Akron Board of Education Meeting Livestream - January 25, 2021

001all right um mr written house okay hello everyone uh good afternoon uh or evening actually uh we are at the january 25th uh 2021 uh regular meeting of the akron board of education for joining us mr pendleton roll call please dr akbar here mr alexander president ms autry here mr bravo president dr hall hi mrs mansfield here mrs mckittrick and welcome abigail kearns our student board member from alex clc i'm here yes thank you very much for joining us uh abigail um and if you would be so kind to uh lead us all in the pledge of allegiance i'm gonna ask all board members to mute their microphones as we uh participate in this uh pledge of allegiance please all hold on one second okay i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states

002of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much abigail next we're going to move into community and school reflections and i know we did uh have kyrie wrestling here um last meeting uh we did invite him back to come i believe he's gonna come to the next meeting uh to uh talk with us uh so we can actually hear his report but we want to start with abigail since she is here to share with us um what's going on with her and her students at ellet hi my name is abigail kearns i am a sophomore at otclc i am in the hospitality and tourism pathway this is my first year as a student board member and the first time

003i am representing something bigger than myself i am actually very nervous but i am honored to be here i would like to share with the board experiences on behalf of my aps peers and myself in my honors english class my teacher mrs broshes told the class she would fill us in about the last board meeting talking about the previous board meeting um she said there was talk about students coming back to school in march knowing this i had talked to mrs chapman in the fine arts department and she had let me talk to my peers in her class at the end of the period to get feedback on what they're feeling and their experiences with virtual learning my peers have a lot of mixed emotions about going back some students want to come back because

004it's their senior year and they don't want to miss out on any of the activities some students are scared to go out of their house because they have health problems that put them in high risk categories and if they do get covered then they might not recover some students feel like they're getting used to the virtual and they want to continue the year that way other students feel like if we return it will be a whole lot of change at one time and they have had so much change already adapting to the new remote learning and they just want to stay that way i understand the way that all the students feel my head is telling me that we should stay virtual but my heart is telling me that we should go back um in

005school there are a lot of social interactions me personally i am a social butterfly and i talk to a lot of people there are some days where i wasn't like having a very good day or something had happened that just would ruin my mood and i would talk to my friends or other teachers that would put me in a good mood and i feel like being in a better mood would help me be better in my classes um in my freshman year i had a science teacher mrs sudermeyer she would make science jokes all the time that weren't really that funny but she would just laugh at them regardless of who was laughing with her it would put me in a better mood because she thought the jokes were funny but no one else did

006if that's ever happened to you guys um in person classes we have group work and we have a lot of collaboration and we do our work and have fun at the same time this encouraged a lot more work to get done because who wouldn't want to have fun while they were learning at the same time it helps to be in school because teachers are there to motivate students every day they keep pushing them to do their best even though i get really good grades and i'm in the honors classes i do find virtual learning very very difficult it's very hard to maintain the grades that i have last year my grades were 95 and above in every class but now how they're declined towards like the a minuses b is areas it's not affecting me

007as much as it is other students but i do know that some of the kids were averaging b's and c's during in-person learning so if it's making me decline i can only imagine it's making them decline as well however during virtual learning we did have intersession and that is a good thing because it helps the students they can make up the missing work to improve their grades and get the credit that they needed um these statements and questions were provided directly from my peers and classmates after the announcement that we were returning some students found a concern that others will not follow the rules regarding kovid so they want to know what the plan is to make sure that the students are following the protocols they also want to know what happened to the hybrid

008plan that was mentioned a while ago another question is if we choose to stay remote with the classes like will the classes go back to normal like the 90-minute classes versus the 50-minute classes can students choose a hybrid plan like some classes they can do in school and then somebody can do online um also a few of the students wanted me to get clarification on what happens if the teacher they have stays remote and they go back to school or vice versa they want to know what happens with that i would like to thank you for taking the time to consider the questions from my peers and myself before i close the clc students and staff welcome goodyear tire and rubber company as the name partner of the goodyear academy and of applied engineering under

009the direction of academy coach mr baldry goodyear tire rubber company will work closely with our automotive and project lead the way students project-based learning job shadowing and internships are part of the partnership the student board wishes good health to all aps students staff and their families thank you very much abigail uh what an amazing uh report and i think that you had um some amazing uh questions that a lot of our students are asking as well as our family members so thank you very much i'm going to ask dr james to it maybe if you can share all of those lists of questions so that he can provide a response to you and then maybe there's some way we can post those questions that you provided to for other students and families to see so

010thank you very much so um nets we have for community and school reflections we have mrs mckittrick followed by miss mansfield mr mansfield and if anyone else wants to go after um please line up in the chat thank you mrs mckittrick thank you mr president what a tough act to follow thanks abigail great job very quickly i want to thank the principals in the kenmore garfield cluster the ones who i've already spoken with and the ones with whom i have uh scheduled phone calls i want to thank them for being so open to talking with me and taking their time to listen to me so thank you very much kim garfield principles thank you thank you sorry i i thought you were going to say something else [Laughter] mrs mansfield thank you dr akbar um

011abigail fantastic job i don't know dr akbar if we should have the students go first because i don't know wow they they outshine us all so that was fantastic and if that's you nervous i can't wait to see you uh relax um real quick i want to uh thank the student services department for the card that i received um that was lovely to recognize the us for being on the board that was really great thank you so much i think i've been on for 12 years i don't know if i've got ever gotten one from student services so that's really awesome um highlighted the last two weeks was on friday when dr akbar dr hall and i got to attend the aaa graduation always one of the best things of the year um wouldn't miss

012those you know things are a little different with kovid but i was when we were sitting there i was saying how lovely it is to get to actually see the parents of the graduates come forward and stand with them it's a really precious moment i don't know if when we do graduations in the future if somehow we can incorporate rate things like that because it's very special to have them get to shine right up there with their graduate and also um just have that close up moment it was really fantastic also highlight was uh the urban league celebration for martin luther king jr day on monday um the treats that came in our mugs were really amazing as well as the presentation just a really great morning and a great way to start the week

013that also included the inauguration so just a fantastic um event also so kudos to teresa legrier and all of the urban league thanks also to ward a council person shamas malik for allowing um patrick and nj and i to share a little bit about um [Music] what's going on in akron public schools with his ward a meeting uh he does a great job i learned a lot of things that i really was happy to know as well at that so thanks for that and that that's it thank you thank you very much mrs mansfield uh next we have dr hall and then if there's anyone else uh yeah thanks mr president um i wanted to sort of echo what miss mansfield just talked about in referring to aaa graduation um you know it's now i

014think my second time being able to attend that you know in my time here on the board uh and i'm just i'm never i'm just i'm always amazed at um at the energy that the families bring and the enthusiasm um you know this year and you know this year during cove but obviously it was a bit more challenging um you know because of trying to maintain appropriate businessing but but i i think mrs miss mrs green paloda i think and her staff servada credit um because not only do they put on a great graduation but they also did in a way that was very very safe um i think anybody that would have been there would have felt completely comfortable being in the room um you know they brought one family one family in at

015a time you know you know into this gigantic auditorium um and you walk in and there's this big screen where each each candidate for graduation has those those those pictures on the board um and you know each student you know got a chance to choose you know so the some of the baby pictures and um and one of the things that i i had to remark look at pictures was you know this is 18 20 years ago you know for a lot of these students and i'm looking at the the phones i'm looking at the style of dress and uh in the background and i just was feeling like i never thought myself being old before but i'm starting to realize i'm starting to get just a little i'm older now uh than i used

016to be um and so it was interesting seeing that that that was the screen so um and some of the pictures were just really really funny and the family and the famous themselves just had a great time taking pictures um of their graduates um and so anyway it was just a fantastic experience and just wanted again to thank all those families um for being safe and the staff again for putting on a great graduation uh as well um also wanted to thank um you know there have been a number of folks um that um from the uh firestone park area um some garfield high alumni folks kenmore kenmore high school i'm that folks have reached out over the last week or so to express you know their thoughts um on what we will ultimately do

017around um naming uh the school this fall uh and it's i just want to let them know that um that they are heard um i hear you i see you um you know thank you for your um your constructive and professional you know emails and comments and and i i would welcome even more of those um so again thank you for uh for your feedback and and mr president i'll i will see the floor back to you thank you yes thank you very much dr hall um miss uh autry thank you mr president and just kind of piggybacking on what dr hall just stated i just wanted to acknowledge the continued emails and communications that i received from our families and our staff i really do appreciate the engagement i just don't know that people

