001hello and welcome to this virtual presentation with superintendent david james who will deliver his final state of the akron public schools message today dr james will retire this summer after 13 years as superintendent and 29 years with the school district thank you for joining us my name is carla davis and i am president of the akron press club the akron press club was founded in to promote a free press and to serve local journalists and public relations professionals your support for the akron press club helps us to present programs that keep the community informed and engaged and provide scholarships for journalists and public relations students we are coming to you virtually today because the press club has not been able to hold traditional lunch programming during this covid 19 pandemic our lunches fund scholarships for
002journalism and public relations students but like many organizations our revenues have felt the impact of covid that is why we are asking you to consider a donation to the press club to fund scholarships between the press club and the john s knight memorial scholarship fund scholarships of five thousand dollars were awarded to nine students in 2020 these scholarships make a difference to the students who receive them to donate to the press club scholarships go to our website akronpressclub.org there you will find an item with the headline help the press club fund scholarships click on the headline and you will find details on how to make a donation again that is akronpressclub.org also please check the website for upcoming press club events now on to today's speaker the moderator for today's virtual presentation is bruce wingus
003akron press club board member and past president bruce held a number of positions at the beacon journal during his 37-year career and was editor and vice president from until his retirement in 2019 let us welcome bruce thank you good afternoon welcome to the speech today and i will let you know that there will be opportunity to ask questions following dr james's speech those questions may be sent via email to the press club 2020 press club 2021 gmail.com that's all one wordpressclub2021 gmail.com david james became superintendent of the akron public schools in 2008 he was not a conventional candidate for the position and that his experience came from the operational side of things but he was more than up to leading the school system here are a few of the highlights of his career he supervised
004an 800 million dollar building and renovation project that turned akron schools into community learning centers it was the largest such building project in the school systems history under dr james's leadership the district implemented the college of career academies college and career academies excuse me which provided students with a chance to focus on an educational goal and guide their high school experience aps also has a strong relationship with the university of akron through the lebron james foundation school of education and then there's the i promise school a partnership with lebron james family foundation that has become a blueprint for how public education can change the lives of students and their families dr james attended cleveland state university earning a bachelor's degree in economics a master's degree in public administration he also has been recognized for his
005leadership over the years here a few of his awards he received the ohio superintendent outstanding performance award from the martha holden jennings foundation received the glass half full award from the gar foundation and from 2017 through 2018 he was president of the buckeye association of school administrators received a community service award from project grad and he's recipient of the harold k stubbs humanitarian award in education david james has led the akron public schools through levies and finally a pandemic one more thing i need to mention throughout his time as superintendent the akron press club has sponsored dr james's annual state of the akron schools speech that partnership has allowed the press club to raise thousands of dollars for journalism and communication students going to college over the years we thank you for that thank you
006very much well that's a lot for this long career and that's probably the longest introduction i've done for a while so please welcome dr david james to the akron press club [Applause] thank you and good afternoon and welcome to my 2021 state of the akron public schools address now lucky for me i have a backup here we're having some technology issues so probably halfway through the presentation i'll have to read it from paper um but overall it's good to be with you so it's good to be here with you today and this is my last state of the school's address for akron public schools as superintendent again a role that i've served in for the past 13 years so today i want to focus on a little bit of what has changed over that time
007and then provide a few updates on our schools when kovitch struck we adopted a temporary brand and although we've always been adaptive responsive and supportive never more has that applied than in this past calendar year to underscore the many ways that we have been adaptive responsive and supportive i want to call your attention to the flip book that summarizes our approach this past year as we face the covet 19 pandemic most of you have been sent a link to these materials and they will also appear on our website after my speech again thank you bruce wingus and the akron press club for sponsoring this event uh for years uh now and um again just to be clear the email address if you want to ask questions is press club 2021 gmail.com today i would like
008to acknowledge our school board members dr nj akbar our board president dr derek hall board vice president bruce alexander diana autry patrick bravo lisa mansfield and valerie mckittrick also our student school board members kyries brunson from east coc madison dees from firestone coc chandler fourschee from kenmore garfield high school diesence jackson from buchto clc abigail kearns from ellett clc michaela perryman from north high school salaam saeed from akron early college high school shaheen williams from the national inventors hall of fame stem high school i want to thank you all for your leadership all i can say is wow what a difference a year makes in my wildest dreams i never envisioned making this speech virtually and i know we've all grown a little tired of the isolation and the lack of in-person interaction with our
