper dive uh in reference to uh the live streaming and there were some questions that uh um uh legal had with with the with the policy and so as well as some things that we had as far as technology so we still need to i think we can still have that discussion but i think it would be good to have it uh during the policy meeting uh versus uh here i mean we can have some here but i know we don't want to keep everybody i know people want to see what we're doing and what's going on and be able to move forward with what we need to complete but that was one of the requests at the last

105meeting that we tabled it and that be discussed at the policy meeting thank you very much anyone else dr hall yeah thank you you know i can't comment at the on the last policy because i wasn't there um you know and so i also can't comment to questions around legal um or other requests for makers again i wasn't there but let me sort of speak to this philosophically um and please clean me up if i had by getting this wrong anybody right but um but those meetings that occur monthly for each community those are public meetings um and just as this is a public meeting and so one of the reasons why you know again from a policy standpoint i don't mean school or problems but i think sort of overall sort of policy in

106general right you know that you have public meetings is because you want to allow folks in the public to come and see for themselves you know what what exactly is happening they can come in person to do that right we live stream here as well and um so i i guess as i'm thinking through this on the fly you know if if the if the state legislature you know passes laws requiring these meetings to be public they do that for a reason um and so the spirit of that is to increase the level of transparency and you know for those in the community that want to be informed right if that's the case you know i can't think of a of a reason why we would not in fact want to live stream our committee

107meetings because anybody in the public could come at any time to those committee meetings just like they could come here to this committee meeting so again so i was not privy why was not intended at the last minute and don't want to speak on that philosophically you know i would think that if if the intent of the legislature was to create some transparency between um you know boards like this and the public i can't see why we would not want to take steps to ensure that we were doing all that we could and all that we you know could do to ensure that there is a level of tran a level of transparency and so um so again so i i don't see i don't have a objection to us live streaming committee meetings because

108they're open to the public anyway um you know and so so i don't see the harm in us trying to make it easier for the public to attend whether it's in person or virtually we know that we have a we have a high poverty rate in akron uh and there are a lot of folks that you know who don't have vehicles to travel down here downtown to attend in person and so so i think you know when we think about equity in a community right um i think that's something else that we got to think through is okay well we have folks who if we're going to require folks to be in person we're in in effect we're disenfranchising people because they don't have truck because they don't have the requisite transportation to get here

109to this building downtown to attend a meeting in that's a public meeting in person and so again uh having live streaming allows folks to sit there on their smart smartphone from home or they're at work and we have we know a lot of our families parents to work in multiple jobs so they want to take a break and watch a meeting or they want to sit in the bathroom and watch a meeting they can do that too um so again i'm just i'm just i'm just in favor of whatever is going to make it easier for the public to see what we do here i think that there's a lot of things like this we just we just discussed the equity piece there's a lot to be proud of there's a lot of work that

110happens within these four walls and i would think that the folks the fine folks in this room would want to make sure people had a chance to be able to see uh and comment on um so so yeah so to me again while i was not in the last meeting mr alexander don't want to presume to know what was taught but what was discussed uh again i'll come back to sort of the under the underlying philosophy that i think i think i would i think should govern this board and the folks in this room that is i think more transparency is better um than less and so if we have the opportunity to um you know to essentially allow for more live streaming i think we should do that i mean we just approved you

111know um multiple high-level positions that are not cheap to this district right and those folks are going to come here and they're going to do good work that we're going to see in committee meetings and we're going to see here so why would we not want to afford the fine people in this room you know you know every opportunity for their work to be showcased publicly um again you know these are meetings that are public meetings so again i don't so again i i'm looking forward to having a more robust conversation i'll make out to make sure i attend the next policy meeting in person um even though even though i'm not assigned i'm going to show up to that meeting next time so we can have that conversation there but again um you know

112while there may be obstacles that we have to talk about and address um you know i'm in favor of anything that creates makes it easier for the public to observe the fine work that's being done here so those are my comments thank you thank you anyone else yes and uh dr hall we were just saying there's so much to discuss and legal said we need to probably look at it and i don't want us to go too fast uh and make a mistake with that so we were talking about we were going to look at that it's not saying it's going to happen not saying it's not going to happen but it is something we still need to discuss to take a deeper dive and say okay what should we do how should we do

113this if we're going to do it to make it work and so that's what we're talking about and that was what was discussed at the meeting and stated to me that's why we were going to table it and maybe have more discussion at the next meeting because we also have to make sure that we take in consideration when we have these policies these policy committee meetings rather is that everybody has taken consideration their personal time as well because we have people who have been here all day they come to this meeting they come to those meetings and we want to keep them to the point that we can have good discussion but also be courteous of their time as well and so we went over 45 minutes past our meeting time so therefore that's why

