001[Laughter] oh boy all right good evening everyone and welcome to the legal contract and board policy meeting this evening of this december the 7th of 2020 covet um we'll go ahead and start the meeting uh do we have any questions on any of the meeting notes that we had from last meeting no no no no uh comments from me okay all right if we had now we'll move on with the agenda uh we'll go ahead and start with the racial equity policy uh dr james um i believe there were some changes i think dr akbar may want to talk about those yes so um from our last meeting uh we discussed uh making a few edits as well as discussing in this meeting in more full a few other parts that we didn't get to
002so one of the things that we discussed was adding information on uh student discipline and then we had um deaf folk here at the last meeting um and kathy mcveigh to talk about um the hiring recruitment portions and comments about there being some classifications that might be exempt from uh one of the pieces so what i did was um took that feedback um and just made that modification uh based off our discussion so if you look at [Music] and what i can do dr ackbar is i can share my screen and i'll put it up and i think this will have um i think this one will be the one with your uh changes or highlights yes so let me i basically just went to the last document that we had and and just renamed
003it so you could see that it was updated okay can you all see what i'm uh projecting yep yes a little bit larger well actually actually i could read it but but i know we got some old folks on the phone that's right [Laughter] um on my computer it's kind of fuchsia color these i believe dr akbar are the changes that you most recently made yeah the creation of the equity committee is going to be covered under another by law uh later in the agenda so i understand why that one was crossed out well i didn't cross it out completely i it is under um if you scroll up i can't remember which section it was under um uh ensuring uh systemic equity i think um it was under the wrong section i can't remember
004which one oh it was under eliminating systemic disparities and i moved it to under um ensuring systemic equity is what i think i did but it's um yeah that's what i did okay but again it was uh i also uh commented on the other policy as well so so there's congruency between the two okay and then i think the next one was where you included the equity in student discipline yes uh again thank you to oh man who was that i can't even remember now josh yes josh um for that discussion around uh student discipline so what i did was i looked at the research um and uh three other policies and i combined that so there was i think three different policies in the nation um that i utilize their racial equity policies um
005and their equity policies on that section on race um specifically with student discipline and created uh these i think three paragraphs from that uh based on what made the most sense can i ask a related question uh dr akbar or this committee oh i guess it's more than three paragraphs but yeah can you guys with me okay yeah yeah okay okay am i i'm having i'm having internet issues am i on delay or can you guys hear me in real time okay okay gotcha thanks um so i i just had two questions and and you and if you've already sort of discussed this already then that's that's fair i just wanted to ask them the first question is you know um have we just renaming of the committee standpoint was there a conversation around um
006naming it um calling it diversity you know the diversity equity and inclusion committee as opposed to just equity um did you guys talk through that um through that and then my other question was going to be i see that equity is doing discipline um you know i i i don't i'd like to raise the the raise the um uh the the opportunity to discuss or only sort of get on the burner somewhere whether it be back burner or not um looking at data around equity and grading um so so i think the equity and discipline is is is a very important first step um you know but i do think that um equity and grading is if if if this was the first step then i think the equity in grading for me feels like
007a second sort of lot second or and or third logical step um and there was there been some presentations that have been done on this in national school board conferences in the last couple years um you know that that we could kind of pull from or pull experts that were looking for feedback but i just wanted to raise those two those two questions um for this committee yeah and uh dr hall i think the on the ladder too with the grading that would probably go into the equity policy which we will we will need to go back and uh review the equity policy uh sometime this coming year and make amendments and adjustments to that because that grading should probably be in the equity and not in the racial equity uh piece uh although it
008could you could also you know fight and say they would it may need to be in in the racial equity because as you said on some of the national levels they have talked about this grading and equity and equitable types of grading but i think it's more or less into the equity policy and what was the first question again yeah yeah mr alexander i was just curious about um so so the actual name of the committee so it's called the equity committee i saw on the bylaws when i was looking at it uh before this committee i was just wondering uh is is there any uh merit in perhaps going with um the name so so rather than calling it the equity committee calling it the the diversity equity and inclusion committee yeah i i
009appreciate your um question on that i i'll just say the reason why i lean towards equity committee instead of dei um and this is someone who does dei work all the time but i'll tell you in systems when we when we uh mask uh equity in between other entities um equity tends to be the thing that we fall short on um and so putting equity up front you can do the other things but uh in addition to it but but we will do ourselves a disservice if we don't focus on equity specifically gotcha we should uh i agree with dr akbar on that because even when we go back to the equity policy as has inclusion in there as well and diversity and we need to go back and refine tune that that was the
010first part because that was uh wordsmith from what we brought to the uh the district when we first got uh came up with equity and we went into equity diversion and inclusion and we said okay and we got that passed but we still need to go back into that and refine that as well so you guys when you when you look at that uh that equity policy you'll see that we may need to do some changes because there that would there's it should be more equity in involved in that versus the inclusion and the diversity which also is part of it but it was more or less equity for all kids in uh in the district as well as uh uh everything else it deals with equity no no i appreciate that yeah i'm sorry