018recognize the size of our district is really hard for seven school board members to just be aware of everything so i just want to uh acknowledge those folks who continue to reach out and and as if they continue to do so um a special shout out to our teachers because they are just those everyday heroes they are keeping it going for us remotely so i appreciate that um and just you know what abigail mentioned um about they're finally really adapting uh to this remote learning many of them are so i mean that was no easy task and uh i know we go about our daily uh things i just wanted to make sure that the teachers and support staff know that they're appreciated and keeping our buildings running every day um and then also i

019was able to attend my first sporting event finally this past weekend i was able to attend uh the brookdale girls basketball team versus wiseworth um at book though unfortunately uh we did take a loss but it was just really nice to see um that the sports is still something that uh is a common uh rallying factor for many people um keeping folks engaged and excited um and something positive that they can focus on i mean just a shout out to that staff over there who i was definitely watching keeping us safe uh and providing a a safe uh environment to enjoy the sporting event so thank you thank you very much miss altre um mr bravo thank you mr president um i was debating on whether to jump in or not everything that i had

020in my notes has already kind of been mentioned other than finance committee i also attended the martin luther king event um put on by the urban league and it was fantastic as was already mentioned and as mrs mansfield mentioned we did the ward 8 meeting i was trying to think this may be actually the first and if it's not the first it's one of the very very few years that i have missed aaa i can't remember missing a triple a graduation in the past they are as was mentioned always one of the most special graduations for the kids that really stick to it and overcome obstacles to make sure that they hit that graduation staging and get to walk and i really hated missing it this year um just want to give a shout out

021to everyone that that worked with those kids to make make sure that they made it across the stage i'll give a special shout out to cody cross who i knew mrs mansfield and i also got to celebrate a little earlier this summer uh just to make sure that he uh that one didn't go unnoticed from us and so to ever all the students and all the faculty and staff that made sure those students walked thank you so much um and i don't know whether it's this is just a general comment but i mean this last week has really started to feel uh different in in a much in a very positive way and i don't know if it's the uh if it's a new year if it's the inauguration if it's the change in tone

022a little bit throughout you know that you hear um things just seem to be taking on more of a positive spin we're talking about bringing students back in the near future and so i'm just very thankful for that and um mr president may be good at some point just to throw on the agenda too for us to talk about when we might as a board also look at coming back um sometime in the in the near future as we look at bringing students and staff back so i just want to throw that out there thank you very much um actually i have thought about that now i'll share a little bit about that and my report later uh the possibility of us getting together um all in person of it also has to do with

023uh the back scene too which we know we don't control that timeline but uh that will be a part of that as well uh just two really quick uh community and school reflections one i just want to thank the um parent who sent the notice about what they had um and i want to thank miss uh miss deb folk uh for the uh uh amount of uh sheer just outreach and attention and detail that she did to work with that parent everything they need and dr james as well their leadership to um fix what could have been a difficult situation for that family uh they they appear to be happy now uh i just want to thank them for uh doing that and just really wanted to publicly thank miss folk for uh with such

024uh grace and attention to detail um it's difficult sometimes when you reach people at their breaking point and i think we did a great job working with uh that family so thank you very much um and i also had the opportunity to attend the triple a graduation um i'm not gonna go as far to say i felt old but i did um love the baby pictures um and uh the other pictures that were shown and just to see some of the young people um have their kids with them and watching you know their kids watching them cross the stage to me uh was a beautiful thing um i i am one of those education geeks that love all things that are educational ceremonial um in nature and so graduation was one of those uh things

025for me that i've missed uh being in person and it felt so normal i i don't know how else to say it it just felt good um to thank that staff for a great job as well and then the last thing is uh because the rest of everything is in my president's report had quite a few meetings actually in this last two weeks almost a meeting a day with some someone about something but uh was able to to talk through uh advanced aps uh with uh ray horner on his morning show uh there was a lot of questions about you know the the future of aps and that seemed to um for a few people that i've talked to about that interview that contacted me thought that um they were really uh excited about these

026and so i wanted just to put that out there and say that get that word out and i'll share more about that in my report so um final call anybody else all right moving on we will go to a request to address the board and we have one request to address the board today uh by bill uh reynolds uh is are you here i don't i don't either i did not admit him and i don't have anybody in the waiting room so okay so um if he comes uh if there's any technical difficulties if you can just let me know ryan i will what at least before we get too far in the agenda we'll try to fit them in we can just move them to the next meeting okay so moving on to recognitions

027and i believe this is dr james or is this ryan i'm not sure for osb so um yeah attached to the agenda our certificates for each of you board members i believe it's uh a certificate of appreciation from the ohio school boards association and so um you will actually get a hard copy of the certificate mail to your home address and in essence the certificate for instance for you dr akbar just says certificate of appreciation the certificate is presented to dr nj akbar akron city schools and sincere appreciation for exemplary leadership and service to public schools for school board recognition month january 2021 and it's uh signed by uh scott huddle the president of osba and of course uh rick lewis who's the executive director and again there will be one of these for each

028of you and they will be mailed to your home thank you very much so happy uh school board appreciation month um and so thank you very much we're moving on i believe this is dr element williams woods for the governor's thomas edison award yes thank you no problem yes thank you dr akbar i am pleased to hand this over to our instructional policy committee um who is excited to this is sort of a historical um award ceremony for us and it's a long term um award that we've received that we're very proud of our involvement this is another katrina halasa moment for us we've had a few of these in recent board meetings but i'm going to turn it over to our instructional policy committee members who will introduce the presentation for tonight thank you

029dr mcwilliams woods um as you know dr mcwilliams would share the good news with our instructional policy committee about the results of the governor's awards for akron schools again this year and as we've done with our other special recognitions with students and staff we are pleased to share this award with you tonight and miss karen jijic is going to start the presentation the governor's thomas edison awards were established in 1985 under then governor richard celeste akron teachers and akron schools received this award for the 2019-2000 school year the governor's thomas edison awards for excellence in student research and stem education are presented to ohio students schools and teachers who extend stem education beyond traditional classroom activities the criteria for school and teacher awards are conduct a local science fair with 12 or more students two

030or more of the science expo students participate in one of the official area science days we meet criteria 1 and 2 as a result of our district science fair criteria 2 is met when we qualify for district 5 science academy at the university of akron to meet the third criteria students must participate in at least one more youth science opportunity beyond the classroom some of the examples of opportunities our students participate in beyond the classroom include state science day regional science and engineering fairs math counts engineer for a day program science olympiad and many other opportunities since 2003 20 individual akron schools have received a total of 114 thomas edison awards for excellence in student research and stem education 114 school awards we are proud of our akron public school teachers who've received the thomas

031edison award numerous times we've designated star status to our teachers who've supported students through the process we have included a category for our bronze stars teachers teachers who have supported students in the process for up to four years we have 521 individual teachers and faculty members who've received this award at least once and many two three or four times elizabeth poulos from jennings is a two-time award winner dr morgan green from litchfield middle is a four-time award winner ruth rupp from miller south is also a four-time award winner we've designated silver star status to our teachers who've supported students through the process at least five years and up to eight years we've 71 individual teachers and faculty members who've received the award between five and eight times over the years lynn webb is a five-time

032winner from brookdale clc david hardwick from heyer six years and christy johnson is an eight-time award winner from nsclc we've designated gold star status to our teachers who've supported students through this process at least nine times and up to 13 times we have 26 individual teachers and faculty members who've received the award over the years three examples of the 26 gold star educators are christine milcetich nine year award winner from firestone clc linda olsen 10-year award winner from east community learning center and chris justice 13-year award winner from stem middle school special thanks to all the teachers who've dedicated their time to providing our students with rigorous stem education beyond the classroom and a special thank you to district science and health learning specialist dr katrina halasa so a huge shout out to all our

033faculty for supporting stem education for our students and katrina we can't thank you enough for all that you do to support their success i think one of the last events um that i remember from 2020 was being able to be at the science fair and and see all of the work that you put in every year and we're so grateful for you i don't know are we giving you a chance to say anything or are we not because we should would you like to share anything katrina um yes i would i would like to say to everyone good evening board members and distinguished senior staff i would like to say that i am proud as an academic mother for all the work of these amazing staff educators across the district and as the academic stem

034grandmother for all our 22 000 students across the district who trust us in guiding them um on their journey in stem and just uh put a little plug in the purpose of being able to be eligible is that you do need to participate in the stem expo as well as doing a science fair or engineering project at the school and i just want to let everyone know right now as we stand virtually we have already 123 projects that were submitted with videos and powerpoints as well as 167 students total and the best story i can tell you is we're as low as third grade that is is participating as well as up to 12th grade and more importantly we even have a group with new newcomers that everyone is actually participating in a one project

