001uh [Music] good afternoon everyone and welcome to the regularly scheduled board meeting of the akron public schools board of education on 12 april 2021 we appreciate everyone being here today for our difference of time due to some other activities superintendent search and other things we wanted to change our time so we're going to go ahead and get started and do roll call and turn it over to mr pendleton dr akbar here mr alexander president ms autry president mr bravo president dr hall hi mrs mansfield here this is mckittrick here and welcome online to our student board member kyries brunson today it's a change from your schedule that you have from east clc thank you i don't see kyrie signed in okay he's not going to join us tonight he said he's not he is not
002okay thank you okay so uh we're gonna move to the pledge of allegiance and mr alexander if you can lead us in the pledge please pledge allegiance to the land of the united states one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much mr alexander uh next we'll move to school uh and community reflections is it are there any school and community reflections we'll start with mrs uh mckittrick and then if you can raise your hand after her i would first like to um okay congratulate jackie silas butler on the latest project grad march gradness it was probably the most fun i've ever had watching a game of family feud so from everybody to from ms silas butler all the way down to the folks at the knight center who
003passed out the food job well done thank you very much anyone else mrs mansfield so um our school board member madison diese happens to be a pitcher for the firestone high school softball team and i have had the pleasure of getting to see her pitch twice it's been a long time since i watched some good softball and wanted to congratulate her and her team on on their season um i have not seen a victory yet so i'm starting to wonder if i'm like bad luck but um she's done a great job and uh it's been really great to get back into watching some live sports so i really appreciate that i also want to congratulate her on her advocacy on behalf of students in general and especially of the softball team she called a meeting
004for herself and myself and ask that deb folk come and talk to us about covid restrictions and policy and what that was and what that meant and how she could help better explain it to students deb thank you very much you did a fantastic job and just want to congratulate madison on taking that step because that's exactly why we have student school board members it's not just so they can come and and represent but it's also so that they can advocate for four people at their school so well done i got to attend the robotics tournament at firestone high school several of our schools were in participation for that there was a series going around and this one was in honor of dan spak who um unfortunately passed away last year during the coven beginning
005of kovid so um it was wonderful to be back in a building and to see students all participating so really great job there then this past week i actually got to present for the nsba conference online and a big thanks to laura kepler and deb folk for the information they were able to give it was a session on ending childhood hunger one neighborhood and one school at a time and akron was asked to represent as well as a superintendent from um i'm going to get it wrong i was in north carolina and i can't remember which county right now but lovely superintendent and we had a really robust discussion about how we're not going to waste a perfectly good pandemic and that we need to learn from what things were waived during the pandemic because
006if they were waived they were barriers that probably shouldn't be there for students and getting food into their hands and to hands of family so huge thanks to deb and laura for the information they were able to give me regarding statistics and akron and the things that we've done so that's it thank you thank you mrs matthew anyone else miss autry thank you mr president um so on the 29th right before spring break i was invited by mr kenny smith from buchtel community learning center who's a restorative practice coordinator there he teaches a class called success prep he has two 8th grade classes and i was invited as well as our councilmen to sit in on a few things that they've been working on including a few poems about where they're from and it was
007very enlightening to hear some of their back stories in poetry form we sat in circles with these young people they had some of the more common things we hear about issues with cafeteria food so i was able to hear a lot about that but i also asked them what they liked so much about the class the number one thing that kept coming to the forefront is how much they really like mr kenny smith but there's only one of him but that was just a common theme they also felt really safe they felt heard they felt like it was a good place to get positive feedback without being judged and i asked the students what would make you come to a class like this in their summertime they said mr smith but they also indicated that
008if some type of art was included in that they mentioned sports a lot some of the students mentioned a rage room and i'm not sure how familiar everyone is with that but it's a i guess a room set up where you can just break things and release energy in a way that is safe but that was mentioned several times so but the the class is based around social emotional learning um it's offered to eighth graders at brookdale and the students really seem to appreciate uh the class so they're hoping to see more of it in the future and even expand it in the summer somehow so it's best very special thank you to them for inviting me also i just wanted to say a thank you to the folks who have emailed us in regards