011at the risk of over simplifying anything because this is anything but simple right it seems that if you get the equity piece in place and are really working toward that then those other two areas would naturally fall into place you're right val i mean mrs mckendree because actually you know and when we first brought this here i i wanted equity because when we talk about equity equity is a little more uh easier to take okay but when you start really talking about equity you get into you start peeling back the layers you start dealing what we're talking about now in the racial equity policy you start dealing about hard conversations on other areas and so this was just a soft blow that started and then now is a good time because all the things that
012are going on across the country with race and and all the different things this is a perfect time to bring this uh up front and then as we move forward we'll need to pull back some more layers and there'll be some other areas that we may need to uh address as well so this is the beginning but i appreciate what you're saying doc dr hall and i think that's a good question yeah no listen and i and i appreciate your responses on it that makes sense to me the reason why i mentioned um going back i said the reason why i mentioned the equity and grading piece was because i saw a um i saw that in this document that's being shared by dr james that there's a um that there's a looks like there's
013a separate heading that says sort of equity in student discipline that's why i didn't know if we would go for a heading that was that said equity in student grading um because i do think that those i do think that's something that is a big enough deal that should be teased out as being independent of equity and students but i think equity and grading i think is a worthy it's worth it is worthy of its own call out um you know so those are just a couple thoughts um from the peanut gallery on that um but going back to the um so yeah so thank you for your response in that the the the question i had about the equity and student discipline um and this may be opening a can um but but i
014just want to i just want to at least ask the question how do how do changes in in this or or implementing equity how does that have or would that have an impact on code of conduct um does it have a does it impact any uh you know any anything any contractual language we have with the aea um or any existing mouse i know they'll not the the the i promise school has a separate arrangement around discipline as i recall so i just want to ask like you know just how is this how does this um fit with with in the existing landscape if you will of pre-existing sort of policy and procedure at least as it relates to student discipline and conduct uh dr hall there are three main policies of policy 5500 policy
0155600 and policy 5610 which all deal with this issue you know my recommendation would be that in the same with the grading policy because we have policies that will cover grading is that those policies be revised to reflect this language rather than having language put in here that may run contrary to those you bring up a good point we've always had um let's say a contentious relationship on certain aspects of our discipline policy with uh primarily our teachers union and you know i'm not saying that's good or bad that's just we've had some healthy discussions about differences and how our code is applied and discipline regarding students and there is language in um our agreement with the akron education association that covers some aspects of discipline and they've gone back years and we have had
016some disagreements about that okay great yeah again i just i just wanted to ask the questions that way was sort of on the radar i i appreciate it thank you oh so so yeah so so let me ask dr mr alexander i mean like um what are your thoughts on that i mean you know do do you do you gentlemen agree that it makes sense to revise existing language or or do you think or do you find it more practical to go a different router direction i think it depends on which and what so um i think we have the equity policy we all agree with the equity policy and the pieces around it uh the racial equity policy i mean um and then if there's any conflicts in the other policies then uh subsequent
017to the passing of this policy we immediately make those uh changes in the associated um policies that uh dr james mentioned would be my suggestion uh because going to those policies making changes before we know that we have board agreement um to me seems like that's a lot of work um especially since we're it centers on racial equity does that make sense roger that yeah yeah and the derek dr dr hall i think music all right when we start talking about uh those grading policies go back and look at those and then we can go back and put uh some of this maybe language if we need to in there or revise them and change them to uh so they will reflect what we're trying to talk about or or our goal which goal we're
018trying to reach with those because i think it's it's it's uh we'd have to again like as dr akbar said we need to get this passed and then we can go back and look at others just like i said we need to go back and look at the equity policy again as well so finishing this here policy i think would be more beneficial to us and then going back to make those adjustments would be great just like dr james said i think that would be the time there to go back since we have three grading policies and we need to go back and just amend those and and make those suggestions and so forth that you you're you're you're thinking about you're bringing up which are good you know that's something i didn't think about
019was the grading piece and i i've seen it too when we were at the the conference and they were talking about equity and grading and i was in a couple of those sessions and i thought hey this is interesting but but i didn't think of it so i'm glad that you did think about that great thank you both appreciate it okay all right dr james i'm sorry we can continue on dr akbar so anything else on the discipline section you want to move on um i'll just mention what the main cuts of the the student discipline uh portion is it is uh basically requiring a adverse uh impact analysis uh biannually uh so or semi annually i'm sorry with recommendations and resolutions from that data to come before the equity uh committee so that's twice
