Board of Education Livestream - 11/15/2221

001[Music] hello and uh good evening everyone and welcome to the regularly scheduled board meeting on 15 november 2021 we're going to start by having the roll call by mr pendleton before we do that i just want to welcome uh two great groups of people in the room for our board our we have our two newest board members so they are board members elect joining us at the table today uh carla jackson and job perry and so we want to welcome them to the table and then we also want to just also welcome our student board members which we will do a formal welcome to them as well and thank you to everyone else who is here joining us today for this meeting so we'll start with our roll call mr pendleton dr akbar here mr

002alexander president ms autry president mr bravo president dr hall aye mrs mansfield here mrs mckittrick here thank you and welcome to our newly elected board members ms carla jackson and miss joby saw perry also at the board table thank you thank you very much i will nets have our wonderful student board members lead us in the pledge of allegiance so if we often stand indivisible with liberty thank you very much next i have the honor of administering the oath of office to our student representatives to the board this is a outstanding position that our student board members are holding and it came from the foresight of the previous board a few years ago who really sought the direct input from students who are benefiting from the service that we have as well as will be

003able to give us that firsthand knowledge so we want to thank you so far for serving and we're going to ask all of our student board members to please stand as i uh minister the o of office to you and i'm sorry i think we're just doing the new board members right i think so all right um because i think everyone else is already uh has their own so if you could just repeat after me um jose i think it's jose garcia coach ed griffin ella elliott jackson and kaylee and james smith right did i get that right all right so if you can repeat after me um i state your name do solemnly swear that you will support the constitution of the united states the constitution of the state of ohio and that you

004will perform faithfully the duties of a student board member of the board of education of akron city school district summit county ohio to the best of your ability in accordance to the laws now in effect and hereafter to be enacted during your continuance in said office and until your successor is elected or qualified or appointed and qualified until your successor is appointed and qualified thank you very much congratulations [Applause] so um with that i'm going to ask each of our student board members if they could please stand at the podium and if they could just tell us their name what school they're from and if this is their first year second year third year for some fourth year as student board members and we'll just go down the line here really quickly thank you all

005right good evening everyone my name is jose garcia i am a senior at north high school and some some things i like to do are playing soccer and shopping since black fridays around the corner so i'm pretty sure all of you are looking at the deals right now so that's me thank you very much [Applause] hello everyone my name is cochise griffin i go to eclc i'm in the 10th grade some things about me is are that i love football i play center and i was recently awarded with oil city also my parents are here makita carey and gino smith [Applause] uh hello everyone i'm elliott jackson i go to kenmore garfield high school i'm in business management i got selected to be a student ambassador at cameron garfield high school too i love basketball

006and also my family is here too the kia it dean they got their cameras out my little brother my little sister hi everyone my name is salaam said i attend acronym college high school this is actually my fourth year and something interesting about me is i am going into nursing and actually i might even continue it for a master's to become a nurse practitioner [Applause] hello everybody um i'm abigail kearns i go to ellen high school i am in 11th grade this is my second year as a student board member and i'm actually not really sure what i want to do when i go out of high school so i guess i have plenty of time to figure that out [Applause] hi i'm caitlin smith or you can call me cj and i'm in 12th

007grade and i go to stem high school and i want to major in physics [Applause] hi i'm madison diese i'm a senior at firestone i love playing softball crocs and i believe that keynes is better than chick-fil-a [Applause] we might have to have a conversation about that medicine but uh thank you very much and uh congratulations on being selected to serve um we are excited as a board to get to know you better and actually seeing and hearing from you throughout the year so thank you very much nets we will move to our community and school reflections and we will we have four individuals who have uh signed up to address the board and we will take it in the order that they signed up and so first we have lisa kircher bower i hope

008i said that correctly and and just before you get started i just wanted to uh remind everyone and first thank you for uh participating uh public participation and is very important to this board um we do ask that you keep your remarks to three minutes and if you have any concerns that are directed towards any staff member you let us know now and we can take those in executive session otherwise look forward to hearing from you now thank you thank you good evening my name is lisa kirschenbauer i have been employed with the akron public schools since october of 2014 as an educational assistant i have worked in the library and i'm currently in iss at ellett high school i am here to ask your consideration to please remember that we are essential too we

009are important we are the base of the school you spoken the leader about livable wages and according to the 2021 poverty guidelines a family of four should be making 26 500. when i take a pay stub for an employee who has a family of four they are only at fifteen thousand six hundred and seventy one dollars so unless in the next four paychecks there's a huge raise this family of four is below the poverty level this year another example is a family of one living wages is thirteen sixteen an hour if you take that employee's wage who has been with you for seven years and you divide that up twenty four pays it is only eleven dollars and two cents that's two dollars and fourteen cents under the living wages of the 2021 ohio akron

010is the seventh largest school district in the state of ohio so while aps is paying extra to the teacher subs and to the teachers please remember we are essential too when administrators are busy they send the students to the iss until they can tend to them when the tutors classes are filled and someone needs extra help they send them to the paraprofessionals for help or the ad assistance when the special needs child needs the extra attention we as ed assistants are there when the children need to get to school we drive them the bus drivers we are essential too and we deserve that 30 percent raise too i have two quick letters i have been in the akron public school district for nine years beginning in 2012. my work duties include everything in my job

011description and much more i am going to post my concerns and bullet points i work in environment where i get hit kicked bit pinched spit on head butted scratched roped cussed out and much more i work where i have to toilet feed deal with medically fragile children change diapers protect other kids staff in school and much much more i have to work where i'm trained in cpi and most of the subs and administrators who fill in help or not i work where i give up breaks to make sure the health and safety of the kids are still being met i have worked i have had to work short staff due to the lack of subs being available the lack of subs puts the kids and staff at risk due to supervision concerns i work in

012a classroom where kids are unable to get the education they should they should due to the lack of available staff educational assistance trained staff and administration having an over abundance of issues where they can't help now let's talk about pay our job starts around fourteen dollars an hour with benefits no pay for over breaks or during the summer a sub teacher and a tutor can make two to thirty five dollars per hour not trying to discount what they do but they don't come close to what i do some teachers and tutors don't have to deal with anything we have to deal with they come in to work with an assignment that is hand written for them to complete from the lead teacher they are filling in plus they don't have to do they my apologies

013plus they don't have to have all the above credentials that we have to have now they don't even need a degree or license to sub teach or tutor thank you i'm sorry your time has lapsed i'm so sorry i'm sorry um i did give you a few extra seconds but i just wanted to say thank you for providing your comments and if you want to provide it to us the written version everything's in the folders okay everything's along with additional letters thank you thank you very much thank you very much and next we have lauren wise good evening thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak tonight my name is laureen wise i've been a paraprofessional in the chrome public schools for 19 years i am here to speak for all para para professionals

014within our district let me begin with without the paraprofessionals in these special education units there would be no teaching our special education students we take the brunt of everything we do more than just diaper and feed students we are right there teaching them reinforcing what the teacher has taught we are helping the teacher collaborating with her we are putting the students in their standards in their walkers working on their pt skills up and down stairs we also work on their ot skills whether it's writing or cutting we also do so much that we are not recognized for the teachers are paid when a paraprofessional is out in the build out of their classroom that is that they need to take care of the students they go to specials with those students but that's not what's

