001yes [Music] good evening everyone and welcome to the regularly scheduled board meeting of akron public schools on 14 uh march 2022. it's such uh so good to see everyone here thank you for joining us today uh we're going to start off with a roll call mr pendleton dr akbar here mr alexander president miss autry here dr hall aye ms jackson president mrs mckittrick here mr perry here and welcome jose garcia our student board member from north high school president thank you very much and we're excited to have you jose uh garcia here with us and if you could do us honestly leading us in the pledge of allegiance and if you're able to please i pledge stand to one nation under god and indivisible with liberty and justice thank you very much so we are
002going to move to the next item on our agenda which is community and school reflections from our board and we will start so humbly and graciously by our 12th grader student board member from north high school jose garcia all right hello my name is jose garcia i am a senior at akron north high school i am a part of the global technology and business pathway i plan to attend the university of akron to major in marketing i am also a candidate for the rotary interac scholarship this is my first year serving as a akron board school akron public schools board member as well as my first time presenting at a board meeting i have attended akron public schools since kindergarten i went to harris from kindergarten to fifth grade for middle school i attended jennings
003middle school through sixth to eighth grade i live in north hill a community well known for its small diversity and different cultures many refugees reside here and they're always nice to each other we have a community garden in which many come to volunteer their time to farm fruits and vegetables the community shares the produce from the garden with each other it is also a time where we can share our cultures with one another this is very important to me because it shows that people still care for each other and show compassion and warmth here at north high school compassion can be found throughout the school there are approximately 800 students enrolled and north representing over 20 countries in 19 different languages at north many students wear hijabs a hijab is a garment worn by women's
004and sometimes men who have a muslim background at north we acknowledge and respect their culture and religion at north we share and respect the uniqueness of our cultures sharing our cultures brings our students together another thing that brings students together here at north are sports such as basketball soccer and football i have participated in the viking soccer team for four years playing varsity throughout my four years i played left wing during the season and we are proudly the 2022 akron public schools city series champions [Applause] we look out for each other and we come together after every game no matter if it's a win or loss coach emily johnson is a wonderful coach to lead our team she looks out for us by providing snacks and food throughout before our games this provides us energy
005to play at our maximum potential for students who are from different cultures to maximize their fullest potential it is important for us to have support students who are new immigrants to north hill and from other countries need support in learning english they need support with housing and they need support finding jobs for themselves and their parents for students who have been stationed here at north for a while they need more school clubs and organizations for example culture club it's where students can celebrate their cultures with one another i look like many people of color who are successful and are fighting for change people of color can be successful and serve as models for communities as well as nations from around the world i personally see myself as a role model i am a student board
006member i am an athlete i am a 2022 top 10 deca state conference finalist in the professional selling category [Applause] the other student board members serve as role models too as a student board we completed a two-day diversity equity and inclusion training the training was facilitated by mr doctor by dr s kent butler who is the president of the american counseling association the student board was trained to tell their own personal stories as well as a call for more inclusion diversity and equity here at akron public schools more is to come from our work on behalf of the student board and myself familiares north high school in akron public schools buen salud and prosperidad [Applause] thank you very much jose and uh if anyone uh ever wondered uh you definitely gave them a good example
007of what akron public schools is producing outstanding top-notch students so thank you very much and everybody just i just think we need to give them another round of applause thank you your family for support and for the pride that you have in your culture and how you are representing very well i love everything about you and everything you brought forth excellent job and salute to your parents family members the whole village right because he talked about community and the support and compassion and i just respect and i thank you for sharing and giving us a glimpse into that and what's happening in north akron yes and thank you and if your parents are here do you mind introducing them uh or they're not here they're not here okay so dr hall yeah thanks mr president
008um so as a fellow north high school uh graduate class in 1994 i i i was very moved by your by your words and your address and uh you make me proud to be a north high alumnus and i'm sure mr alexander feels the same way and i think i was reflecting on the soccer component for a second and mrs betta you know we won a number of state type i'm sorry city titles when we were at north together i don't ever recall us winning soccer though um you know so so i'm glad that we could add something new uh to the banners uh that hang in the gym over there at north high school um i also appreciated the fact that um you are multilingual as you were sharing in your address and i
009don't know i don't know that i've ever heard another student board member address us in multiple languages so again that's also a first from my standpoint and then i also wanted to direct a question to you you mentioned the culture club component so one of the things that i've gotten some emails about in the last six to nine months is from folks in community asking about is it possible for us to to invest more in the community from from the culture standpoint um but also in the classroom you know so for example i know north hill is you know known for being little italy right so again i think was the last high school in akron uh to to teach italian uh and so i've got some questions uh as to whether or not uh
010we think there's any merit in in offering language classes or culture classes for um that served very i'm sorry that's served to some of the varying populations there i want to ask um now that this is a long preamble apologies for that um but but i want to ask you um when you talk to your classmates at north i mean that culture component seems to be a pretty big deal um besides a cultured club are there any other items or ideas that they have for how they um put the you know the various cultures of north sort of front and center um i think it's because usually the kids who are esl are separated from us but when we do interact we kind of sort of like get along each other very well yeah so