020a year it also is um eliminating uh two practices that we may or may not be doing uh one of them is which i don't think we're doing but it's just ensuring that we we don't do it uh ever which is to utilize school resource officers for disciplinary action and referrals for violations of the student code of conduct so we should be dealing with violations of our student code within the district not sending it to the police so um you know that's the quickest way to uh develop that school-to-prison pipeline the other piece is the eliminating of the the violation disciplinary violations of disrespect and misbehavior if you look at our state data the vast majority of our disproportionality falls within those two categories uh and when uh you ask what does that mean you
021get different answers and so uh eliminating those two and being very clear so actually call calling for a review of our student code of conduct to clearly articulate and operationalize uh the other offenses uh and violations of the code so ensuring that that happens and then the last thing has to do with um that adverse effect um adverse impact uh analysis so looking at the the data in a disaggregated way uh to see um it by uh school level by teacher level and by a violation level based off race race and gender as well as gender alone so that is the crux of that portion any questions comments or concerns no no concerns i just had a a clarifying question if i may um you know it's your point after that by the disrespect and
022misbehavior thing have long i think uh it causes some consternation in my head as well my clarifying question is how do disrespecting misbehavior um in general like how does that differ from insubordination you know in in kind of within the context of a classroom or or educate i know in the work environment i think we all know when it's abortionation that's pretty clearly spelled out but but within but you know you know are we going to see an uptick then in in classifying student behavior as being insubordinate um you know as opposed to disrespectful or misbehavior again again again for me in my head these things are a little bit cloudy and muddy which is why i was just hoping for some clarification there yeah most of the issues around the disrespect in our code
023it's a little different like it's um many times it's a verbal verbal assault which could require a student to be removed from that building if it's directed at a staff member and then have that student removed from that building because of a verbal assault or physical assault and then there's also usually when we have issues it'll be instead of you saying okay you're you violated this code section usually there'll be two or three so you were insubordinate because you didn't follow the staff members uh you know directive and then if you happen to use a curse word it could be a verbal assault and a whole variety of other uh code sections gotcha thanks i appreciate it so basically what so basically what we would see here potentially is a migration of things that were
024disrespectful and be miss favorite kind of falling into the insubordination category then is that is that is that right it could but we'll have um we'll have some com we'll have to have conversations with um some of our bargaining groups about that because looking at it and then you know we have a another way of looking at it yeah and i will add to what dr james is saying um that's why i call for a review of the student code of conduct and actually clearly operationalizing the other uh violations so to try to uh reduce that migration obviously you know it is possible um that that that migration steel may happen but if you're also on top of reviewing the code and getting it clear on top of that you're also doing a um a
025semi-annual review of what uh violations are going uh what's what violations are happening and and where they fall around any disproportionality um found then we can begin to have those discussions as well so you could do that uh on a consistent ongoing basis than a uh at president i don't i'm i don't think i'm sorry i accidentally muted myself presently i don't think the board gets that um information that frequently so you're talking about the difference in i guess it's an escalation process right so it might start as something i don't know some kind of disrespect or misbehavior and then as you as it worsens then it comes it becomes insubordination and maybe then it lumps a few other things in with that am i understanding that correctly correct okay thank you thank you very
026much so that's all for student discipline the other piece uh that uh was modified was the recruitment screening hiring and retention um some of the language well actually um whole sections were struck out and what i did was based off the feedback i didn't think that the whole sections needed to be struck out i thought that it needed to be reworded a little bit uh to incorporate the comments and contacts that was added and so that's what i did there um and basically it's just about uh the screening process and having a values-based grading process so eliminating values-based screening processes um and uh basically giving the hiring managers uh more access to who's in the pool uh to make decisions for their buildings or uh administrative positions and the hope is yeah the whole values
027are they based on right yeah they're based on uh white hegemonic values actually right if it's a plus value system then you're going to leave out a whole bunch of folks right definitely and that's what happens whenever you norm whenever you uh create normal normative values um or cultural um assessments the the largest the largest number of individuals in that population meaning culture-wise or race-wise tend their values tend to become normalized so we're trying to uh respect everyone and honor everyone's cultural differences and uh really give buildings who know what their students needs are a little bit better than a screening process uh that's based on normative values so there there's still likelihood there is still um um there's still potential for um bias to creep in in any way but you begin to chip
028away at some of those processes that you know are biased one thing that we could do which is not added here but one thing that we could add is an adverse impact analysis um annually on our hiring promotion and um we are hiring and promotion uh processes and maybe even pay processes so if we do it where those three categories for every category of employee we have annually that will give us just like with student discipline um a more up close and personal look at that more regularly and so that's something we can consider to add that i didn't add but i but we could so quick question about that do we have so i guess related question maybe um is there anything like in in part in the analogy but in the nfl they