035together at for our newcomers and there are six of those that have been um uh submitted so we're excited even in a virtual world we're excited to have it there so thank you again and i'm humbly proud and thankful to work for this district thank you thank you thank you dr akbar for the time no problem thank you very much and congratulations dr halasa and everyone else uh listed and and i really think that uh uh karen gg has a another career in her um picture because every time she gives the presentation with those well it seems like voiceovers but i think she's doing it live i'm not sure just amazing actually it sounds so professionally done it's amazing um all right so uh thank you very much for that uh there's no communications uh

036for this meeting we're gonna move on to approval of the previous meeting minutes they are listed there in the board dots for you hopefully everyone had a chance to uh review them doctor um and you wouldn't like me interrupting i think mr reynolds may be on with us before he proceed with the rest the agenda actually that would be perfect so uh i'm sorry we will move you request to address the board um mr bill reynolds you have three minutes uh mr pendleton will be keeping time and he will uh politely let me know uh when you're about 10 minutes uh up um just signal to you um before i interrupt you so uh hopefully i don't have to do that but uh you have three minutes thank you again for your constant engagement i'll

037keep it short tonight um i wanted thank you guys all for um the decisions you made last meeting and the thing i think about a lot about the schools as they are family they are community and you know i i was watching the news and i was asking the questions that i'm sure you guys were asking will these vaccines come through and stuff like that i would encourage you folks whatever we have to do as a school district whether we open fully whether we do something in the middle or whether we stay virtual i would say that i would love to see the school board the school district and every school building work together to to to bring forward that community feeling that family feeling that so many of our children can get from being

038in person but also should be getting and should be learning more about right now so thank you guys for your time and you guys have a good night thank you very much uh mr reynolds we appreciate you being here and providing uh that update um nets we will move back uh and go to uh re i'm sorry approval of the previous meeting minutes uh from january 11 2021 uh i will accept a motion to accept those or amend those minutes um now still moved second okay it's been properly moved by mrs mckittrick to accept the meeting minutes and seconded by mr bravo any comments or concerns mr pendleton roll call please ms autry yes mr bravo yes dr hall hi mrs mansfield mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes thank you very much

039next we will move on to personnel recommendations and personnel recommendations by our superintendent so mr superintendent thank you mr president i wish to recommend approval of the personnel recommendations presented in categories 5 through 16. so moved second thank you very much personnel recommendations were moved to be accepted by mr bravo and seconded by mrs mckittrick comments or concerns this is miss autry i do have a a comment on items okay uh we're gonna go with ms mansfield first uh she raised her hand first sorry and then we'll go to you miss autryman thank you i'm sorry i don't know who was first there but whichever um i had a question about the new um that are created in this one um and there was some question i know we got an email today regarding who

040can apply for those can you tell us are those only external con people who can apply or can anyone who's also within the district apply could you just clarify that for us dr james um is it the uh family and community engagement manager i think it was the yeah that one in the diversity equity and inclusion learning specialist yeah those to my knowledge are those are open positions so internal external yep thank you very much mrs mansfield uh ms autry thank you uh mr president actually my question was related to those same um items 5.6 5.7 5.8 i was just wondering just for the sake of the public and and those listening um if if we get to tell a little bit about those three new positions what they are sure so will be um

041college and career academy middle school partner liaison that one if you uh remember in the dear board member uh letter we're establishing that to work with our middle school college and career academy programs and that's going to be housed at the akron community foundation um and so again that's open to anyone and that's really uh lining up as we've done with our high schools that's a position which uh is the main partner manager for each of the middle schools in terms of their partnerships among our philanthropic and non-profit community in africa that's a focus of our uh middle school college and career academy program um in terms of the uh learning specialist for diversity equity and inclusion you know with the start of the diversity uh committee with the board and then the strategy of

042really moving uh you know toward establishing an executive level a position for diversity equity inclusion we also have to provide the support so we're uh proposing this position be established to provide that support we'll have we're working on the director or executive director of diversity so that will be coming at an upcoming uh board meeting this one will primarily be in the learning um in the curriculum and instruction area just making sure that as we look through all the topic areas of our curriculum that we're addressing diversity equity and inclusion uh issues as well and then um the same goes for family and community engagement um we are as we move some you know positions around we really as mr reynolds just talked about that's all part of this issue of really drilling down into

043how we can improve our relationships with our community um through that family engagement now that we have um the family resource centers in our buildings and want to expand that with our partnership with united way it's going to be real important that we do uh you know a refocus on that uh task in the district and this will be part of it thank you it's just a comment so we're because we're expanding some of the responsibilities uh of our community relations department um these positions are gonna also help in that area as well absolutely thank you thank you very much um mr alexander yes thank you mr president uh i have questions in reference to the same uh area uh we had some emails as mentioned that came to us in question and reference to

044the uh leaders of support and uh services positions these positions will not affect those people in any kind of way will it because i know if they're concerned it it's a possibility that they can affect their jobs and they uh their jobs and maybe they would not have their their positions no that came up in uh scrimmage today if there's any uh changes we're not looking at laying off people to make room some of these are grant funded for a year um uh for instance the one that will be housed at the akron community foundation and then the two grants that we receive from uh both the hewlett and the czi which dr mcwilliams will know woods or know more about that i do some of those funds will support either the work or and

045or the position okay thank you yes okay thank you very much um are there any other questions comments and concerns i'm has been properly approved uh by ms autry or sorry it's been properly moved by miss altery to accept the personnel recommendations and seconded by mrs mckittrick um mr pendleton roll call please mr brotto yes just trying to help you dr hall hi mrs mansfield yes this is mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes ms autry yes thank you thank you very much mr pendleton next we have resolutions and motions on the consent agenda mr superintendent yes mr president i wish to recommend approval of the resolutions and motions presented in category 21. so moved second thank you very much that's been properly moved by mrs mckittrick and sticking seconded by miss says mansfield

046any questions comments or concerns i see mrs mansfield just wanted to mention again i know we've talked about this briefly but this is an acceptance of the chan zuckerberg initiative grant this is a national grant this is a pretty big deal for us to be recognized as a district and be able to receive this um level a few more details in instructional policy but couldn't let it go by without pointing that out thank you thank you very much mrs mansfield anyone else any other questions comments or concerns okay hearing none um roll call please mrs comes in dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar mr alexander yes yes mr yes mr bravo yes thank you you very much uh next we have uh business affairs recommendations uh we will turn that

047over to mr superintendent yes mr president and i wish to recommend approval of the business affairs recommendations presented in category 23. [Music] thank you very much it's been properly moved by mrs mckittrick and seconded by mr alexander to accept the uh motions and resolutions and the i'm sorry the motions in the business affairs recommendations comments or concerns i do have a question ms autry miss archery um regarding item 23.12 with the hometown ticketing um so i guess my question is so does that mean there's no at the door sales at all for um [Music] this program or i'm wondering how that works right so they're looking at going to um you know a mobile or online uh ticket in mo many of our uh sister districts in the county and the region that we compete

048against also use the same service i guess i'm wondering is it so you're saying there's like no folks who show up at the door anymore everyone would have to purchase electronically and then do we have like a computer that'll be on site for people who show up who might wanna yeah if they would be able to use um you know just their cell phone to purchase a ticket okay okay is there anything else any other questions comments or concerns mrs maysville yes mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes mr autry yes mr bravo yes dr hall aye thank you nets we will move to uh superintendents report dr james thank you mr president um i know getting back to a couple of um abigail kearns questions you know just in terms of the

049hybrid plan um of course you know with the vaccine and looking at um how you know for us because we're in our last quarter of the year um we really want to focus on getting back to the total in-person uh piece for our students because i'm looking at it more as a transition so what i think we're gonna need over the summer to help combat uh some learning loss and really i feel for our teachers to work with our kids um if everything works out on the other end of this it can help us identify what some of their shortfalls will be and then pick those students that need that help and uh really develop a program over the summer so i think it's gonna behoove us to really focus on um getting to the

050hundred percent uh in person uh learning then getting to the vaccine which uh is another another issue so um i actually have to make a call after the board meeting because someone from the state capitol reached out uh for some information from us um so right now again the plan is to have um some of the coveted vaccines designated to schools in ohio um last week all the districts uh had to work with their educational service center we belong to the northeast ohio educational service center so we filled out um you know our desire to get the vaccine the ohio department of health has appointed a partner for all the districts so virtually all the districts in summit county um we our partner is discount drug mart and that means they're gonna be the ones