015happening we are pulled from classrooms to diaper to change to feed to do and go with those other students if we have to but that teacher is getting paid 30 percent of the wages of not having an assistant in their classroom they are the ones that should be picking up those duties not us if they're going to get paid then they should be picking up those duties we should be getting compensated for those for us having to do not only our job in our classroom but picking up that extra duty and everything we get assaulted daily many of us and everything i would like to read a letter that was written it says i would like to send this letter in support of my educational assistants i have two wonderful assistants in the success unit

016at the bridges learning center one with a bachelor's degree and one with more years of experience than i have teaching they are bit spit on hit punched and scratched daily running behavioral plans and ieps due to staffing shortages it is normal that my assistants do not get more than one of their lunches a week it is an insult that new hire substitutes are getting paid more an hour than they do due to the lack of subs that do come my assistants are often doing the job of two people whenever we are short in the building which is every day i cannot do my job without them and it is also not fair that my assistants do not get paid for covering absences as i do as an aea member this building would shut down without

017them they are my eyes and ears and they cover my back to keep our students safe thank you very much thank you we appreciate it and i apologize for mispronouncing your name next we have sheila dawkins flynn i'd like to say good evening board members superintendent follower mac administrators around the room and all the guests behind me we are not after a thought as i see an experience all the dedicated professionals work so hard daily without any recognition or value they are mothers fathers grandparents and head of households doing what they love which is students of akron public schools no compensation or accolades again we are not an afterthought as we see others in the district receive all the attention keep in mind aps has hard-working staff not just teachers in this district again we

018are not an afterthought it's not a good feeling to be underappreciated and forgotten in the future think staff when making decisions that affect all of us now is the time for the members of the ohio association of public school employees local 689 to speak up and be heard inclusion should be reflective of all employees in this district as a result of this district should and must show action and not just talk respectfully sheila dawkins flynn president officers and members of oopsie asked me for local 689 thank you [Applause] thank you very much uh we appreciate um you coming to speak today and more importantly i just want to say on behalf of the board um we definitely appreciate all that you do and we know that you have worked hard throughout this uh actually throughout

019your entire time but this last year specifically has been incredibly difficult so we definitely appreciate you and appreciate what you brought to us and we'll work with the administration to work through what you presented today our last public comment is from tina boyce i have a timer so hopefully that will be helpful good evening everyone it's nice to see so many friendly faces in the room my name's tina boyz i'm the executive director of the kenmore neighborhood alliance we're the community development corporation that's working to revitalize the kenmore neighborhood in akron of which kenmore garfield high school is part i am here tonight not because i relish speaking about such things but um what i've been reading in the newspaper over the past several weeks is troubling it's beyond troubling it is frightening for our

020students for our staff but also for our community for four years four years ago i stepped away from a high paying job at a local nonprofit grant making organization because i believed in the promise of a neighborhood in southwest akron that hadn't gotten his due in a long time in 2002 when akron public schools planned to build new public school buildings called community development or community learning centers kenmore was mentioned as one of those community learning centers but further down the road flashback to about four years ago and we find out that never panned out because we were last on the list we were the newest building and the least in need fast forward to where we are now i don't know how we got there i don't know who's to blame but i will

021tell you that our community is suffering because of what's going on in that building i fear for the students i fear for the staff but i also fear for a neighborhood who has been shot down so many times with so many projects with so many promises that were never paid off right now kenmore garfield high school 30 i believe just over 30 percent of the students are from 44314 that's the neighborhood the school is physically in next year that school will be empty but i implore you as you work on the safety of this building currently that you make good on your promises to the kenmore neighborhood to give something good to kenmore i don't know the exact numbers but i can tell you i reflect many of my neighbors and friends who choose to

022send their children to other schools other school districts and parochials i remember when we were fighting to keep that school it it was communicated to me that the people who were speaking didn't have kids in the school district so their voices were not that important because they didn't have a stake in the game but i will tell you the reason those students don't don't attend the district is because they feel they have been shortchanged in our neighborhood so i just i just ask from the bottom of my heart we are working to change perceptions of our neighborhood this does not help this does not help it makes our job harder but first and foremost i ask you to please consider these students and the staff and while at the same time remembering that there's a

023neighborhood surrounding them ready to love them ready to lift them up in any way we can should we become partners if we do not have a school on that property there is no partnership sadly thank you [Applause] thank you very much we appreciate your comments and i know that's something that we'll be talking about at some point so thank you for sharing your reactions your reflections with that being said we do are we are going to move to community and school reflections from the board so is there any community and school reflections from any board members mrs mansfield it's been a busy couple of weeks in the district and i just want to give some credit where it's due [Music] i we've also been away for a little while so it seems extra like there's

024a lot of extra things um i want to give congratulations to those at david hill who had i'm going to mess this up he's a running back for the browns what's his first name demetrix felton is that his first name i'm looking at my sports people and nobody's looking back at me anyway mr felton who could not play this past week unfortunately but he was at their their festival giving a pep talk to the kids he was amazing we also had britain barry who is the wife of general manager for the browns they came out to lead the kids in some act fall festival activities and it was a really great recognition so i was really happy to be there to represent the board um at miller south karen hazlitt had me out they were

025reading a book in their classes about banning books and what school boards do and what role they have in that across the country so i went there to reassure them that we're not banning any books in akron and and talk to them about the times that we have been asked to censor activities and how that sometimes affects the arts and it was really great i got to sit down in three classes i'm going to skip a couple activities and just jump to um it was my great honor on veterans day to [Music] beside my husband when he spoke at the the ceremony at shadyside park in kenmore um and we had representatives from the junior rotc from both ellet and kenmore garfield there and one of the things that stands out to me the most

026every time that we have those students there is how proud i am that we are the only district in the state of ohio that has representatives from the four major branches of the military through our junior rotc program so i'm going to skip the osba stuff and all those things because i just want to focus today on some of the great things that i've been able to see some of our students do and how incredibly proud i am of our student school boards students that are here and the commitment that they're making for leadership as well so thank you mr president thank you very much dr hall yeah thank you mr president um my community reflection is to reflect upon the passion that was just put on display um from those who just addressed the

027board i just want to say that i i appreciate your passion and it's evident it's obvious that you all care uh very much for our district and for our kids and so from the bottom of my heart i want to thank all of you who took the time to come today and to show that you cared uh your your passion is inspiring to me and so um thank you again because you all could have been doing a lot of other things besides being here tonight at this board meeting so that is my community reflection mr president is to thank those who have come and had the courage to share their thoughts and their passions with the rest of us in this room thank you thank you very much anyone else miss autry thank you mr

028president i'll be brief i know we have a full agenda here i also would like to thank the educational assistants and all the other staff in our district who do so much for our students and you are her you are appreciated i also would like to thank miss dreamer whitfield and the student school board members for the opportunity to connect earlier before this meeting i'm looking forward to working with each and every one of you thank you mrs whitfield for all that you do really fabulous activity and then also since we last met i was invited as a alumni of booktull coc to the freshman academy commitment to graduate ceremony and i just wanted to shout out to dr lisa over there at brookdale the counselor for the freshman and also the other staff members