029have what's called the rooney rule right where for a head coaching position you are required to interview one candidate after one diverse candidate um and there are some exceptions to that but um but but do we have anything or has anything like that been considered here as as a possible replacement for some of the some of the normative values based screening processes have we thought about or is it on the table that we'd have something like a rooney roll here you know uh kathy i'm just asking if there's no need for it that's fine i just i just wanted to at least ask the question but i think we've got i think we have done um a better job of finding minority candidates for particularly for our administrative positions and i'm not saying it's easy
030but um you know the language here says we may need to look at something different you know than those norm based norm values based screenings so we might have to look at that yeah and and the other and i'm not sure that i fully agree with the rooney rule because that makes it more numbers based um but i think what might be important here is um if we look at collecting information so one of the things that uh kathy did share with us at the last meeting that i'm not sure um how i don't know um the challenge with this because you know every institution i know does this but we need to you know be able to collect racial and gender and veteran status information when people apply um and make it optional um
031not mandatory but you know that will give us some data about what the pool looks like and so uh if the pool is diverse from that information that gives uh you know the central hr an opportunity to say this pool is diverse you can move forward and if not then they can figure out other ways to try to get a more diverse pool a lot of depart a lot of entities especially public nc's have uh that done by an affirmative action department and i know we don't have one and probably i'm not i'm not suggesting we get one but some of those processes uh we should look to incorporate yeah we have to look at also the way that we recruit the recruitment measure the way that we recruit is going to be a little
032more crucial we need to put more tentacles out there into places that have more uh minorities and if you have those tentacles out there you'll probably attract more uh and and sell our district a little bit as far as marketing and i think what will happen is that we will get more of those type of candidates who will be willing to uh want maybe to to come to to akron and say okay yeah i want to be part of you know the akron public school district because they're doing this and they're doing that and i think once we do that and then we change our recruiting and we we have to do more we can't just do the kind of i call the local recruiting that we're going in ohio and basically basically ohio we
033need to go outside uh because i know years ago there was a program at the university of akron where they recruited uh various individuals from you know like the south and they brought a lot of those individuals up to the university of akron a lot of them got into education and there were a number of them that uh came back from public schools and worked and uh and he also continued to um to uh rise in our district in in some state and worked in the district in higher positions and a few of them left uh uh actually in one in particular is one of the the current superintendent of uh uh columbus public schools who was akron public schools you know kane was recruited through the university of akron and uh we worked with
034the university of akron to get these students and came here and i mean now she's blossomed you know but uh those are just kind of the examples we i'm just trying to say that we need to look at it also might require us even though it's not something that we're necessarily i don't know that we've done and it's not something that we have direct control over but those employees that are hired via civil service and we might need to see what advocacy we can make and and maybe what progress we can make we do have a number of employees that those physicians probably could be filled more diversely but it might it might require us to take a look at how our civil service operates here locally and we don't like i said i guess
035we don't have direct control over that but it's something we should think about yeah that was one of the things that um kathy mentioned and i know deb mentioned it as well and really gave a lot of robust uh contents for that for bruce and i and whoever i can't remember who all else was on that meeting uh which is why uh we changed that a little bit and because we don't have direct um say i think that's good to be something that uh dr james um or even kathy may want to look into but i don't think that we should um you know move or get too wrapped up in that yep okay all right uh we'll continue to move on anymore anything else in this this policy dr ocbot that we need to
036to deal with yeah it was the resource distribution um section at the finance and resource allocation ashley's scroll up sorry and ryan's not here but um i'm okay with the strikeouts i just wanted to know that we did not review that at all um i wanted to see what everyone's thoughts were on that and and my thought is that you know i know ryan's not here but i know he started doing some work on this area and we probably could uh uh we would i know we would benefit by uh hearing from him and seeing where he thinks we should kind of go with some of this as well see some of his here's some of his ideas of what he has in this area of finance and uh resource allocation because i know he
037is he has been doing he's been looking into this and doing this uh kind of some of his research flew over a year almost two years now uh uh maybe even longer than that when we started talking about equity and he's the first one who dived into uh this equity piece says okay i need to look at the finances let's start looking at that and so forth so that's i think we need to you know yeah yeah so yeah i appreciate that too i mean this is where i think sometimes the way our committees are set up kind of forces to work in silos on things that really can be more cross-functional so much of the college and career academy there is that overview at times between finance and industrial policy this is one where