009peers but thank you all for joining us i'm told we have over 500 people watching online with us today and look some of you didn't have to get dressed up or venture out into the cold so i guess we're all lucky it's amazing how nearly 30 years can go by in a flash and actually i have a prop here i have a box of kleenex in case i'm driven to tears and you know by the hundreds of happy sad funny and so many other member memories of our time together so first why choose to retire okay for those of you who don't really know me this is my attempt at humor all right so no i have not found a way to embezzle millions of dollars to buy a tropical escape you know with the
010state auditor's office and our books every year i wouldn't get too far with that one nor none of the things that seem to drive people away poor relationships constant negative headlines in the paper or embarrassing social media posts none of that is for me the reality is i made a promise years ago to try and lead with integrity and respect and not overstay my welcome to me that's a very important aspect of leadership you have to plan for and know when to exit because no leader can be everything an organization needs because over time the organization changes and so does the leader and with reflection a leader will know when it's time to go to turn over that road to another so the organization can continue to look to grow flourish and achieve higher levels
011of performance you see it's not about the individual it's about the collective all of the people who make up the akron public schools including all of you deserve the right leader for the right time back in 2008 maybe that was me but i venture to say the jury is still out because legacies are formed long after the leader exits why because leaders during their tenure start many things but actually complete few the foundation may be laid but the house has yet to be completed in early fall i was sitting in my office actually reviewing some past speeches of mine and realized the connection to the idea of planting seeds and i could not get that idea out of my head in fact we have planted many seeds over the years and anyone who gardens knows
012that sometimes those seeds flourish and grow into plants that bear fruit and other times we're not so lucky so the work in our collective garden so to speak has always been about improving our community providing opportunities for our children so they can learn grow and become and i'll call this part of my speech little did i know so little did i know back in 2010 that the first cohort of students in our project lead the way bioscience class at north high school would set the foundation for our vision of the college and career academies of akron you see using a career theme lens for to teach students excuse me is part of what our partnership with ford next generation learning is all about and speaking of ford ngo it was a news article that popped
013up on my computer screen some years ago by accident that outline what metropolitan nashville schools was doing with their academies and that led me to the motto in the first place just think would have hap what would have happened if i would have just ignored that article little did i know that way back in 2002 when i met the likes of the late tony garant lynn smith lucerado brad schroeder and others on our business advisory council that these relationships would help me understand the needs of our local businesses and provide the foundation for all the outstanding business partnerships within the akron public schools today and little did i know that our agreement with the akron education association back in 2010 to sign the memorandum of understanding to participate in the federal race of the top
014program would prepare akron public schools for so many other transformational changes in our schools in partnership with our excellent teachers and little did i know that what started out as i'll just use the term lively discussion between former mayor don plisquelle in front of my bosses dr sylvester small and donna loomis at the time would turn into a fruitful relationship to rebuild our schools as community centers community learning centers and on august 1st of 2008 as i stood in the office upstairs at 70 north broadway i actually called my mom and dad and i said what did i get myself into here it was so overwhelming to be named the 22nd superintendent of our schools and little did i know that my relationships with so many of you across the community would enrich my life
015so much so during my tenure there have been many ups and downs opening new schools closing schools facing upset parents students staff that their beloved buildings had closed the heartbreaking stories as well attending the memorial service at east high school for marine corporal derrick a wyatt who lost his life in while serving our country in afghanistan to the many services over the years to mourn the loss of our students staff and family members and the loss of important community members like phil maynard dwayne eisham and others who have had a major impact on our community to the death of nakia crawford and other young people due to senseless acts of violence they all weigh heavily on our hearts and they all impact our schools and of course there are the happy times the annual may
016festival our annual science fair where students get to show off their knowledge bands in the round and hundreds of other ways students do showcase their talents they're a wonderful testament to them and their teachers and speaking of teachers our annual teacher of the year banquet has been a highlight every year honoring our dedicated educators in fact i want to mention our current teacher of the year maggie oliver from helen arnold clc we had a tremendous audience last spring while we were all isolated for our first virtual teacher of the year celebration and maggie please know how much we wish it could have been done in another way with more of a celebration but we know you understand and you are a wonderful teacher who inspires children and other educators thank you and congratulations my fondest
017memories though are those in which our seniors cross the stage at graduation after all our most important work is ensuring that our students are prepared for what comes next so looking to the future i want to reflect on what i believe are the needs of our children in terms of their learning today and in the years ahead when many of us old timers went to school we had to memorize so many facts and figures i remember in fourth grade in mrs hunter's class at mount pleasant elementary school in cleveland trying to memorize my times tables being able to recognize states on a map memorizing state capitals or the formula for the quadratic equation in eighth grade algebra at nathan hill junior high school in cleveland yes so much had to be crammed into our brains