011i think that's like another component that connects us us and our cultures together we want to me personally i tend to go out of my comfort zone and try to introduce myself to the esl students to learn more about their cultures and they learn something about my culture as well so i feel like kind of giving more interaction with the esl students to more classmates who are not esl students i feel like that kind of plays a big factor in improving our diversity here gotcha i appreciate that and then just quickly there was an article last year it was an akron beacon journal that i think focused on the north high school soccer team and the multiple languages that were being spoken on the field and how the team had to overcome language barriers to
012even put together a cohesive unit on the team and how and how you all work together to do that and as a as a as a soccer player could you uh you know could you comment on that i mean what was that like for you yeah i feel like the sport brings us together even if we don't speak the same language we speak the language of soccer we know how to kick how to pass the ball so really it doesn't really matter if we don't understand each other verbally if we know the objective why we're playing why the coach coaches us we understand sort of like our objective and language doesn't really play a factor in the end game so great thanks very much and and the next time you see you see me i'll
013probably ask you to recite the uh the north high school anthem sounds of vikings so to make sure you have that uh teed up and ready to go so thank you nice to appreciate it thank you thank you very much any other uh questions or comments for our student board member okay good job yes you did and if you since you're a 12th grader if you don't mind sharing your plans after uh high school with us so i do plan to attend the university of akron and major in marketing i've got accepted into the uni university of akron so that's a big step and right now i'm looking for more scholarships to sort of like help me with financial aid and stuff like that so those are my plans for after high school so pretty
014good congratulations thank you all right um thank you very much mr garcia we will now move to uh community school reflections from our other board members board members anyone have anything miss altrui was that your handwriting yes thank you mr president so um i'll just piggyback since we're talking about north today i had the opportunity to visit in the cluster finley and just a special shout out to mrs bennington and her team i was able to visit some of the classrooms and see peer mediation in practice there was a kindergartner who had a peer friend in the fourth grade and a fourth grader which is very proud because it was so long ago when they were in kindergarten and they just couldn't understand you know why this kinder car kindergartener didn't understand xyz it was
015just nice to see them working together and building those relationships and that's a really good program that they have going on there i also was able to see school health in action and just see the collaboration between school health and the teachers the principals and just coming together around a particular issue and i saw that the student was very supported so we're doing really good work in that area and i know school health is going to be growing in the near future also i was scheduled to visit north i had to reschedule but i was also able to get an update from mrs sebetta and i know that they were able to have 209th graders do college campus visits last week with their early childhood pathway going to kent state the hvac pathway visited local
016219 and the i.t pathway visited s3 technology so that is our experiential learning in action so good job with all of that i mean then also since we last met i was able to attend osba uh board member 201 training uh in warrensville heights which was a nice little refresher it was nice to you know meet other board members and just hear some updates that i'll be sharing out as well with instructional policy and thank you thank you very much ms autry anyone else miss jessica thank you mr president yes since we last met i had the opportunity to visit kenmore garfield it was a wonderful experience they were looking forward to the new building very excited and also my nancy elliott jackson that was his school and dreama whitfield was kind she was there
017also as she put me with my mentee and he walked me around actually with the principal and mr cundiff i'm not sure mr confront i always want to call him a dean and students but i think that's not his his title in any event so elliot did a great job just telling me about some of the programs talking to me about the school the wonderful things the school offered i was able to go into the restaurant i told them that i was going to come and i wanted food when i came i wasn't able to get any food however i was able to see students in action working i was able to talk to a few students about what were their goals later some i like the fact that they get credentials upon completing the
018program self-serve i believe is what it's called which equips them to work in industry i just they were very together they seemed like they had it under control so i really liked that and then i also was able to see advanced manufacturing machinery mr thompson and you know i go straight to that entrepreneurship mindset when you've been teaching entrepreneurship for so long it's how can we scale this up right so i'm talking to him he's looking at me like lady and i said because if we make these parts how can we use our relationships within the community to really bring manufacturing back to this city that's a manufacturing city right and make this program self-sustainable so he was like um well let me tell you about our avid program and i said okay but let's
019i want to circle back to that because i believe in sustainability of programming and i think it's amazing that he told he told me that they start once they come into the school and by 11th grade they're anticipating them to have mastery that by the time they graduate they can go into the field or to industry and so i thought that that was really cool and then he taught me about the advancement via individual determination program which deals with collaboration critical thinking and things like that for the learners to engage themselves as for their own learning for them to own their own learning to set goals and things like that to level themselves up of how they can be successful academically so that was my experience at on camera garfield and i was happy to
020be there and i'm excited for when they move over to the new building and you can really see the different programmings on one floor the elective so i'm really excited about that i also had the opportunity to visit glover glover what was so cool about glover okay is that i'm really feeling these schools that are nestled in the community i think it's something to be taken from that when it's a community school where you can walk to in any event what was awesome about glover is that they had these student ambassadors that met me when i came in and when you talk about dynamic energized they knew about the programs within the school i mean just to be honest they were more knowledgeable than one of the adults that was walking around with me i
021asked certain questions about programming and a student just took it over a fifth grader was like no this is what happens here and then they do like meetings i think like tutoring one-on-one with certain students i say oh like intervention she's like yeah that's the word so it was really i just loved to see young people in those leadership roles and i asked them the different things that they wanted to be and the young lady was talking about how she wanted to be an artist and the things that she wanted to do and i said and you will do that and i'm going to purchase some of your artwork and i said so when you get to that point i want to purchase some of your artwork i said so next time i come to