038i think there's overlap between sort of legal policy and it's going to be equity and obviously finance committee right i mean so um so miss archery so i i want to defer to miss autry as well to have an opportunity to weigh in on this but i know that that we have uh have added as a sort of permanent standing agenda item within the finance committee to be talking about sort of all things equity and finance right which would which also includes the equity in english and resource allocation we're actually actively looking at some of that stuff now um you know so but i would love to do whether whether this is quarterly or like every other month you know but maybe maybe this is a topic that we do a joint kind of committee
039meeting where we've got finance as well as legal policy and contracts um you know doing a joint meeting around this topic because because i would want you know you dr akbar and you mr alexander to to you know to be able to kind of hear some of the conversation kind of hear what we've been working on um and have a chance to opine um as well on that um you know so just as you know miss mckittrick and miss mansfield you know as you move forward you know they can opine on things that are financed and we can talk about things i mean that's what i'm saying before i think you know as we sort of move forward i think you know in the new calendar year it might make sense with respect to certain
040topics to prioritize maybe some joint you know some joint operating commit call them jlc's joint operating committee meetings around certain topics i think that's perfectly fine um i will say though as we move to um the committee uh policy it may make more sense for the equity policy economic equity committee and the finance committee to meet than the legal contracts and board yeah that could be something we talked long range downrange i'm downrange i got you i was like i just realized what i said but i'm glad i said it yeah but yeah so that was the uh only other piece i think we have pretty much felt good about the other pieces unless i am mistaken uh dr james or uh so uh what i would ask if um dan rambler and his team
041would look at the student discipline if that's the major i would say probably the most updated or change because i didn't exist before um i you i did utilize the feedback that josh gave me for my notes um about what they probably should look at so i think it's incorporated and goes a little bit beyond what he shared um but yeah yeah i think we should let them look at that because josh did give some input he he came to us and said hey this is something he would like to look at so they should have an opportunity to look at that and maybe give us some of their input as well okay okay all right all right uh anything else with the racial equity um i i do have a question i know we
042were aiming for december 14th for the third and final reading um what are your thoughts about where we are um with that does it do do you think dan will have enough time uh um i'll work with him to make sure they can review it but you know before the end of the week that came from josh i wouldn't expect to see any major changes yeah okay well most of it didn't come from josh but it was in line with what he stated and then we went a little bit beyond that so all right yeah i don't i don't want anything to anybody think that josh went as far as i did all right i'll have him review that yeah um it was something else i was gonna say no i think that's it yeah
043and then once bruce i'm sorry mr alexander uh once we get that feedback back um that was that sounded weird but once we get that feedback we can decide if um it's ready to go um and maybe get that clean version out to everybody okay yes that's that'll be perfect be perfect okay all right uh naming policy all right here let me get out of here close that one and then i'll share my screen again and we'll get to the naming policy let's see there we go and i'll uh can everyone see that yeah yeah okay i don't know mr alexander looks like he's stressing to see that screen i just want to make sure that you can see that when you when you get to be my agent you start wearing trifocals you're going
044to do the same thing [Laughter] you youngins need to show a little respect hey we're still young val don't don't let them let them tell we're we're or we're young if you say so very um simple policy and it's the board's uh discretion on how uh you want to have a facility named um and it would include parts of building so it could be fields auditorium stadiums gyms library multi-purpose rooms training rooms yeah i think it should include all those because you have individuals such as you know what's going on now with uh [Music] miss jones who passed and uh you know wanting the name uh floor gym floor or something after so i think that was something we we we would probably need to right there or consider so so so yeah i think
045yeah i i agree i think this is pretty straightforward you know i just wanted to ask so this may be something that uh is already maybe a part of it an admin guideline somewhere but but for example when we're looking at um it may not need to be in a policy per se but my question was going to be um when we are looking at naming a facility uh room etc after an individual um do we for example do we employ someone to do a sort of robust sort of background check um on that person um you know or or and i i said this question because there are times when you know on the surface you might believe a person they've been an educator for 30 years and they're stand up and blah blah
046blah and then you do a background check and then some things come out that that no one ever really knew about that person that could raise an embarrassing an embarrassment should someone else find it and dig it out so i just was curious about that it was my first question so here let me um i'll stop sharing this and i did draft some administrative guidelines and let me i'm gonna pull those up so you can take a look and we can then discuss uh that part okay so um these were uh this is just draft um but as you can see um you know it just follows that bore policies um and then it said here's the criteria all right because i know that was in one of the earlier versions of that policy i
047felt it really belonged in um in administrative guidelines so it would be you know so we have number one two three all right um we could add language uh you know regarding like some background uh information that what is you know not detrimental or embarrassing to the reputation of you know the akron public schools or the legacy of you know however we want to do that roger that okay no yeah okay that i appreciate that yeah that was just the one kind of question i had was sort of around that um you know so because again i know a lot of times not a lot of times i know that there can be times when you know someone on the service is a saint and then something comes up that you know usually the context