051who get the vaccines that are set aside for us but there are a lot of details that have to be worked out with that and we're trying to work through how that's going to work for akron along with the other 16 districts in the county and so we're looking at some additional partners because i feel we're going to need them i want to get our people vaccinated as quickly as possible um and i was on a call today with the ohio department of education talking about it so right now um you know they're encouraging all the districts sign up with the esc accept the partner and then they'll work out some of those additional details what i heard today is that as early uh as next week there could be some vaccines that get targeted

052but again it's still early this week and a lot of that can change we were told to be flexible so i'm gonna uh you know i'll be working the phones a little bit later on trying to get whatever information i can and then pass that along i know there were some questions from parents and were um ellen ob talking about um an update on where we are with some of those plans but um i know some parents were concerned about whether all teachers will get the vaccine and if they don't what should they do well you have to remember that even if we get the vaccine and our staff get both doses kids are going to be in the classrooms and we're back to full instruction kids are going to be in classrooms with a

053bunch of other kids that don't have the vaccine because it right now it's not available for kids you know for our students so that's one thing people need to remember that while staff you know the vaccine is really targeted um for the one we're getting for 18 and over um you know for this staff in the community in terms of how that's being rolled out in our educators um to my knowledge there's nothing yet available for students for kids and so that's one thing i think parents need to understand i'd like uh ellen to talk about the um surveys that we have going out and then some of the tools that we've posted uh to our website and the information that we're seeking from our parents thank you dr james so we our timeline right

054now is we released a family input survey uh this morning actually and we already have about 3500 responses that have come in our families are incredibly quick and responsive which is wonderful but we're doing a two-phased approach to lead up to the return in sometime in march depending on that vaccine distribution that dr james just was referring to so the first survey which is an input survey is just to gauge from families where they're leaning right now so that we can see what percentage is thinking 100 staying 100 remote and what percentage is uh leaning towards sending their students back to that full time in person based on that data then our our reopening team that's our shared leadership team that has been working since the summer we will look at that data to then

055determine that final plan of what this is going to look like in march in terms of how we're going to accommodate whatever the percentage is for the 100 remote students and what the how we're going to do the educating students who want to come in person we'll give all those details it was hard to put out that information on our website until we got a sense is this going to be half of our families is it going to be 60 percent want in person 70 in person so we're getting the pulse first then we'll push out information on our website about the two choices and then uh it'll be mid-february it'll probably be right around february 9th we will put out a final selection form that families will then fill out we'll we'll post all

056the information that week on our website and then they'll fill out a form that will designate their their final decision on whether they want to stay 100 remote or whether they want to return in person um so that's the basic flow on our website right now i'd like to just take an opportunity to show everyone where this is on our website this is our regular akron public schools website and on our learning 2021 site the family survey is right here in the middle so it's just two clicks you go to our regular website and then you click on the learning 2021 tile and that's where we always have all of our information about what the current school model is and what's happening the superintendent has a letter here that explains about the input survey it

057will be up all week for families to fill out and then if you go down further on the website there are two sections one explains what we uh what that 100 remote would look like and the other is the full time in person that has all the safety information there's a video that shows the safety protocols you all have seen that and we've updated that video to post on the website as well so parents can get additional information but again the survey this week is just to get a pulse of where they are where they're leaning toward and then we'll use that information the next two weeks to put final communication up on the website before they actually make their final selection this survey is being pushed out through social media through principles doing all

058calls home it's going out in probably 10 to 15 different ways and the principals will continue to communicate with families all this week to have them fill that out any questions just about the uh family survey and this process thank you um dr mick williams liz we do have one question so far anyone else want to line up in the chat if they have any questions about hall oh thank you um so uh yeah so i just wanted to ask quickly one of the questions i'm gonna ask via email the other day um it was if if parents elect to go with one option and the other so let's say they like to go 100 remote and then they change their mind and want to come back in person or vice versa um will they

059be allowed to do that in the uh is that being contemplated in the plan yeah we are discussing that right now and once we see the numbers on this initial input survey we'll make that final determination and uh recommendation right now it'll be harder to go from remote to in person just because of the staffing requirements that if we saw a big swing just this last quarter we may not be able to accommodate staffing within the class size with social distance you know all those factors but we want to make sure that we see what the breakdown of the numbers are first before we uh post that but that that's the number one question and we will put that on our website to make sure that everyone has that answer before they fill out the

060survey the final selection form so do i get like extra credit points for being the first person to ask that that question i'd like to get credit for that somewhere keep keep on unless you're like this price where i get 500 for like you know in my in my aps account for i'm i'm kidding about the dollar absolutely absolutely so but no i'll just say i take your point i mean i agree with you i think that going remote to in classroom you know obviously you know i think that um you know you know just just my personal opinion i think we'd be well within um our you know our rights from a from a staffing safety standpoint and say listen like if you're gonna go remote you probably you're probably gonna need to say

061remote out you know you know some some um some some you know disparate or untoward circumstance notwithstanding right um you know so right because again yeah because because that's what i'm saying like gosh like if we have a bunch of folks that are remote and then decide oh well the other person is not going too bad i think i'm going to switch and go and go in person now too you know i can see that sort of wreaking havoc um you know with our social protocols and staffing and all that so um again i made a moot point but i at least want to sort of raise it for discussion tonight thank you and our original design back in the summer time when we were planning for remote the rule back then was you can

062only make a change at the quarter like once the quarter ends well we're in the last quarter so if we applied that same rule we would have to make it through the end of the year thank you very much sorry mr mansfield sorry that's all right i wasn't going to interrupt you so um uh first of all i wanted to compliment um the responsiveness on having two surveys i think that it's an excellent way to do it i know there was a lot of panic last time if i'd only known this if i'd only known that and this is giving folks that opportunity to kind of rest in the decision that they they think they're most comfortable with so i really thank you all for that very much i know we talked about this in

063instructional policy i just want um to point this out but every we've been assured that every effort is going to be made to maintain those relationships between classmates teachers that have long been established this year with all of the hard work our staff has done to reach across virtual lines to make that happen to drop things off at people's houses that we're not throwing that out here in as many ways as we can and just give you an opportunity to maybe talk about that but also just remembering that in this case we're not willing to sacrifice the good for the perfect and we would love to be able to perfectly assign everyone and and have it everyone get to stay with the right you know with the person that they want to be with but

064um in this situation we may it's going to be it's going to be a incredible puzzle can you just talk about that a little bit sure i i think exactly what you said reinforces why it was so important for us to pause and and decide to do this in two phases where we could get that input first because making a decision on how we staff the remote students and how we staff the the in-person students makes a big difference if it's going to be 90 of the families are going to choose to come back in person and it's only one or two kids per class that are remote that's a very different scenario than if it turns out to be 50 50 and if we have 50 percent of our students remote and 50 um

065so we really uh felt as though just as families felt like it was going to be such a difficult decision to make a final decision now without having more information we felt like we needed the family information to be able to really help communicate what this is going to look like so it is you know we've put on the website under both the 100 remote information to kind of dig a little deeper into that and the in-person tile with more information we put a line underneath both of those that says both options may result in a teacher change or a schedule change because at this point no matter what we do it we could end up with some changes needed because some of our faculty have medical exemptions that they won't be able to come

066back in person and depending on the percentage of families that pick remote that may end up having to have some teacher changes but just like you said our goal is to have the minimum number of changes possible because especially when you're going into the last quarter of school you don't want to have big disruptions and schedules so that's the lens and our shared leadership team with miss shipe and myself and a team of teachers and principals we're working through that as we speak and just waiting for this week to see these results thank you very much any other board member have any questions okay um we do have one final question from dr hall and then we will move back to dr james and the rest of this report yeah thanks mr president um i

067would be remiss without without having asked this question um there have been some parents who've reached out that have um and and while i recognize that a lot of that there are students who are really struggling with this online environment there are those who have in fact discovered themselves um as a result of this of remote learning um and so so some parents have reached out and and have asked the question you know gosh my kid has just done so much better without the distractions of traditional school right you know whether it was kids who felt they were being picked on in school or um you know i they're even there some some special ed kids who parents who reach out to that they've they felt their student was doing better um you know without

068the you know without without being in school by environment which caused them more anxiety um and their their big concern was not only would they be able to remain remote for this year but but have we begun to think about next academic year with this summer next academic year about about offering a permanent remote option for students who would like to do that and so i know that you know that we're not that we won't solve that tonight um i just wanted to socialize it and share it with this with you all and that there are um i think a significant number of students who um may want in their families who may want to remain remote moving forward for for any number of reasons so i just you know it you know so if