022glover i want to see your sketchbook then the other girl said i want to make dresses i said okay next time i come to glover i want to see a picture of something that you sketched up or something that you made right so i thought how awesome is this that you have fifth graders that are able to be ambassadors like this to tell about programming i said well we could have younger kids be student board members just throwing that out there if you train them up in fifth grade they're sitting at the table because they were very knowledgeable and gave me insight and so then as i walked around the building they had this wall a wall full of mirrors and i said you know what are these mirrors about and it's for them to
023look into but then they had um a wall that had apples on it it was it had apples and what i realized i want to make sure i'm saying the right thing i'm sure it was apples and so what they said is if they're caught doing the right thing a teacher you know usually a teacher select a teacher of the month and so i seen all these apples with certain things highlighting things that the students did and i said well how do you know which teacher gave you which apple and they said oh the room number so i kept seeing this room number 209 and like it was detail apples like master this level this like it was so detailed i said oh this is an excellent teacher so whoever is in this 209 i
024want to go to 209 class right so i wrote a note 209 excellence looks different i just wrote it i never didn't see the teacher anything so we're walking around so then the kids showed me this reading wall and they're like yeah this is the 100 book challenge and once you do this you get on this board but then you can read 200 books so they're telling me through all this story they walk me upstairs so i walk in this classroom it's the end it's like a co-teaching model it's an intervention specialist in a room and it's this teacher and this class is going like i'm in this class and i'm feeling excited like yes like it is teaching on fire the kids aren't engaged is technology out no one was off task and it
025was just a pop-up it wasn't like they could get ready for me to walk into the classroom so i know the intentionality and when i walked outside the room guess what the room number was and i said i know the teacher probably thought i was crazy i said i knew you were an excellent teacher i knew when i came in this classroom that this is what i would see because of the detailed reflections that you gave about your students gains and only a teacher that's truly vested can really document the gains of their learners and that's what a lot of her apples talked about what they academically accomplished and what they did and that was miss nolan i believe um yeah and uh mr paul i also looked at her class was really engaged it
026was just really nice to be in glover it was just a really nice experience and um mr harkness was i guess i think that was who was co-teaching with mrs nolan but it was just really good to see excellent teaching in motion additionally i went back to mickey bright because i told them i would come back for their parent engagement math night and i didn't think they were expecting me to come back when i came through the door because we had the lebron uh thing as well so i went through the door i was like yeah i wanted to come in because i have to do what i said i was going to do and so when i first came in they were like can you sign in what's your student's name and i was
027like well um i really don't have a student name someone said oh that's a board member so i walked around they had stations and it was excellent parent and engagement it was excellent parent engagement at the school and um i was really happy to be able to be there to observe what was taking place at the school and it was really exciting i think i said mickey brown i meant boris boris boris was the school that i went to but it was really really nice so those are my community reflections thank you very much you gave us a lot of energy today yeah i mean it's isn't it great when you can go into a school and be energized like that absolutely when you see excellence in motion and the kids owned it like the
028ambassadors that's a great model whoever came up with that concept kudos to you because you could tell the students were really empowered by that role and they were informative like i'm not giving them extra credit where it doesn't deserve they were able to tell me about programming in the school so that speaks to administration teachers it was a great experience thank you very much anyone else any other community and school reflections okay hearing none uh we will move to uh request to address the board um i didn't receive any okay uh no okay so we we don't have any requests to address the board uh we're gonna move to madam superintendent for some special communication good evening to board members and to our community at large you're in for a treat so you've heard from
029jose our student board member and heard the reflections of board member jackson from what she observed in our schools and we have other members of our school community who are here to tell us about an exciting event that's coming up our fifth grade expo so i'm going to invite to join me up here in the front i believe is where you're going to be present from adam lewis who is the academy principal at hire clc tracy bowman who is the academy coach at higher clc and the star of the evening is corrado wright he's a fifth grade scholar from windermere clc they're going to tell us about the upcoming expo so good evening everyone i am adam lewis i'm the sixth grade academy principal at hire clc i want to begin by thanking superintendent and
030the school board for having us here this evening to not only talk about but celebrate that higher was the first school to host a fifth grade expo so we had the honor of doing that and we wanted to touch on how the event went and goals of the event so the golden event were we wanted to acclimate the fifth graders make them feel comfortable coming to higher going through some routines and rituals and then to provide an opportunity for uh for some exploration and professional skill practice and i'm going to touch on how we acclimated the students so we had ambassadors waiting in the front of the school when all four of the elementaries and the alec cluster arrived to hire and they greeted them gave them an entry a little bit of background about
031the building and then they headed down to the gym where myself mr bender counselors and all other academy principals were down there to talk with them and start to build those relationships with them make them feel comfortable and what we wanted them to do throughout the day was to be able to walk the hallways and eat lunch with students so we actually had it planned where these students walk the hallways the same times other students walk the hallways because i know that's a that's a fear of some of the fifth graders being a lot bigger so we allowed them to do that and then they were like i said they were able to eat with the uh the students and we started to build that relationship piece with them talking with them in the hallways
032and after the event i actually had some students from ritzman miss thompson's class send me an email thank me and start building those relationships with them so i thought that was really neat just trying to make these fifth graders be as comfortable as possible about coming to higher after that we handed things over to miss bowman and she took the lead on the career exploration piece good evening everyone thank you so much it's such an honor to be here um so these are right carrier some scenes from the expo so what you see at the top is the actual expo where students got to visit four different careers within the community and they rotated through that section the bottom left picture is actually one of the was the event planner that was present that day