009to the the naming of kenmore garfield and everything surrounding that i just want folks to know that those emails have been read and they're considered i'm not sure how we're moving forward with that but i can certainly relate to what it feels like having community pride and just the thought of of a piece of that history possibly being lost so i just wanted to acknowledge those folks and thank them for engaging thank you thank you dr hall thanks mr president i had a similar comment to ms autry as related to the um the community response around the kenmore garfield um uh building and what it would ultimately be named um again want to thank the folks who reached out um i think the one thing that it's important to note here is that there have
010been a number of folks who have emailed several of us uh and they've laid out like multi-page letters um they have been very thoughtful uh respectful uh in in how they've been sort of stated in making a case one way or the other um on that topic and uh you know not you know these aren't five second responses these people you could tell took you know maybe several hours to to compose a response and i think i think it's it's important for all of us to sort of recognize that um that this is that this is a a very an issue about which there are very passionate people um they're taking time out out of their work days and evenings um you know to reach out to us so i just would like to again
011thank them uh and i would ask that that continue um you know uh you know you know this is all politics is local uh you know and so and there are seven of us and we're here our best ability is our availability uh and we're here to listen to you um and so uh keep those emails calls and and letters coming that's super important you know because you are being heard and it is making a difference so but you need to keep it up so so please keep it up thanks thank you very much dr hall any other uh immunity school reflections okay hearing none we will move to request to address the board currently there's no request to address the board so we will move forward from there and due to approval of the
012previous uh meeting minutes from the regular meeting on march 22 to the two special meetings on march 23rd and march 25th is there a motion to the second it's been moved by mr bravo seconded by mrs mckittrick any discussion hearing none mr pendleton will do the roll call dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes mrs mckittrick yes thank you thank you very much now we move to uh personnel recommendations uh mr superintendent uh yes mr president before moving approval i'd like to point out item 16.1 where i regret to report that thomas turner a temporary custodial worker for akron public schools passed away on march 24 2021 he had been an employee of the board since november of 2019. and with that i would
013like to recommend approval of the personnel recommendations presented in categories five through 16. sorry okay there you go it's been properly moved by mrs mansfield is there a second mr mr bravo has seconded uh is there any discussion mrs mansfield just wanted to give my personal thanks and hopefully thanks on behalf of the board for uh the service of mary perkins in particular she's been here and she's been a rock solid person that the board can rely on and a lot of my interactions with her have been axillary but whenever i needed her she was always there so just wanted to point that out thank you thank you very much mr alexander i just want to kind of echo what mrs mansfield said about mrs perkins she's been here a long time and i've had
014the pleasure of working with her over 25 plus years and she was uh responsible for helping us on our policy committee and so she's done a lot and she's going to be really missed just like mrs clackler is going to be missed there are two that have been here have been stable employees for akron public schools for a number of years have been solid and committed to the district so we want to congratulate her on her retirement and wish her wish her well during her retirement thank you very much thank you any other discussion okay hearing none uh we want to do roll call uh mr premier mr alexander yes ms autry yes mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes thank you thank you very much next
015uh we have resolutions and motions on the consent agenda mr superintendent yes mr president and i wish to recommend approval of the resolutions and motions presented in category 21. thank you it's been uh recommended by the superintendent for the motions and resolutions on the consent agenda is there any uh motion on the table so moved it's been moved by mrs mckittrick second seconded by mrs altrey any discussion okay hearing none uh mr pendleton roll call please ms autry yes mr bravo yes dr hall aye ms mansfield yes this is mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes thank you thank you very much next we have business affairs recommendations uh mr superintendent mr president i wish to recommend approval of the business affairs recommendations presented in category 23. thank you very much it's been uh
016recommended for the category 23 business affairs recommendations are is there a motion second it's been moved by mrs mansfield seconded by mr bravo i'm sorry it's been moved by mr bravo seconded by mr alexander uh all uh is there any discussion mrs mansfield i just can't tell you how excited i am to see problems and graduation on there thank you so much mr superintendent and uh can't wait to hear more information about that but um what a relief that feels like so thank you yes agreed any any other discussion hearing none mr uh pendleton mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes this is mcketrick yes dr akbar yes sir alexander yes ms autry yes thank you thank you very much we net we moved to uh superintendent's report just one item as was
