001[Music] thank you good evening good evening everyone and welcome to the meeting the regular schedule board meeting on 25 July 2022 I wanted to start the meeting off um just a moment of silence as we pay our respects to a dear student who life was lost over the weekend as well as a phenomenal historical legendary coach in the district who passed away as well so just want to do a brief moment of silence before we start the meeting thank you very much we now welcome you to the regularly scheduled board meeting on 25 July 2022 of the Akron Public Schools Board of Education thank you everyone for being here this is a very special day for Akron public schools and some phenomenal leaders that's been in our midst for many many years and we get
002to celebrate them today so we're going to start off by some formalities and then we're going to get to the Celebration so first we'll do roll call for attendance Mr Pendleton Dr Akbar yes Mr Alexander president miss Autry here Dr Hall aye Mrs McKittrick here Mr Perry I'm here thank you thank you very much and we will now move to the Pledge of Allegiance and miss our treaty do you mind leading us thank you very much we now moved to community and school Reflections from our board members anyone has any Community or School reflections Miss Autry then Mr Alexander thank you Mr President um and you've already acknowledged the death of Coach flossy and I just as a person who was there at bookto during his time there I just wanted to also extend condolences
003to his family and loved ones he is just a true Testament of the power of coaching and the role that it plays for our young people so many folks in my class were able to go on the higher education because of him and his support and mentorship he was more than just a coach and so I just wanted to acknowledge Him extend condolences I'm also since we last met I was invited by East cheerleading team to help them with their auditions or tryouts rather and I just wanted to give special shout out to those coaches over there as well for working with those young ladies it was nice to see young people out doing something positive and again just the power of coaching that it has on our young people is really important the role
004that they play so thank you to those coaches those young ladies and those families who made sure those young ladies were there and participating thank you very much Mr Alexander yes thank you Mr President um I also want to say condolences to a number of people one to the family of the young man who passed our student from Ella you know it's been a lot of tragedy a lot of things have been going on in the community and and uh this is another tragedy of a young man who whose Talent we will never get a chance to see if it would Bloom and to be possibly a hero uh we would hope in our in our city of Akron also condolences to the philosophy family as mentioned uh coach flossy has helped a lot of
005young people around here uh one of my close friends who is always close with close coach flossie when he was in high school and they were still close to this day until he till he passed and I know what he did in that young man's life to help him become the person he is he's a very good businessman now he's from Akron he's from Akron public schools he went to Central Howard and his name is John Woodridge and he is doing a lot of great things not just here in this area in the state of Ohio but throughout the United States so I wanted to give condolences to the philosophy family also condolences to the Allen Family Miss Thelma Allen was a long time educator here in Akron public schools she helped a lot I
006mean a lot of young people she was a reading teacher and reading specialist and she taught a lot of young people to do well here in Akron public school and I'm sure that if we had to ask a group of people about her they would say how much she helped them and help them in their lives not just in the classroom but in in their lives so I want to give condolences to her family as well and then uh one of the things I kind of left some my material at home but I'm gonna just give one thing osba had we had our trustee meeting uh last weekend and there were a number of things that were discussed and one that I wanted to make sure the board was aware of and I'll bring the
007others next week when I make sure I have my paperwork uh but his uh osba is now in cozba we know that's a new organization they're not in NSB part of nsba anymore and they are having their Urban Boards of Alliance uh the first Board of Alliance meeting which is similar they're somewhat similar to Cube and they're having that on September the 8th and 9th and I want to make sure that all of our board members were aware of that and make sure you got your information if you didn't let me know so that I can make sure you get that information uh that's it Mr President thank you thank you very much and appreciate that update uh for that Alliance there anyone else I'm The Other Board member okay hearing and seeing none we
008will go to the next item on the agenda which is request to address the board I do not believe we have any uh requests to address the board today and so we will move to item number two which is recognitions of our distinguished employees with their Emeritus status and certificate so first I just want to say to all of our Emeritus employees we are so honored to have you here today and we celebrate you so before we start celebrating them individually can we all give them all just a round of applause [Applause] this is uh Beyond you know uh uh just amazing to to have these individuals collectively uh they have well over 500 years of experience um which is amazing uh to say that you have had that much investment from such dedicated people
009in our district so with that being said we are going to start with our celebration of Pamela Campbell from uh the elementary school teacher 40 years of service for Akron public schools I believe that's Mr Perry Pamela Campbell [Applause] Pamela Campbell is a proud Viking having graduated from Akron North High School After High School sharing a Bachelor of Science degree in Early Education from Kent University Kent State University in she also attended the University of Akron Ashland University and the University of Oregon where she earned graduate credits in 1980 Pam was hired as a substitute teacher with the Akron public schools a year later she served as the skip kindergarten teacher at Findlay Elementary she worked part-time for two years and was hired as a full-time teacher to work in a split assignment at Barber
010and Betty Jane schools in 1985 she was assigned to barber school where she remained for the remainder of her career she was known for using a variety using a variety teaching techniques that involved the children as active participants in the classroom former principal Charles mcvann wrote in her evaluation students are actively involved in your lessons as active participants former principal Roy Copeland written her evaluation the students work well in Cooperative groups children are actively involved in the lessons classroom discussions reach higher level thinking skills involving the children at this level requires one to be very organized former principal Jan Naidoo wrote in family's evaluation Miss Campbell is highly organized and a very hard-working teacher in addition to her classroom responsibilities Pamela has served in leadership capacity on numerous building committees that address curriculum and building
011issues she was a member of the building leadership team and on the school Improvement team curriculum committees included 100 book Challenge and the lighthouse project Pam has been a loyal Barber Bearer for 39 years with almost with most of her years at the second grade level her dedicated service to the children and the Akron public schools is greatly appreciated enjoy your retirement congratulations Pamela thank you photo yes hopefully okay thank you everyone I get choked up when people talk about how long I've taught it didn't seem that long um it's something I truly enjoy doing and there were ups and downs as everyone knows I think what made me choose to retire now were twofold getting through remote learning was a challenge it was quite difficult for many of us teachers doing something we've never
012done before with second graders and in coming back things were different and I really didn't see that my teaching career could be what it was because there were so many challenges as children were coming back with so many issues they were dealing with because of the remote learning and I pray that we can teach them and get them where they need to be and I don't feel like I've given up on them because I know I got many students where they are today but I feel for those struggling through right now I really do this is not an easy career it is not a career that we get a lot of kudos for we do what we do because we love what we do and that's how I felt so much [Applause] foreign thank you
013very much it got me for Clinton uh I think that's what we just heard was just another reason why we want to celebrate each and every one of you because that sheer dedication and passion exudes from you um it's undeniable undeniable so thank you for your words and I think it's also undeniable for this uh Nets uh person as well Mrs uh Felicia Campbell if you can come join us here [Applause] not only is Mrs Felicia Campbell brilliant and stylish as you can see uh she is also a proud Griffin and she graduated from Akron bookbills High School After High School she attended the University of Akron where she received the Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education and years later she earned a master of science degree in education from the University of Akron
014in 1989 Felicia was hired by Akron public schools to be a teacher at Cross Elementary School she left Elementary School level in 2001 where she began teaching at Litchfield Middle School from Litchfield she moved to readinger middle school as an instructional coach and ventured into a new assignment where she could learn and develop new and unique Concepts in teaching Felicia began began became a teacher at the newly created nif stem school where she remained there the remainder of her career at niffs them uh nifs them allowed Felicia to teach students using problem-based approaches to learning and as Mrs Campbell said children saw solve problems using Real Life Solutions she enjoyed working with local businesses such as the Art Museum Akron Children's Hospital the Akron Zoo the Kyogre Valley National Park and many others she embraced
015embraced this new approach with which encouraged students to use 21st century literacy skills and critical thinking skills to learn how to solve problems and grow as individuals her students were growing academically and she was growing professionally principal Amanda Morgan said she worked very closely with her grade level team and content area team for the benefit of the Learners and her professional growth teacher teacher Donna wazaki I'm sorry rojic stated that Felicia is a teacher that has enabled all Learners to feel safe valued and learned and loved she is dedicated to being a lifelong learner and was always willing to adapt and improve Felicia was a willing learner however principal Morgan noted she was also known for her kindness and her grace these attributes help make learning at nymph stems a special place for the students
016in Akron public schools would like to say thank you and congratulations Mrs Felicia Campbell yes first I just want to say thank you to committee members anyone responsible for this this is this was unexpected um but I was hoping I didn't have to say anything but now I'm kind of glad I did I am because um I can't believe that my career has come to retirement it seems like literally I just started not long ago and it has been a blessing you don't know all the time the lives that you really make an impression on until you're out and you're going about your day going about your business and you see these tall adults with children and they come up and they hug you and they tell you Miss Kim I was Miss Campbell that
017I was Coach Campbell for the last 13 years at this stem prior to that we were just misses so they would come up and say Mrs Campbell Mrs Campbell remember me remember me and I'm looking up and I'm like wow and then they tell me what school what year and the memories flood back and we just get caught up and they say to me you know I thank you so much because you really did make a difference in my life all that hard work you made us do in writing because I was a language arts teacher so I was a stickler for the writing and a stickler for how you put together your work and present it and to have young people come back and tell me it paid off in college and it really