033and they sat there and listened to that and asked questions were able to participate the bottom right corner is one of the counselor talks so we divided our students up from a to l and m through z because that's how it's done in our counseling department so they actually visited the council they will have at higher next year okay so then the upper right one is a student panel so we had student panels where they could go and listen to students from higher that could give them tips on being a successful student the bottom left is where they had lunch so they went to the lunch line had some pizza and then enjoyed lunch there our ambassadors led each of the groups through the school and led them on a school tour so it was
034quite an eventful day and they did a really good job and not only did these kids forget to participate in this but 40 students from higher were all involved in making this happen so at this time it gives me an honor to hear from one of our hires guests corrado wright hello my name is corrado um we was here i was when i was in higher uh when we first did when i went there we talked about like we went there and then i was with one of the higher people i'm not sure what grade but we we got introduced and then mr mitchell introduced staff principals and counselors we talked about our day took a tour of the building we met we met the counselor and we answered questions she saw the schedule and
035the example of when we go there like she was gonna show like what time we go to lunch and everything and then we play would you rather like would you rather do like math or something and then we did the job exo expo and then i have a blue car everybody did different things like nurse people some people were like like some people did like coding and everything oh when we did it we had i went i i did the financial the event planner and the uh military thing military which is what the navy and then we did the coding i went there but most most people did the same thing i did when we did it my favorite thing was the military i really liked the military because of people in my family that
036uh went to the military in the navy i really like the coding because the coding shows us like how to make games and other things like that and then i like the financing because um the person said that it was easy and it was a good job and he said that you can make people rich and then and the event planner is um you can make people go somewhere and have fun and have other people on this earth to have fun and that's what i went to i'm not sure about the other things [Applause] and i i just have to add to that i am so thrilled that he used it and he actually wrote on the form good job so i just want to this last slide just shows you we have other um
037expos coming up these are the dates um for the expos within the district and i know they would love to have any of you present thank you thank you thank you along with being a wonderful spokesperson for his experience at the expo uh corrado actually is also a great big brother so mom and he brought his mom and his little sister and so we're so pleased to have you you must be so proud of him yes absolutely [Applause] thank you very much this is an awesome meeting that is not a a lie so we're gonna go ahead and go to uh some the rest of our business and the nets on our agenda is the approval of the previous meeting minutes from uh monday 28 february 2022 is there a motion to approve those meeting
038minutes some moved it's been properly moved by dr hall it's their second second it's been seconded by miss jackson any discussion on the approval of the previous meeting minutes hearing none uh we will do a roll call vote mr pendleton miss jackson present mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye thank you thank you very much those minutes have been approved and we are now moving to personnel recommendations madam superintendent thank you and before we go into the request to for the board to approve those personnel recommendations i'd like to turn it over to kathy mcveigh who will introduce a new aps team member to you thank you jasmine you want to come up please i'd like to introduce to you tonight jasmine waters jasmine
039holds a ba degree in communication studies a master's in school counseling and has begun her doctoral studies and cultural foundations professionally jasmine has held several roles within the educational spaces her most recent director of kent state upward bound classic academy programs furthermore jasmine is credited for launching the village is us a non-profit that focuses on improving the emotional and mental health of k-12 parents to ensure that they can be their healthiest selves while raising their children during her work designing her work on a foundation of integrity jasmine is a respected higher ed professional who possesses the fundamental skills and passion necessary to help raise the k-12 educational standards bar as an alumnus of akron public schools and a native of akron jasmine has an extensive 10 plus year background fostering university and community partnerships executing
040sustainable programming to address academic barriers facilitating family and community engagement and planning professional and student conferences overall jasmine is highly passionate about accentuating the learning space and the notion that every student deserves to have a rich support system that enables them to thrive in and outside the classroom this in conjunction with her rooted evocation towards improving family wellness and molding well-rounded future leaders is what shaped jasmine into the advocate that she is today at the last board meeting she was approved to be our new college access program manager she was not able to attend last week so we were interested here tonight congratulations thank you i'm excited good evening superintendent and to the board thank you so much for having me i'm really excited about this opportunity i feel like i'm coming home so i'm
041from akron i graduated from akron garfield when it was just akron garfield so i'm excited to see the new building but and i'm excited to work with yvonne i'm just really excited to continue the work that i do now just really have a passion for our students and their success and so i'm excited to be here so thank you so much for having me [Applause] to be able to uh welcome our talent home too so we're excited to have you here with that board i wish to recommend the approval of the personnel recommendations presented in categories 5 through 16. thank you very much the items and personnel recommendations have been put for is there a motion on the table i'm gonna just pick one uh it was uh properly moved by uh miss autry is
042there a second i second it's been seconded by mr perry any discussion on personnel recommendations hearing none roll call vote please mr pendleton dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye ms jackson yes mrs mckittrick yes thank you thank you very much and next we move to resolutions and motions on the consent agenda madam superintendent sure and as we sorry about that um as we consider the resolutions and motions i just want to draw your attention within the board letter 19.2 and 21.2 resolutions just highlight the innovation of our teachers who continue to seek out grant opportunities to support our scholars so those are grants there are being received from the battelle foundation fund classroom grant awards program and so just wanted to draw your attention to that