114we said we would table it for the next next meeting so i wanted to make sure everybody knew that that was the reason why we said we were tables so we have more time to discuss it let legal look at it like they're supposed to and then be able to to possibly move forward with it when we get to that point thank you anyone else ms autry thank you mr president so i also wasn't at that meeting as well but just my personal opinion as a board member i are on the side of being transparent as well i just know that's one of the strong hallmarks uh with some of the newer board members uh since we've been on board you know making our meetings you know more accessible and so to me that just

115kind of goes along with it so i understand there might be some legal things we need to research but that's just where i stand on it personally thank you anyone else miss jasmine i would just agree with the transparency portion of it and since as dr hall has said it's an open public meeting in any event at first i was under the thought that we discuss everything in a board meeting that happens at a committee meeting so the people will be informed that they stream into the board meeting so would you really have to take both of them however as you state it hall it's a either way it's a public meeting and the information is available so if the goal is transparency and that's what we're speaking to to make it more accessible to

116people who may be at work or on their cell phones just to make sure all the information is getting out then yeah i'm not opposed to that either so i'm gonna agree i'm just saying that i'm in agreement okay thank you very much anyone else all right well uh i appreciate the the discussion on this uh item and the main reason why i wanted to bring it up is i think we have an opportunity all of us to really move the vision of equity through excellence the excellence through equity vision uh for in all that we do and that means we're going to also uh look at you know some of the things that we're doing and if we think about the open meetings act specifically and apply that from when it was passed to

1172022 to me it makes perfect sense to do that and so i just wanted to to just get a sense of what the board's thoughts were on that item and that is uh the second last thing i wanted to say the last thing we'll be discussing today we have worked out uh an agreement with the the treasurer uh cfo again to stay on with us until the end of the year uh as treasurer record and we'll discuss that resolution as well as um begrudgingly accept his resignation hopefully that disappeared off the agenda but now that's all i have any any further questions hearing signal oh i'm sorry uh dr hall is there any way that we can contractually bind mr pendleton to not be able to vacate his current job maybe we should maybe we

118should get legal researching that um so then we can hold him for the duration of his contract um i'm kidding sort of uh but we i'm going to miss you mr phone then so thank you very much uh i i did sort of look into that and i don't think we can uh just joking all right with that being said we do have uh the treasures report so mr pendleton no report right no report we will move uh next to our committee reports legal contracts and board policy mr alexander all right mr perry thank you so we had a meeting on august 1st of this year for the legal contracts and policy committee a few things we discussed were the upcoming free osba and neola presentation online it's going to be this wednesday from 11

119to noon it's called accelerating student student success through board policy and looking forward to attending that myself for sure another thing we discussed was policy which is the non-discrimination on the basis of sex and education programs or activities as most of you know that policy was set aside in 2021 because of the pandemic and due to staffing changes we talked about minor updates clean up the policy there's a copy of it for all the members in the board docs documents we also addressed the address the issue of anonymous reporting that was obviously something that was a big deal with that that policy we also discussed policy 5205 which is the student names and pronouns policies we talked about uh you know having that cleaned up in our system mr howard lawson talked about the need

120for technology to address some of the issues with that policy and being able to clean up some of the pronouns that were that we're going to have issues with so that's an ongoing discussion that we discussed in our last board policy meeting thank you very much anything else okay all right we have for this evening for the third and hopefully final reading uh policy 2266 nondiscrimination on the basis of sex and education programs or activities uh this is the third reading and i accept uh i make a motion that we accept this as as read thank you very much it's been moved to adopt policy 2266 as read is there a second on that motion second it's been seconded by mr perry [Music] any discussion on that motion hearing and seeing none uh we will

121do a roll call vote please mr pendleton mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye miss jackson i thought make sure i was trying to read through it make sure you ain't sliding on there nj thank you mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes thank you all right thank you very much does that conclude your report yes yes sir thank you very much we next move to finance and capital management ms altre thank you no report this evening thank you very much instructional policy and student achievement no report okay no report uh now uh equity committee dr hall um mr alexander is going to take care of this report this month all right mr alexander thank you um equity committee meeting met on 6 26 which was a couple weeks ago and