018you know made a difference and to just let me know hey I got my degree in this area I'm doing this I'm married it really as an educator makes me very proud and I'm just so grateful to God that it is a hard field that has changed in the 33 years I was here but I would not have chosen another career in hindsight when I look back I am very grateful that one day I know people would be sitting at their tables with their kids and they'll be saying I remember my teacher in sixth grade Miss Campbell or Coach Campbell and even though I won't be there to hear their stories I know in my heart that I made a difference in their life [Applause] next we have uh Rebecca Brent High School teacher 36
019years okay all right well uh for the sake of honoring her I will read about her now um so Mrs uh Brent graduated from Tallmadge High School where she was a standout athlete and in 1985 she graduated from the University of Akron where she received her Bachelor of Science degree in physical education and health she also did graduate work at the University of Akron Kent State University in Ashland University during her undergraduate studies at the University of Akron Rebecca was an All-American in softball and is enshrined in their athletic Hall of Fame in 1986 Rebecca was hired by Akron public schools as a physical education teacher her initial assignment was the split assignment at Voorhees bear and cyberling elementary schools in 1995 Rebecca became the health and physical education teacher at Miller stop where she
020remained in this assignment until 2015 when she when she moved to her final assignment at Elliott High School Rebecca was considered a good teacher by her supervisors and Ellen principal Michelle Marcus Kearns stated she is a good teacher who provides the students alternative ways to learn the academy principal uh Chris Mrs Riley she said that she is reflective and a student focused and creates relevant lessons that are problem-based and Community focused she is an outstanding teacher who is dedicated to her students and she will be greatly missed it says a lot when the evaluator has such high praise for her former teacher Miss Riley was once a student of Mrs Brent at Miller South Not only was Rebecca a good teacher she was also a positive influence in the building Rebecca was a coach for
021many years in tennis at Ellet she once took over a coaching position so the team could continue to play teacher colleague and Rose stated she would find a minute to listen to you when you needed an ear an encouraging words when you were needed when you needed support the principal stated we are appreciative of the time and efforts that Becky put into the teaching profession for 35 plus years I'm inspired by her vision and motivation and the students of lclc were blessed to have her as a teacher Akron public schools say thank you and wish you well on your retirement Mrs Brant [Applause] thank you very much with that being said we now have Mrs rithrow and that's Mr Alexander good evening I have Mrs Sharon Withrow special education teacher chair and Withrow proudly graduate
022of Archbishop Hoban High School After High School she attended the University of Akron where she earned her bachelor's degree in science in education with a focus on special education he returned to the University of Akron to receive her master's of Education in Reading supervision he initially was hired for Akron public schools as a substitute teacher and then as a tutor he became a full-time teacher in 1986 as a special education teacher her first assignment was Betty Jane Annex from Betty James she moved to Leggett Elementary School for seven years was another move in the future another move came became her last move she was assigned to Glover Elementary where where she would remain as an elementary teacher until her retirement former principal Alice Simmons wrote in her evaluation Miss Withrow is a hard worker who
023strives to complete all tasks on time and correctly he worked on the building uh building School Improvement team and the building leadership team he was a team player helping to make the building better however the children came first current Dean current dean of students Brian pretzoff pretzloff said of her she is always here for the kids a teacher a colleague of hers Mrs Julie Alice remarked Cherry is very hard working he is always willing to learn new new things that will help her students be successful clearly Sharon Withrow was recognized for her hard work and dedication to the children current principal philomino Vincente stated she is very dedicated and always puts the children first Children First the children at Glover School were the recipients of her dedicated teaching for the past 34 years Sharon Withrow
024will be missed by students and parents alike he was well liked former principal Lamonica Davis said it very well when she wrote and Sharon's evaluation great job you are an asset to Glover School thank you for all that you do we know we that we now thank you Sharon for all that you have done for the students in the Akron public schools enjoy your retirement foreign [Applause] not a speaker but um I am really proud that I was at Glover though for 34 years and then before that when I was a tutor I was there for two years um and um I am known mostly for being a team player and uh I know people appreciate that and I I'm always a good listener too and I really enjoyed working with special ed kids and
025then seeing them improve and also like when I first started we I had a classroom of kids and I had them all day long and uh it doesn't seem right to me that I that they weren't around other kids and I found out that Glover was doing an inclusion more inclusion than where I was so I ended up a Glover and then um I actually taught uh first grade for 17 years and then I went back to special ed because I always intervention specialist I thought that was really interesting when I when I started I was just a special ed teacher now they call him an intervention specialist which is really what we do intervention and so I wanted to do that so I became a special education teacher I went back to special ed
026and I worked with a lot of really great teachers and I learned a lot from the teachers and I really enjoy teaching and I I really don't know what to do now I'm like it seems like um I just started like yesterday but I know it's been 38 years but um it's just it's just a little hard right now because I'm used to teaching and I'm used to going back and I'm used to doing professional development like they have some professional development in the summer and I'm like I want to do that they have one on my conclusion but yeah I'm retired so but thank you [Applause] I'm gonna say this before I sit down it was a theme in her uh script there it said for the students it was all about the students
027that's what it's all about education is all about the students so we all have to remember our focus on what we're doing is going to affect our students thank you thank you very much we now have uh Mrs Gigi and that is Mrs McKittrick [Applause] we'll buckle up y'all because we have 44 years of service to Akron public schools to go through so buckle up are you ready for this yes well you don't want me to edit this on the Fly do you so after graduating from South Hills High School in Pittsburgh Karen attended the College of Wooster where she Wooster Worcester Worcester where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree she later graduated from the University of Akron with a master of arts degree in education in 1978 Karen was hired by Akron public
028schools to be a teacher her first assignment was at West Junior High School in the high intensive Reading Center she then moved to reading or Middle School in the same year I'm sorry I messed that all up she moved to reading her Middle School in the same teaching assignment a year later after teaching English at Garfield High School good choice she became the English as a second language teacher at reading or Middle School in 1982 and Central Howard in 1983. her skills as a teacher propelled her to the next level in her blossoming career in 1984 Karen became a supervisor of teachers in the bilingual education program two years later she became a curriculum specialist after three years in this assignment she became a supervising teacher in 1991 Karen was appointed coordinator learning specialist she
029became the language arts and ESL learning specialist in 1997. after three years she was appointed principal of case Elementary School and Later cyrling Elementary School in 2000. her skills and experiences were obvious many of her supervisors noted her skills and accomplishments in her evaluations assistant superintendent Sylvester small wrote in her progress report in 1996 you have provided excellent leadership and direction in the district to increase performance on the reading and writing tests supervisor Susan long wrote in Karen's evaluation as a learning specialist the ESL program today exists because of your leadership her executive director Brenda Church in 2004 wrote in Karen's principal evaluation your staff as well as your community view you as one who promotes the success of all students by acting with Integrity fairness and in an ethical manner Karen's leadership skills curriculum
030understanding and integrity propelled her to be appointed executive director of teaching and learning in 2009. she has remained in that assignment since all of her experiences have contributed to her success in this assignment they also prepared her for the demanding time and expertise needed to be successful being the executive director of teaching and learning requires her to become even more involved in District initiatives she has restructured gifted services to make them more effective she helped plan and organize professional development to help teachers and administrators meet district and state initiatives she was the lead in The District's otes implementation she was the lead person in the pace initiative Karen collaborated with various departments to successfully complete the laptop device rollout and these are just a few of the projects you worked on in her assignment all
031were successful assistant superintendent Dr Ella McWilliam Woods wrote in kieran's evaluation Mrs Gigi is known across the district as a colleague who can get any task accomplished with accuracy Clarity and communication and entirely manner Karen is known for her special comments learning specialist Don Wilson said the phrase we have an opportunity was Karen's nice way to say get ready to do more work learning specialist Dr Lloyd dangwen and Dr tone dangwen said kieran's favorite phrase was no worries meaning we'll make it work Karen is a very humble person she always tries to deflect credit for accomplishments from her to her excuse me from her to her colleagues as Dr McWilliams Woods wrote in Karen's evaluation Mrs Gigi is an incredibly valuable member of our senior leadership team she is a humble dedicated tireless leader who
032keeps the district moving forward and that comment sums up the career of kiranjijic so as you get ready to join the Retirement Group all in your department wish you the best of luck in future endeavors now you can spend more time at Kohl's Lucky Shoes Myers department stores and watching General Hospital when it airs and yes you may keep on cheering for your Pittsburgh Steelers thank you Karen for your 44 years of service to Akron public schools [Applause] thank you I did write a few words down superintendent Fowler Mack board president Dr Akbar members of the board senior staff and Akron Public School staff thank you for the certificate as a direct result of the support I have received from The Learning Community I am able to stand here tonight and humbly accept this certificate
033many APS staff members have shared wisdom and offered guidance over the years I think of those supportive School community members as wisdom Whisperers so many of you so many APS leaders have paused and whispered wisdom into me I want to take a moment to give voice and recognize a few of the many wisdom Whisperers tonight superintendents ought Williams small James and Fowler Mack have whispered wisdom my way and I thank them for that my first principles and assistant principles who are true Legends Martin Chapman the original Larry Johnson assistant Sarah Stanley who then became one of the first female principals Sandy balofi who really was a co-principal with me and taught me how to be a principal the teachers from case and cyberling IB teams led by Jen Victor Sandy Klein Sharon Hill Tammy Brady
034Mary Dean Jessica Sachs Diane Floyd Kim Summers and Matt doslack secretaries like Jackie Allison Brenda White Donna Marie Smith and Kim darenberger and the team of Christa Patty Amber Susie Kathy Booth Goldie Sterling Jeff custodians like Mark hetzer Dave straharski Jim Dyer from this building Doug and Ray safety team members like Ken Anderson Danielle and Terence there's a little quote by JFK that we must find time to stop and thank the people who make a difference in our lives those people that I want to thank include Reverend Fowler Reverend Walker and Mr Alexander for their leadership on the board so many community-minded leaders pause to share wisdom and support the work of the district thank you to the wisdom Whispers in teaching and learning thank you to the mentor principals Phil Vincente Greg blondheim Kristen