018today however and more importantly tomorrow i believe our students need to be equipped to know how to solve complex problems across disciplines all of our core topics in education remain important but the amount of information today is staggering in just the last 10 years we have probably learned more about the universe and all of record previous recorded history and i'm not saying that memorizing facts and figures is not important what i am saying is that what you do with that information is most important the connections we make the inferences we gain from analyzing data and finding solutions to our complex problems is what our students need to know how to do today and more importantly tomorrow regurgitating facts and figures is not what's needed but creating new knowledge is now over the last four years
019we have implemented our college and career academies of akron that transformation as the only school districts in the state of ohio achieving the designation as a for next generation learning community we have brought together nearly 360 business and community partners to help prepare our students for what comes next after graduation with the support of forward next generation learning the united way of summit county the gar foundation connexus neo the great iraq akron chamber the summit education initiative and our business partners we are in the midst of a transformational change in our community our students now have the opportunity to get exposure to the various career fields our local employers have to offer and will have a better chance to enlist in the military enroll in college or gain further employment on december 9th we celebrated
020the addition of goodyear as a named academy partner at ellett coc and the national inventors hall of fame science technology engineering and math high school i'd like to thank goodyear ceo rich kramer and the entire goodyear staff for your commitment and partnership welcome to our college and career academies of akron family with that we now have 12 named academy partnerships at brookdale coc we have the suma health academy of leadership and innovation and the huntington academy of global industry and design at east clc we have the bridgestone academy of applied engineering and technology and the key bank academy of business and health services at ellett coc the cuyahoga valley national park academy of global marketing and media and again the good year academy of applied engineering and at firestone coc three kent state university sponsored
021academies the academy of advanced technology and engineering the academy of design and the academy of performing arts at kenmore garfield the first energy academy of emerging technology and design at north high school of course the akron children's hospital academy of health and human services and at the national inventors hall of fame stem high school the goodyear academy of advanced technology and design and currently we are looking for three additional named academy partners at the following academies at ellett clc the academy of community health and safety which includes the pathways of animal studies criminal justice and fire safety at kenmore garfield the academy of innovation and industry the career pathways and that academy include construction and building technology culinary arts and nursing and patient care at north high school the academy of global technology and business
022and this academy includes the pathways of entrepreneurship and marketing hvac technology i t support services and programming software development for more information on being a named academy partner go to our website at ccaa.akronschools.com you will also find our academy's latest annual report posted there our academy partnerships also include our post-secondary institutions to help meet our goal of increasing the number of students who are ready to enroll in college before they even graduate from high school so in addition to the three academies that are sponsored by kent state at firestone clc we have added what we call sister university and sister college partnerships as well the university of akron is the sister university for ellett clc and the national inventors hall of fame stem high school stark state college is the sister college of kenmore garfield
023high school and the university of mount union is the sister university of north high school and as i stated last year the goal here is to improve college preparation so more students can succeed at the post-secondary level with nearly 60 career pathways within our high schools along with these robust partnerships there there is really no good excuse for our students not to take advantage of these opportunities and in an effort to better prepare our middle school students for their high school experience our board of education approved the middle school college and career academy master plan in december over the last year a steering committee met and developed this master plan and we want you to know we're not just replicating the high school model middle school academies are their own unique creation we have designed
024them keeping focus on what miller middle schoolers will have ahead of them in high school so they must be different and middle school academy learning will promote a positive school climate integrate social emotional learning and shift instruction to an inquiry-based model simply put students and teachers will work in small learning communities they will solve real world problems that are driven by community issues and students own personal interests we call this thematic learning they will also be exploring careers getting an earlier start than ever in akron public schools and different from the high school academies in middle school we will rely heavily on non-profit and philanthropic organizations to provide career exploration and service learning opportunities students will also develop individual plans including the opportunity to take higher level classes and earn high school credit while in
025middle school all of this will help our students become better learners classmates and community leaders prepare to enter the high school academies i can't imagine where akron public schools would be without the work that is being done by our non-profit partners our key partners who are instrumental in launching our high school academies will continue to be instrumental with our middle school transformation as well and today we want to acknowledge some of our new partners specifically for the middle schools the akron community foundation we know that the akron community foundation is where generous families individuals companies and non-profits make charitable gifts to go the furthest for the permanent good of our community acf has served as a convener for all of our master planning sessions with our middle schools additionally acf provided funding to launch the