043each and every time we're seeing our agendas now we're seeing the fruits of our teachers labor but in this area i wish to recommend the approval of the resolutions and motions presented in category 21. they are in proper format are removed for their approval thank you very much the resolutions and motions on the cons agenda has been put forth by madam superintendent is there a motion so can properly move by mr alexander is there a second second seconded by mrs mckittrick any uh discussion on the resolutions and motions hearing now we'll do a roll call vote mr pendleton mr perry yes dr hall aye ms jackson yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms archery yes thank you thank you very much we now move to business affairs recommendations madam superintendent sure
044we wish to recommend the approval of the business affairs recommendations presented in category 23. thank you very much the recommendations for business affairs have been made uh it's their emotional running table so moved properly moved by miss autry second it's been seconded by dr hall any discussion hearing and seeing none a roll call vote mr pendleton dr hall aye ms jackson yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr perry yes thank you very much and we now move to superintendent's report madam superintendent yes i'll have a very brief superintendent's report this evening mainly focused on i'd like to acknowledge the improving state of covet 19 in the city of akron and throughout summit county and throughout the akron public schools as you are aware a few weeks ago the
045cdc issued new guidance around the reporting and management of covet 19. that guidance was adopted by the ohio department of health and trickled down to making sure that we at the local level had the guidance to consider about how it is we would adjust our practices and even the potential of going mass optional for our school district summit county continues to fare well in this new system of reporting where communities are reported at levels of high medium or low so now for several weeks in a row we have been in a low category and decreasing which means the amount of new infections the spread of covet 19 and they're also tracking hospitalizations because of that continued to be low in light of that promising context and after consulting health officials staff families and select student
046leaders aps issued on friday a revised policy that directs the practice in the buildings to move from a mass mandate for our students our staff and visitors to the building to a mask optional status please know that in doing so and moving to this state we still recognize the need to be very health conscious and to be preventative in in our practice our signs that you will see going into our buildings again acknowledge that the building is mass optional but yet indicate that we strongly encourage the wearing of masks especially for those that are more vulnerable because of their health situations or because of the multi-generational environments in which some of our children live we are still encouraging measures like the precautions like hand washing social distancing we are still sanitizing our buildings our vans
047our buses on a regular basis we are still monitoring the practice the instances of any health infections and we'll be diligent with reporting those instances and also working with our families as was reported even at the last meeting we've just recently entered into a new partnership with children's hospital that provides the ability at our uh school levels for students to continue to receive test kits if they need that but also newly at several of our middle schools to be able to be tested themselves so that the parents are clear about their health status and then can move forward with any care necessary so we will continue to be diligent in that space as well making sure families have all of the support they need we recognize that not everyone in our community has been vaccinated
048at this time and that we've met those targets for our eligible students and or our families so we will continue to share that information we also recognize in making a decision like this that we have to consider our context we realize that we have again because many of our children live in multi-generational homes or because of the array of health care exposure that they've had or just situations health situations personally or in their families that we can't just make decisions based on what everyone else is doing so as we thought about that we really took our time and so even after the cdc and odh made it eligible we really wanted to watch the data and to also speak with stakeholders just to ensure that we were ready to transition in this regard i must
049say that the feedback thus far has been really positive i think our our students and our staff members while in a safe context we're ready to see each other's smiles fully and to be able to engage differently as we enter into spring so we thank all of the community and and our board for supporting the transition and we ask for your continued support as we continue to be vigilant again on behalf of our our scholars so that is our main update that we've moved to a different place i know it was in the local media as well but i wanted to share with you some of the thought and commitments thought that went behind the decision and commitments that we still offer thank you very much are there any questions for madam superintendent dr hall
050so it's not so much a question just a comment um i just want to acknowledge that you know um after the announcement i know that i've had some parents reach out um to express some concerns about it um and you know one of the things i tried to assure them um and i think most of which you know this the mr bernin has already addressed but just to assure them that you know again this wasn't a rush decision um that we were in fact the last urban district in ohio to go mask optional um you know and so um so it was really about sort of assuaging concerns around that sort of the speed of which it happened i said well there's not really this didn't happen quickly this was a very well thought out
051uh process and um and again that's optional means that mask optional people can still continue to wear masks and and whatnot so i think some of the parents i talked to were just afraid that everything was going to kind of all the precautions were going to go away so i appreciate you articulating that in your report uh madam superintendent as well so um and i think the last thing that uh that got brought up and i want to ask this question here because i've been asked the question is that you know can you speak at all to um our thought process is as to whether what criteria we've been looking at um if we we're looking to go back to requiring a mass like so what kinds of things are we going to be cons
052considering um in in that analysis just like we we made the move when we were in the low category and uh with a decreasing trend i think one of the things we would monitor first uh closely if we move out of this category into the mid-range category but especially if we were in that category and we saw that the trend was increasing and even substantially so so we still remain today as we have been throughout this entire process in daily uh communication with health officials in this area and i don't have a hard and fast you know like it takes this exact number but any movement and especially any substantial movement with a trend that is trending upward we would consider for whatever period of time it takes being cautious and putting our mass back
053on thank you very much anyone else miss alexander yeah i just want to say you know colbot has been very very serious virus for everyone across the country and in the world and uh being at akron's numbers are low and we have been moving uh lower levels uh i am and i know all of us have received numerous emails from parents whether to keep mass or not to have mass and i think this provides an opportunity for the parents to have that option before we had no option because it was so serious and so so dangerous at that point but now we have an option where we can or wear masks or you don't have to wear masks and that's the option that parents have to have for their their kids as well as the