035Booth Becky green palata Julie Mann thank you to the regular Whispers who on a daily basis whispered into my ear Mark Williamson Todd Wallace Todd Atkins Howard Lawson Yvonne Carla Deborah Ellen all of the senior staff that surround this room have whispered and I have benefit from your wisdom and then there are the family Whispers who have a different tone and a different Cadence and they don't always whisper when they think I need to be corrected but thank you Michael Elizabeth Paul yes Paul thank you Amanda Andy and Victor but mostly thank you for making so many ordinary moments extraordinary thank you for sharing wisdom thank you superintendent father Mack foreign [Applause] thank you very much we will now move to Mr Brantley 41 years and this okay um 41 years of professional who couldn't
036make it today so I will read uh his her I'm sorry did you say it's her yes her I am so sorry um read her um words here to celebrate her for uh 41 years uh within the district as an educational assistant um Mrs Bentley is a proud graduate of the former South High School in Akron After High School she attended the College of Steubenville and the University of Akron in 1977 Mrs Brantley joined the Akron public schools under the Ceta program her first school assignment was at Rankin Elementary School where she was a library floater after six years at Rankin she was assigned to Erie Island as an lrc technician for 10 years Mrs Brentley resigned and moved to California for one year and in 1994 returned to Akron where she was rehired as
037an lrc technician at Roswell Kent uh she worked in library and Media Services for one year before finding her home at Leggett Elementary School where she remained and to her retirement in April of 20 2022. wherever Mrs Brantley worked supervisors were pleased extremely pleased with her performance words such as organized competent excellent exemplary caring and positive are found throughout her evaluations Leggett principal Gary blondim wrote in the evaluation that she was has masterfully integrated technology into the program and keep students engaged former Leggett principal vincenti wrote in the evaluation that she is a positive role model for students parents and staff and Dr Atkinson from a former principal for Leggett wrote that her study and Library skill programs are an asset to our students and former Kent principal Elaine Vibra wrote that she is a
038team player who will help out whoever is needed um one can see that Mrs Brantley has quite positive impact on Those whom she has worked with uh principal verbal uh may have said it best uh that Mrs Brantley is too good to be true she is competent and conscientious in everything she does and all that touched uh is very uh positive and Mrs Brantley will be missed those who followed her in the lrc will be held to a very high standard and thank you Mrs Brantley for your contributions to the students and staff of Akron public schools [Applause] thank you very much we now have Mike Lopez and that's Dr Hall [Applause] I might so I have the honor and privilege of talking to you a bit about Mr Mike Lopez he's a proud Wildcat
039graduate of the Canton South High School After High School he had an interest in audio in the audio visual field prior to being hired by the Akron public schools he received Technical Training for many audio visual manufacturers such as 3M Apple Bell and Howe Zenith and singer he was prepared to start a career in 1985 Ireland was hired by the Akron public schools as an audio visual repair in the maintenance department he was now required to apply all the skills in which he was trained to help keep the school buildings and their audio visual equipment running properly the equipment included Smart Boards security cameras televisions projectors School clock systems and public address systems just to name a few as they would say are you gonna call not the Ghostbusters that's a delayed laugh come on
040folks Who you gonna call okay not the Ghostbusters but but Mike he was ready willing and able to assist supervisors acknowledge his accomplishments Ireland has maintained perfect attendance throughout most of his career this shows dedication to the job former supervisor Michael Visage wrote in Ireland's evaluation he goes the extra mile to accomplish the necessary goals to keep the classrooms operational he is an asset to this department and the school system in general in 2017 Ireland was promoted to audio visual Foreman in the maintenance department he remained in this assignment until his retirement current supervisor Rob boxler stated he continued to keep the media operations going for the teachers in a timely manner he has also done a fine job managing the 2000 plus security cameras spread throughout the district keeping our schools safe is a
041high priority obviously thank you Mike and your department for doing this for our students and our staff Mike is now ready to move on to his next assignment in life the Akron public schools wish to let you know your contributions to the district are appreciated you can now turn over all the requests for help from the buildings to the next Ghostbusters replacement enjoy your your retirement congratulations Mike [Applause] thank you well thank you so much um yeah I'm I'm happy that I don't feel the phone calls anymore like like those from Karen whose demands you cannot refuse and of course as soon as I retire she retires you know and uh and Deborah who you could never refuse and I want to thank you Deborah for funding somehow all those headaches that I've always had
042for the years somehow finding the funding to cover that those needs so that's that's appreciated and I want to thank the Board of Education especially for all these years of continuous employment because as a man it's important to support your family and I couldn't have done that without you guys so thank you very much foreign thank you very much and congratulations again Mike uh next we have uh Keith Harvey and that is Mrs Autry [Applause] it's my honor to speak with you this evening about Keith Harvey custodian custodians are near and dear to my heart as a PTA person I love you guys so much Harvey graduated as a very proud golden Ram from Akron Garfield High School he was ready to join the workforce and make a difference the Akron public schools as a
043custodial worker in 1985 at North High School in 1988 he was assigned as an assistant custodian at Firestone Park Elementary School three years later he moved to Ellet High School from Ellet high school he became an assistant custodian Knights at Ennis Middle School in 1995 he was assigned to the administration building as an assistant custodian where he remained in that assignment until 2006. a promotion was coming head custodian first assignment in his new designation was at Barrett Elementary School and then to Glover Elementary School his next assignment brought out the golden Ram pride in him he went home to Garfield High School in 2012 which eventually became Kenmore Garfield he remained in that assignment until his retirement in February of this school year Keith was recognized as a fine custodian by his supervisors former Barrett
044principal Suzette Smith wrote in his evaluation Mr Harvey is resourceful thorough and extremely efficient she also wrote he models a great work ethic former Glover principal Becca cassiopo wrote in his evaluation Mr Harvey is excellent in every aspect of maintaining Glover at a high level of cleanliness proper safety daily maintenance upkeep of all equipment and adjustments required in opening a new building former administration building supervisor Dennis riffle wrote in Keith's evaluation the grounds are beautiful mostly from Keith he took pride in maintaining the inside of the buildings and the grounds former Garfield principal Frank Colleen put it simple and to the point when he wrote in Keith's evaluation he takes the initiative to get work done custodians are an integral part of the building organization Keith Harvey made sure every building he worked in was
045kept clean and safe he made the workplace a home away from home for all who came to visit or work and we thank you and wish you well on your retirement congratulations Keith thank you I'm not a big speaker but I want to thank you for the recognition it was a big surprise I want to thank all the people that I've met over the years and became friends with um especially Deborah when I first became a custodian at Barrett she was a huge help to me a lot of things were needed over there and I could go to her and she helped me out immensely so I want to thank her for that and I enjoy working with all the kids that I've met over the years and especially when I was at Glover and
046then when I went to Garfield a lot of those kids grew up and came over there and I recognized some of them some of them I did but they would come up they recognized me and would always say hi to me even some of them out on the street if I saw them somewhere so I want to thank thank everybody for the time that I was here thank you [Applause] thank you very much next week I have our one final recognition which is um Jesse Mitchell uh who's from Child Nutrition 35 years unable to be here with us today but I will read their accolades as well so Jesse Mitchell graduated from the former South High School in Akron for many years she was a stay-at-home mom raising her children and spending lots of time
047volunteering at Rankin Elementary School she spent so much time there that someone told her that she should get a job there so in 1987 she applied for and was hired to be Elementary helper in the nutrition Child Nutrition department her first assignment was at you guessed it Rankin Elementary School she was she would remain in that assignment for 25 years when Rankin school was closed Jesse was assigned to Schumacher CLC where she remained into her retirement Jesse was extremely respected by her supervisors words such as exemplary outstanding conscientious Dependable thorough Pleasant and efficient are commonly found in her evaluations former principal Joanne Smith wrote in her evaluation Mrs Mitchell is outstanding she graciously goes out about her duties in a pleasant and professional manner supervisor Mary farakis wrote in her evaluation Mrs Mitchell continues to
048be exemplary employee it sees expectations in all areas former rank in principal Sewell may have said it best when she wrote in Jesse's evaluation it is always easy to complete Jesse's evaluation because she consistently sells in all her areas of job performance Jesse was an employee who was reliable and could be counted on on a daily basis she had 27 years of perfect attendance that's outstanding this reflects her love and dedication to her job and the children she served former ranking principal Megan Manion wrote and Jesse's evaluation her love and dedication to our students is evident on a daily basis the students and staff at Schumacher COC will miss you and thank you for your dedicated and loyal service to Akron public schools enjoy your retirement Mrs Mitchell [Applause] with that said we do want
049to take time to thank each and every one of our Emeritus employees and we're going to take a five minute recess to do that so we will stay in The Recess for five minutes oh and in that time we're going to take a photo sorry is it outside uh okay Mark is going to direct us we stand in recess for five minutes okay we're not going to get into music this time okay all right uh thank you very much and welcome uh back to the regularly scheduled uh board meeting uh of the Akron public schools uh we will now move on to the rest of our agenda the next item on our agenda is Communications and we are going to learn more about our amazing summer experiences uh Miss Madam superintendent thank you Dr Akbar
050member excuse me good evening to members of the board in our community we're really excited to be at the stage Midway through almost three-fourths of the way through the summer where we can report to the board on our summer experience from this year as you are aware one of the big bets that we've made through the through the use of our Esser dollars is around engaging our students expanding opportunities for them and doing a lot of that this summer and so we thought that we would share with you some of what has been occurring and and then to also hear a lot about what those involved what they have to say about it so I'm going to turn it over to Mr Keith lichty and he's going to share a presentation and he'll describe because