026middle school transformation including funding a full-time staff person to coordinate the middle school partnerships with the community the martha holden jennings foundation for more than 60 years the martha holden jennings foundation has awarded grants to ohio schools for a wide variety of projects and initiatives that foster deep learning and excellent teaching the foundation has been a primary funder of the exploration planning and launch of the middle school transformation i would like to thank john peters and the akron community foundation along with dr dan keenan and the martha holden jennings foundation for their support of our expansion of college and career academies of akron to our middle schools i also want to send out a special thank you to the gar foundation from our stem programs to the college and career academies and many more christine
027mayer and kirsten toth have been our thought partners throughout this journey i can honestly say without the support of the gar foundation none of these programs would be possible so thank you for standing with us from day one it should also be noted that we have two new financial partners supporting us in our college and career academy work the hewlett foundation and the chan zuckerberg initiative the united way of summit medina has been awarded a 1.5 million dollar grant from the chan zuckerberg initiative these funds will go to akron public schools to build and sustain comprehensive wellness and learning opportunities for students through college and career academies of akron this grant will also support educators as they transform teaching and learning practices to ensure that our students are both college and career ready in addition
028the grant will support the development and the expansion of college and career academies into our elementary schools this will jump start a master planning process to create the systems and structures needed to strategically plan and build the infrastructure required to implement that and sustain that vision of making our college and career academies a k-12 transformation it will propel us to a place that will fulfill our goal of creating a k-12 experience that will be a foundational change for our districts we have also been awarded a 1.5 million dollar grant from the hewlett foundation this grant will support our strategies to improve student engagement and enlist parent and community support for student learning by sharing information with them in key decisions about schooling it will also support our educators as they adapt to these unprecedented circumstances
029united way of summit county will act as fiscal agent for both of these grants but let's not stop there this year we have also successfully added portage path community learning center to our international baccalaureate program family in the firestone cluster with the addition of portage path clc all firestone cluster schools are now part of the ib family and yes i think we should expand our ib programming to other schools as well so stay tuned and speaking of expanding i am really speechless regarding the work of lebron james and the lebron james family foundation so it wasn't enough to transition the wheels for education program to the i promise program then adding the i promise scholarship at the university of akron and then the i promise institute at the university of akron and then of course
030a creation of the i promise school from there to the i promise village a place where families can have a stable housing environment to get on their feet at the same time helping our kids the latest addition is house 330 located at the tangier which is being converted to a multi-function community resource space all i can say is wow and when you look at the west hill neighborhood it is really being transformed and that transformation doesn't even end there you know through the i promise huddle leaders from across the country are learning from our experience here in akron through an annual program to spread the word and explore promising practices and share experiences on how the we are family philosophy can help our communities change for the better for me to witness this transformation and
031the effect it is having on our students and community is utterly amazing kudos to lebron james and michelle campbell for their inspiration because you see by bringing great people to the table we can also drive change across our community with that being said i am so proud of our partnership with united way of summit and medina and their vision for a community where all individuals and families achieve their human potential through education financial stability and healthy lives in 2017 united way established its four bold goals for 2025 and two of them support education in support of education under bold goal 1 by 2025 65 percent of our third graders will be reading at or above grade level and for bowl goal 2 by 2025 90 percent of our high schoolers will graduate in four years
032with 60 percent being college and career ready in addition united way is focused on supporting a variety of financial services within the community these include the financial empowerment center the volunteer income tax assistance program bridges summit county and bank on rubber city the family resource centers operate at our helen arnold coc and robinson coc are locations where people in the surrounding neighborhoods can come and get the resources they need to get by during these difficult times for our families the services provided can include health and social services academic enrichment for their kids and more so that our students can succeed and that's really important united way is also expanding the footprint and will open another family resource center at mickey bright coc to jim mullen and the entire united way summit and medina board thank
033you for all you do and not just for akron public schools but for our entire community now as i stated before the pandemic has forced many of us to do things a little differently this year and some of us never miss a beat i am always impressed with the work of project grant akron and executive director jackie silas butler in october the annual achieving dreams event was virtual and jackie figured out how to get the knight center to cater the food and have it picked up so patrons only had to drive up pick it up and take it home to reheat it then to outdo everyone else she had stacey abrams as the keynote speaker and those who attended received a copy of her book all i can say is congratulations on a job well
034done and then in december i noticed in our conference room on the fifth floor of the sylvester small administration building it was filled with all these non-perishable items and i was starting to get hungry it to me it looked like the akron canton regional food bank which you know by the way under the leadership of dan flowers has done an outstanding job of providing much needed food to our community during this pandemic at any rate jackie and project grant provided care packages to the college students who are in the project grad scholarship program to help them get by during the winter break how thoughtful even though i'm still upset that in 2011 during cooking for calls my lego lamb gyros did not beat out sauerkraut balls even my daughter jennifer said it was so unfair