122a little over a week and a half ago and we opened at 504 we read the meeting of approval of the meeting minutes those in attendance was mrs chapman superintendent follower mack mrs carter miss alexander dr akbar and myself we started with the superintendent's report there was no superintendent's report we went on to human resource recruitment and retention mrs carter gave a presentation on on that mrs carter gave a presentation on uh on on the recruit recruitment intention recruitment and retention she talked about the recruitment and how the district is focused on equity and the board's advanced ap aps three and three plan uh she highlights her highlights were uh the nt i'm sorry tntp and the black talent pipeline that will focus on recruitment and retention as well as well as called there's also

123initiative called the state stay interviews we talked about the employee resource groups who have shared the committee who shared information those they have a web page that has been added to the human resources and district hub site uh dr akbar reminded the group also that there is a parade on uh the 27th of august which is the pride parade and we know we had a good number of people there last year and we were encouraging people to support it again this year mrs carter also sent out a video of one of our aps employees that started in akron public schools and the video also talked about her how why she stayed here in akron public schools and not go to another school district so that was a nice piece and if you guys haven't gotten

124that or haven't seen it we'll make sure she gets it to you ms chapman also introduced miss alexander who's a newly appointed de dei uh learning specialist for the district uh the superintendent also said how excited she was uh to have her uh her share expertise in education in the classroom management and it will also include equity in the classroom for the classroom teachers uh miss chapman also talked about uh okay what her report or what she gave a little earlier and talking about all those who are being trained as mentioned there were about 2 800 people who have been trained already talked about the new faculty training which was held on the 27th of this year july 27th of this year she also talked about bus drivers who will be getting trained on the

12510th which is this wednesday and then thursday the secretaries will be getting trained and hopefully they'll have everybody trained or that they plan on having cluster training take place on the 22nd have all those who they would like to have trained at this point superintendent follower max shared the connection of curriculum adoption process to the board's uh request for uh current culturally relevant content and material in their racial equity policy and board resolution which was part of today's presentation as well uh and they also talked about the report which we was given today today by mrs superintendent follower mack mrs chapman and mrs carter who talked about all these different areas that we were having concerns with we talked about discipline data training hiring promotions demographics and all the things that we saw earlier we

126had questions and requested data for they were also will include sharing out on a higher level of analysts regarding family engagement and that will come later by mrs stancy sykes though we ended the meeting at 5 52 p.m that's the report thank you thank you very much anyone have any questions for the equity committee all right hearing singing then we will move to unfinished business that's the priorities and funding discussion uh any uh discussion from the board on these items mrs mckittrick quick question so as her three funds have to be used by the end of september of 2024 is that correct correct i guess it's a comment rolled into a question or vice versa um why are we spending it down so quickly when we still have over two years what if there comes

127a need and and the money's gone very simply thank you if you're relating the spending it down so quickly to the gas gauge those are related to strategic initiatives that have been vetted right for the past 12 plus months but they haven't been committed yet so there are estimates about future programs and even though it said about 85 percent of those funds have been committed they're committed in terms of strategic strategic planning ideas staffing costs purchase service to the best of the estimate that we have now and it's what we tried to clarify through that third attachment sorry the third attachment that has the board resolutions and then the ones in sr3 that don't have board resolutions would be coming back to the board so really to get back into the detail that question we'd

128go through all of the nine strategic major investments in their subparts so they haven't been committed committed yet only in concept only in kind of rolling out those concepts and to extend that committed in terms of a concept in furthering a lot of the work that we have been doing because we are looking to deepen our strategies around career and college academies and student supports and engagement so [Music] we do have some flexibility and we have tried to communicate that in all of our presentations so we've tried to kind of summarize where you can go back and see in presentation after presentation we we do have the ability to make some adjustments as you said we do have two years remaining that isn't a long time in the grander scheme of things to really not

129only um you know have those funds earmarked but to have the corresponding whether it be training corresponding experiences corresponding things happening and occurring that really has to be strategically paced and implemented with support and so we we are happy to continue to answer any specific questions about any of the plans that are on the table for the use of those funds you know and to talk more about how it aligns with the strategic direction of the district the work of the of the system and definitely in preferencing support for our students to recover and accelerate their learning which is the primary uh goals of of those resources but when we compare ourselves in terms of our progress uh with with other districts and we talk constantly with our peers uh in the field uh we're

130right on target so we're not hurrying and you know we're not ahead of you know we are right on target and our plan um mirrors uh a lot of the plans that are in place in urban districts because we experience most often some of the similar needs for our students for our families needs for engagement fundamental supports buildings things of that nature thank you very much anyone else dr hall yeah um let me let me weigh in on this topic too um you know again going back to the gas gauge you know i think that the you know because i think that i i think i misinterpreted the first time i saw because i was confusing two terms i was i was confusing the word committed and encumbered right and those are those two words