054staff at the schools as well so i'm glad that we have done this because we got a lot of emails and it was really a lot of emails that were coming through and i am one that i am not a medical person i don't know all the medical uh background and all the things that where i can make that decision so i lean heavily on those individuals who are in the medical field and if the cdc ohio department of health and summit county public health were saying we we would be safe uh not wearing our mass and uh we'll go with that but i would still encourage and urge people to still be cautious uh out there because and watch the numbers if they do go up to put their mask on and keep their
055mask on so they can protect themselves as well as others uh i know in my employment we we've been told we didn't have to wear masks it was optional i wear my i don't wear my mask in my little area where my office is but when i go out in the public i do wear because i don't know who i'm coming in contact with i think that we have a little bit more uh we we have we know a little bit more about the people that we're going to probably be around those in the schools and so forth so we can make those uh make that decision so i thank us for thank all of us here at akron public schools for making the decision allow the parents this time to make a decision whether
056they would like their kids to wear the mass or not as well as the staff at the akron public schools thank you thank you very much anyone else mr perry so i just want to personally thank um you know all the staff and educators and teachers and students and parents for the last two years you know it has not been easy for any of us and because we've been so vigilant about knowing what the numbers are and about doing the right things that's what got us to this point and so i hope that the teachers and the parents understand that it's because of you we can make this decision and because of you we're being able to move forward and go on with our normal lives so to speak so i want to say thank
057you to everybody out there and i appreciate everybody doing what they've been doing and let's keep moving forward thank you very much any anyone else all right may i just also thank um because it this has been an absolute team effort across the board and with in any team sometimes you have also superstars and so i know i have uh given our appreciation before but to our budding physician dr folk over there who just absorbed the details of this which made leading through this this uncertain time so much more manageable to have someone you knew that was just really paying attention to all of the details so i continue to want to just lift you up and say how much we appreciate all that you did on behalf of the senior team and whenever we
058were in doubt we we knew that either you had the answer or you would research research it on our behalf and get right back to us so it's been around this room everyone has contributed greatly but we do thank you in particular [Applause] thank you very much and that actually leads very perfectly well into my question um which is around self corning quarantining i've gotten some calls today about that those students who might have been exposed what is the uh rule around that and so i wanted to ask and see if we can get uh some information on that sure and you if you'd like to oops share even any of the particulars but many of our processes for the requirement to quarantine and things of that nature they're still listed on our website we
059are still giving out that information those things remain the same when in doubt we still ask that families you know kind of or students themselves result to wear your mask do be cautious evening good evening to you all self quarantining so i'm going to use dr hall as my roommate buddy dr hall if you and i were in the same household and i was positive kobit you may report to school as long as you have no symptoms but you should be wearing masks for a minimum of five days so therefore that is called the mass to stay option that is still on the books with the ohio department of health and if you were being part of an athletic team or such competition then it's test to play so that was been in the works
060for a long time but when they made the changes recently to the optional masking because of the low standards that we now fall under that is still on the books and that's what we have actually asked parents to do so they in fact i talked to a grandma today who said i'm hearing this how do i do it so we're more than happy to answer those questions and as mrs fowler max said they are part of the dialogue that is on our website and that we update constantly and the new signage that will be available that we shared with mrs fowler mac earlier today is currently being printed there it is and so therefore we will have those out to school shortly alrighty any other questions dr akbar no that was the only one okay
061thank you very much all right thank you very much and we will now move to the president's report which is right in line with what we've been talking about i just wanted to share with the board and actually everyone here it's been pretty much two years since we started the pandemic and began operating differently and differently being extreme of a word in the way in which we've operated in our lives in schools in akron public schools as a district but also in our personal lives most of us around this table were in nashville when we heard about um covet and that it was more than just the flu and we returned back not really realizing that we would be here two years later still talking about mask wearing sanitation or sanitizing we should always be
062having sanitation but sanitizing and all those things but as a community we have and continue to pull through one of the things that i wanted to share with everyone also is that i know we want to rush to what we used to say normal was but i think we're operating under a new normal um and there's a lot of things that we've done uh and have have shown that we can do that has actually been for a benefit and i wanted to just share two things specifically that i thought was great benefit of this pandemic one of those things being that we learned a little bit more about flexibility uh and this uh word that has been tossed around so uh vividly uh is the the art of the pivot uh and so the district
063this board uh probably everyone in this room in their personal lives have mastered the art of the pivot and so we'll no longer i will no longer look at or hear that word and think of a right flank or anything like that from the military i would think of it as covet 19. in our lives that we've uh had to challenge uh or traverse through uh over this last year the other thing that i think we've also learned is that um or has been highlighted is that there's many different inequities and disparities in our in our community um and we see you more now i think than ever and we just want to make sure that we all know that as we move back to what we want to call normal that we don't forget
064about those uh that have been in the shadows unfortunately due to the way in which we operate and live our lives and that will continue to lift everyone up in our community and everything that we do so i wanted to just share that and thank everyone for all that they've done over these last two years it's not over yet but we're at least seeing some light at the end of the tunnel so thank you everyone and that concludes my report oh yeah i'm sorry uh the next uh item would be uh i'm sorry are there any questions for my report i was just gonna move on i'm so sorry any questions okay so moving on we'll go to the treasures report mr pendleton no report okay uh thank you very much i was waiting for