035that she helped me at that at that event but all is forgiven jackie and i promise not to move you again before i retire our partners who are focused on student achievement have rely have relied upon summit education initiative their research and predictive analytics to establish metrics that we all follow to ensure that our students are on track for success and because of the hard work of matt devers and sei we know that by the end of freshman year high school students who earn six and a half credits obtain a 3.0 gpa or higher and miss fewer than eight days of school are more likely to graduate from high school college and career ready we have seen the percentage of freshman students who have earned those 6.5 credits increased from 41 percent in 2018 to
03664 percent in 2020. the percentage of high school freshmen with a 3.0 grade point average or higher rose from 26.1 percent in 2018 to 29.1 percent in 2020 and the percentage of our students missing eight days or less from school stands at about 55 percent and i'll talk more about attendance later in addition out-of-school suspensions have decreased by 12.3 percent this past year and our in-school suspensions decreased by 38.1 percent among our high school freshmen this past year and based on data from our most recent state report card from 2019 to 2020 our four-year graduation rate increased from 79.8 percent to eighty point two percent and for our students enrolled in our college and uh career technical pathway programs their four-year graduation rate increased from ninety four point six percent in 2019 to 97.8 percent
037in 2020. last year i reported that our students earned 1451 industry credentials before leaving high school in 2019 in 2020 this number dropped to and please remember that in march we went completely virtual and in 2018 the number of credentials earned was only at a hundred so we do have some challenges and in the 2018-19 school year our students earned 764 college credits while still in high school and this past year that number increased to 9297 credits earned while our students were still in high school now getting back to attendance last year i reported on our partnership with the cleveland browns foundation on the stay in the game attendance initiative as a reminder the goal of this program is to raise awareness among our students their families and the entire community about the value of
038getting to and staying in school in october the arby's foundation provided a grant in the amount of a hundred thousand dollars to support this effort the presentation was made during a virtual event attended by aps students and some cleveland browns players who discussed how important it is to get to and stay in school in 2018 and 19 our attendance rate overall for the district stood at 92.3 percent and in 2019 and 20 that rate increased to 93.4 percent now the partnerships i have mentioned are just a few examples of how this community has come together to support our schools though we have a history of partnering with outside organizations today is a far cry from and there are just too many of you to name who have stepped in and stepped up to the plate
039to help our students to everyone that i have met with collaborated with and even argued with i say thank you because through those discussions we have indeed made progress and i believe this district poses a great opportunity for its next leader now in every career there are regrets things that were not on the radar that you may have missed and things that cannot be accomplished we all face that in life the main thing that i regret is really not being able to get that funding from the state of ohio to renovate or rebuild those schools that we're still using north high school comes to mind kenmore high school miller south firestone park pifer and readinger the ohio school facilities commission or the ohio facilities construction commission that is as it is known today funds our
040program in relation to our student population kenmore garfield is the last building to be funded with state support and is slated to open in 2022 any further school construction costs must be borne by akron public schools and remember again our partnership with the ohio facilities construction commission is based on total student enrollment which has declined from about 31 000 when we started the construction program to about 21 000 students today we will however study these buildings and get estimates of renovation and replacement costs and plans for how they can continue to be utilized the board has requested the completion of a facility master plan for these buildings and we will commence that process and of course the element in the room is covet 19. and what can i say you know during my time here
041at akron public schools i have lived through the ebola scare in 2014 mrsa h1n1 tuberculosis foot and mouth disease head lice bed bugs mercury spills you name it but nothing like this where the entire district is shut down and we had to make the switch to virtual learning the one person who i've come to depend on through all this is health commissioner donna skoda and her staff at summit county public health because you see over the years she have she and i have worked together on every major health crisis that has affected our schools and it would go like this i get a call david it's donna and she asked me if i'm sitting down so i would sit down and in every situation we would talk it through and come up with a plan
042and there are some occasions where we would not agree on the approach to the problem but we would always reach a joint solution and for that i say thank you during the pandemic i am also so proud of how our educators flipped from in-person learning to online learning in quick fashion last year to our principals and administrative staff thank you for putting up with our constantly changing directives because we were getting constantly changing information and it's hard to believe that we've been virtual since march but yes i do acknowledge that my preference is for our students to be back in school in person however i would like to point out that with 21 000 students and nearly 4 000 employees it's very difficult to reconcile all the risks opinions and competing interests and not just