048is domestic violence you know like oh so-and-so was the great teacher and wrote that this person may have been abusive to their wife or children in some way that no one would have known you know so that's why you know i want to kind of yeah and we'd rather do the research ahead of time than name something after someone and have to change it after something embarrassing comes out right right and so you guys know the administrative guidelines are basically dr james and them kind of separated the policy piece the the meet from the uh the guidelines the guidelines were part of the policy and so it's a i think it was to me i thought it was good i liked the way it was uh put together and it gives a little better policy
049just gives it what the policy is now here's the guidelines and how we go about doing this when we do it and so i what banning what dr hall said doing some research i think is good because i i agree and as miss mckendree says we need to do the research beforehand before we allow something to to na uh to name a floor or a gym or building or something after someone then find out later that there was something that wouldn't be good for us and kind of hurt us in the long run with respect to naming of a facility um has the policy always like historically um you know has the policy always been one where it was for the duration um of the life of the facility or in the past was it
050or was it was it supposed to be something that was in perpetuity and i asked the question obviously within the context of school buildings right i mean so for example when we built you know um i'm trying to think about so booked a high school you know so much to high school was built you know was there at that at that time you know was was entertaining that if you tore down book don't rebuild it be called booktube because um you know of the rule where that where the name would be used in perpetuity if the building was to be located at that location no that was never in any of our policies uh that i recall um when we were you know replacing our buildings and building the new we pretty much kept the
051same name except you know highland park which is currently sam salem but they changed the name before we even had these uh project so uh sam salem yeah dr holland and i did research around this when we were it was actually when we got approached about a facility last year and the process got pretty far out in front of us the locally within that neighborhood the the naming was announced before it ever came to the board even though the board had said hey we're working on a new policy we'd like to put this through our new policy as soon as we finish it that the name ended up getting announced in the community and within the media before we even had a chance to look at it so there hasn't been a really strong policy
052around this both for the naming and for the duration which is something we talked about last year which was should at least to protect ourselves at some point in the future should we put in the policy that hey this is for instead of in perpetuity this is more of a will be reviewed every you know 20 30 25 30 years um and and give an opportunity like let people know up front this may not be in perpetuity if it's you know this building has been rebuilt three times since then and you know nobody can really tell you why it was named what it's named maybe we give the community an opportunity to sort of update but that's never been in the policies that i could find gotcha so so two quick follow-up questions on this
053one um the one would be um to that point mr bravo um here you know with the looking at saying it would be for the duration of the utilizing the facility does it i mean would it make sense um to say that every building is reviewed every 10 years um you know you know to ensure the appropriateness of the continued use of that of that facility name um i mean and again i'm not saying that's what it should be i'm simply i'm just asking the question and then so my second sort of question slash comment is um on the votings that have been named historically and if no one here knows the answer's question that's perfectly okay because i know that i'm asking someone buttons have been on for a long long time um or
054names have been used for whatever but but when we name so i use david hill for example i went to grade school there right i mean um you know is there is is there an archive that exists that kind of saves the thought process and or rationale behind how a budding was named i guess and i was using it maybe an analogy would make sense would be like whenever you drafted or a new law one can always refer back to the legislative history you know around that law to kind of get some context right um as to how long we have that it's a publication called what kind of name and i'll have it sent to each other board members and then go through the history of who would be like leicester king was you
055know what king school was named dr james i did already send that out to all earlier this year i scanned it and sent it out um but if you needed to re-send it but if you know no no i took a look at that but but but i think what i and i may have missed this uh but i think what i didn't see in there was kind of uh uh the process that was followed so i so i saw that it kind of gave you bios if you will a lot of those folks in there but but what i didn't see was like this was the process that we use you know to to to come up with this particular name for this particular ability and that's that's what that's what i didn't see
056so if i missed that my apologies but right but i saw what i thought it was it was a lot of bios yeah most of those buildings you know like the original david hill was probably in the 1920s i i have never saw you know like a rationale for that um i imagine at the time they just looked at you know people who were influential in the community you know like you know how john our book though you know got me not our book tour harvey fire you know some tuning back in the days when those buildings were initially built um you know they use the process i would imagine that would be similar you know historical significant for their contribution you know to the community yeah that's basically what the and dr james is
057right uh the history is that these guys these or these individuals were prominent people in the community who uh were running uh the big companies here and they were doing given a lot of contributions to the city to the schools to everyone and since they were doing these things and they made some historical um i want to say historical gains and and really good things that they really uh goals that they did to help the the city and the the school district and they uh had their their names put on the on the buildings you know uh dr james had booked the litchfield firestone you know booktube uh all these schools had some individuals uh who were prominent in in the city of akron there is some history and uh dave liverpool would would have