131are dissimilar um and so really all we're saying here is that we've only is that we've spent 14.8 million dollars according to this most recent gas gauge in the slide deck it probably is a little bit more than that now i i'd hazard a guess but it still needs approximately 80 million dollars left um that is either committed to remaining but even the things that are committed you know there's still flexibility because there because there are things that that can happen um you know i can think of several examples um which i'm not going to get into tonight because we'll be here for two hours if i do that um but uh by the way when i was in sixth grade i got class clown and most talkative the most talkative part surprised anybody there

132okay um anyway um so so again i think that there are definitely items that can come up um that would require us to to pivot from this plan because because this is this is a plan right um and only 15 million of it has been spent the rest of it is still attached to a plan which um is always if we're you know if we're intellectually honest it's always you know uh what can be changed you know uh when things change in the in the environment that would dictate that it changed right so um so anyway so so i i've tried to focus um my thoughts on this on well what are some of those other things that could come up that would impact this and so i think um so that's so you know

133i'll save i'll save that for other conversations but um but again i'm no longer interpreting this the way that i did before which was oh you know we've we've spent all this money it's not spent you know it's just it's committed not encumbered and as this board and this board has every opportunity to change the direction and and to reapp and to re-prioritize spend um you know so there are things that folks in this board or this board collectively feel strongly about um you know we can always you know amend um the plan you know um and so so that's i think those are my comments i don't think i don't think i had a question in there um just want to make sure you all knew that i got most talkative in sixth grade

134for miss vincent since that's the theme of tonight but thank you very much anyone else okay could i just say that as the board continues to consider we we would benefit from really more specific questions as to what piece of the plan is something that you know requires some additional information for you to understand why that was identified as as a need and what the hope is uh or the intention is as it relates to supporting our students you know so that we do have thriving scholars thriving schools and in a thriving community at large so we have spent again the better part of a year in a planning process and receiving feedback input and so as we move on because there are commitments tied into the plans that we have put forth and so

135we we will need to have a bit more specific information to to assist us i appreciate then uh i think uh we have for what i can characterize if i could from the board's perspective the vast majority of what's in the plan i think most of the board believes is something we should look at one of the things i know that i've asked for [Music] that would be good to also look at is to look at all the buckets for each one of those priorities so you know not just the s for funding but also funding that comes from non-general funds so other grants or what have you and then also what we spend uh our spending for general fund for all of those the other piece that uh i think would be good as

136we think about being innovative and sustainable one of the things that would be good too is to as we layer equity on top of all of that is to be able to see in a more comprehensive way is where like what schools are we spending and for each one of these priorities and how much and basically you know any data that's supporting spending uh more in one area over another so i think that would be kind of helpful uh for me and then the last thing i'll say is one of the reasons why i've tried to get us to have these discussions to make sure that we have this is because we do as a board have a responsibility to also approve the plan so that they that the district can continue to move forward

137and or provide where those those areas where we should think a little deeper on because i do agree with the superintendent that uh there are uh there's a lot uh that's that goes into uh moving the district forward uh in in these ways and so we we do have to kind of come together to say here's what the plan is and we approve that plan to move forward or we approve all pieces but this part of the plan and this is what we need to adjust to i do think we need to do that in a little bit quicker way um so that there is a little more uh concrete direction so that's one thing that i want to say because that's why i've kind of tried to get us to have these discussions right

138and the cfo would need to share around kind of our capability around accounting for every single fund you know those sorts of things but as it relates to uh equity and thinking about equitable flow of resources both how it is currently happening in our system and what the potential is even for our esser funds which builds off of our current practice in the district we do have some information that we can share one of the bodies of work that we did this year based on the questions and asked of the board was to look at you know what equity in allocations equity and resources what that looked like in terms of dollars in terms of human capacity things of that nature and um and kind of what the thought pattern was behind that so we

139do have information relative to that that we can share at some point in time thank you very much um ms autry thank you mr president um i do have a specific question about the innovation grants and i was just wondering is there anything in place yet for that because i know there's like 1 million for high needs schools and then an additional million for teachers is there a process in place already for teachers we do have a process we haven't yet launched it we're planning on launching that as a part of the back to school so we'd be happy to share with you you know kind of here's the criteria here's you know kind of the angles so it not only was for schools but it also were dollars set aside for our scholars themselves