051you just asked me a few minutes ago whose work is is this so he's going to share with you to whose work that you have sitting beside you yeah sign that for you later okay right autographs later yeah we are super excited to be here thank you superintendent Fowler Mack I also need to thank we had some Consultants working with us this year the ILO group was phenomenal in pushing our work together and then also the district leadership summer Network through the Wallace foundation so they've really again helped us push our thinking so that we can be better for our students um so we had a few big goals uh one was to strengthen our internal systems so that was around attendance uh Central registration attendance program outcomes budgeting getting some really good inputs so
052that we could get some good outputs at the end right so we could measure our successes and begin to look at what we're impacting as a whole improving equity and access was a big mission for us and I'm going to have Desiree and Marcy share a little bit of how we did that in elementary school I'm also enhancing the student and family experience so we're serving a lot of kids in the summer and we want to make sure that our families know what we're doing and how to sign up for these programs and then as I mentioned before increasing the connection to the outcomes making sure you know as dollars get tight we need to make sure that we can measure the effectiveness of these programs and know which ones need to continue and where
053we need to strengthen one of the things that really paid off for us was centralized registration in multiple ways one if gave our parents a One-Stop shop for programming two it really facilitated the cross-departmental collaboration and so everyone in this room had a stake in this as we were developing our programs and so behind the scenes it meant that we could get intervention Specialists to the right camps to support our students with disabilities with the help of HR in the office of special education Transportation had a head up of all of the needs we were able to provide Deb folk with a list of all of the sites who needed nutrition services so because when you're running 147 camps there's a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes and that registration was a big
054part of that it also helped with targeted communication so by having all of that in one system we were able to monitor uh how those registrations were filling up so a prime example of that is we noticed that our mystery camps needed some more uh students we weren't full yet so we were able to quickly switch to some paper registration forms work with our building principals work with the secretaries and push those out to families to help us boost those up so what did the families have to say about our online registration so you can see from the list here for the most part uh 80 or higher did feel that our our website was easy to navigate online registration was user friendly and they were able to get help when they needed it so
055we did have a dedicated staff member answering phones this year giving families one-on-one support to register a big shout out to stancy who also held parent meetings here at 10 North Main and assisted families in registration uh another big aspect was equity and access so number one by by monitoring all of these programs centrally we're going to be able to report back very soon who participated from what clusters from what schools not only participation but also offerings and so that's going to guide our work in the future as we plan for next summer and also after school uh proud to say that we had camps from pre-k to 12 so we were able to serve all kids this year that was uh uh that was new camps in every neighborhood I can almost say camps
056in every school so again Desiree and Marcy are going to share a little bit about what we did in the elementary but that was a great opportunity for our families and then the programming itself so we had something for everyone every week this summer there was a camp and our families could choose full day options they could choose half day mornings afternoons so there was something to fit every every family's need so I'm going to try my best to explain this and I can answer questions if if you have them at the end but the the question of who's participating how many has come up a couple times so when we asked all of our program leads to tell us how many students they can serve across those 140-some programs that totaled up to about
057ten thousand so we knew from uh August or excuse me we knew from when was school out June 5th to August 5th we knew that we had 10 000 spaces so what that averages so when those came in we looked at all the IDS from the registrations and we have served 4066 kids this summer so that means students signed up for one or more camps to fill those 9538 seats so in essence we've been able to serve about 20 percent of our population which is pretty on par with the national uh outcomes for summer programming and then as we dive deeper I'll be able to come back to you and share a little bit more about once registered who showed up we're trending around 70 percent participation and again that is in line with all
058of the national Norms as well so what are our students saying uh I really feel like we're hitting the mark with our social emotional needs so it has allowed them to be more creative help make friends and to be more confident about learning new things I love this quote if you have kids you can relate we were almost never boring this summer so so that's a big win with kids but I do want to turn it over to Marcy to tell you a little bit more about our Flagship Camp mystery camps thank you sure the mystery camps take place in the elementary schools for all of our Rising first through fifth graders and sixth graders over in the East cluster this is the second year that we have held mystery camps uh year one we
059learned a lot we really deepened the level of inquiry that students are doing this year and gave them sort of broad topic themes I think there's a handout on your table around what those camps could be instead of direct questions we let the kids just come up with their own questions and figure out what they wanted to learn about uh we had longer time with our campers this summer we went from two weeks to three weeks which meant we were able to get them out in the field more last year we were only able to do one field trip this year we did it at least three and every grade level Camp so that was super exciting uh our partners our essential experiences Partners all came back this summer to do camps with our students
060again but then we had a whole slew of new partners ones that we've worked with before and brand new ones that are working with APS that joined in and got word and were clamoring to come be with us we increased our registrations this year with our mystery camps I think last year we were seeing maybe about seven to eight hundred each camp and this year we were well over a thousand to Eleven Hundred students in the in the two Camp windows and we added in some other things like a kindness project you see a picture of it up there on the screen but if you go around to any of our elementary schools today you will see what we are calling a temporary art installation where all the kiddos came together other and design letters
061for an outside sign around be kind 330 we also Incorporated this year some Juneteenth and 4th of July projects we recognize that sometimes those holidays come in the summer kids don't always get a chance to really learn about them so they had books and videos and activities and craft projects and things that they had to go along with that throughout the summer as well in their respective camps I do want to sort of give a shout out I know I talked about the partner organizations I'm going to bring this up for a second so everyone can see what we're talking about but you can see the the themes and then each partner was so great they are so eager to work with our students every year we sort of gave on these large big themes
062and ideas and said how could you help students investigate ideas around this so for example my favorite was Planes Trains and Automobiles because the kids got to go to the maps Air Museum down in Canton they went to the Soapbox Derby and they got to go on a train ride and each of those organizations each came up with some sort of investigation that kids would go and learn about Transportation unique to their organization take it back and digest it so that was super exciting but you can just see sort of the scope of partners that came on board lots of outdoor activities we had kids out on the farm they were picking strawberries and corn and meeting pigs and cows and our our extended day at the end of the day we'd end at 1
06330 and a bunch of kids would get on the bus and go to either the YMCA or the Boys and Girls Club and they were taking swimming lessons and canoeing and all kinds of really cool stuff I heard so many parents call and say they're so tired when they come home like that's a great thing so full days for students uh really exciting stuff but as Keith was saying none of that happened and I just got to kind of give a shout out to the amazing team of people that we have that every year at the end of a school year retired but we have 150 teachers more than that that sign up and come in and give more time this summer they come to training they go and spend time staying up their classroom
064they spend six weeks with kids and they are just ready to dive into that work we have educational assistants that get out and staff all of our building HR helps us get all those people together our nutrition service people are out hand delivering meals to these experiences they're driving out to the parks finding the kids and making sure that they get the food that they have their lunch it's pretty amazing our transportation department and we would have to Route kids home and Route them to all these things they were also last minute they're registering at the last second and they were always saying yes and making sure that kids could get to Camp get to Extended Care they rounded 400 out of classroom trips for kids this summer in just mystery camps alone 400. pretty
065amazing and what we can do in six weeks our special ed services making sure kids had all their supports and student services got a bunch of safety team members together and made sure that they were safe going to you know always out of school places and getting back safely because sometimes they didn't get back till 5 or 5 30 at night that's why they were so tired so lots of people custodial Department I have to give them a special shout out all the kids get these books like depending on what their theme is they get some sort of non-fiction book this one's called wreck this picture book it goes along with we have big ideas and inside of it the kids are encouraged to like rub dirt on pages and put a gum on a
066page and scribble on a page and make origami out of a page and one of the pages says make this book fly and our custodial people would go up access to the roof and they would throw the books off for the kids and the kids would squeal with joy as their book came flying over their heads and landed in the grass so everybody just got involved and we appreciate from the mystery Camp team the curriculum Team all the coaches that sat down and spent so many hours writing this stuff custom curriculum for our kids this summer we didn't buy this we wrote it our teachers gave us input they worked it last year we revised off of all their feedback and our curriculum people just knocked it out of the park with really deep rich
067stuff for kids to do this summer so we were super excited I think I thanked everybody about this famous someone I'm sorry oh Mary Kelly she wanted to hop on my list it leads the the you know the vision and direction from teaching and learning Elementary education she sets the vision gets all of these partners and organizations together and make sure that we're all moving this work forward we started in what January maybe Mary just sort of working through what's going to happen for kids this summer so thank you for your vision and making seeing all this come to life thank you [Applause] and to fill in the gaps Akron after school we were able to um have afternoons for kids that did not leave to go to the other sites so they went from
068Mystery camp and stayed in their building we offered programming like Mad Science Theater chess glazed and amused which is a visual art program Lego camps and what was really exciting about this summer for our elementary students and our Middle School is that we were able to bring back Community Partners who have not been present because for fiscal reasons for a while so that we could have Weathervane Community Playhouse we could have Rubber City Theater we could have a passport to peace pre-k program and then we also did countdown Decay which was an in-house preschool program at North and Stewart and then in our usual suspects we had our math science Crayola camps and then I mentioned mentioned glazing music and what you have in front of you the artwork is from our Lego Camp students