058this uh he is really good with all the history and that's how i learned about a lot of it i knew some but i learned a lot through him and he could give us a whole lot maybe dr james we could uh or patrick mr bravo we could uh look look at uh look to him and ask him where can we get some of this so we can give a little bit more historical way back in the in the early 1900s when a lot of this this stuff was going on uh i've never seen any of the process anywhere i assume if anywhere it would be in the minutes if it's even in the minutes um but i know the bios are there whether it's antique case or you know uh resonant judith resnick i
059mean all the names came from i don't know the process behind it but i think this is probably the first time because i'll tell you at least since the time bruce and i have probably been on the board and there haven't really been any building name changes but there have been kenmore garfield ostensibly but the whether it's a resource room or a field house or a field or something like that it's really just been there's no other name on it the community usually we don't know about it until the petition gets turned in they get a petition together they turn it in there's a groundswell of community support and they ask the board to name the resource room after you know such and such person and we consider it and we vote um but there
060hasn't been any deliberative process like this this is the first time you know that we when we started this last year this has been the first attempt i think at a really comprehensive naming policy so i don't know if that process exists anywhere dr uh hall other than maybe we could search the minutes well no no there's no need there's no need i i just i just wanted to make sure i had done my due diligence to make sure that there wasn't an older process that we used that was followed 70 years ago or 50 years ago that that's all so so i i i think you guys have answered my questions appropriately thank you okay uh anything else do we need to to discuss in this part of the policy dr james i don't
061think so um if you want i can add some language in the administrative guidelines regarding background you know information and research on a candidate you know if we're going to do that for a change the only thing i was going to say too is um yeah i like the the background check and then do we do like a community sort of comment period so i know a lot of times on you know a federal rule there's a there's like a a comment period that might be 30 days where the community can comment we can kind of look at the content comments because because when i use the domestic violence example you're not going to catch that in a background check um but it might have as far as but it might come up as far
062as the community comments like hey did you know this guy you know beat his wife right or abused his kids you know you know and so that's something that that obviously we want to know and be able to look at look into so i would say if we could add like once around that would allow for a 30-day or 45-day sort of community comment period you know that might be helpful as well yeah i like that okay uh i don't think i'm missing anything else on the agenda am i missing anything back to akbar um well the committee um yes i'm sorry yeah yeah but before we go there just so that everyone is aware the plan is to send the um commemoration policy uh to the full board for our third and final reading
063on monday so uh the background information seems to be the uh only thing needed to be added to the administrative guidelines um but the policy itself it sounds like we're good with yeah yep yep okay does the comment period go in the administrative guidelines too i like that yeah yeah we can put that in there as well okay and then next uh the final thing we have is the committees and dr james you want to go ahead with that as well i think this one was just um really adding the equity committee and then there was some language uh highlighted and read um regarding you know the process of those committees like i'll name a staff member to serve as a liaison you know for that um i think i i didn't really have any
064issues with it i thought it was pretty straightforward it does talk about you know that the board can appoint ad hoc committees for a specific problems or issues for a time for a specific time frame when the need arises yeah so the policy basically or the bylaws basically a change to our bylaws to actually bring it more in line with the way we operate the current bylaw is uh very slender and so it doesn't name any of our committees or anything or um give us that authority but it also doesn't give us uh it doesn't prohibit us from having not committees and all those things so uh or to say how many people are on each committee so i think that it just clears that up and brings our power our bylaws aligned with the
065way we operate while also adding the equity committee to that about i'm sorry go ahead mr bravo i'm just gonna ask the only question i have is since we're having a discussion about it is i've brought up to a couple of you before about maybe increasing the membership among committees so that there isn't such an issue of um of a quorum and a public meeting requirement i mean right now with three members on the committee being two committee members and the presidents um you know anytime two people are having a discussion hey can you call me after work i have a question about such and such i mean two people automatically constitute a quorum and that phone conversation however brief or whatever it may be on you know by statute should be noticed i mean
066you're a it's a committee of the board and any pre-arranged discussion to discuss board business should be noticed and that's that's not really what i think the spirit probably intends um but by having such a limited number of folks on each committee we sort of put ourselves in that situation and i'm just wondering if now might be the time while we're talking about this policy that to take some time to talk about that and figure out if we want to restructure a little bit or if we want to add add more folks to each committee well so i i so first okay so i i have a question to that i would i want to get out there so that we uh mr alexander and dr aguero can i guess can answer all of our