069you would like to comment on that i'd love to hear that and again recognizing that that's not anything that we're deciding tonight but just wanted to share it and get your comments thank you sure you know i've said in staff meetings that you know never you know take when we're in a crisis situation take the opportunity to learn from it and then determine what our next practice is i mean best practice is okay but you know in this situation we need to develop our next practice and we have had those discussions about what will our classrooms look like moving forward you know because historically what we thought is okay we need to have a separate teacher to do online and then the one who does in person well maybe moving forward do classrooms look different

070and then what are the technology needs for that because we may have a teacher who will have you know maybe eighty percent of the classes in person maybe twenty percent of the class is online and pipes in every day and instead of trying to set up separate infrastructures what if we could just make that one coherent approach and that you know we can then differentiate students needs and then the other thing i thought about the other day is what about maybe elective courses that you know we may have only 15 students in the whole district that want to take a latin class or what if we could actually do that virtually you know versus so they're we're talking about that and i think that's something that we'll definitely need to work on um you know

071so we can look at what those models are and we're not the only ones having that conversation a lot of my counterparts across the ohio we are having the same conversations as well what does this how what is this bowl for education uh moving forward because you're right there are some students who really do thrive in that you know virtual environment and you know i don't know a good portion of my daughter's courses at university of akron you know were virtual even before the pandemic so it's i think it's an opportunity for us thank you very much um i believe uh you might have one other item uh dr james uh i don't remember what it was but i did come up as we were talking and that is safety protocols so regardless of if

072we get all of our staff or the majority of our staff vaccinated kids and staff members will still have to wear masks we'll still you know have the sanitation all the things that mrs folk showed in the video will still be part of you know operating our schools for in-person learning so none of that's gonna go away that'll still be with us until you know more people and when they get down to more of the general public get vaccinated and we move you know we move past this i just wanted to be clear you know for folks in the community that we're still going to be doing you know those safety practices in the buildings thank you very much any final questions for uh dr james on uh to president's report so um first i

073want to thank everyone for um just everything they've done in the last two weeks i know we've all been receiving a lot a lot has gone on um with just engagement uh from the community so i wanted to share just some brief um highlights of some things that we have going on the first thing i want to highlight is the formative evaluation timeline it is time now for us to do that i will be sending an email out after this meeting with information about that um we have uh ryan's uh informative evaluation coming up soon which uh you'll get information on in the email and then i've also uh spoke with dr james about waiving his uh final formative evaluation um and he shared that if that was the will of the board so unless

074there's any objections will will waive dr james uh final uh formative evaluation if you have any objections to that feel free to share it just send me an email by the end of this week um otherwise we'll consider his evaluation waived any questions about that moving to the next point which is uh i worked with uh we had the superintendent search uh as everyone know i worked with uh mark williamson to uh develop an advanced aps document that's been used for the superintendent search but also used for external audiences as well i know ms mansfield uh mentioned that there may be a need to create another type of document for our external audiences which i think that's something we definitely can uh explore and work with mark williamson to make that happen if we need

075to so um other than that uh the superintendent search is still open for another month and i thought it was important that we added a piece on the website for everyone to go and find out information and updates for so that is listed there uh again thankful uh to mr williamson and his team for uh providing those updates there and uh we will provide updates to the community as we reach each milestone and so that will be posted on the website as well as we will send out an email information out to all staff we feel like uh making sure that everyone's informed of the process as we go along is it very important questions about um what we've done in the last two weeks about but the process we're going to follow about communicating

076with staffing in the community um moving on to the uh next item that i have uh i want to encourage each board member now that we have our new clusters and awards to reach out to those uh city council members uh for the awards to begin that communication with them uh then also reach out to the student board members dreama uh sent us i'm sorry mr whitfield sent us a email with uh instructions on how to do that how to reach out to student board members i think that most of us uh change clusters so that would be good for us to reach out to our new student board member just as we receive from abigail today um a list of questions that she received from her student uh colleagues and peers i think it'll

077be good to hear what are some of the other questions that our students are hearing in their schools um so we can do that within the next two weeks at least to make that initial contact that would be great uh which leads me to um another point which i did have a conversation with uh city council president margot somerville and we are looking sometime possibly in march to have a joint uh aps and city council meeting dr hall and i will meet with the city council leadership next month and report back to each of you about um what our plan is for the format as well as agenda items if you have ideas about that please share that with myself or dr hall as we have not scheduled that meeting yet um so it is

078forthcoming and we still have time to talk and discuss how that might um operate wait i'm sorry are there any questions about those items that i shared just now other small buckets um one is uh we have uh we are going to i'm asking and announcing that uh the board will um form an ad hoc committee on communication and engagement uh this committee will explore the formats forms and audiences uh that we could utilize to better reach our stakeholders and families and students who we have difficulty reaching i have had a conversation with dr james about this and figuring out how can we best utilize new communication tools um and platforms to better communicate out to our families and stakeholders and so that's something we're going to pull together hopefully a small committee of 15

079to 18 people where it will be co-chaired by um a board member a community member as well as an administrative member and so i've asked miss autry to represent the board by chairing uh this committee we will be meeting with dr james sometimes in the next week or two to discuss the goals of the committee and who on the administration would chair and we're also exploring uh some possible community members uh to sit on the committee and then also co-chair as well so if you have any ideas about that please share that with me as we hope by the next board meeting to give you at least an initial report on the direction that the ad hoc committee will take any questions about that all right so the final thing that i have for the

080president's report is uh professional development so the board will embark professional development series uh starting soon uh we're seeking to have a potential uh contract uh for this series uh that we're working to develop um before the board for approval in the next two weeks uh and so at the next meeting we're looking to focus this series on leadership development communication and managing difficult decisions as we have uh faced all of those things in the last year at least and i feel that with all of us uh being uh you know thrust into the pandemic and making decisions as well as leading together um that it will be good for us to uh professional development series uh to work through that we'll have an external um consultant working with us and there's more to come

081on this but the goal of this is to have these done um in small groups and then have a in-person board retreat donating um for this uh series um and that retreat i'm hoping um will be at the end of march uh beginning of april which would give us time um if you know all of the spirits are in the good in in our in our favor for us to be a part of the vaccination prioritization for aps and this will allow us to possibly at least have some meetings in person um i have plan on having a conversation with uh dr james and um mr pendleton about how we might do that um if we start meeting in person we would still be physically distanced um and possibly still live stream it and not

082be open to the public but at least give us an opportunity as a board to begin meeting face to face even um as we are distanced so uh again that will be after the vaccine um is uh all of us and if anyone has a question comment or challenge with uh that possible process feel free to share your thoughts with me um i'm definitely not wedded to that process but i thought i'm as mr patrick bravo actually mentioned earlier in this meeting that that should be a road that we try to head towards even if we don't um bring the full public back in person at least we as a board can begin to meet in public um and so that is uh the first part of professional development that i had any questions about

083that since that was a little lengthy um mrs mansfield just have a quick question about the communications um [Music] committee is will other board members be invited to attend that as well that ms autry is um is heading i do work in community outreach and marketing and things like that um i would love to help thank you very much for sharing that no board member will be restricted from the committee uh we would like it to not be majority of the board so mrs mansfield you would like to be on that committee i'm sure ms autry won't oppose that um and as long as we don't have more than one other person uh join i think we should be fine and the reason for that is for anybody who's watching is then it goes to

084open meetings uh and us being having to uh this uh the meet all the meetings um and some of our community partners and and even parents who may be involved may not want um necessarily all of the meetings to be uh live streamed and go through that process so we want to at least the whole purpose is to be able to have some of those difficult conversations around how do we reach people and also how do we do a better job of communicating with people so we might have to have some difficult conversations a little more difficult to live stream and i did see your comment uh mr bravo yes will be open um anyways because it's uh as a committee of the board so um that is questions about the professional development which is

085what i was asking about if i just want to make sure i got back on my uh table okay so there's no questions about uh that i did want to move on to two other uh professional development opportunities that we have i really feel as though we have an opportunity uh to uh invest in our development as we uh i believe owe it to our community to continue to look at ways we can develop and so two other opportunities came up and one of them is uh leadership akron uh which uh if there's anyone on this call interested at some point soon i think in march will open up and so we want to have a board representative on leadership akron and following in the footsteps of mr bravo mr alexander and mrs mansfield we

086have all i'm sure they will represent their classes proudly um if if they had opportunity to talk about that their class was the best um and i believe uh mr alexander was the last board member to um bishop background um and yes i see it's the best class ever so don't worry about it yeah that's not according to uh mr bravo in the chat there so um so uh we will be doing that so if you're interested um and dr mcwilliams was chimed in and apparently number 26 was the best so um but yes we it's a great opportunity for us to be able to uh meet different community leaders across uh this city in this region as well as an opportunity to develop um ourselves as board members to best serve our community and