065some exciting dashboards um next we'll move to legal contracts and board policy mr alexander no report but we are scheduled to have our next meeting on the 21st at 5 45 that is the 21st of march 5 45 p.m thank you thank you very much um financing capital management no report at this time we meet this upcoming monday thank you very much um institution i'm sorry instructional policy and student achievement [Music] strategic plan at work is institutionalizing and i'm sorry all right instructional policy much to report and we're going to start with diana thank you so at our most recent instructional policy meeting we did have a presentation from our mathematics learning specialist ruth hotchkiss and thank her for that presentation that she did and she reviewed senate bill 1 which was just recently passed
066in january previously in ohio financial literacy was required it was embedded within a high school course such as social studies or american government so with the change it is now required to be taught as a separate semester course and so that is what was presented to us and what we discussed during this meeting and it will begin with the class of 26 which is current eighth graders um then also they're going to be some requirements and who can actually teach this because although this was counted as either math credit or elective after a certain period of time math teachers wouldn't be able to teach this without being certified so we will be having a team put together to address all of that and make sure the appropriate credentials are had by those able to teach
067this course thank you really quickly though you should it's curious that non-publics don't have to have that requirement i'll let you draw your own conclusions [Laughter] that was not subtle at all not at all does that conclude your report oh yes thank you thank you val your subtlety was noted i like that bell um we also talked about the k through 12 curriculum which is being updated for the english language arts portion of our schools and i know our teachers are working hard to make that happen and i expect that we report coming really soon about the new updates and what they want to change and that's exciting for me to hear uh being the son of an english teacher for sure so it was good carry on okay so a couple other things to
068talk about we had an up um an update on the gear up grant and that is a seven million dollar partnership with project grad and it is through brookdale east innings and innocent jennings and it is a cohort grant so it will start with 6th and 7th graders and follow them through graduation and it the idea is to promote college access strategies and included in that it will take the best practices and then implement those in our college and career academies and it also includes summer programming and training and the expansion of avid and then finally we were able to hear about the federal review that happened on february 24th and 25th and in particular shout out to ken harrington because he led the prep that goes into that and any federal grant money we
069receive gets reviewed and so as you can imagine a lot of prep work is required for that and that review checks to make sure that every requirement for every grant is being met and aps received an outstanding review there were no areas of corrective action needed and just a couple of the things for the english learners program they called it exemplary for parent and family engagement excellent and for the financials great attention to detail and great internal controls so just a couple of things to know that that money we are getting from the federal government we are spending it well and properly and then finally if you look in your agenda you will see the links to the updates for the college and career academies the family resource centers and our stay in the game
070our attendance initiative that's my report thank you thank you very much any questions or discussion items for instructional policy and student achievement i have a question ms jackson i had to get there before hall [Laughter] okay just my question ms archer you had made reference that it's determined something about the certification for the financial literacy you want to make you we're making sure that they have the proper certification what what does that look like what is the prop what are what are being identified as the property certification so the team that's going to be formed i believe is going to be creating those credentialing that's required to teach that course and i don't want to misspeak ellen might be able to answer that a little bit better the state is actually they made up a
071newer term called validation so it's a validation on a teacher's certificate to teach the financial literacy course and the state is going to put out exactly how many hours and required content but then we have a team that's going to have to look at that to figure out how we'll get our educators there's a grandfathering so current teachers can teach it right away through the pilot years and then there's a certain date i don't remember the exact date now that everybody will have to be validated to teach the course but we'll have to have a team that looks at how we're going to wrap that professional development around the teachers to get the validation to their certificate now is it leaning more towards the teachers the math or economics teachers like which it can be
072it can also count as an elective so it will but mostly our math teachers will probably be involved maybe some of our social studies teachers who have been teaching it for a number of years as well but it can count as a math a math credit also so that's why we're leaning in towards the math and as an elective profession so with some electives you allow people that are from the professional background to instruct in some in this situation it is a graduation requirement for that class of 2026 so they'll have to have the licensure to be able to teach it towards that graduation requirement thank you very much any one else for uh instructional policy okay hearing none well i'm sorry we mentioned and i think appropriately so uh kenya's leadership uh in our
073federal review but that that is huge for a district our size and with the number of things that are going on here the number of budgets things of that nature and i have to say from being someone new to the district it went off flawlessly and so where that can be something that's actually disruptive so kudos to you and your team for your your leadership and their support thank you very much and yes thank you mr harrington um with that being said i'm going to assume there's no other comment so we will go to equity committee dr hall thanks i just want to thank first i want to thank the institutions and corrections committee for that for that wonderful wonderful update that was fantastic [Laughter] sorry folks had to be said okay um so yeah
074we had a great equity meeting on march 7th um and uh the superintendent walked us through a revised draft of of our excellence through equity uh document and um and and that consumed a good part of our meaning you know there's a lot of really good feedback uh on that document and i think one of the things to really come out of it was the fact that that document you know has it really is an educational piece um you know and so um there are a lot of folks uh both locally and abroad that think they know what equity is and what it means and so this document really is an opportunity to really sort of uh educate folks and so every every every word matters in the document right and so um so again