043within the schools but within the community as well especially in a population that is already at risk because some of them lack adequate access to health care and many of those basic needs that many of us take for granted for instance did you know that 30 percent of children in america are going hungry that's one in three children so let's talk about that food insecurity since last march our child nutrition department has given out nearly two million meals believe it or not and they've done it while holding gram-and-go meals in a bag in front of 37 of our community learning centers just about every single day these meals did not just go to our students they went to any school-aged child living within our city according to the federal school lunch program and yes some
044of our employees distributing these meals did get sick let's remember that the majority of our support staff have been working since last march in addition to our child nutrition employees our bus drivers because we're required to transport charter community parochial and non-public schools they've been working our facilities ground staff office support and more have been working in person since last year and they've done an excellent job so now we've started to administer the covet vaccines to our staff with the help of akron children's hospital our plan focused on staff who support our kindergarten through second grade students and students with disabilities first so they can return in person to in-person learning last week we were notified that akron children's received the balance of the over 3000 vaccines we requested that means tomorrow and saturday we
045will administer the first doses to the remaining employees who requested the vaccine and after the second doses are administered in about three weeks we'll be back to in-person school soon thereafter the priority is to get all of our educators who are working directly with our students in our schools vaccinated first we chose 10 north main as the location because it's centrally located we have space to operate two clinics in this building that can vaccinate more than 60 people per hour and we have adequate parking last week we started what we call remote plus learning and students selected for remote plus are those who've been identified as struggling students or who have special needs we felt that these students should be transitioned back to school first with one or two days per week of individualized support
046from their teachers and out of 2 800 students identified we had about two-thirds of them show up and we'll continue to provide these services through early march just prior to the return of our teachers to get ready for in-person learning and for extra support the past several months we have offered aps plus after our support staff members work here in our engagement center in the evenings on saturdays to help families with just about anything they need including school work so our current plan for full-time return to in-person learning is to begin with our kindergarten through second graders as i said before and some of our special needs students on march 15th for the remaining students in grades three through 12 they will return on march 22nd when we also have a survey out so parents
047can select whether they want their children to remain remote or come back and attend in person so from yesterday through february 19th on our website parents can fill out a selection form to make their choices known and based on these parent choices we will then staff our courses and classrooms for both in-person and virtual courses now i do want to be clear in some cases students may not have the same teacher that they had you know during virtual learning but we'll have more information as we get the results of our survey and you can find for our parents who are interested and make sure you do fill out that choice form on our website at akronschools.com i want to thank our akron board of education members and our staff for working through this pandemic everyone
048has been dedicated and flexible showing the utmost concern for the safety of our students staff and community at large and for that you have my eternal gratitude looking to the future and coming out of this pandemic i would like to see us embrace a different type of blended model for education one where i can envision our classrooms and educational delivery model affording all students a choice between in-person and virtual learning which gives our students a choice and matches how they want to learn and not how we want to teach we know that students come to us with a variety of needs some of them can actually thrive in that virtual environment while some do need in-person learning i envision virtual classes for hard to staff topics for instance certain foreign languages might be more beneficial
049for some students if i only have five students in the district who want to learn latin we might have one teacher but we can pipe the students in and we may have students who are engaged in paid internships but they still want to take a class or course and i think we should be able to allow that what i'm trying to say is that the sky is the limit and reaching the other side of this pandemic it's also opened our eyes to some of the challenges that our students face and that is the learning loss over the past year now our team is actively working on plans to establish a more robust summer programming period for students who need to catch up to their peers over the summer with a focus on literacy and math
050we can help students who are falling behind so they can start the 21-22 school year on a solid foundation and if you tuned in to governor dewine's latest update on tuesday he has the expectation that we will develop these plans and submit them to the ohio legislature for review our experience with this pandemic in addition to the protests related to the death of george floyd has laid bare many of the inequities that exist in our society and at akron public schools we are working to identify and eliminate racial disparities related to our policies our practices and our teaching we're committed to ensuring that we have and maintain a diverse workforce throughout the district and in particular within our teaching staff in our schools over the last several years our human resource department has engaged in
051various diversity recruitment initiatives through attendance at college and university job fairs connections with historically black colleges and universities direct face-to-face recruitment of diverse applicants and membership in the cleveland area minority educators association we are also getting current aps students interested in careers in education by establishing future educator clubs at two of our high schools bucktho clc and north high school our work continues this year with a grant with grant opportunities from the ohio department of education to support the aps grow your own program with this grant we'll be able to assist current diverse akron public schools employee candidates and help them become teachers for our district we expect to take advantage of other grant opportunities provided by the department of education in the near future and with the support of our board and community we