029it was a really nice event in which there were some inspirational comments from various staff members and also we were able to see the junior rotc present colors as well as we did at the previous board meeting in our drum line and it culminated with all the freshmen signing a banner with their commitment to graduate so that was a really nice event and again shout out to brookdale clc thank you thank you very much anyone else mr bravo i'll just say also very i just want to give credit where credit is due i also was going to say thank you well first of all thank you a few years ago to lisa and coming to me and us getting together on our student representatives to the board i think it's one of the best things

030that we've ever done is make sure that we really give students an opportunity to be involved and have a voice at the table to bring us questions and to bring us issues and things that you're hearing and to the new board representatives that are joining us tonight i hope that you'll do just that we look forward to hearing your reports every board meeting what's going on in your school and in your cluster so we really look forward to that and i hope that you'll take advantage of every opportunity that presents to to be that kind of voice and so thank you and to thank you uh to dream of whitfield for all that she does to uh to make really an inspiring sort of leaders academy out of this whole experience and it is quite

031an experience so congratulations on on being appointed and welcome to the table i also wanted to give a quick congratulations also and i'm sure we're going to do that but to our treasure who recently received the outstanding treasure of the year from from the osba we were able to celebrate with him in columbus recently so congratulations mr treasurer and also a congratulations to you and your husband mrs mansfield for the opening of his play which i have not seen but i really would love to so if you have tickets on you would love to get some of those but eric mansfield recently opened and debuted his worldwide debut for his play and there's a great uh write-up of that in the akron beacon journal so check that out and uh thank you that's it whoa

032thank you very much anyone else mr alexander jeff okay all right um thank you very much i appreciate that i want to i'll just add one thing to community and school reflections and then [Music] i think we'll give people time if they need to about two minutes if anyone wanted to leave but i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who's here and everyone who's participated in our board meeting one of the things as i've heard from many of the board members share their thoughts about the passion from our staff members who presented today as well as mrs boyce i think that two things that we have made this board made important is hearing the voices of the community as being very important and as a priority of this board as well as livable

033wage being a priority of this board and just so you know typically in school and community reflections we don't make any remarks after comments most of the time which is apropos to this time as well we'll work with the superintendent afterwards to ensure that those concerns are managed appropriately but i just want to say publicly one thank you and two that livable wage is a priority of this board and it's not just a talking point the district is currently doing a compensation audit and review of all of our compensation schedules uh and so our board will be reviewing that and making some decisions um hopefully in the next few months so i just wanted to make sure i said that so that if you don't see something that happens tomorrow you know that your your

034concerns haven't fallen on deaf ears and superintendent follower matt has presented to us i think it might even been the last board meeting on our progress uh to date on that so i just wanted to make sure i stated that um so that it doesn't seem like we're not listening because we are we've also had conversations about uh what to do next with kenmore garfield kenmore building sorry when the school moves out so that will be a continued discussion as well so with that being said we do have a lot of business to go over but i'm sure some of you probably don't want to hear some of that so we'll take a two minute recess if you would like to leave you can if you want to stay you can as well but i

035just want to give people that opportunity so we'll stand and reset for two minutes bill and dennis we're going to have you guys come on here in just another minute or so if you want to get your cameras established and do a sound check you can do that okay thank you hey bill how are you hi ryan good to see you thank you we're not uh let me check on your audio okay i'm on i i don't have i'm not gonna be on camera for a few minutes yet i'm gonna try to get on camera before you come back to us go ahead bill give me another sound check if you would okay all right hello everyone and welcome back to the regularly scheduled board meeting on 15 november 2021 we're now moving to communications

036portion of our agenda we will hear a presentation from the ohio coalition for equity and adequacy of school funding in this presentation we've given them five minutes and i know we've had some preliminary conversations probably a year ago and so now we have opportunity to hear directly from the organization and then we'll have opportunity at our next board meeting to have a full discussion and decide if we want to move forward with it so i'm going to turn it over i believe it's to bill or is it someone else it's mr phillips yeah mr phyllis and he's joining us virtually okay well thank you very much for giving us a few minutes of your time tonight to discuss the ed choice voucher litigation let me at the outset i want to commend your treasurer ryan

037pendleton for his key role in this cup patterson school funding fair fair school funding program and his continued advocacy for the program he's been very valuable in that discussion of course school funding and this ed bouncer litigation go hand in hand i i also want to remind the board there that back in the early 1990s your superintendent relate to conrad aunt was very instrumental in the initiation of the school funding litigation so getting right into the edge choice voucher litigation we about 18 months ago we were approached by some board members to help coordinate this particular effort um and we've hired the law firm of walter haverfield in cleveland to represent us in the courts we've also engaged precision new media uh with and you'll be hearing from dennis willard here in just a moment

038uh to do the uh public relations end of this we think we're going to win in the court of law but we also want to win in the court of public opinion now a quick update since we started this effort there last year there were over 75 districts that to be paid into this effort uh thus far this fiscal year and we're about half half over this fiscal year but thus far this fiscal year we have members district members of the coalition ed choice voucher program among those districts are canton columbus dayton and there are other urban centers that are planning to join we also have southwestern city district westerville worthington and some of those larger districts in the columbus area so we are moving forward with this we anticipate before this fiscal year is

039over we'll have well over 125 districts that are involved in this litigation and i'd like to have dennis willard talk a little bit about his involvement and and what some of our plans are for the public relations aspect of this particular effort again i i would say that walter hammerfield is in a position now to within the next um uh just very soon we'll be filing our complaint in the franklin county court of common pleas and so um you know we're moving forward dennis do you want to pick up there yeah thank you bill i really appreciate this and i'll be brief but you know i do think that the head choice voucher program private school voucher program is a an exact existential threat to public schools i was a state house reporter for 23

040years the last 15 years i was the bureau chief for the akron beacon journal so i'm very familiar with not only act and public schools but also the schools in northeast ohio as a repo as the bureau chief of the beacon journal i worked with a another reporter in akron doug oplinger and we wrote extensively about charter schools voucher programs and what you're seeing here is an effort to remove money from the public school system and put it into others hands the ed choice program is growing rapidly it's going to be more than 600 million dollars in this current two-year budget and the lawmakers have admitted that they have not addressed the unconstitutional school funding formula sufficiently so basically the pie is not going to grow and they're siphoning off more and more money into

041private hands and and these are not students leaving akron public schools these are for the most part students and families who never had any intention of being in the public school system this is a refund and a rebate program for parents who just want their children to be separated from the public school system and and i'll close by saying eleanor roosevelt i'm paraphrasing her said she supports private school education but she's supported parents paying for private school education we should not be undermining the public school system you accept any and all students the private school system picks and chooses their students let them do that let the parents pay for that um this if you were flush with money and i listened to the testimony tonight if you were flush with money and you had