069who uh Lego Camp registrations off the charts and that's an in-house program designed by teachers and so we started at Robinson we are running in the afternoons and we filled in the gaps between the six-week programs we filled in the Gap with full day camps after the Fourth of July until the next start of mystery camps so it's been very exciting summer and we're still not tired yet but we will be August 5th I think right so it's been a great glorious collaboration we have a lot of happy kids and happy families so I know we've highlighted mostly Elementary our secondary kids we're out and about as well about a third of our participation did come from secretary secondary uh and hundreds of credits for example were earned uh either as credit recovery or credit
070advancement and I did include one picture because this one is near and dear to my heart this was uh College and Career academies was teaching students how to ride public transportation so they can use that for jobs in school I know that that is a learned skill because this summer I tried to ride the bus home during the winter and I ended up in the valley three miles from home and had to call home for a ride apparently you really got to pay attention to the bus numbers you just can't get on any bus that pulls up but where do we go from here uh so you know we're going to spend some time reflecting on the strengths and weaknesses of our programs we know that we need to continue to look at our quality
071metrics and we're working with other partners and organizations to help us do that to really prepare us for the next level which is more Community involvement more involvement from our non-profits and then a deep deep dive on the analysis of our student data so what academic impact did we have those participation rates and the overall student experience team and to the actually the expanded team sitting around this room because so many contributions went into this summer and is still going into the summer to make it happen I just wanted to draw us back again to the goals for this summer again the goals were to strengthen our internal systems especially so that they were user friendly for parents and for our Scholars to improve equity and access because at the end of the day Equity
072is about outcomes to enhance the student and family experience in general to increase the connection to program outcomes for each of our programs and one that's unstated but just is ever present is that at the end of the day we wanted to have Scholars that are inspired that are engaged that are achieving so that they're ready to carry that into the school year so we really do so much passion and attention to detail went into really raising the bar and we will continue to do that year after year so thank you to this leadership team who while it's lots of contribution they kept their eye on every single detail so we really appreciate your effort are there any questions in general thank you thank you so much I think this is so so awesome so
073thank you for your work on this um I know you mentioned about a third of the attendees or secondary other than the credit recovery what would you say was the most popular like for high school kids uh what was most popular hard to say but I can tell you and well I will get you the the that information but um many of our buildings sponsored their own programs this year so passionate teachers ran programs like hiking Club Horticulture uh chess we Miller South put on a production so a lot of the secondary outside of credit recovery the big District we're building based kind of startup programs thank you yeah I have a couple of questions as well um so first let me just Begin by saying I think this is a marvelous construct um and
074the the the depth and breadth of programming that was offered um you know I think was you know I think the only word to describe it would be amazing um and so I just had a couple questions uh with regard to that well first of all we need to say that I would have loved to have there are a number of books I would have loved they've thrown off ability when I was in grade school I I would have found that a cathartic experience let me tell you um so um so yeah so in understanding that that you know to your point Keith you know that we're still working on the program quality metrics piece and so so some of my questions are really about that um so for example um just just some um
075some things to just to be thoughtful about um and so for example you mentioned that we had four thousand Scholars registered for one or more camps but they filled almost all of the seats right so I guess the question would be is is four thousand good I mean yeah so again I don't I don't I wouldn't know right so like so as we're benchmarking that against maybe other urbans or like districts is four thousand good or and if it's not then should we be talking about do we need more than ten thousand seats right because because if you're trying to figure out how to get more kids enrolled then that means that if forty four thousand are taking up 9 500 sounds to me like if we had even 500 more kids we'd have been
076turning kids away for slots right so that's what that's that's one kind of comment um the other one was um and again again um understand your point about needing to get more data but I'm just curious if you if you know um do we collect demographic data on the students uh we do what's beautiful what the what the Consultants helped us do was marry a registration system with our student information system okay uh and so Howard's team uh thank you to them they they put activity codes to every single Camp so we'll have them all tagged along with daily attendance and will be able you ask the question we'll be able to tell you the answer gotcha gotcha I appreciate that and that kind of dovetails with um you know again we talk about the
077improve the equity improve equity and access um you know so again as we're what I'd love to know not now but just as you're working through the data is um well who are these kids right are they are they in fact our neediest or you know our neediest families right um and so um and if they are like what tactically what would we what would you recommend that we'd be doing you know differently to get more of those kids involved right um and then kind of the last thing I was going to mention um was and you know I ask a lot you know In These Warnings I asked a lot of questions about survey results right that's I always ask that question you know there's a survey I'm going to ask a question about
078um about the number of responses we got right so for example if the universe is approximately 4 000 families understand that some families have more than one kid so maybe not four thousand exactly but if we say that for example that 87 of the families found it was you know so it was easy to find and learn about programs on the website and again this connects back to like who are who our kids are and our anemia's families actually utilizing the website if we're if we're saying that's our number if we had 4 000 approximate Families how many responses did we get for that survey like do you know I mean for that survey we had 300 responses okay okay gotcha so so okay so that'd be a question like how do we get more
079more folks to respond right um and so but again like so but don't take my questions to be um to be anything but just constructive uh because again I think it's a marvelous program and I would have loved to have had access to these kinds of things as well um you know and so and kind of the I guess the the last I lied there was one other thing um you talked about the impact on the learning right so I'm curious as we work through the data you know Down The Rook I think Nathan was the first summer we did this right and then this is summer number two um so just kind of thinking through like how do we measure the impact on things like learning loss and you know and do we are
080there are there trends that would suggest that kids who are in these programs actually do better in the following Academic Year you know so um so so that's kind of the universe of questions that are kind of swirling in my mind that I would love to talk more about absolutely and just to kind of put you at ease we do have our testing and research department on notice that is soon as I get all of those kids entered into our e-school system probably around September they'll be able to look at you know the the fall assessments and start answering some of those sounds good awesome thank you I was just going to add two in on that particular because a lot of your questions um actually dovetail with the questions we were asking ourselves throughout
081and we'll continue because we know that one of the things that we'll want to do is to be able to draw some conclusions from this this type of big bet so we are actively working even with the feds and other districts with this notion of how are you assessing impact you know especially in this way and so they're interested in our story about things that we're doing and hopefully too within the Learning Community not only are we going to be doing work here in our district but we'll be in a community of Learners that are asking those very questions we believe that more engaged students having these wider opportunities though will make a difference for student achievement and as it relates to even collecting some of the data and feedback as we went along in
082the summer and were issuing some of the surveys themselves I think you heard a shout out to stancy Sykes and the team in working with families one of the things we began to do was to say can we also convene some live you know kind of focus groups asking people so that we weren't solely depending on people responding to a survey to be able to understand how things were going what barriers they were experiencing and then dedicating a live person to be available uh you know all day meant that not families didn't have to just go to the website and navigate techno apology if they weren't comfortable doing so they could be assured that a live body would answer the phone walk them through could enroll them themselves so we'll continue to learn you know
083kind of what percent of parent is using which of those options as we continue to make decisions uh for for the future and we did keep track of too for our schools and clusters with greater challenge you know to what was the enrollment level there and how can we ensure that at the end of the day we're me you know reaching children who even need that the most thank you thank you thank you very much for that uh informative presentation and more importantly for all the work you're doing um and those that you work with for our young people this summer we now move to our fourth item which is approval of the previous meeting minutes on Monday 11 July 2022 for the regular meeting minutes from that meeting is there motion on the table
084I so move it's been properly moved by Mr Perry is there a second it's been seconded by Dr Hall to approve the regular meeting minutes from 11 July 2022. uh any discussion on that motion hearing and seeing none uh roll call vote Please Mr Pendleton Dr Hall aye Mrs McKittrick yes Dr Akbar yes Mr Alexander abstain Miss Audrey yes Mr Perry yes thank you thank you very much we now moved to Personnel recommendations Madam superintendent sure I am going to be recommending the approval of personnel recommendations presented in categories 5 through 16 as you know we are uh less than a few weeks before the start of the school year so we are engaged in a range of hires that will enable us to open smoothly before I ask for that to be considered though
085uh Kathy McVeigh is going to come to the side Podium and make some important introductions thank you I just I have two uh brief introductions this evening uh Patty Stauffer you could stand up please Patty Stauffer is tonight we are recommending her for an elementary principal position she's been with the district since 1994. first as an elementary teacher for many years and in 2013 she became one of the district's first Consulting teachers helping to successfully launch our peer assistance and review program she became a dean of students in 2018 and with the elementary principal position she will be assigned to Mickey bright CLC replacing W music who recently resigned thank you [Applause] Michelle so wait I'm sorry so can I can I just interject so it's usual I've become accustomed to the folks that are
086that were doing this with this process uh that they have a chance to they would like to speak it I mean if you don't want to so you do have to come up to the podium and say a few words yes sorry please yes you're fine I would just like to say thank you for this opportunity to the board superintendent Mack baller Mack as a proud Akron public schools graduate myself and a lifelong educator and learner I'm looking forward to the opportunity to support the students the staff and the community over at Becky bright so thank you all right Michelle if you come out to the podium please oh Michelle Marcus Kearns began her career as a language arts teacher at Akron schools in 1993 in 2001 she became a dean and then an assistant