017brought up earlier project ujima did conduct some discussion circles with staff students and community regarding kenmore garfield and i hope to have that report and present it to board at our next meeting thank you thank you very much for that update uh any questions for the superintendent i'm hearing none we'll move to president's report uh just three things i'll start actually with the camera garfield renaming as mr superintendent said we will receive the first part of the report from dr james at the next meeting is the hope and then we will have time to review it mr james i'm sorry dr james then will uh give us a formal recommendation at our meeting probably following that we will ask the board uh that will be our first meeting in may we'll ask the board to
018consider both the report from project yujima and the recommendation from the superintendent and we can either make a decision at that meeting or what i would suggest us to do is to think about all of that in total uh go back talk to people and then at our final meeting in may to make that final decision but we'll have that opportunity to see if that's the course of action we want to take but i think we do want to keep on course like we stated is to make a decision before the end of may that will give time for the builders as well to do everything they need to do to put up the name and all of that around the building so any questions or discussion on on that okay hearing none um just
019want to thank everyone for participating in the board professional development process phase one we are moving into phase two of that process so if you have not received outreach for further participation that means that you may not be needed for phase two but those of you who have will need to respond ms solomon should have sent everyone um doodle polls to try to get that scheduled so if you could respond uh that will be great um as ruth has done has done an outstanding job trying to help coordinate all of this process for us so um we'll then move to phase three from there um and the hope is along with uh our treasurer and cfo and superintendent uh to yet to be named uh we will have in july sometime a board retreat uh
020to kind of culminate uh this process so uh thank everyone for participating thus far um any questions about that my last thing is uh for everyone listening and just for the board we're uh in the process of doing our interviews for the the net superintendent there are multiple forms for the community partners and business leaders also for aps staff and also open community forums at 6 p.m today tuesday wednesday and thursday we encourage everyone who can participate virtually to tune in to hear from those candidates and also really would like to encourage you to complete the form forms so that we can have feedback on your thoughts around the strengths and weaknesses of each one of those candidates in each one of those sessions would be very helpful to this board as we make this
021very important decision about our nets leadership of this district and that's what i have for our report any questions about that okay hearing none we'll move on to our treasure and cfo report mr pendleton no report this evening wow okay uh thank you very much uh committee reports uh we'll start with legal contracts and board policy no report okay i didn't even get your name out yet okay no report for legal contracts in court policy finance and capital management uh mr bravo our meeting is scheduled for next week okay thank you so no report next week is the meeting uh everyone who can attend please do instructional policy and student achievement no report so the board should check their email later today they'll be an email from dr mcwilliams woods going over some things that
022were as a a preview so that we could cut presentations tonight down a little bit we don't we want to make sure senior staff can participate in some of the upcoming events this evening so thank you very much um i appreciate that moving forward to equity committee uh dr hall so i will save the day i have a very robust report out that will take the next 45 minutes uh no i'm just kidding i'm just kidding just a little board of education humor um so we met our committee met last thursday april 8th where we continued our movement in integration of ms chapman is our new chief dei officer she's doing a fantastic job as she moves forward to facilitate that committee uh alongside myself mr alexander we began by just getting an update around
023um as related to our district district equity audit we put out an rfq where we'll be accepting proposals for developing implementing conducting and analyzing and reporting on the district's equity audit and we're going to focus on three areas human resources business affairs and community relations to start next we had a really really informative position that was done by miss karen geejick from teaching and learning um on really kind of providing everything around the the initials that they're engaged in around equity and across a you know social game might sort of find out where we are where we've been uh where she referenced uh the work that mr alexander did around bringing an equity policy uh to us in 2017 and then kind of walked us through current initiatives and then where they hoped to go
024and there was really a lot in there again i'm doing a disservice by not walking you all through the slides because it was really that good um you know but but just a couple of highlights we talked about um you know really auditing um uh some of the content you know that's one thing that you know that's coming along the way i think i think we're gonna begin with social studies um and then also uh you know really utilize and that will really allow us to utilize our uh our our newly hired dei learning specialist as well so that person's gonna get put right to work um you know we talked about new faculty orientations and some of the movement around professional development um in in you know incorporating uh more of an equity framework