075i want to uh thank um miss tyler mack for her for her work on on and miss chapman for her work on this on putting this document together um i think it's also should be shared though that um that there was a lot of feedback that was gathered outside of the board committee um through you know through the lens of various focus groups that looked at parents teachers um support staff and students because again you know i think the goal was to get feedback from everybody um on the document and so i want to say they're at least as i'm kind of as i'm counting here there are at least i think 13 different feedback sessions that that occurred um in january and february so again i want to want to call out that work
076and and and express gratitude for that as well um i think the other thing uh that i think goes along with that is we talked about um uh plans to to create a a guiding visual document so sort of a graphic representation um of this vision document and so uh so i think that's ongoing and hopefully we'll have that to share um you know in in the next month or so um but the second thing i'll i'll pivot too is um we while we didn't have uh um time to sort of walk through an hr equity update i know that's coming for the next meeting i know that miss chapman shared some shared some highlights with me um you know that the hr equity audit um you know is inclusive of 200 plus positions um
077and so again looking forward to hearing more about the results of that as we move forward as well um and then um next you know i i want to focus and thank ms autry for a comment that she made during that during the committee meeting um because we talked a lot about the words and some of the documents and i think ms autry kind of brought us back to earth and said listen like this is great this is it's great that this is an educational document but we also need to make sure that we're reporting out in real time um on how uh this equity's been is being put into action right um and so because at day's end you know i'll kind of quote mr alexander here like we're here for the kids right
078and so so how is this work that we're talking about how does it translate to what's happening in the classrooms so again i want to thank ms autry for sort of bringing us back to earth in that conversation um and then so and then you know um that the next committee meeting is going to happen april 4th um you know i'm sorry it's not going to happen april 4th because because that conflicts with um with project grads uh march gradness so i'll just put a plug in for that as well um so if you have not participating in march gradness get your popcorn ready get your tickets it's it's go time folks um and then uh speaking of getting your popcorn ready um we are going to be um at least for the next two
079meetings we're gonna because there's so much work to do for example we didn't even get to the chief diversity officer's report out in the last meeting because there was just that much on the agenda um and so we'll be leading with miss chapman to start the next committee meeting we're going to get that in um but we're also going to be moving to to lengthen the meetings from an hour to an hour and a half so get your popcorn ready um there's gonna be some fun times coming up and uh as soon as we have a rescheduled date for that april fourth meeting we'll make sure that it's on everybody's calendar uh and i'll pause there for any uh questions or comments mr alexander you know did you anything with that all right all right
080cleveland guardians guardians curtis roger that so yes yes ma'am um you can defer to ms archer if you like but i think it will be um good to highlight with the example of what mental autry shared about how diversity is being played out in the district and miss culver is here yeah and i think we talked about this in a previous meeting but it's worth mentioning our equity efforts in action was demonstrated very well by the work of mrs culver and getting the requirements for the innovation grants change because just a few of our high schools were truly benefiting from that but because of her work on that and her team you know i believe all of our high schools will be able to benefit moving forward so it's a great example of you know
081equity work that's already in action so thank you no thank you ms carr i appreciate that as well and just a reminder too that you know again all this work is in alignment with uh both our board policies our district focus is always sort of the leading point for this um our aps three for three document which has which has a very robust equity pillar so again all this work is in line with with those foundational uh policies and documents as well so i think that i think that's a call that needs to be continually reiterated as we move this this work forward so um anyway so i will leave it there if there's any again miss audrey thank you again and ms carver thank you thank you very much any uh questions for uh
082equity committee mr jackson anything else here ain't seeing none we'll move uh beyond that uh there's no unfinished business so we will go to new business which include the certification of the 2021 high school graduates and we'll turn it over to madam superintendent thank you so much we we just would ask for your approval of the actually certifying then tonight our 2021 high school graduates so after our students walk the stage we still do all of our verifications to make sure everything has been met and so we're very pleased to bring to you tonight those that list of graduates to approve thank you very much uh any discussion i'm sorry is there a motion to accept the or certify the uh graduation of the 2021 high school graduates so iso move properly moved by mr
083perry in secondary second it's been seconded by dr hall any discussion oh miss autry i'm sorry thank you mr president i just wanted to point out for those who might not have it in front of them but akron public schools produce 1 graduates for this class of uh 21. i think that's something to be commended was just nice to see a healthy number of graduates from each one of our high schools so we're doing a great job and thanks to all who made that happen thank you very much and in that same fashion i just want to also point out um that the diversity of our graduates are great uh and the largest number of graduates are um african-american hispanic multiracial uh or asian uh identified as a one of those races so we've had
084some great diversity and we should celebrate that we're graduating some outstanding students with that being said any other discussion hearing that we'll do a roll call vote mr pendleton dr hall aye ms jackson yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes miss autry yes mr perry yes thank you thank you very much uh as looks like we have a need to recess into executive session uh pursuant to ohio advise code 121.22 g1 for the purposes of considering the compensation of a public employee or official of the school district and g4 preparing for negotiations is there a motion on the table to go into the executive session so second i didn't get who said the first one miss autry okay it's been probably moved by miss autry seconded by mr alexander any discussion on
085the motion hearing and seeing none roll call vote please mr pendleton miss autry yes mr perry yes dr hall aye miss jackson yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes thank you thank you very much we are now uh we'll move into executive session we appreciate everyone being here and we will return after executive session back into regular session you're good all right hello everyone welcome back to the regularly scheduled board meeting on 14 march uh 2022 uh there's there's no further business until you come before the board after we've recessed into from executive session is there a motion to adjourn i so move it's been properly moved by mr perry second it's been seconded by dr hall we now have the motion to adjourn at 9 56. see everyone at the next
086meeting [Music] you