042money just falling out of your pockets that'd be one thing but i know that you are pinching every penny and struggling to make you know every dollar count in your district and right now this money is being siphoned off away from you so on the public relations front we are going to tell the story that vouchers hurt ohio hurt families students communities businesses and and we're going to continue to do that while the law firm goes to court and wins in the court of law thank you thank you very much um we've uh crossed the six minute mark and i do want to give our board members some opportunity to ask you questions as uh from my understanding uh the purpose of this presentation is for us to consider joining um as a member of

043your uh lawsuit and so i want to open it up to board members to ask any questions that they need uh to ask for us to consider that question at the next meeting dr hall yeah thank you for the time today definitely appreciate it i guess the question i had was you mentioned that there were 95 i think you mentioned that are currently signed up um i'm just curious you know and not that you have to have this off top of your head you can always email it to us but i'm just curious as to how many um how many districts would you call would you that you would define as being a rural district uh how many of them have signed on uh with this plan and um also as well do you have

044a breakdown where we look at it from a socio-economic standpoint so for example um i was surprised when you said that worthington and westerville were signed up as being a part of this um i guess i'm wondering are other uh affluent suburban districts also joining this uh joining this suit or are they at this point uh for the most part staying on the sidelines well we we have um joint vocational school districts uh education service centers and then in the k-12 districts we have the whole variety from very small rural districts to the columbus city the largest district in the in the state in terms of pupil population so we have a you know a cross section of all the districts in the state of ohio you can go to our website vouchershertohio.com and there's

045the link right there that shows the districts that have signed up to date and you can see it as bill mentioned it's a wide cross section i think there are there's the other thing too is there's some districts that are losing dollars right now to vouchers there are some districts who are not but they know that the intent of the legislature is to make every student and every district voucher eligible and they understand that we need to be in this from a public school standpoint altogether in fact house bill 290 is the bill we need to watch that's a universal voucher build it's a bill that would assign the money to not akron city schools but would assign the money to the parents of akron city school of parents of ohio rather than the the

046system and of course as you all know um the the constitution is very clear the general assembly shall secure and fund a thorough and efficient system of common schools not systems and not parents any other questions so um if hearing that i have two two questions um one of the questions is i'm trying to understand the financial implications of joining such a movement and i know there's there's two dollars i believe per student per year is there a thought process around how many years this could last well i i have no uh no good idea uh no informed idea let's say of how long this process will be but the point that you need to remember is that the board makes a decision each year whether or not they're going to rejoin uh there's passing

047the resolution of jointer only commits a district for one year okay and then uh thinking about the total costs uh not just per district but um what is the thoughts around the total cost of the effort and of itself and if you could talk to us a little bit about how you came up with the formula for each district well in terms of um the total cost of the litigation of course that depends on how far it goes it depends how long it takes i i would we had some preliminary discussions with the law firm with regard to um you know how much it would ultimately cost and then of course they couldn't give us any firm figures but uh probably their best guesstimate was some place in their reigns of seven or eight hundred

048thousand dollars um but that's you know that's pure speculation you know it depends on just a whole myriad of um of things um but the important point for your board is that you know you make a a one-year obligation and determine each year whether or not you're going to rejoin one thing i would also add to this is you know this is we are not alone there's a national group called public funds public schools that's helping us with expertise and we're watching this you know a number of states are expanding or initiating voucher programs but there's also a number of states that are forming groups to push back against this right now in tennessee a lower court ruled that the voucher program there was unconstitutional just recently in kentucky the kentucky a kentucky court ruled

049that the voucher program there was unconstitutional so we believe that there has to be an effort state by state to push back against these programs the lawsuit ultimately will be decided but also the pressure of the lawsuit is important too because without it we're just saying to the legislature do what you want do as you will and this bill that bill mentioned house bill 290 it's not only universal vouchers but the sponsor said he likes what is going on next door in west virginia where west virginia is now giving money directly to families to homeschool their children so we're not only talking about private vouchers we're talking about potentially homeschooling so they are not going to stop they're relentless they're not going to stop unless we stop them and i think the only way to

050do that is to win in the court of law and the court of public opinion if in fact they would in the future for fund homeschooling and the people that are now already paying tuition to private schools that would take at least a billion dollars that's without any other kids leaving the public system a billion dollars and as as all of you know the state funds are limited uh taking a billion dollars out of the pool of k-12 money um it would be a catastrophic loss um right right now between vouchers and charters there's about um close to two billion dollars will be removed from the the fund basic aid fund uh of the k-12 system now um think of think of that in connection with the expansion potential of house bill 290. so this

051this effort is really the more i thought about it it's really about the preservation of the public system the public common school system required by the constitution of the state of ohio any other questions okay i just have one final question um and it it really goes to just some basic simple math questions with knowing that the average school district in ohio has 25 to 5 000 2500 to 5 000 students the likelihood if you have 95 already and you're going to have more than 100 over uh you'll have more than enough uh then the the the amount that you need so i'm wondering um as we are fiduciaries of our state dollars and our public dollars for our students and i'm wondering um you know could you just describe to us what happens with

052the money that's over what you need that's a very good question i'm glad you asked that we are not the coalition and voucher toward ohio and not in the business of of you know accumulating resources we're in the business of just collecting the money that's necessary to fund the litigation and our public relations effort and if if there's a sometime in the future that we don't need to charge we don't need any obviously our steering committee and by the way our steering committee has a former chief justice of the supreme court on it a law professor ohio state university the law professor we have steve dyer who's used to be with akron beacon journal and he's now at the higher education association we've got board members from westerville um worthington columbus and you know board

053members from all across the state so that steering committee obviously is going to be as as concerned about coalition money as they are in their own school district monies so anything that um i mean we we would in fact if this litigation would be you know terminated sooner than we thought it might be uh certainly on a pro rate a pro rated basis uh money could be returned to the school district so just be assured we have good people um on the steering committee who will you know who are also fiduciaries so um as i said we're not in the business of just accumulating resources we just want to be able to fund this litigation thank you miss alexander yes thank you guys for presenting uh i have a question i wanted to know how

054many of the top 10 school districts as far as population who are involved with the organization you mentioned columbus you mentioned dayton what other school districts well there's southwestern city district i think in the akron area barberton woodridge i don't i don't know the you know the top ten in terms of student volume of students but i i just don't i i can't answer anything any further than i have dennis do you have any no but we can get that information for you um you know we we are talking to all of the what are considered the big eight districts um and are having good conversations with them about joining many of them have already like columbus and uh as bill mentioned uh columbus is the largest district in the state um but we also

055it's really important that we do have that wide cross collection of districts uh when we go into court so we're we're working just as hard to um we're working just as hard to get small districts rural districts signed up as we are the urban districts but i will say this that this this voucher program was sold to the public you know uh saying that they were going to help children uh trapped in poor performing school districts escape those districts that's that's what this was that that's what this was designed to do going back to the cleveland voucher program the original one but but it's actually having an opposite effect and we would be glad to get information to you about this steve dyer who who bill mentioned was also state lawmaker from green in southern