087our students so if you're interested let me know i'll work with dr james and mr pendleton uh to work that process out um once i know who's all uh interested and we would like to know this uh by the end of next week if possible so we can start that process so meeting if you can let me know and then the last thing um this is awesome we've had some outstanding staff members who apparently went to a leadership background at different points and so the next thing is heart to heart which is a professional development training opportunity for us um that they did send an email to a few of our board members dr hall has responded and so wanted to see if there's any um discussion about our participation in the heart to heart

088professional development which is a series uh professional development um cohort i don't see any comments um and yes so mrs uh mansfield mentioned that nsba and osba have some professional development and trainings as well i know osba provides a weekly wednesday training webinar series that we can all take advantage of as well we have a great opportunity uh to to pursue um sessions and opportunities here so just wanted to put that out there and make the make sure that's something i'm at the top of our mind as we look forward for our goals for this year okay okay i'd like to just make a comment i think with the uh osba and nsbe i think everyone should get involved if they can and whenever they have time where their schedules permit i think it's a

089good opportunity where you can learn not just what goes on uh around here or locally but you can also know what's going on across the state you can talk with board members who are from across the state and you can talk from those across the country and you can learn a lot by being in sessions but not just in being in sessions but being around other board members from across the across the country and across the state so i would say that anybody who gets a chance to participate knows that i think he should participate in them thank you thank you very much mr alexander uh well said so uh that's the end of my report uh thank you everyone for your questions feel free to contact me afterwards as well and i will send

090you an email uh about the evaluations after this meeting moving on to treasurer's report mr pendleton this is a time for the fun stuff good evening thanks thanks mr president uh let me go to hopefully you're all seeing the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund act three items tonight i'd like to update you on briefly the first is on the sr1 point and 2.0 the second is budget season to add to our plate already we've got to start preparing for budgets for the 21 22 school year and third on the operations front we have uh post audit that's going to be scheduled here at the end of february early march for both the i.t and financial all right first item is sr 1.0 as you know we were awarded about 10 million dollars and

091through our finance committee through our staffing union representatives we did a very good job of developing a plan uh it was very academically focused albeit that was not specifically written into the uh the guidance on the left hand side column so of the 10 plus million dollars on the esser funds you know that it had some non-public transfer dollars that we had to account for to the tune of about 1.2 million and kudos to our staff for managing and doing outreach on those funds and transfers to date as reported to the finance committee last week we have spent about 60 percent of those funds and anticipate spending all of those funds before the end of this school year and obviously that's been a great assistance to the district to help develop plans especially moving forward

092to an in-person learning environment as i communicated to you this weekend we did receive our second round esther ii fund that was passed in december by the federal government that allocation is quite a bit larger and as reported in the newspaper and by our estimates that dollar amount now is officially coming out at 42.77 million dollars and those funds as you're looking at the screen on the right side are now available for our use through september 30th of 2023 uh it's probably good to touch on the values uh the transparency and the use of those funds in showing that not just talking the talk but showing that to the community through our actions and as you know we were lined up in very much by the book we could have been on the ballot in

093november of 2020 and had predicted some deficit spent the board actively managed that scenario actively managed esser first round esther funds has improved the financial scenario for both last fiscal year and this fiscal year and will do the same thing with the second round as her funds and so when we begin to build the budgets and we begin to look at the next few months building up to the may forecast we need a constant monitoring the constant monitoring needs to be done at the board level starting at the next board meeting we need to give you an indication in the finance reports if you notice the financial report was a little bit shy this month it's we're definitely in a transition we need to start accounting for some of this 42.8 what the recovery program

094looks like and on that note in the guidance under the use of funds if you look to the right side of the screen it says the same as the original however the additional language that the local education association allowable uses should be addressing learning laws preparing schools for reopening testing repairing and upgrading projects to improve air quality so it's the first time they threw in some capital components to this so just as broad-based as the spending guidance was before um a little bit more focused here but still able to use those funds as the district sees fit so through constant monitoring through the budget season adding to our list of responsibilities and lining up to may we've got a lot of work to do but also some good news is the crrsa so second round

095esther funds did not have an equitable services component so the 42.8 million is akron public schools allocation right as i stop sharing and i'll pause there if there's any questions on esser funds i can take those but otherwise i did say that adding to our prior priority list is budget season this is the time where staff superintendent myself and ultimately the board and board finance committee start to build the budgets for next school year that process actually starts with the tax budget or the organizational meeting that's how long of a runway we work towards july 1. this budget is going to be tough it's going to be tough to estimate how this 42.8 million dollars are used over what period of time what in-person learning looks like what additional expenses as the superintendent concluded his

096report with the additional expenses that we will have um so we'll pay close attention to that and then the third and final item is post audit post audit although the word audit carries sometimes a negative connotation this is really a great time for our community to be involved in a little-known fact on post audit because of the size and scope of an akron public schools we're audited in both the operational side of the equation our itc or data acquisition site so we house that under howard lawson's department so our network and infrastructure has a separate audit we'll report those to you and then our financial audit should be coming to a close and with all these additional lesser funds i think the community should look forward to and appreciate that the state agency the auditor

097of state is coming in taking a deep dive look at all those additional spending in infrastructure safety and security and focus on transparency so with that i conclude my report can answer any questions thank you very much mr penalty any questions from the board hearing um none i just wanted to say um their funds uh that you reported on i think that was the first thing you talked about um how uh basically it it's an amazing opportunity for us to to focus on that learning loss but then also a good opportunity for us to think about how do we be creative oh as the district so um i i'm i'm really excited to hear um just an initial conversations with dr james and uh dr mick williams was um what are some of the things

098that they're thinking about uh um and the third semester for example to me is a great opportunity for us to and i know they'll share more information with us soon um but it won't uh just want to just make this statement and this decoration um as i think uh ryan did a great job but it you know as he said it won't deter us from uh coming in the future it may have delayed uh the ask but uh it's definitely pending we do understand and know that people are hurting um in our community right now uh the pandemic has ravaged uh some is in ways uh unimaginable um and others it may not have had as much of an effect so the the good thing with this news is that the lease delays that decision

099for the board um and to even have to go uh before the community in such a a time where people are hurting so we we appreciate uh you reporting that and i just want to appreciate the the um funding for allowing us to have this opportunity to our district and our families other questions or comments i don't think are our signing i just want to that's one last time okay moving on thank you very much we have uh committee reports we're going to start with miss al mr alexander for legal contracts and policy committee thank you dr akbar the legal contracts and policy committee met january 13 2000 i'm sorry 2021. uh those who were present was dr akbar uh dr james uh mr pendleton miss mcveigh and myself and uh we had some unfinished

100business which is what we basically talked about in the unphysic finished business was a proposed racial equity policy and dr james presented the policy and suggested that certain language pertaining to sections of the equity policy and regarding student discipline be removed and placed in a separate document uh to resolve and uh the issues and so we can move forward with the policy and also they can be addressed in uh discipline and student code of behavior excuse me dr james indicated that we would create a separate document that will highlight the language to be be removed so that we can we don't forget it and so that we can inform other other work uh either revising or current discipline policies or working out issues and putting back putting it back to racial equity putting it back

101into the racial equity policy uh also mr pendleton reported that finance committee will begin their work uh next week which was the last week uh the pieces for the forecast five to see the reporting metrics that are needed uh to reach the goals and and slate the proposed racial equity policy he indicated that uh help with the tech department uh that they will be able to meet uh all the areas they needed for the dashboard and in building some of the uh templates necessary for for reporting we also did bylaws uh zero one five five uh committees and mr pendleton presented the bylaws for the second reading uh the committee recommended that the bylaws be moved for the third reading and final approval for this meeting today uh and finally we discussed administrative guidelines 7250

102commemorations of school facilities dr james presented changes in the administrative guidelines that were suggested at the december 7 2020 meeting um the committee agreed with the changes and dr james indicated that the administrative guidelines would be moved to the next meeting for our review as well and then the meeting we have for this evening a couple policies that we need to vote on we have for the third and final reading and request for approval revise uh bylaws zero one five five committees and we have the aps racial equity policy and we have following administrative guidelines for approval administrative guidelines to support the policy 7250 commemoration of school facilities these are read for a third and final reading we ask request a motion to accept them as read thank you thank you mr alexander entertain a