087principal at Ennis the following year she became assistant principal at North High School and later moved to East High School in 2005 she was named principal at Goodyear middle school after a year there she was named Middle School principal at Litchfield she stayed there until 2012 when she became the principal at ellett high school tonight we are recommending her for the supervisor of secondary schools position secondary principal's position excuse me and she will oversee all the High School principles sorry [Music] good evening so I just like to say thank you to a superintendent Fowler Mack and the Akron public school board members for this incredible opportunity to continue my tenure with APS in a leadership capacity I would welcome the opportunity to continue working with high school principals and their buildings I think we're doing
088such great things with kids but there's so many more things we could be doing and the opportunity to work across the district with the high schools would would just be fabulous and I know we could do great things so thank you [Applause] thank you so with with those introductions that it's kind of apropos to Bid Farewell to so many distinguished Emeritus uh members of our staff across the board but also with those introductions I wish to recommend approval of the Personnel recommendations presented in categories 5 through 16. summer second thank you very much it's been properly moved by Miss Autry seconded by Mr Perry to approve the personal recommendations any open discussion on those items all right here I am seeing none uh roll call vote Please Mr Pendleton Mrs McKittrick no on 5.10 and
089yes on the balance 5.1 and thank you Dr Akbar yes Mr Alexander yes Miss Autry Mr Perry yes Dr Hall aye thank you very much we now move to our um business Affairs recommendations Madam superintendent yes sir I wish to recommend approval of the resolutions and motions presented in category 22. they are in proper format I wish to recommend their approval thank you very much um we've been properly recommended the resolutions and motions on the agenda are there any uh motion to approve I still move it's been properly moved by Mr Perry is there a second seconded by Mr Alexander any discussion for this motion hearing CNN roll call vote Please Mr Pendleton Mrs McKittrick yes Dr Akbar yes Mr Alexander yes Miss Autry yes Mr Perry yes Dr Hall aye thank you thank you
090very much we now moved to business Affairs recommendations Madam superintendent yes I wish to recommend the approval of the business Affairs recommendations presented in category 23. thank you very much it's been properly recommended for the business Affairs recommendations is there emotion on the table I so move and properly moved by Mr Perry is their second second it's been second that man miss Autry uh any open discussion hearing and seeing none uh roll call vote Please Mr Pendleton Dr Akbar yes Mr Alexander yes Miss Autry yes Mr Perry yes Dr Hall aye Mrs McKittrick no on 23.7 and 23.43 and yes on the balance thank you very much we now moved to a superintendent's report I'm a superintendent yes given the presentations this evening I won't do any comprehensive report I did want to add voice
091to those expressions of sympathy that have already been shared for Coach Flossie's family members I too was a very young educator and brand new coach had the pleasure of working with Coach flossy at bookstore High School where he was athletic director during my tenure as the varsity coach there of the program and I can say before it is uh Vogue his attention to equity he always wanted to make sure the girls had the same opportunity that the boys did so oftentimes out of the budget of the voice programs he really leveled the playing field to make sure our girls had wonderful opportunities to have the support they needed and to have like experiences so um his he will be missed again as I stated earlier we're approximately four weeks away from welcoming our Scholars our
092staff and families back to a new school year so there are many many preparations underway the leaders who sit around the room and their teams are deeply committed and and at work preparing buildings writing materials communicating with families completing the hiring or attending to the technology needs special plans to ensure the success and support of our students so from our administrators our teachers our support staff we I want to report that we really are looking forward to having a great year engaging with our families at yet another level and and will be ready for a smooth and successful opening we do have still some positions that are available so want to lift that for you the board as you communicate with members of our community and for the community that is following our board proceedings
093that they will spread the word that the Akron public schools is a place where persons can be seen feel valued and really contribute so we really do want to invite persons to consider us as they think about places where they want to serve and especially a place that is deeply deeply committed to the students and families within our community so we are very excited and extremely optimistic about the year as well I just wanted to bring to your awareness that last week as I reported a few weeks ago this past week was the Browns give back day so soon we will be able to share pictures Reflections we will be acknowledging enhanced spaces in East CLC and so the Browns organization oftentimes periodically chooses a place for their staff staff members throughout the organization to
094at minimum volunteer 10 hours and this year chose to partner with us here in the school system and so I was able to go over and greet the volunteers on that day and and look forward to the surprise that our students will have when they return to school this fall because they not only attended to some space they left the very special treat for every single one of our students and staff members in that building so more to come on that and um before we uh truly get going in the year the be kind 330 is still alive and well and uh many uh wonderful Expressions a lot promoted by our students themselves have been taking place throughout our community at a time in which our community could really use that type of leadership so
095we really have a lot to celebrate and we'll be able to share some of those examples with you that is all I have this evening thank you very much Madam superintendent any questions for the superintendent all right hearing and seeing none we will move uh to the president's report um so there's just a few items first I think I want to thank the the board uh for hanging in there with us over the summer as we continue to meet um I know we do uh have a board member and actually a few of us who have had um days that we've had to miss and so appreciate each board member being able to to still be available and uh to to work through some some items that the Board needs to work through and with
096that being said um I just wanted to just remind the board you know even though the state legislature authority to for public bodies to meet virtually ended you know some weeks ago we still I think have a need to continue to work through our our policy committee uh to to really move forward the the live streaming uh policy which we've talked about before to ensure that all of our board meetings and committee meetings are live streamed for the public to still be able to engage with us I think that we've talked about two of our foundational principles of this board being one built on equity and two built on transparency I think that's important uh for for us and so I know that that's something that's going to be on the agenda again for the
097policy committee coming up hoping that we can get that to the full board at the next uh meeting after that committee meeting with that being said there's a few other things one of the things uh that we have we have a need for continued professional development so I'm glad that Mr uh Alexander mentioned uh the uh the urban school boards um conference or Alliance that we are just now joining as a state um on September 8th and 9th as an option for us uh hopefully that we will take advantage of that I think we also as we've worked with the superintendent to try to get us a scheduled another Retreat I want us to revisit that and revisit actually scheduling and setting a date I know that became difficult with summer vacations and all so
098I wanted to mention that as something that we can try to get nailed down pretty soon um and then the the two other things one is we we received a request from the greater Akron lgbtq Community needs assessment which has collected data on both Youth and adult experiences across Akron around what it is that their needs are and some really compelling data has come out as I've seen some of the early glances of that analysis and they made a request to APS and I'll forward it to the rest of the board to have a letter of support from from the district and or for the board in really moving some of those recommendations for which there will be a public formal presentation in August and again I'll share that information with you there you know
099as we know we have students come to us from all walks of life we are public schools so we cannot deny anyone and so we have to provide the best experience for all of our students and so that might be a good information for us to be able to take in and see what else we can provide I know we have since I spoke about policy earlier we also have another policy on pronouns and um chosen names that's also being discussed so that might be another Avenue for us to to learn and grow as well and then the last item that I had is uh really one that I think that none of us are terribly happy about our Treasurer CFO has accepted a new position we're excited for you and your opportunity um but
100I have to say we definitely are going to miss you and so that comes with some mixed emotions from this board and with that being said just for the public we are actually working on an agreement with Mr Pendleton to stay on with us as the treasurer of record until the end of the year we'll work out those details and hopefully at the next meeting we'll be able to to share more details on that agreement as well as our process for moving forward we're looking pretty quickly at um you know working through a search process for our next Treasurer and CFO we have started putting some of those plans together and uh My Hope Is by the next meeting with the full board all of that will be shared with you and you've had time
101to weigh in and we can also share part of that plan with the community at the next meeting as well so with that being said we are moving uh full stream ahead as you can only imagine uh as less than four weeks with the academic Years starting and many many things for us to do and Tackle together so thank you very much that concludes my report any questions or discussion where can we get the report for the LGBT I will I have the information in my email I will forward it to you thank you no problem anyone else okay moving on uh we will now move to the treasures report and I have an advocacy update for the board tonight um and thank you Mr President for the kind words a few weeks ago I
102was in Washington DC for a busy two days in the annual aasa and school business officials advocacy conference um topics were Esther spending as you can imagine and really what we were asking as we were knocking on doors is giving districts extra time and flexibility to spend telling our stories about um timeline in which labor and materials are available there's also the consideration of a school infrastructure Esser bill that's pending and we're going to Lobby heavily for that as that seems to be an emerging expense nationally that's many states are not as fortunate as Ohio with a facilities commission that's sponsored and co-funded with State and schools and the way that we we partner so we heard many school districts around the nation asking for these infrastructure dollars so more to more to follow on
103that also was the call for fair funding with the individuals with Disability Act in a couple stats for you is this is not likely surprising for anyone some time ago Congress pledged to pay the funding required for students above and beyond a typical student cost in upwards of 40 percent of what that base cost would be and nationally we're coming in at just under 13 percent so we shared a lot with our elected officials there and a fine finally a shout out to Deb Falk and Laura Kepler um what they don't know is that Powerhouse has been a resource for Senator Brown's office shared Brown's office in telling the story about meal waivers um little do they know when I send them the email in the morning and they respond back within a couple hours