056summit county and um he has done research on this and he has he's showing that this has the reverse effect of helping impoverished children and particularly minority children this what we're going to do is we're going to we're going to resegregate the schools we're going to have two distinct separate and unequal systems of schools here if we continue along this road because what's happening is the private schools get to pick their students and they are picking children that look like their other children and if you look at the press conference it was held just a few weeks ago to tout house bill 290 they had there with them um a member of the coalition for christian virtues and he got up and said we should be able to pick the schools and pick the the

057places where our children go who think like us who he didn't say who look like us but he said who think like us who have the same belief system as us you know this is about re-segregation and and um and you know we bill and i and the others we are committed to fighting on behalf of all students in this state thank you so much dennis and bill for your presentation today we do have to move forward but in the spirit of board members who may have other questions in the next two weeks ryan will make sure that everyone has your emails and they can email you directly as well so thank you very much thank you so much thank you no problem taken um mr bravo i have comments but no uh questions but

058i had more comments for us because this is something that was a little scary and we asked mr pendleton to bring this to the finance committee a few weeks ago and to start lining up some some support around us so that we can make some better informed decisions and it really is one of those things where i you know even in my own mind i'm kind of grappling with especially in light of the proposal that we would join a lawsuit to try and prevent this type of legislation from taking hold and it's kind of one of those whether you can afford to whether you can afford not to i mean there's a real judgment call here to be made we do know i think that this will have a direct financial impact on akron public

059schools as well as many other districts around us the question is to what extent really that that's going to be there's an argument to be made that there's not going to be a mass exodus of students on a new voucher program such as this and even if there were to be an attempted mass exodus of vouchers students on vouchers or families with vouchers the local schools around us couldn't possibly absorb a mass exodus but nonetheless we know it's going to be it could potentially be a severe financial impact on our district it should be noted too that our district of course the built environment of our district was built for a certain number of students and we know that we have made some decisions and we even heard sort of the repercussions of some of

060those decisions tonight that you know when this 800 million dollar program started a number of years ago we had a much different story we were at 35 000 students and we're now hovering around 20 000 students and decisions were made along the way to keep certain schools or to close certain schools and those decisions have been pretty tough but i think you know we've maintained a built environment for a certain number of students and not only what we have but what we could have in terms of the kids that live in akron so much much less the ones that we could lose if at the risk of facing legislation like this so i think i mean it's just clear that we're going to have to give careful consideration or this board is going to have

061to give careful consideration to what comes after out of the master facilities planning committee and some of those choices of course are going to be tough because many of you will face the same decisions that we faced throughout the last 10 years but obviously we all know sitting here that we do well to remember that we need on the front end to encourage families to to stay with akron public schools and to realize the opportunities that are available here and to give families every reason to not want to to choose a voucher to go anywhere else and i know that many of us have long argued that one of the biggest challenges we face is one of perception you know how many people walk through the hallways of our schools and see the littles and

062and walk you know and and once you're there perceptions and attitudes and things tend to change and we've all said that so there's a big um there's a big effort probably that needs to happen on all of our parts including those of us that won't be on this board anymore to continue to get people in our schools and meet our teachers and meet our staff and and meet the kids and see what happens in our schools because it's not always what people think so and my last comment was one that i shared in finance committee that i just want to be very clear about too that i think should be sort of i don't want to call it a contingency but i think it should be strongly pushed by this this board and many others

063is that in the event that a voucher program like what's in house bill 290 takes effect there needs to be the same accountability measures that if you're if you're going to receive the dollars then you receive the exact same accountability measures for those public dollars that we do and you get the same set of tools and you get the same set of requirements i mean it's the thing that frustrates me about things like the youngstown plan if what you implement in a school to turn it around we know that's failed but if if that's what you thought was the answer then how about you have offered those tools to the district before it was in that situation and the same goes for these dollars too and i think more than anything if nothing else that

064this board and its members and all the other folks need to stand up and scream that you can't give someone else dollars and then give them all these other ways to work with kids so anyway that's my soapbox thank you mr president i i appreciate that uh mr bravo and we we already we already know we operate on different rules unfortunately and it does make our public school jobs a little bit difficult so what we'll do is i'll give you time to have conversations that you need to have if you need to contact um dennis or bill or eric in the next two weeks to get more information or go to their website as they suggested you have that time to do it i want us to have that thoughtful conversation uh at the next

065meeting and uh to decide what we want to do um regardless of what our decision is uh you know we we're always keeping the financial uh solvency of our district it at my as well as the resources we need to support our students mr bravo sorry the gentleman that joined us virtually also made mention of some articles that were written in some research that was done and i just want to point that out because i remembered those articles as they were talking about them and one of them um sorry miss pineally was from the columbus dispatch but i know they're i know i know i'm sorry uh but you know they did some articles recently and akron was highlighted in one of those articles um earlier this year that was pointing out that quote in

06688 of ohio cities where vouchers are used the data showed better test results for the public schools and when it came to ohio's eight largest cities five of the districts akron included and reported higher proficiency levels so again oftentimes i think i don't know if it's a perception thing or if it's you know a re-segregation as was suggested there or what that what the motivating factor is but a lot of our families that are leaving with vouchers are leaving for worse performing schools than what we're offering here and i just you know he pointed that out and i just wanted to bring that up and i found the article so it was from september 8th of 21 and it's a dispatch article so thank you thank you very much um and so we'll we'll cover

067this at the next meeting nets will move to approval of the previous minute meeting minutes [Laughter] thank you very much um but i'll read the dates first then i'll take a motion we'll we'll do the approval of the previous meeting minutes on the regular meeting from monday october 25th 2021 the special meeting on uh 1 november 2021 as well as the special meeting from 9 november 2021. is there a motion so moved is it properly moved by ms autry is there a second second it's been seconded by mrs mckittrick any discussion hearing none roll call vote please mr pendleton mrs mcketrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes thank you thank you very much uh we next move to personnel recommendations madam superintendent

068good evening dr akbar and to members of the board i wish to recommend the approval of the personnel recommendations presented in categories 5 through 16 and the additional resolutions and items 17.1 17.2 and 17.3 and prior to your response to that recommendation i want to bring to light that embedded within those recommendations in item 16.1 and 16.2 is the unfortunate sharing of the loss of two beloved staff members first in 16.1 we recognize the loss of mary baker who passed away on october 7 2021 after a battle with cancer mary was employed by the akron public schools for over eight years as a sub teacher a sub educational assistant and then she was hired as a full-time intervention specialist assistant she worked as an assistant in the md classrooms at harris jackson clc mary was

069known for her festive clothes and hats around the holidays she organized crafts and activities to teach the students about the holidays and around the world and about different cultures especially ireland mary loved the kids teaching them treating them with goodies and being their comfort on a difficult day to all mary was generous spiritual kind funny and a good friend as well in 16.2 we recognize the loss of our deeply valued employee sunil haslam sunil and his wife kelly have two children his love for his family was apparent every day he talked about his wife and his girls all the time he was a family man and his family meant the world to him snell's passion for football and his focus on coaching and being a role model father figure to students here in akron was