052will continue to increase the number of diverse staff members so we can better serve our own diverse student population at the board level an equity policy a racial equity policy and a board level committee devoted to equity which we're meeting later today have been established we've already started the process of implementing organizational changes to better focus on diversity equity and inclusion and our ultimate goal is the establishment of an executive level position to oversee the implementation of this work across the district the focus on diversity equity and inclusion is a change in direction i believe our community sorely needs and as a member of the greater akron chamber of commerce i have witnessed this change of direction over the years under the leadership of steve millard i have seen the focus on talent move away
053from trying to attract people to akron and northeast ohio to a concerted effort to grow our own talent pipelines through collaborative efforts such as elevate akron and opportunity akron we have also seen a greater focus on providing opportunities to our minority communities that have been excluded from economic growth thanks to mayor dan horgan and county executive eileen shapiro for supporting these efforts and although our work is not done we are making progress and now moving on to the topic of finances which is probably one of my least favorite topics but it's nonetheless important in may of last year we projected a fiscal year in deficit of about 15.4 million dollars by november of 2020 our financial report we projected a revised deficit of about 2.2 million now with the addition of various covert 19 relief
054funds we're projecting a positive impact on the district's cash balance in addition we avoided some expenses this year particularly in the area of transportation fuel and utilities we've also received more than 14 million dollars in cares act funding including 10 million dollar in esser funds which is the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund we're also anticipating another round of esser funds which i think has hit the district recently in the amount of 42 million dollars now among the uses of these anticipated funds you know we're intending to use them for student recovery purpose purposes it's imperative again that we prepare and maintain an academic recovery plan to ensure that these funds are spent accordingly and our curriculum team you know i really thank them because they've been very proactive in response to this shift
055to online learning and they really continue to adapt to a changing environment for our students so we're developing that comprehensive academic recovery plan to assist students during this extraordinary school year costs that we think are approved or approvable will be the intervention during the school day summer intervention as i've spoken before we like to see some after school hours programming and some social emotional and family supports and while many grants receive will help offset the costs the esser funds will pay for the majority of these academic recovery costs now as you are well aware akron public schools has been discussing the need for additional revenue for more than a year and i believe as good stewards of taxpayers dollars we continue to be flexible and will respond as new information becomes available we're in the
056process of updating our forecasts with our january numbers but we'll need a few more months of data to really show the true impact on the current fiscal year as explained in our financial forecasts and subsequent finance committee meetings will likely finish the year under budget but again there is much more to consider before coming to the community for a levy request including you know our return to a full in-person instruction the financial position of the district by the end of the current fiscal year and again community support and how some other issues in the community could affect that support for instance how the reappraisals are affecting taxpayers finally i want to say that i was disappointed that in late 2020 the patterson fair school funding plans did not get adopted however i'm hopeful that the
057ohio house is taking that up again and the next couple of years will really be difficult for us as we try to reconcile the additional state and federal funding with providing all of these extra student resources so they can overcome this covet related learning loss and then us just paying our bills but i'm confident that these issue issues will be resolved thanks to the leadership of our cfo ryan pendleton now moving forward the school board has encapsulated much of what i've spoken about today in their advanced aps three and three plan making progress in three priorities in three years covering academic achievement equity and engagement the plan will serve as a guide for the district and the new superintendent to chart a course of action to improve our graduation rate focus on diversity equity inclusion
058and increased community engagement efforts many seeds have been planted so far but it will be up to the community to make sure that the garden is properly tended in closing yes this has been a challenging year for me as well as all of us actually and as i reflect on the last 29 years of my life which has gone by in a flash it really has i hope that i've served the community with integrity and respect it's so funny how you think about all the things that can happen in one's life and i can only honestly say that overall this has been an enjoyable experience except for calling a snow day and to my senior staff every chance dr mc williams woods and i get from national funders to state leaders to our families we
059brag about how solid our team is through your innovation drive my job has been made a whole lot easier make no mistake what has made my journey truly enjoyable is this community and all of you so no matter where my path will take me don't ever forget akron is a very special place and you are very special people now as a reminder the email address for those of our viewers wanting to ask questions is press club 2021 gmail.com thank you and god bless we do have some questions how has the district monitored students mental health during remote learning and what does that reveal about how they're doing and if i wasn't mike can you repeat it please yes the question was have we been monitoring some of the social emotional issues with kids and what