104it's in Sherrod Brown's policy Office later that afternoon and they're very very much appreciative of it but one thing we appreciate Senator Brown's support in extending the meal waiver Authority Under the keep kids fed Act however there's one component that I think was really interesting for them to hear and that's this transitional rule for milk sodium whole grains and some extra requirements and just as we're seeing labor shortages and material shortages it's difficult to secure components to be compliant with some of these new rules so again thanks Deborah and send my thanks to Laura for those details and that concludes my report thank you thank you very much Mr Pendleton any questions for the treasurer hearing and seeing none we will now move to our committee reports legal contracts and board policy Mr Alexander we
105have for the first reading policy 2266 non-discriminate discrimination on the basis of sex and education program or activities this is the first reading of policy 2266. thank you thank you very much uh any questions for the legal contracts and board policy committee all right hearing seeing none we will move uh to our financing Capital Management committee Miss Autry thank you Mr President um we AK last week the book of our discussion was around the Kenmore Garfield draft report that we received and so I know that that's going to be for a later discussion but I just wanted to acknowledge that that was the bulk of our meeting and I'll just say that we do have some work to do moving forward and I'm going to just encourage this board and all involved to be really
106creative in what we do regarding the many needs that we have so but again we'll be discussing that further uh moving forward also today we had a meeting with the joint board of review where we did receive a report out from the citizens monitoring committee regarding higher CLC and so I'm happy to report looks like we came two million dollars under budget on that so that's good news for us also we received a report from Edge and the workforce monitoring group that uh G Stevens consultant does for us I mean they basically focused on four different statistics that they were monitoring participation in the program which was 16.4 percent which is exceeds the goal that they set a five percent and this mostly involved the the Elliot and partially the Kenmore or Garfield buildings and
107then also local workers average 17.5 percent I'm on the projects and minority workers 10.8 percent was the average and then female workers 1.3 percent so um so a lot of those goals are on track to what we'd like to see we need to you know find ways to better increase female participation that was one of the points that was made as well and so if anyone has the urge to see more detailed information they did give us a handout I'm sure we can get that forwarded to everyone else and that concludes my report thank you very much Miss Autry any questions for the finance and Capital Management I do want to add one thing I appreciate you mentioning the jbr um Miss Autry I mentioned I failed to mention in my report that doing that
108we did hear from the citizens monitoring committee as Miss Autry mentioned and it's calling for us to have new members and so I know Miss McKittrick before joining this board was on that group and so we're looking for about three new members from APS and so we'll be working with a superintendent follow Mac to determine those individuals but if you any member of the board as anyone that they think is burning to serve on the citizens monitoring group please let us know their main functions are to review the spending uh and uh of the projects so we're in I think Mrs folk if I remember correctly phase four moving to phase five okay I was so off so uh moving to four five and six uh which the sixes uh the the final building which
109is Garfield uh currently now so with that being said there's a little bit more work to do but not a lot um and so if there is anyone that you know uh that has a burning interest uh please let us know because we will be uh hopefully making those appointments in the next three weeks so with that being said that's all I wanted to add any other questions or comments for finance and Capital Management okay hearing none instructional policy and student achievement and I never know who's going to start so Mrs McKittrick we met on July 18th and we are going to highlight a few different things and Diane is going to start us off so on June 24th Governor dewine signed House Bill 583 which establishes screening measures professional development and certification process for
110dyslexia and so we received information regarding that and how our district is moving forward so starting this year teachers are required to complete 18 hours of professional development and it's being phased in so this first year is just kindergarten and first grade teachers for the school year 23 24 it'll be second and third grade teachers and then for school year 24 25 4th through 12th grade teachers instructors of special programs like gym art Etc do not have to take this training screenings I believe start next school year and then for kindergarten through third grade they'll all be screened fourth through sixth grade By Request there is a I guess a guidebook that the state is working on to help in developing a certification process but I believe our district is being proactive and uh you
111know getting that put together for our staff thank you and um next uh Mr Perry one thing we also discussed that I was especially excited about was conservation science which has come into our High School Scholars the conservation science course satisfies the Ohio core science graduation requirements is an inquiry-based laboratory course incorporating biology chemistry and environmental science Concepts they use real data from conservation projects and they measure the success of recovery in the U.S and the global world looking forward to seeing that in action for sure thank you and finally earlier in the agenda we approved a grant from the Ohio Department of Education 1.62 million dollars for early childhood education funds and it's an annual Grant given to districts to support preschool and it's essentially our operating budget for the preschool program and the
112grant covers salaries fringe benefits instructional supplies materials and equipment and then as always I'd like to remind you to look at the links in your agenda for the College and Career academies and the stay in the game updates thank you thank you very much any questions for Mrs McKittrick Mr Perry or Miss Autry I just love the organization that update just want to say I'm like I appreciate that how thorough it was as well thank you thank you very much anyone else um the only thing I had that I saw in the state that I think stay in the game a document that was there I know Dr Hall and I went last year to win Chomps uh visited a school I was excited to see that we're hoping to announce that soon so uh
113I really loved being at that so I'm looking forward to that again our students and their families it was uh in my opinion one of the best sites you saw all emotions you start crying of Joy kind of sadness because they're leaving their babies but you also saw some uh people really excited to see uh Chomps so I'm really excited that we have that partnership just had a quick comment on that yeah that was over at Hatton as I recall yeah and um I have two little girls who are about almost kindergarten agents I was um just getting up on all the Fashions of The Kindergartners and all the things that my kids are going to be wearing very soon and by the way it starts with the unicorns just in case you're still wondering
114it's still unicorns by the way it's still it was unicorns when I was a kid it's still unicorns so in case you're wondering it's in your staff is unicorns okay thank you thank you very much and you're actually nets for Equity committee Dr Carl fantastic we are meeting we have the honor and privilege to meet tomorrow which is my birthday we are meeting on my birthday that is how committed we are did this work even on my birthday I will be here yes so this is two years in a row I'm here for I'm here for this just so you know I'm devoted tomorrow bring your popcorn thank you kindly thank you very much Dr Hall and you have not let us forget that since last year so I don't know how we can let
115that happen again but thank you very much for your service and sacrifice we now move um to our next agenda item uh for unfinished business the extra priorities and funding discussion uh we will open it up first uh for Madam superintendent and Mr Pendleton for any opening comments and then uh open it up to the board set up Madam superintendent thank you I just wanted to bring awareness to the items that we have linked into the board agenda to assist the board with uh with the discussion so first and foremost we do have listed the last presentation that reminded the board of the past it kind of brought us went to the past and brought us current so past strategies and resources it talked about the Esser planning and what that planning meant for Esser
116three funds and then began to go into the priority so just to familiarize yourself we re-attached that presentation from June we also um in Mr Pendleton can go into even more depth we gave more information about the Esser one two and three the um the spending we began to detail that out and to give you a more detailed picture of what those the spending has looked like and plans look like across our 10 Strategic investment areas so we embedded that underneath the topics and then the Strategic investment areas and also try to highlight again when board action occurred against that particular topic just as a source of reference so that the board could follow along through the discussions that have been had to date and we didn't link here but we can make available we
117also summarized and did provide you in your weekly update the summarized set of presentations timelines and activities that have occurred um over the course of the year as it relates to sr3 planning in particular just so that we could recall the the journey we've been on the adjustments we've made the feedback we've received and then where we are to date so you also have that summarized set of information available should you need it Mr Pendleton I'll just add a little bit more to the larger spreadsheet or Gantt chart as we're calling it if you look at the top and the construction of the spreadsheet the one of that first columns there's is it says cares act Esser one a couple columns over you see crrsa s or two and then you see our pastor those
118are the three different rounds of Federal dollars and obviously to the left working our way right you see lots of board action board resolution numbers into the right especially on the larger amount with ARP sr3 you see those fields a little bit more vacant it's because those uh activities strategic Investments that they just haven't been approved yet so whether we're partnering with outside folks whether we're hiring more internal folks I think the thing to note with this is it'll be coming in front of the board because I did get a few questions about the gas gauge the gas gauge component of those committed funds right and thinking that those had already been board approved and resolved so to speak so stay tuned and I know you might have some questions here hopefully we can answer
119today or get back to you soon on thank you very thank you very much I just wanted to uh also preference the conversation um before we open it up I know in in a previous meeting we talked about understanding all that we allocate to each one of the priorities and I talked to both superintendent Fowler Mack and uh Treasurer CFO Pendleton around making a little bit more simpler a chart here that identifies the spending that we have for each priority for Esser as well as any additional grants or other funding that we receive for that priority and then you know what we are committing in general fund so this will give the board a full picture of what we're doing for each one of those priorities and I know one of the items specifically that
120we we talked about before was around supporting our diverse pipeline of teachers and ensuring that we we have more diversity there and and actually support their financially and the amount being smaller and there being other grants and funds supporting that and so I know that we're we talked about that not being possible to get to us today that is something that we will get soon so will have an addendum of this conversation hopefully to button it up at the next meeting so I just wanted to reference that that we've already kind of talked through those details any yes I'll tell you one more thing and so um we this is a work in progress It's a lot of detailed record-keeping those sorts of things it is not it is a work in progress so it