070very important to him he was the assistant coach for two years at east six years at hoben two years at kenmore and four years at saint vincent saint mary in seven years at east sunil was selected to be the head coach for north football team in 2016 until his unexpected passing teaching leadership to young men being a mentor and advocate a father figure and a constant source of support to the young men he influenced daily really represents mr haslam sunil's other job here at aps was the first smiling face most families saw when they entered this administration building in student services sunil worked for the akron public schools for six years here his calm reassuring nature was so helpful for our families and so valued by our staff our hearts and prayers continue to be

071with he with his family at large and here with the aps family we move for the recommendation thank you very much uh are there any motions for the personal recommendations my medal superintendent it's been moved by mr bravo is there a second second seconded by mr alexander any discussion seeing no others i just wanted to share that [Music] mr haslam was a member of the 100 black men with bruce or mr alexander and myself and i did have the opportunity to go to the calling hours on friday um and and see his family beautiful family and as most of you probably know his wife is also a part of our aps family and it really is heartbreaking what i was able to see firsthand and i think also mr alexander as well one of the

072things that we do in 100 black men i know this isn't a infomercial for what we do but just to give you some sense it's kind of embodied who he was we mentor young men specifically young black men to ensure that they have greater opportunities in life and he was a chair of the mentoring program and membership and uh definitely uh was in the front when it came to making a difference in the life of young black men so i just wanted to acknowledge that and say that he definitely will be missed yes miss mrs mansfield you know when the first times i walked back in this building um during the pandemic he was one of the first people i saw of course and i had a mask on and he and josh allen and

073uh made sure that i got a viking mask um and so i will always fondly remember you know that was a really scary time and i don't even remember why i was here but i remember how he made me feel and i know that that was one of his greatest gifts so i just thought i'd share that story because it meant a lot thank you uh mr alexander yeah i wasn't going to say anything but you know um mr hassell was what we what the type of person that we look for he had the kids interest at the front of his mind that's the first thing that he did is cared about the kids i mean if you ever saw him at the uh in north high school working with the kids for these past

074so many years that's the type of individual we want to work with all our kids because he does such a good job he was real kind he was polite he was a leader he was a teacher he was educating them and that's what we need that's what that's what it's all about when we talk about getting involved with with the school districts is people who really care and sincerely about our kids and be able to give them what they they need he will be missed i mean seeing his phase two here in the education i mean the center here uh it was always nice pleasant first person you see and people respected him a whole lot so uh i didn't want to say much but i had to say that it was just too much

075to hold in thank you very much roll call vote please dr akbar yes mr alexander yes abstain from 8.2 thank you ms autry yes mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes mrs mckittrick yes thank you thank you very much we next move to resolutions and motions on the consent agenda madam superintendent yes sir i wish to recommend approval of the resolutions and motions presented in category 21. they are in proper format and i move for their approval so moved second it's been properly moved by mrs mansfield seconded by mr bravo any discussion on the resolutions and motions on the cons agenda hearing none sorry i'm so sorry mrs mansfield you're very very intently looking i just wanted to give a shout out to deb folk and laura kepler for the fresh fruit and

076vegetable program it's something that we started pushing for and they they worked have worked hard for over the years and i can still still hear amy graham in my head talking about bringing programs like that to to our kids so just a huge thanks for that and i'm really excited to see um the item for ricky powers way so i i like that too so i thought i'd just mention those two thank you very much anyone else okay hearing uh and seeing none uh mr pendleton roll call vote please miss autry abstain from 19.10 thank you mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes and just to clarify for the role ms autry did you record a yes vote for the remaining yes okay thank

077you thank you very much that's on our agendas business affairs recommendations madam superintendent yes sir i wish to recommend the approval of the business affairs recommendations presented in category 23. is there a motion thank you has been properly moved by mrs mckittrick seconded by ms alexander any discussion on business affairs recommendations any discussion hearing and seeing none we'll move to the vote mr pendleton mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes thank you thank you very much next we have the superintendent's report madam superintendent yes sir and tonight i don't have a large formal report i just wanted to make a couple comments first and foremost we want to acknowledge myself on behalf of the entire administrative team with all of our

078presenters here tonight some who spoke some who are here by their presence that we are listening we are observing we're engaging and we are proactively responding to the feedback that we are receiving we do realize as we've transitioned into this new school year that it has brought with it some challenges some of which has been you know things that we have been working to address over time in the system but just want to express how deeply we care about every staff role and every person in our district whether it be the adults who serve in our district or the students that that we serve in the environment of teaching and learning that we really are working towards meeting their needs and we will continue to make ourselves available to meet with faculty and staff so

079that we can better learn about how how to do that how to do that well as well we are in week two of our reset plans that we engaged each and every building along with their school communities in thinking about for this second quarter uh what it was going to take to ensure that um all in the school environment were actively engaged that expectations were clear and that it really was an environment that was not only nurturing to our students but also held them to very high expectations thus far to from what we are hearing from the schools those plans are going well in terms of being enacted in the school and from that we've committed as a team to really a five-point strategy that we will continue to do throughout the the course of

080this year first of all we will continue to reinforce clear behavioral expectations and to make sure students are clear about those and that we are following through accordingly if that minority of student that five percent uh does make a poor choice that there are accountabilities for that we have increased safety measures in the schools and really continue to work to be sure that both the safety measures and the protocols within those are being are effective for our students and our staff members mental health and behavioral supports and also social emotional supports are available for our families and our our students and also we do have many strategies on hand to support staff and so we will continue to make sure all involved are aware of the multitude of supports that we offer and that through

081our partners in the community that they offer as well we will continue to provide increased training again to ensure to a uh to ensure clarity to a communication and to provide any additional tools that that are necessary again right now we are cautiously optimistic about where we are with the schools at the time um but we do know again many of the conversations that we need to have and follow-up are long-standing and so we will continue to work with with all involved thank you very much any questions or comments for madam superintendent hearing and seeing none we'll move to president's report and there's really just two items what three items i'm sorry that uh i wanted to share the the first one is just a reminder that we do have the formative evaluation for uh

082mr pendleton the treasurer um and those were due today and we'll give you one additional day if you need it but we want to make sure we get that in by tomorrow the other thing is i didn't have the opportunity to visit uh akron alternative academy um and meet with the principal as well as get a chance to observe uh some of the classes and conversations with some of the teachers there there's a great love that i experienced from the staff there for that school it's not a large school and in fact the the principal teased and said this tour will be over probably longer than it took you to park your car but i think that it really gave me an opportunity to see some of the additional supports that we provide our students

083and the the love and passion that our staff have for some students who may need that extra care and that that may have been counted out in so many other ways in life and so i just wanted to thank them and also had opportunity to learn her connection with the juvenile detention center and she she talked to me about one of the students graduating recently um and you know the pride that that gives her and the the teachers that work directly in with uh students who may uh have some time on their hands uh but they're able to get their their high school diploma so just wanted to say that i really thoroughly enjoy learning more about that school and if you haven't been there uh i encourage you to go i had the opportunity

084on the other side of the building as bridges had opportunity to run into the bridges principal and she offered an opportunity to more formally come visit so that would be my next visit um but i think that uh with everything that we have going on um it's always good to to learn more about uh our alternative programs and our specialty schools as well so that's and then the last thing i wanted to share is most of us had the opportunity to go to osba we got to sit behind the superman of the weekend mr pendleton as he literally had the red carpet pulled out for us had us escorted to our seats i don't know who he knows that you know i need some of those connections every day but i think that the video