103motion to approve the third and final reading um those three items that mr alexander mentioned so moved second uh it's been moved uh by mrs mckittrick and seconded by uh miss autry to approve um the racial equity i'm sorry we probably should do those all individually right i'm sorry um i think i did it all the same so i'm going to actually retract what i said and say it um properly so the first up is the racial equity policy i believe um from mr alexander uh i will entertain a motion to approve um let's see still moved second thank you it's been properly moved uh by mrs mckittrick and seconded by ms autry uh all those i'm sorry any uh questions comments or concerns about the racial equity policy bring that uh mr uh pendleton

104roll call please mrs mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander yes yes mr bravo yes dr hall hi mrs mansfield yes thank you thank you very much i want to thank mr alexander for his work on that policy um moving on to the second piece uh which is uh the third a final reading of the administrative guidelines i believe um i'm sorry revise uh bylaws 0-1-5-5 that's this uh third and final reading for that we'll entertain a motion to approve bylaw of zero one five five still moved second is probably moved by mrs mckittrick seconded by mr alexander uh to approve the uh revised bylaws 0155 on committees uh any questions comments or concerns hearing none mr pendleton roll call please dr akbar yes mr alexander ms autry yes yes yes dr hall aye mrs

105mansfield yes this is mckittrick yes thank you thank you very much and we are going to move to the third and final reading of the administrative guidelines which uh supplement the december 7th approved uh commun commemoration december 14th i'm sorry approved commemoration of school facilities uh so this will uh supplement that um we will entertain a motion to approve the administrative guidelines he's the moved is there a second vector it has been moved by mr mckittrick's segment by mr alexander uh to approve the administrative guidelines for uh commemoration of school facilities any questions comments or concerns hearing none we will move to the vote mr pendleton roll call please mr alexander yes yes mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes this is mckittrick yes dr akbar yes thank you thank you very much

106um next we have finance and capital management committee i believe that is mr bravo yes um oh i'm sorry it's okay don't split it yes thank you mr president so on january 19th the finance committee met with the following members president um dr akbar myself uh patrick bravo dr hall val mckittrick uh dr general ryan pendleton um so as mr pendleton already mentioned we did uh discuss the esther 2.0 funds at the time we did not have the allocation so again just reiterating um that we are grateful and thankful to have that um and just also piggybacking on what our president stated um this in no way deters a levy and i want to make sure that the need for a levy stays in the forefront of all of our minds and understanding that the

107challenges that we all uh have had during this pandemic um across the country um i think is very important that we remember what our values are and i would say education would have to be at the top of our list and you know for any criticism that anyone might have about afrom public schools um i would challenge you to look deeply um into what this district has provided and in the way that it has been provided throughout this unprecedented time i know we're tired of that word but just keeping that in mind um because when the time comes to pass a levy i think it's important that we remember our values i'm in the value of this district so i just wanted to uh share that um and as well as remind us that we

108we recently passed the levy for the zoo so if the zoo was important i would say that education is equally as important and our neighbors up north half past the levee uh cleveland public school district just this past november so i'm confident that the citizens of akron appreciates our school system here also uh we discussed uh our new advocacy page which um i do not believe is live yet but i'm very excited uh that that has been brought forth um it is in the works and it will be on our page and it will be accessible to the community and to our staff uh giving us legislative updates at the state and federal levels i think that will be a very important piece for us moving forward to keep our families engaged and educated about

109the issues because they're our partners and they can help get some of these issues brought to the forefront and build relationships with our legislators at the state and federal level so i'm excited about that new advocacy page that will be uh going live um i'm not exactly sure if we have an estimated date yet but um it will be forthcoming in the near future thank you thank you also uh we covered a lot of ground at our uh finance committee meeting uh as usual and i told mrs autry to date miss austria today that i am a little rusty at giving these reports but i'll do my best i'm just going to capture some key highlights we spent some time talking about the equity dashboard and mr pendleton shared with us several charts that we

110can start to use especially with the forecast five software that we have that we can start breaking down a lot of data especially including building level analysis and per pupil expenditures and those sorts of things dr hall suggested and mentioned that you know we continue to work to normalize that data so that we make sure that we're looking at apples to apples comparisons across the district we spent a lot of time talking about advanced aps and how our finance committee you know in each of the sections each of those three goals and the objectives underneath all of those sort of an underpinning of the entire advanced aps document is the the finance and operations so uh we spent some time talking about how finance and finance committee can can work to to support the advanced

111aps initiatives and hope to have some data that we can report out by the end of the first quarter 2021 and and that goes along too with a financial reporting system for the uh equity related reporting um which again part of that dashboard that we'll be developing and sort of rolling out over time we also looked at our most recent investment report we talked a little bit which we've talked about tonight as well the sr 2.0 funds and how that will impact the may 5 year forecast and whether uh the district will will have a need to look for a levy on the november 21 ballot or whether we've pushed that out a little bit but as you've heard tonight um you know it's a more of a delayed decision not one that's completely taken

112off the table we also because of the attention around the reappraisals that have happened recently as required by statute we spent some time talking about reappraisals and how the outcome of those reappraisals affects this district and our five-year forecast and what that means uh and mr pendleton has also requested some additional information from the summit county fiscal office and has been working with them information that he can share not only with this board but with members of the public who ask and they have received you know some questions and correspondence from people in the community and from the media so he's requested some additional information and we'll be sharing that out uh as well we also talked about the master facilities plan uh as many of you well as everyone on this board knows and

113and many of the public know we still have a number of buildings uh that need some attention um and that have not been so far part of our uh they have been part of the master facilities plan but they've not necessarily been part of any of the prior segments as part of the imagine akron clc project so time to start talking about the next phases of that as we begin to look at closing out the imagine akron clc project with the state and begin closing out those segments so just something to mention there and i think that about does it for our finance committee report happy to answer any questions thank you very much ms autry and mr bravo any questions for the finance uh and capital management committee i have a question can you

114can we just clarify i i'm i i just want to help the public to understand i'm hearing the words impending levy upcoming things like that i just want to make sure what the finance committee is actually talking about here because i think that i think we all go into this knowing the history right we know that every seven to nine years and that we've extended ours and things like that so yes it's impending but in some of the emails that i got today some of the questions were with the district facing a levy can we clarify that just a little bit um impending to me sounds like the snowball's rolling at me and i'm about to get hit not that the snowball's you know somewhere near the top of the hill and my hope and

115prayer is that um with mr pendleton's help and work we're going to get some work done at the school finance level as well and and and fix some of that there were also some things that came out today from governor dewide's office regarding the budget and um and changing uh and making well they've never made education whole so i won't say that but recouping some of what higher ed and k12 lost last year by making that part solid so can we just clarify that just a little bit i'm just concerned about headlines and and somebody just catching a snippet of this meeting and hearing and pending this is miss autry and certainly ryan definitely expound upon that but what i can say for sure is it won't be on the may ballot because we've already

116missed those time frames for that so so won't be on the may ballot i can say that much yeah and just building upon that um again backing up to 2020 we were heading into in november that for all intents and purposes we we probably should have been on the ballot and as you remember it was a very healthy conversation amongst the board members and community about whether or not to go on and little did we know esther 1.0 and 2.0 would have a substantial impact on our finances so let me clarify the impending from my perspective we've got a lot of work to do between now and may and here are the points that we need to look forward as the leadership team and then the community needs to hold us accountable to is an

117academic recovery plan that knowingly has us vaccinated that it has us back in person that we have a good clear picture or progress towards what summer may look for us in terms of academic recovery before and after school programming additional staffing resources so over the next few months we need to do a lot of work to summarize what kind of expenses that we'll have on our books so 42 million allocation is a large allocation however it is to last us to september of for a reason right it's academic recovery and we're going to structure ourselves around that so mrs mansfield we will have a clear picture by the may forecast between may and july we're going to be in the midst of that in-person spend and what this academic recovery program is going to cost

118and i'm sure i speak for everyone that if at all possible we will delay we'll delay through 2021 and into 2022 if at all possible but as we all know we do that delay and even if we pass in the next year's primary or in november it doesn't collect until january of 2023 that's a long way off and so i i know i didn't answer it directly as whether or not we'll be on in november or not but these allocations came out uh literally the last 24 hours and we've got a lot of work to do thank you i just wanted to clarify that because i i think maybe if you missed that in the last meeting or didn't notice that we didn't vote on one for may i think it's really easy to have

119that part of have gotten buried in the excitement of possibilities of back to school and things like that so i appreciate you know none of us have a crystal ball and none of us know exactly what's going to happen and of course back to school is the highest priority and we're going to spend what's necessary to get students um to a point where uh you know they need to be again remembering that they've just survived or will have survived and hopefully will be on the other side of a global pandemic so um that there's also some wonderful uh lessons learned there so just wanted to clarify that a little bit because i was getting confused even in myself and i was at the last meeting so thank you yeah thank you yeah yeah just a