067questions but my question was going to be was actually a minor point and and this language may have been in there dr james and i apologize if i missed it but with the creation of an ad hoc committee i i know it's you know i it but you know it probably makes you know i would say it probably makes sense that if you're gonna if we're gonna create if we're gonna allow for the creation of ad hoc committees that there would be an annual period of time in which you would review the need for the continuous of said ad hoc committee so so that way they don't so so basically which thing is an ad company it cannot exist indefinitely so every 60 days it would be a review of the continued need for the
068ad hoc committee's existence that's so that's the only thing i was going to i was going to add but i was interested in in mr bravo's question like i was trying to think uh back to you when you say add more people like who who who are you kind of who are you thinking about adding i know if we were to add more board members then you have to notice that anyway because there's more board menus now you have a course now you have a corner of the board so i guess so right now you add more board member we our committee meetings have to be noticed anyway period any committee any meeting of a committee or subcommittee of this board falls under sunshine law and must be noticed so it doesn't matter whether we
069have two people or 12 people it has to be noticed but if if i'm on this committee if you and i are on the finance committee along with the board president and i say hey derek i really have a question on this can you call me after work today and let's talk about this question i have on this subject that's part of finance committee that phone call violates sunshine if it's not technically noticed as a meeting because there are so few people on that committee that it's a pre-arranged discussion to discuss board business um and so therefore it falls under sunshine so it's it almost makes it impossible for even two of us to have a conversation outside of any publicly noticed setting and i don't think that's fair and we do have you know
070i don't know the occasional need to at least pick up the phone and say hey derek i didn't you know that that comment you made earlier in legal and board policy i just had a question about that um and i don't want to have to notice a meeting to have that conversation not that i want anything to fall outside of sunshine but it makes it fairly impractical i think is that actually sunshine i thought that maybe i may be wrong but i thought it had to be three uh or more people couldn't be together to do that so if you and uh dr hall were talking about something that would be okay if you're talking about the board information about whatever and then that was just the two of you but i thought it had
071to be three out in public together to do that forum which is more than half we establish a quorum 50 percent okay so if i can interject here um i'm i'm not a lawyer and i don't want to pretend to even play one on tv um but i did ask um diana feido to look into this for us and so um she said you know as you know she um just had a baby recently so she's going to get that information to us shortly so just wanted to say that i'm not sure if that affects this again it this is just going up to for first reading at the board meeting on december 14th so we have time on this uh to fully discuss it i don't even know if we need to fully discuss
072it today um but this was more so this is the bylaw that is coming before us to have a full discussion at our next um policy meeting yeah thank you and i didn't need to do realist that's why i was bringing it up since it's going for first reading i just wanted to throw it out there that this might be the time to see if we want to add some more members to each committee so yeah thank you it would be interesting to see what diana has to say too and maybe i need to go back and look at the sunshine uh piece again you know dust off my book and see what it what it's saying yeah i'm gonna pull it too i'm gonna pull it too um and put my lawyer hat back
073on um for that um because i think the point that mr bravo was getting out was i think the distinction here mr alexander i think the point is like well whenever you have a quorum of a committee so for example a board meeting you know there's that's seven of us so quorum is basically four so in a committee meeting if you only have two committee if you only have two board members on the committee if one talks to the other that's a quorum because that's both committee members i think that's the point he's making to quorum of the committee of quorum of the board members if you add now you have you say you're gonna have five board members on that committee if two of them talk that's not a quorum i think i think
074that's the distinction that he was going after okay okay um you know um so but again yeah but i think i think we all should be safe i think we should you know you know confer with our war council and you know and again i you know obviously i'll have a look at it again as well but i think mr bravo was at the point you were making i just make sure that i had that accurately represented yes yes exactly okay okay all right and i don't and i still don't think that adding one person solves that problem because it here's the thing if you talk to yourself uh then that's that's uh that's 50 you know so if you talk to another person and it's uh three people that's a 67 so that's that
075would be more than half so the three people still doesn't solve it so she's going to look into it and also look at case law and see if there's any rulings or anything that can glean some understanding specific to committees uh with no voting um authority uh not necessarily the full board so that's what uh her and i chatted about so hopefully we'll have that sometime uh next month before our next meeting okay great okay thank you thank you dr james you're welcome okay okay do we have any other questions in reference to this uh committee piece comments concerns questions okay anything else to come before this this meeting no i know dr james just fell off um probably by accident i don't think we have anything else but just one point just wait for
076him to come back okay okay dr james we just uh know that we didn't have anything else to say or anything any other discussion i didn't know if you had anything else at all okay well if not uh that's all we have for this this meeting meeting will be adjourned thanks thank you to everyone who came and participated uh all right meeting we appreciate your input yeah thank you thank you all right everyone everybody monday all right hi everybody good night everybody monday all right everybody