085was beautiful too just if you haven't seen it lisa posted it pretty much from beginning to end so i know most of us are friends with lisa on facebook it it really showed us an opportunity it gave us an opportunity to say that akron definitely has been making strides above and beyond other districts in many ways but it was an opportunity for us to and the entire state to celebrate his contributions when you think about the other things that happen um during the district i'm sorry knowing the state uh capital conference we also uh mr alexander and i got an opportunity to present at that conference um and hopefully it went well we've gotten a few emails since um asking questions um but i think that gave us an opportunity to highlight some of our

086work and some of the work that this board started back in 2017 and has really made a stronger commitment to moving forward but we also had a sad incident where this osba decided not to protect the rights of individuals with their sexual identities as well as those from marginalized other marginalized communities and that was kind of a sad time it just reminds us that uh we have a lot of work to do and our efforts and dedication doesn't stop but you know we we also have work to do as advocates for all people at the state level as well so i'm hoping as we move forward i know mr alexander was our delegate this time he's also a trustee it may give us an opportunity to look at who could be our delegate outside of

087him holding two hats so that might give us an opportunity to have a greater voice too so just something to think about those that is my report any questions or thoughts yes mr alexander i do want to say too that when we're down to capitol conference that uh akron public schools is on the map and we're we're at the top and when you talk to people and start talking about the things what's going on akron public schools they start listening they want to know what's going on so i know that we don't think that we're doing as well we all you always think you can do better we can do better but i want everyone to know that we are doing well throughout the state of ohio because there's a lot of respect that they

088have for akron public schools throughout the state of ohio so i want us to continue to do the work and continue to move forward so we can strive a little higher and not just be one of those at the top but be at the top so that's always my goal to be at the top thank you dr agbar no problem mrs mansfield so i the only reason i didn't want to skip over osba was i did want to talk about the session that mr alexander and dr akbar gave you know i've been going to capitol at least a decade at this point and it had to be one of the best board led sessions i've ever seen and let me tell you why some of it was just getting to hear and be reminded of

089the work that we've all done together but um it was probably the most sincerely interactive it was not you know just a quiz on your phone or there was a real dialogue that went on between board members who were sincerely interested in bringing things to their district so just kudos to uh to both of you for putting that together it's i think you really made a difference in a lot of districts in a very short period of time so thank you so much thank you very much and that might be what you get when you get two people who went to school to be teachers so miss autry yes thank you mr president i just also quickly wanted to just uh piggyback on what mrs mansfield said you guys did a great presentation um it

090was very engaging you know the groups that i was sitting in you know once they realized i was from akron too and certainly i was popular as well so it's like oh yes that's my president so but they were very impressed it was it was the most interactive uh session that i attended the whole weekend i know i'm a little prejudiced but it really was i think people walked away with a lot to take back to their individual districts and it was just a you know nice to be associated be a member of the school board here in akron after that thank you thank you very much mr bravo yeah well we're might as well all pile on here right um being from akron and then also realizing oh my goodness this is a spotlight

091session for like two and a half hours uh you know i wanted to be there to support but i was also like you know just like two and a half hours that is a long that's a longer session uh but i have to say i mean the two hours that i was there i had something at ten o'clock but the two hours i was there flew by it was so good you guys did such an amazing job the way you i mean the preparation clearly that you put into it and the handoffs back and forth and i agree it really was probably well not probably it was the most interactive session that i went to the entire conference as well it was very well done uh and the room was packed and stayed packed uh

092it was just well done well executed well prepped well researched uh so kudos to both of you so good thank you very much um thank you very much uh that's all i have for my report uh and we will go to our treasurer's report mr pendleton two items tonight the first is a reminder that finance committee on monday will be doing a high-level review of the five-year forecast and then at the end of the month a five-year forecast presentation i know mr bravo's favorite um the second item is to share some good news akron public schools receives grants and funding from multiple sources each year each year our dedicated staff work closely with the community and stakeholders to secure local funding above and beyond what our local taxpayers in the state gives us to run

093our district even last year emerging from covet 19 was no different local support not only included the multiple grants and awards that our staff write every board meeting i think five were on this week's board agenda everyone from the lebron james family foundation gar jennings foundation city of akron akron community foundation and dozens and dozens of more last year the district received almost 50 million dollars in grant funds locally we raised over 5 million that's our staff writing for 5 million this year were over 2 million dollars in locally raised grant monies our average annual local grant is around two to two and a half million we've exceeded that uh and that's an amazing feat coming out of covid and i just want to put that in real terms for our stakeholders and everyone listening

094that over the last three years our local funding is the equivalent of funding 165 teachers so just to put that in real terms what that means and so on behalf of the superintendent myself and board to all those who are writing competitive grants and securing those for our students we thank you that concludes my report thank you very much any questions or discussion for mr pendleton sure we're all excited about the riveting five-year forecast uh but seriously the it's a very important legal document for us so um i think we all should be engaged in in understanding that with that being said i did want to mention one other thing before we go to committee reports um i forgot to mention that we had a board retreat as well at a capital conference and were

095able to learn a little bit more about each other but one of those discussions that we had was around how do we better engage with the community and those who come before us and not feel as though our backs are turned to them and so one of those discussions was how can we have those come to present us that's more so in front of us instead of behind us or to our side and so you see the podium uh right behind uh mr perry is why that's theirs from that discussion so that we can have more engagement and not feel as though we're not looking at you or listening when you're come before us because that's very important that you know we are engaged so thank you for uh madam superintendent and mr pendleton for

096helping making sure that we pulled that off i know it seems small but i think it's a major thing um now we'll go to our committee reports legal contracts on board policy mr alexander no report you do have a meeting coming up you want to announce it oh is that oh i thought it was on oh okay all right um finance and capital management mr brevo yes we have our meeting next monday the 22nd at 4 30. uh and also would like to mention too that you know not letting any grass grow under our feet and by the way the five-year forecast you know is very important and one of you lucky folks will get to join one of the best committees the best committee on this board so be very excited about that but

097also not letting any grass grow under our feet treasure pendleton has also been working on and submitted testimony today for house bill 126 which would affect how boards of revision or i should say it would affect boards of education's role in boards of revisions hearings regarding property valuation specifically commercial property so i just wanted to say throw that out there and i uh some of that uh came from treasurer pendleton and i believe my name was on some of that little do you know that we're gonna recognize you what did i do house bill 126 and 140. we do have a few updates on that so as mr bravo mentioned house bill 126 and 140 but house bill 126 has been in the news here in the in front of the legislature over the last

098two weeks unfortunately house bill 126 is being incorrectly framed for local boards of education as we know that almost 40 percent of our revenue is raised locally and this changes the board of tax revision process and while it's being framed at the state house as the school board challenging property values what it is doing is protecting a due process regarding process property values and if these changes are made what will actually happen as corporate partners as residential partners in a process which removes due process it will shift the tax burden to other areas of the community that will have no say and so we're responding with notices of committee on a friday evening we're writing testimony um and i think diana you want to take the the third point there and then we can so