120quick comment i mean to to mr pendleton's point you know um you know i think that the lay person may see the esser fund dollar amounts and say wow that's a lot of money you know um you know we shouldn't be asking for a levy for 10 more years right i mean you know for folks in the late person who doesn't understand sort of what kind of what dollar amounts we're talking about from a budget standpoint what it actually cost to run a school district right um you know but just but just contemplating you know as we've had conversations around you know what would a potential summer term look like as far as academic recovery and ketchup you know that's going to be very very expensive um and and and probably eat up a significant

121amount of those escrow funds which is what those funds are in intended to be used for right in large part right so so i agree with so so to mr pendleton's point you know um and i think to the finance committee's point as well as you know is um you know i would be again this is me expressing the viewpoints of one singular board member but i would be very very surprised if we were not on if we weren't asking for a levy in november of this year and that's just my personal you know one person expressing their viewpoint right um based upon having served on finance committee and still serving on it i'd be surprised if we weren't remember because when we get to you know when we get to this summer and we're

122looking at the actual cost of what it what we're looking at to you know finance and cover the cost of a summer of a potential summer term the chances are a large amount of those ester funds are going to be eaten up in in and eliminated so you know it's a lot of night so you know so we're just you know really sort of back to square one again so um so yeah so i i think that people who are listening to this you know um you know obviously as an organization i know that we're always listening listening to feedback um but i think that but in my at least for my for my seat you know i i i would expect this to be asking for levy in november um you know and um

123you know for all the reasons i just kind of laid out and i think has been laid out by mr pendleton and the in the finance committee thank you dr hall um if i could just add to that um and just just share a little a little more about uh the the potential level i think that the um the funds that we received uh the 42 million and some odd dollars um funds that we receive will help us but uh let's you know i just want to take us back to december before we knew we were getting these funds um we still do some type of recovery and um dr mick williams woods and dr james was already were already sharing with us a need for some type of innovative more uh intensive type third

124semester or what have you uh whatever we're going to end up calling it to recover from the pandemics law learning loss and additional funds that made the levy even more an urgent uh because we would have had to use the existing funds that we have this uh this takes care because one one of the requirements that mr pendleton mentioned was that uh learning loss uh was one of the requirements for using the funds so you we can't just use it however we want there were limitations and guidelines on how to use it and that was one of them so that does an opportunity for us to take some of that immediacy and urgency off the table um but i don't know if it takes us back to square one so i just want to make

125sure i just shared that um because i don't think we get back into that whole immediacy urgency need right now right away uh but it does not um give us an opportunity to say we won't do it for another two years that that's unrealistic to believe so um will it happen in november i'm not as confident as dr hall that it will be in november but uh will it happen within the next year and a half i i would say probably so um and so uh that is something that this board has to weigh heavily and we appreciate everyone's engagement um i don't know about but i think between this morning and this meeting i've gotten about five emails specific about a levy and potential layoffs or uh budget cuts and all of those things

126and i think that that is something that people are concerned about and at present i just want to reiterate dr james uh comments during his report because even as we've been sitting in this meeting after dr james's comments i've gotten an email about potential layoffs there's no plan for that plans for budget cuts at this time um and so i just want to make sure that i just reiterate that because i did just get an email about that just now so um any other comments uh for mr pendleton or do you have anything else actually okay uh anything else for the finance and capital management committee well thank you moving to uh instructional policy mrs mansfield and mrs mckittrick thank you mr president um most of our updates you've already heard from superintendent james and

127dr mick williams woods uh the bulk of our meeting we talked about our remote plan our remote plus plans that begin february 1st and we also talked about the timeline to uh get our kids back in school those who choose that 100 option that was the bulk of our conversation and now ms mansfield is going to talk about the chan zuckerberg initiative grant thank you great um i mentioned it during the consent agenda because it's such an important grant for our district and it's a great recognition of our work it's a one uh 1.5 million dollar grant to um help with our elementary college and career academy launch and their that five-year plan development we are going to help map out the timeline and structural policy for bringing that plan to the board for approval

128by this summer and um let's see it's also to fund student and faculty equity strategies and be proactive in identifying racial cultural and class biases as well as policies practices wow there's a lot of consonants in this and to institut institutional barriers that negatively impact students um and their sense of belonging learning so really important stuff and this uh meeting we welcomed ms autry to our committee and she's gonna share a little bit more thank you mrs mansfield so um additionally um out of the uh the czi uh funding grant they will be allocating 231 thousand dollars 250 uh to united way to support uh additional family resource centers um specifically uh one and a half with one or half in the kenmore cluster and one in the north cluster so um just wanted to

129uh share that as well looking forward to bringing those additional uh supports um into the district i'm in the north and the kenmore cluster thank you thank you very much thank you very much is there uh any other questions or feedback um um instructional policy um okay so um i did want to um ask just one question um more so about the incentives for the get to school i know there's been questions about that i know that was talked about at instructional policy i believe uh dr mc williams woods talked about that so she'd be able to talk just a little bit about that process uh for our families as well uh sure and i'm i will also have miss chapman um hop into for the get to school campaign you know the that whole

130campaign is geared around our attendance incentives we have some very specific goals uh this was pre-covid to improve attendance and in particular to reduce our chronic absenteeism and a second really important indicator that we know through our partnerships with summit education initiative that if students have eight or fewer absences in a year's time their academic achievement dramatically improves so we we really we're looking at students with chronic absenteeism but then we're looking at all the rest of the student body to make sure that they are um staying below that eight or fewer absences that's that's the sweet spot for us so the get to school campaign was brought in to help with the incentives to support our students on those two major goals for the district ms chapman can talk a little bit more about

131some of the you know one or two examples of some of the major incentives that have happened right now we will be as part of the grant and the partnership with the cleveland browns foundation we have specific indicators that we're tracking that we can give at the end of the year we'll be able to give a report specifically on those indicators obviously covid plays a little different role on how we're measuring attendance it's a bit of an apples and orange comparison from last year to this year but we still get a basic sense of how students are doing monitoring their daily attendance we're still right around that 92 percent uh attendance rate that we've been pretty consistent all year with which is really very strong in a remote environment especially compared to our other urban

132brothers and sisters so miss chapman regarding the incentives okay thank you dr mick williams woods i think you hit it very well the incentives are twofold there are district level incentives for buildings who are meeting their goals as part of their school improvement plans and the work that they're doing with their attendance resource teams which is another aspect of the get to school stay in the game campaign and then the other part of the incentive is building based opportunities with funding that allows buildings and those resource teams to purchase incentives that are tailored to their student population so for some schools that could mean that alarm clocks need to be purchased for students that get them up on time and another building that could mean another set of school supplies that might need to be

133available for those students who are falling behind so incentives communications and marketing and then work with the attendance resource teams are the three aspects of the gift school stay in the game campaign thank you thank you very much the outstanding campaign um and the work that you do um and the the success that you've had so far even you know we can't really uh totally uh match that to the covet reality but uh pre-covet some of the success you have i think has been um a game changer especially when you look at our graduation rates too and how it improved um there has been small gains that we can at least point to um already so thank you for that going to um the equity committee uh dr hall uh no report at this time

134mr president um yes new report this time okay thank you very much accidentally muted myself so and that's there there's absolutely no unfinished business um as well as we have no new business however we do have a need to recess into executive session before i go into that spiel i want to ask any board member or administrator if there's anything additional they want to bring before the board tonight hearing and seeing none um i will just share that we do have a need to recess into executive session um uh to recess pursuant to ohio uh revise code one two one uh dot two two g one uh to consider the appointment employment missile discipline promotion a demotion or compensation of a public employee or official or the investigation of charges and complaints against a public

135employee official licensee or regularly regulated individual unless the public employee official licensee or regulated individual requests a public hearing we have that need uh we will open it up for been moved by mr bravo seconded by uh mr alexander uh mr pendleton uh roll call please ms autry yes mr bravo yes dr hall aye mrs mansfield yes this is mckittrick yes dr akbar yes mr alexander mr thank you thank you very much so we will um all log out of this meeting and go into the executive session for those of you watching um we will return back uh there is no uh action that will need to be taken when we return uh therefore i believe it will be a quick adjournment once we return so thank you very much everyone who watched and look

136forward to seeing the board members in the executive session thank you so okay do we have everyone ryan uh pendleton sorry mr uh to go back live very much good evening everyone and welcome back to the regular meeting of the akron board of education on uh 25 january 2021 uh we just returned from executive session new business or um action items uh to go before the board before i entertain a motion to adjourn so move second okay there you go thank you very much everyone see you uh in two weeks all right everybody have a good evening good night you