060are we doing to handle that so part of the services that we're providing out of our engagement center and some of the monitoring that we do we have people who can work with those students we still maintain our partnerships with red oak and many of the other mental health providers and they've been really working with us during the pandemic to make sure that we're taking care of those students who are having those issues what are some of the disparities that have been exasperated by the pandemic um initially there were some disparities in terms of who had internet access and we did provide hot spots to families actually delivering them to their homes so there's internet access we didn't really have to worry so much about technology because we've been a one-to-one district for for for
061many years every other place we we noticed that students who were you know the grades are falling which is why we implemented our after hours support system for our students so whenever we see and hear from a family that there's an issue we have tried to come in and you know meet their need this is a long one many students are taking ap classes if their families choose 100 remote learning option for the fourth grading period how will this affect their classes especially with regard to teachers and what is the district's plan to keep them on track and prepared for their accreditation tests that's a difficult one to answer but i would suggest that they talk to the building principle because there will be some we do realize that there will be some specific areas
062that we're going to have to have a unique solution for i think we can still support those students but i would suggest that they talk to the principal at their uh you know at their child's school and uh we'll work through that okay this one's shorter but it's from the same person for families choosing uh for their students to return in person will the schools provide information and classroom maps to those who haven't set foot in those buildings before yeah those are some really important things so we're concerned about our kindergarten students our sixth grade students ninth grade students because those are transitional years and many of them they haven't been in school so we do have plans to work through and provide you know that type of orientation for those students when they come
063in the other thing we have to realize is that we're we until we get the actual survey information in from our parents we don't know if it's going to be 50 of our students who want in-person instruction or whether it's 60 or 40 so depending on what those numbers are we'll have to formulate a response accordingly moving to columbus governor dewan and the cdc both said that schools could potentially reopen after teachers have only received one vaccine shot if enough health protocols are in place why did you feel it was important to wait until the staff who wanted the vaccine could receive both doses to achieve immunity well you know i'm not a medical doctor so i'm going to play one on television today but we've heard a lot of concerns from our staff about
064making sure they get the second dose the other thing about humans is that all of our immune systems are not the same some people might take the first dose and develop a high level of immunity some may take a booster shot not to mention you know the potential for some side effects after getting the second shot which i have you know heard could be the case so we wanted to make sure we built a cushion and so in case there were problems you know those problems could be taken care of before students actually come into school what we don't want to have is a bunch of people vaccinated come in too early and then there's a problem you spoke about this a little bit in your speech but i got another question from somebody out
065there in virtual land what plan does akron public schools put in place for students returning to school what does the day-to-day plan look like for our children well worse you know the the safety protocols haven't changed the children will have to wear masks when they come in the building we have retooled our nurses station so they're you know areas where kids can be isolated from each other the way they will go into the building and come out of the building has been looked at and changed and we're and we're using that extended sanitation process that many of the hospital use with the fog spray which lasts for up to 90 days you know they won't see like the water fountains being used you know we will have most likely those shut off it will be
066a little bit different but again we're going to be following the same safety protocols that we had outlined very early social distancing in the classrooms and and then just you know making sure that we're following whatever guidelines or we're expecting some additional guidelines from the cdc i think tomorrow so we'll be reviewing those you spoke about your optimism that columbus would finally after i don't know how many years come up with a coherent plan to fund public schools what do you see is the biggest hurdle in stopping that from moving forward at this point i think the biggest hurdle is really the philosophy that you know we see increasingly that you know students should take uh advantage of other operators who don't have to comply with the same rules that we do if it was
067a level playing field you know i might not have a problem with it but it it seems like more and more there are going to be some barriers i think in the ohio senate to getting that fair school funding bill passed as it was in december not many questions today but i'll ask you what's your one piece of advice that you're going to give to the next person who occupies your chair or maybe too well no it's you know it's just be calm don't panic listen to people this is a very different community and you can really take advantage of the access that you can have to people like the mayor you know city council grant making organizations you're going to have a great platform for student success because of all the relationships that we
068have created and those relationships took time and effort but they're there we have a chamber and business community that's interested because they realize how education is tied to our economy so you know i would say come in and really be patient get a lay of the land and really have a good relationship with you know our board that's really important well this will be the final question you mentioned lebron james quite a bit in your in your speech yeah you've worked closely with lebron james and his foundation and although his career is not as long as yours can you tell us if he has asked you for any advice on when he should retire from the nba no he's in a whole different league than me so i'm just going to stay in my lane
069um but you know i i really can't say enough for the impact that he's had you know and others you know on our community and that's what makes the akron community really special we're very fortunate to have some of the resources that we have in our community and that's one thing you know on a personal level that i really do appreciate okay thank you for your speech today thank you [Applause] you