140to be able to direct some student impact where students can work together to make a difference in their school environments and leveraging our student leadership team so we'll be able to share around those plans as well thank you very much dr hall yeah let me just jump back in i mean you know i keep talking about this word flexibility right in the word plan um and i think it's important to keep that in mind because in the next 12 to 18 months there may be new ideas that come up right i mean there's a lot of smart people in this room right um you know and so we have a smart and gets a superintendent as well right so so she may have additional new ideas you know she's reviewing the latest literature or the

141latest trends right so i think it's important that we keep our options open and say this is a plan right and so leave room for lightning to strike right um and then i think you know more pragmatically i think you know there are still more things that this board is going to talk about in the future which is one of which is kenmore right and so we passed a resolution previously and so there's a update that's due around that um at some point and so there'll be more robust conversation around around kenmore and so there may some of these dollars may need to be allocated in that particular way too right um you know but those are decisions that have yet to be made right um or not made right if you know for better

142or for worse um you know i've gotten you know emails from teachers saying hey i reply back to that survey asking for feedback and i think teacher compensation should be addressed right um you know coincidentally or not we're also involved in negotiations right now we can't talk about that other than to say the word right um but again the outcome of that may also impact this right we don't know right there's a lot of things that we don't know and so that's why for me i think it's important that we sort of may try to maintain maximal mental agility and flexibility around this topic and not not painting ourselves into a corner around the kinds of things that we will or won't do now i can tell you as i go through this plan um

143there's nothing in this plan that i that i would take umbrage with you know i think everything in here is fantastic i could i really couldn't give you a line item in this plan that i disagree with or think is off base you know um you know now philosophically while i might like to see some of the money and more money different buckets sure but i mean there's nothing in the plan that i look at and say i'm opposed to that right and so i think that's i think that's a testament to all the work that's been done by the superintendent and all of you in this room and putting that plan together um but i just want to make sure that we you know say this out loud that you know that there are

144still things that can happen that can impact this plan and i think that we just have to be honest about it you know and just allow for those for those kind allow and try to plan for those types of things when those types of things occur so so those are my comments and i'll see the rest of my time back to you mr president thank you very much any other comments if not we will move forward hearing and seeing none we will now move to new business where there is a resolution to accept the resignation of treasurer cfo pendleton and terminate the contract ending on 31 august of 2022 and simultaneously appointing treasurer cfo pendleton as the treasurer of record uh to go until the 31st of december 2022. uh so the resolution is before

145you in 30.1 and i will accept a motion uh to move that resolution for approval iso move it's been properly moved by mr perry is there a second second it's been seconded by dr hall any discussion on the motion to approve the determination of treasurer's cfo contract by accepting his resignation and appointing him as the treasurer of record hearing none we will do a roll call vote please mr pendleton ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye ms jackson yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes all the drama today thank you so with this action we are going to be bidding our treasure farewell officially and we will be preparing something to to formally do that at the next meeting but we also uh just wanted to say that um we

146appreciate mr pendleton's ongoing support as we think through what our next treasure and cfo uh will be uh and what we want in that person please stay tuned as we provide some more public updates to everyone about that process but we will begin that process on wednesday so hopefully those of you who are able can come to that meeting as we talk through two firms who may assist us as there's no other business to come before the board today we do have a motion uh i'm sorry we do have a need to recess into executive session and so the the the president will accept a motion to recess into executive session pursuant to ohio revised code 121.22 excuse me g1 for the purposes of considering the employment or dismissal of a public employee or official

147of the school district is there a motion thank you very much it has been properly moved by mr alexander it's their second it's been seconded by dr hall any discussion on that motion hearing and seeing c9 we will have a roll call vote mr pendleton mr perry yes dr hall aye ms jackson aye mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes thank you thank you very much we will have a need to return and take action uh likely after executive session so i wanted to point that out that we may have an item when we return with that being said we now stand in recess into executive session at 7 50 pm thank you very much and welcome back to the regularly scheduled board meeting on 8 august 2022 uh we

148have now returned from executive session and we do have one item uh to consider um for a motion uh so the the president will accept a motion uh to uh approve the resolution of the intention to consider termination of a teaching contract is there a motion on the table iso move second it's been properly moved by mr perry and seconded my miss autry is there any discussion on this motion hearing singing then we'll do roll call vote please mr pendleton dr hall abstain miss jackson yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes thank you very much as there's no other business to come before the board we will entertain a motion to adjourn it's been properly moved by mr alexander ii is their second it's been seconded

149by mr perry uh i don't think we got to do real quick you don't have to roll okay that's right all right so thank you very much we now stand in to recess to our next meeting on wednesday thank you have a great day at 903 pm [Music] you