121is not completed because I I did get a question earlier that asked about even in the first section where we're talking about thriving Scholars and we mention even smaller class sizes and Elementary grades and in you know particular classes especially core content classes where we're able at our high schools and so we have enacted and so the board has acted on the hiring of teachers even in the course of this year for that and even full-time instructional coaches that sort of thing so that occurred even in this year so we don't yet have the notation in terms of when board action occurred so there are some that we will continue to update but as you recall we even lower class sizes increase the instructional coaching capacity and things like the guidance counselors to make sure
122that there are full-time guidance counselors and buildings things of that nature that we will need to appropriately um highlight the yes board action did occur those things are in place and they're set up for the foreseeable future because of these resources thank you very much I think that was an important note I appreciate that uh I think Dr Hall had something yeah I just have a couple questions and then I'll shoot the four so that as we rotate around if there's a need for that um so so I guess I'll start with the reduction class size and reduction of teachers I know we've talked about uh digital school support staff and either hiring of teachers and um certainly don't have any um concerns with that right thing I think it's the absolute right move but
123my concern is I as I thought given this topic more thought is um this is why you know you've heard me ask the question about funds that can come from general fund versus Esser dollars right because I keep thinking that when we hit 2024 are we now are we going to turn around and have to lay off a bunch of folks because because we've hired them using funds that we no longer have right so so that's why it's probably reason why I keep asking the question like well what is what can we use General funds for right and um so I keep thinking about there's one word in my mind that keeps flashing as we're talking about Esser is that's sustainability over and over and over again right so we get Beyond 2024 how much
124of all this is sustainable right and so um and so again I'm not asking for an answer today on that particular question but I just want to highlight that that's a concern I have because um I'd hate to see us turn around in in two years and say okay well those those funds are dried up and they've gone away and that those were the funds that we use to you know to hire the extra school counselors and hire the extra teacher teaching staff and you know and reduce class sizes so is all that going to be reversed out when we once you get past 2024 that's just kind of a comment um and then I guess my question was it's going to be um where is it at here so I know that we talked
125quite a bit and you know um Ryan first of all I appreciate the the the gauge and the the committed expendit remaining piece I think that is makes it makes things even more clear um but my question was as we think about um the survey results right so I know that um I know I probably again I I'm the survey person right I'm always asking about survey results right and so I know that um one of the things that we place at least that some of us asked was about how do we get more teachers to respond to surveys and you know support staff as well so not just talking about teachers but support staff in general um and so I I guess the question I had is as we look through the sr3 current
126strategies and resources right we have these sort of buckets here um you know how is that reflective of any additional feedback that we've gotten um via an increased effort to get teachers to reply teachers and supports have to reply back and and I asked that you know question um just because I've gotten a lot of feedback and I've seen it in a lot of I've seen it reflected in some of the Facebook pages that our teachers are on um about Esther funds being utilized for Teacher compensation you know so um and so I teachers are saying well I put that in my survey result but I'm not seeing it reflected in anything that you guys are talking about now granted I don't have all I don't have access to all that information um but again
127it just it just made me think about that piece as well because I know that there are other districts that have used Esser funds to provide some bonuses and or you know it's impacted compensation right so um so again so I just want to again ask the question like so it's really two-part like hey how it you know how did how did additional survey results impact this if it did it all and be the the teacher compensation component Madam superintendent thank you um the document that we put into as an artifact here for your reference is the presentation from June we have had additional opportunities both through a written survey and opportunities through in-person opportunity for staff members to give additional feedback we'd be more than happy to update the board on here's what we
128heard and here's how we're thinking about that that type of input so we we would be happy to do that and we would not be prepared to do that on the spot today but I want to also just mention that we we have heard all of the feedback we are listing we are incorporating part of the story that we'll be able to tell is feedback of affirmation you know that you know the topics that are listed there are also topics that are focused in the right places so there was some refining feedback there was we asked the question what's missing and things of that nature we won't be able to talk a lot about compensation right now we are actively engaged in negotiations uh with with our teachers that we hope to be able to
129settle very very successfully so we won't be able to talk about in detail how it is we are you know responding but we we have heard and so we've tried to acknowledge uh broadly that we're listening we're understanding we're willing and able to use our resources in very broad ways to ensure that our educators are poised to do their jobs effectively that our Scholars first and foremost are supported that they can recover and advance and so one more comment and so while not answering the question in its entirety but I think we've been very clear with the fact that we will not be able to sustain everything that we're able to do with this one-time money we hope to make an impact such that we move our students on their way we have very much
130so considered our plan through the lens of sustainability so we can talk about that further but we've also been very clear we will not be able to sustain each and every action that we're taking and so we really want to make sure it makes a difference moves the needle for for our Scholars their families our school Community yeah no I appreciate that um I guess the only thing I would say in response is I think with regard to compensation obviously we're in negotiations um I think I think the critique got hurt a lot was that to your point they didn't feel like it was reflected right so so you know clearly we can't talk you know nuts and bolts on it but I think that the pushback I got was you know hey like you
131know we're putting this in survey results and we're not seeing it reflected anywhere right so what's your point about affirmation you know how do we affirm you know that we that folks have been heard and how to ref and how do we reflect it you know so um okay thank you I appreciate that thank you very much any anyone else I do want to point to one of the things that um uh Mr Pendleton mentioned about advocacy and some of the work happening um in D.C I think that that's you know some of our energy hopefully as we learn more about what they're doing can be to support some of those efforts um because sustainability is a major kind of focus and area of you know concern for these funds I think everyone involved if
132there's nothing else that has that will be gleaned from this discussion is that everyone is concerned about sustainability everyone understands that it is not going to be easy uh but the hope is that we're able to move the needle and I do appreciate um you know that comment because that is you know the focus um but you know sustainability is also uh the focus so hopefully something comes out of that that advocacy there that will help us move the needle with that being said I wanted to ask more so about another piece of the plan uh and I don't know how this interacts or not so that's why I'm asking so under operations facilities and finance so there's Broadband maintenance and device replacement and all that [Music] um one here uh and for there's a
133quite a bit um you know set for S3 I don't know how much of that uh changes I know that the uh there was something about the county I think uh is working on some Broadband extensions and then there was a the the state I think it's a state Grant that's working on that as well so I don't know if uh if and when that all comes through are we able to potentially apply some of the funds that we've already spent in that area to use for something else I doubt it I don't know but just wanted to ask about that with all those other advances happening in that area for for the broader um goal of trying to ensure that we are a connected community and that our our families uh and Scholars have
134the resources that they need um you know we are sitting at the right table so we we are engaged with the county engaged with many of the groups throughout much of what we put in the Grant have to deal with our basic infrastructure um with just ensuring that our academic programs could continue so we can provide additional information in your weekly update to say you know here's a tick more about what's already included in in our sr3 grant and of course if we're able in any part of the grant to free up money because we're able to uh partner with or tag on to other initiatives we're always going to try to extend dollars where um it's just efficient and effective to do so but I believe much of what is in our Esser plans
135uh has to do with things like replacing our technology um and some of our basic infrastructure so we will provide some additional Howard's nodding so I didn't murder that response we'll provide some additional information about that thank you uh anyone else Miss Autry thank you Mr President my question is around mental health our investments and that I know that was a huge theme with all of our surveys I guess I'm just now noticing now I see where we're investing uh some of the funds for our Scholars and I I feel like if we should also be allocating some of that under thriving families as well so I mean I see some of the things listed and I don't know if mental health somehow falls under any of those things but if it was more explicit
136um I just think that's really important the mental health piece is extended not only to our students but our family so I didn't see that under thriving families as an allocation so that was my comment I'm not a superintendent no thank you we can provide some additional uh information about places where because to have uh thriving Scholars thriving schools you know kind of thriving families is you know our our organizing framework and so we do have um some initiatives that deal with the mental health supports for not only Scholars but for faculty and staff and also for for families as well and in that place we are also partnered through United Way and our Family Resource Centers so there's also part of that initiative is the expanding of Family Resource Centers within our overall School
137Community but we can provide you with additional information I think that's a great point out and it's something that we care a lot about as well thank you any anyone else okay um thank you very much for uh the discussion as we've been shared there's there'll be more information uh given to us and we'll also uh continue the discussion at the Nets meeting um as there's no currently there's currently no new business to come before the board we are going to move to the next item which is a need to accept a motion to recess into executive session pursuant to Ohio Revised Code 121.22 G one for the purposes of considering the employment of a Public Employee or official at the school district and G4 preparing for negotiations is there a motion on the table
138so moved it's been properly moved by Dr Hall is there a second second the seconded by Mr Alexander any discussion on the motion hearing a scene then uh we will do a roll call vote Please Mr Perry yes Dr Hall aye Mrs McKittrick yes Dr Akbar yes Mr Alexander yes Miss Autry yes thank you thank you very much I do not believe that there's any actionable items that we will have when we return so thank you very much everyone for joining us today uh and I hope that you have a great week we will now stand in recess for executive session [Music] thank you