099there were 103 commercial complaints that have occurred in 2021 with the potential loss of 1.2 million to akron public schools so we currently have the opportunity to challenge these complaints and recoup the revenue then also we just want to thank you patrick for the testimony that you offer as well so patrick signed on to our testimony over the weekend so that we could respond to quite literally a 24-hour notice to testimony being given tomorrow so we think thank you for your support thank you very much i think one of the things we shared at the beginning of the year that we wanted to be more involved in advocating at the state level seems like we've been doing that so thank you for all that everyone's done next we'll move to instructional policy and student achievement

100i have no idea who's going first mrs mckittry thank you president akbar so we met on november 1st and we talked about a couple things we had a presentation on the alternative programs here in the district the 10 different programs are for students who either need a flexible learning environment and or a more personalized learning environment to support academic behavioral or social emotional needs each of these programs is tailored specifically for the unique academic and behavioral needs of students the goal of these offerings is to have students either transition back to a traditional school setting but only after meeting rigorous academic behavioral and attendance benchmarks or for some students a collaborative collaborative decision may be made with the family to remain in an alternative program due to the success they are experiencing we also individually

101contract for students at highly specialized alternative programs we currently have 339 students currently attending these programs with a total capacity of 528 seats so moving forward in our committee we'll be continuing our review of these alternative programs including discussions around how we can enhance the communication to families and students regarding these options you know we tend to think of these programs traditionally they get referred through discipline but some of these offerings are valuable for students whether they are a disciplined transfer or not so some of the students including my own son have been able to take advantage of these programs so we want to make sure that it is an offering for those types of students who just need that flexibility discipline or not and then just to review a few items that were voted

102on tonight we approved in business affairs 23.2 the tudor meet program we talked a little bit about that at the last meeting about how mrsgic and our staff presented to us about this resource for students and families one of the things we learned the most during the remote learning time was that students uh students do their homework and and cover their work at all hours anybody who's raised teenagers already knows that because like you're really you're starting your homework now it's ten o'clock i'm going to bed um but one of the things that we do love about this program is that the after hours program has a 24 7 approach and this program was overwhelmingly selected due to that that access and they have a variety of engagement strategies for students such as chat voice

103video or screen sharing they also have writing labs i know mrs mckittrick talked about this a little bit with a 12 hour guaranteed turnaround for those who want to have their papers reviewed and it's language friendly for our english language learners and then i want to go back to item 19.3 which is really exciting especially as a national recognition so congratulations to the superintendent and um to those who've worked so hard on the college and career academies as we did approve a ten thousand dollar grant to become a demonstration site for um for ford ngo and those of you who did get to go to nashville um now people are coming to akron so um so people will be coming to akron and the first time we'll be hosting that will be in 2022. and

104so um i i can't wait to have them see all the programs that we've been doing here and and to see all that hard work so congratulations madam superintendent and that's it thank you thank you very much um and there's always exciting news coming out of our committees i mean our our last but not least committee it's our equity committee uh miss uh i'm sorry dr yeah thanks mr president excuse me um so we we last met um on november 15th and uh we largely excuse me we largely uh covered four blocks of material number one uh we had board member reports so mr alexander and dr akbar um as discussed here to discuss their experience uh presenting at the osba capital conference and um i think in summation you know i think how they

105characterized it here today uh previously is better than i'm going to characterize the song leave it there but again it was a fantastic discussion um regarding research inequity and um and hopefully that will inform strategies that are put in place in the various school districts who were represented in that session excuse me the next section was on miss fowler mack did a great job of uh presenting um the district updates around the district's feedback sessions and first thing i do want to note that that we as we've evolved around the naming of our initiative i think we've arrived at excellence through equity um you know i think that was some feedback as well and so i think that's uh fantastic um and so looking forward to um to to having that put on t-shirts and

106passed out to everyone in the room in the district excellence through equity looking forward to that um and uh please let's do that actually that'd be awesome um uh also um uh also uh we talked about uh whether something around the various committees so for example we have a dei steering committee we also discussed the composition of the core team and various uh subcommittees that that we have loosely have names assigned to as it stands now one of which is a culturally responsive sustaining an education committee the second one is the environment or culture and climate committee and the third one is the family and community engagement committee as well so and so we've got regular representation um on all those committee i think there were some recommendations around some additional folks to consider on

107the family and engagement portion of this but again there's still work to be done around identifying the theory of change or theory of action you know because this also informs what the entry points are going to be with regard to this work in the district at the district level we also miss chapman also provided an update as related to the family paul survey that was developed in concert with sci and so you know she's really trying to use uh this well i'm sorry the point is to use this survey well she's already gotten to pretty good feedback i think 674 responses thus far she's pushing to get more than that um you know but it's really meant to be server that informs the work of the family and community engagement teams and then i think

108last but not least we talked about um the employee resource groups um you know so we as it stands today we have uh three well i should say that we're still kind of in that forming storming norming phase you know but as it stands now we have three groups that really have coalesced thus far uh one is the akron educators for social justice group or aesj is kind of acronym that they've adopted thus far the second one is the new and existing employees united or neu and then the third is aps pride and so again you know these groups are still in kind of that forming storming norming phase um you know and so so there may be um there may be some changes to the names of one of these commanders or we could

109see another committee um sort of grow out of um one of the three that that are currently in place um but i think one of the things that we talked about was that um these groups are um for a great catalyst also would be great catalyst for socializing our equity vision of excellence um documents as well so and then then once that's uh and then once that's done i think that the schedule is to complete oh and i you know i skipped this part um we're also um uh we've also uh want to say the superintendent has also been out socializing this with various stakeholders as well that the our vision document our excellence equity document um and so i think the goal is to have that wrapped up by um by the new year

110uh and so um and once that's done i think we can sort of start to move forward with the theory of action theory of change so um still again a lot of robust work being around that um so again a lot of thought considerations going into that i know many of you in this room are involved on one of those committees and so again i want to thank you for your commitment um to forwarding excellence through equity all right that is mr alexander was there anything that you'd like to add dr akbar no i think you hit it all but it's going to be i think what's going on in our school district when we start talking about equity is going to be really nice it's going to be beneficial not just for the students

111but for the district and i i want to say in that meeting also that we had there was a lot of good suggestions that came out and it was a very very good meeting and i'm looking forward to seeing what the work and outcome will be from what we're doing uh now with the district madam superintendent and everyone in the district will be doing around this equity piece so i think all the students will be able to benefit in the district as well so it's been good good report dr hall thank you very much any discussion or questions for the equity committee hearing and seeing none uh we have no unfinished business to come before the board uh we'll move to new business is there any new business hearing none uh no new business uh

112and there's no need to recess into executive session today and so with that being said it sounds like that's the end of our agenda today so we will entertain a motion [Laughter] it has been properly moved by mrs alexander and secretary by dr hall thank you everyone and we'll see you in two weeks good meeting everyone and actually our next meeting is after thanksgiving so have it have a good thanksgiving you