025to allow our teachers to sort of view things more well through through an equity lens um you know and so uh identifying that um you know that that this is currently all this is really a work in progress but again um again just want to thank her for the time that that she put in uh to do in that position because it really made me feel a whole lot better uh i see that she's in a room so thank you miss jesus appreciate it i thank you for your time um so so that was sort of where we where we left things um you know i think future actions again we'll continue to have um oh i forgot so so each department is also doing uh equity assessments as well and so we'll begin to
026hear the results of those departmental equity assessments as we sort of move into subsequent meetings uh and then begin the process of bringing bringing folks back to provide updates on how on how their um equity work plans uh are progressing so um so i'll leave it there and again just want to sort of you know thank you uh you know you know thank the company for their ongoing work so i'll see the four back to mr president thank you very much any questions uh for the equity committee uh miss autry thank you mr president it's not actually a question um i didn't see on the agenda an item for the ad hoc communications committee who has met you're right okay so you are next thank you very much thank you thank you so much so
027on the 29th the ad hoc communications uh committee uh did meet for our second meeting um and it was a very um informative meeting our invited perspectives to that meeting were dr loy and nguyen and mae walker dr nguyen is doing a lot of great work in the north cluster as far as communications are concerned and she shared with us as a reminder to everyone you know that we have 64 different languages and dialects that we have 26 interpreters to manage our top 17 languages that we have and we do contract with another agency who manages the other languages 24 7 around the clock and we also have bilingual staff who are very helpful with assisting with interpretations and whatnot we discussed north high school graduates possibly being a pipeline for us in the future
028because many of them have had the experience of having to deal with language barriers and as they proceed through our system coming back to possibly assist us with those families in that community she shared also some of the things that they're they've been doing including videos for those who don't read in their language google forms for any aps employee to kind of assist with any barriers they have and she gave me an example of bus drivers who've reached out just for signage on the bus something we probably don't think about but that is very necessary as more of our students are using our transportation we discussed that turnaround time can be a challenge i learned that dr nguyen also is the person who takes all the emergency calls so we have just her that one
029person managing those after hours emergency situations um so that was discussed um may walker who is a former principal and social worker helps with our family liaisons and she just discussed how they've grown from 7 to 28. we're still seeking out those liaisons they're coming to be a very important part of our communication because they're the connectors to our families and they only work 24 hours a week and she did uh mention uh pay so i know that was the issue that came up with and they're very valuable part of our team so i think it's important as we expect more from them that they are adequately compensated in my opinion they are 2-1-1 trained and they do two events per year for families that they're responsible for um and then also mark williamson gave
030us an update on our hub spot which is the current platform we've been using that's really growing really well and we're just looking to further expand that and we'll have more updates on that and at our next meeting our invited perspective will be uh marcia pullman from college and career academies and that's all thank you very much that was a very robust meeting it sounds like kind of sad i missed it um any anyone have any questions for miss altre okay hearing hearing none i did leave out one item out of my report which is a legislative update that we are we did receive a request from state senator sites to have a visit with our board at our next meeting between senator seitz and leader sykes and representative golovsky our legislators of who cover
031akron public schools in columbus so we will be having them come next meeting to talk with us about that process we've been very blessed to have mr pendleton work alongside them especially with senator seitz on the patterson bill and the senate companion that's that's been that was there before and that's working now as well so uh he wanted to come share some news about that as well as uh some the pivotal role that we've played there in ways we can actually uh play some more pivotal roles in the future so we'll have that update at our next meeting as well so i'm really excited to to expand that uh partnership as well any questions on that okay with that being said there are there's no unfinished business as well as uh currently there's no new
032business unless there's new business uh that the board would like to add today hearing no one jumping up for joy to add new business uh we'll close that out there's no need for uh recess into executive session uh so we will uh accept a motion to adjourn so move it's been moved by mr bravo second second hit by mrs uh mckittrick thank you very much everyone for joining us today we will be back the board will be tomorrow for two of our candidate interviews which will be conducted in executive session but we will do have special award meetings for those as well as one on wednesday as well so we'll see everyone back here tomorrow thank you and go to the community forum yes [Music] yes oh i'm sorry we don't okay yeah we don't
033do okay yeah that's what i thought [Laughter] thank you very much all right thanks so