001thank you good morning and welcome we are going to call to order the special meeting for the acon Public Schools board of education for Saturday August 15 2020 roll call please Dr akar here Mr Alexander present pres Mr Bravo president Dr Hall hi Mrs Mansfield here Mrs mckitrick thank you all right and if we could all mute we'll uh handle the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you so much all right for those of you uh joining us today and for the public who may be watching uh this is a continuation of our board retreat that started yesterday we're meeting approximately 10 hours over two days
002yesterday and today uh to discuss a number of items that that the board wanted to spend some extra time on uh so today we are uh more discussion and a uh some vision and strategic planning exercises uh today we will largely be focusing on diversity Equity inclusion and racial justice as well as picking back up on part two of our vision and strategic planning process we will wrap up the day with some Levy and finance discussions so at this point we ended our day yesterday with an exercise on vision and strategic planning we did give uh the board members just a little bit of homework or at least something to think about in terms of what areas you feel we should be advancing uh as as a district uh we received some really great updates
003on our College and Career Academy efforts and our Middle School transformation and so as we go throughout the day we just want you to be thinking about those for when we pick back up on that conversation we're really looking to hone in on at least three areas where we as a board in line with what the uh what are what we've what we're already doing as a district uh what we'd like to pull out as our three highest priorities and some specific measurable objective and attainable goals underneath each of those so just as we're going throughout the day we want to ask that the board kind of be thinking about those or jotting those down but we're going to begin with um our efforts and uh around diversity Equity inclusion and racial Justice um the
004board uh knows and and the public may be aware that's that maybe watching that recently we passed a resolution condemning racism as a Public Health crisis and within that resolution were some very specific uh items that the board wanted to see accomplished and so we want to talk about those a little bit and start with that this morning so Mr superintendent I will turn it over to you thank you Mr President good morning um today I have Carla Chapman and Dr Erica Glover who will provide an update on uh where we are with our diversity Equity inclusion and R Justice initiatives thank you thank you superintendent James good morning everyone thank you for allowing us this time this morning I am going to attempt to present my screen see if I can do this I
005believe that you all have the document shared um but I'd like to kind of pull it up so that we are all looking at the same thing together so a brief update on where we are in terms of the action items listed in each of the sections outlined by the board resolution passed in June I'm going to walk through some of the work taking place across various departments in our district as you are all where Dei work is crosscutting it touches every department and so I often refer to uh this work as the pushing and pulling along of others in this particular area and in the ownership and responsibility of diversity equity and inclusion outcomes for our district so in the curriculum and instruction area Dr McWilliams woods and and her team who primarily are
006addressing at this time section three and four as it relates to curriculum Karen GIC has pulled together a team of Educators who are looking at curricular goals that include the following vetting curriculum options including the Facing History and ourselves um curriculum which provides a uh back to school toolkit for teachers that gives them the information they need to provide activities that build upon each other and support all the prerequisites around race diversity and inclusion in curriculum one of the next steps is to really provide our teachers with the professional development that they need in order to understand the expectations we have for them around supporting this type of work including an inclusive and welcoming classroom space allowing students to explore their individual identity and individual understanding of community having students explore and analyze shared understanding
007of our community creating a classroom contract that includes fostering and maintaining a community where students honor and value different ing perspectives questioning assumptions raising their voices and actively listening to others we want to analyze primary sources including disciplinary literacy around diversity in our country's history that lends itself toward a greater understanding um we have just added if you are all familiar with the 1619 project of Nicole Hannah Jones to the social studies resource information and Adam modder is working with teachers to fully understand how to integrate that into their lessons so there is work taking place on the curriculum and instructional side moving to training um there is a section five in the resolution related to expanding training where it is not already existing we have 11 diversity trainers in our district now that we've
008been developing over the past three years they represent central office instructional coaches teachers learning Specialists building administrators and administrative Specialists as well as a couple of retirees these folks have been developed over the past three years in their cultural competency disrupting poverty training lead diversity certification trauma training the certificates in training and development from KSU the racial Equity Institute um dialogue Circle facilitation and coming soon the racial Equity dialogue training developed by everyday democracy some of the 11 have many of these some have a few you I have all of it so um we want to be sure that our trainers are fully equipped to deliver this kind of information in our sessions two and a half years ago the superintendent mandated 100% of new hires to undergo a six-hour professional development session We are
009continuing that again this year to date there are 95 new hires there are 12 sessions that will be offered between August 17th and August 21st so we're going to be busy providing that cultural diversity cultural sensitivity and humility training between August 17th and the 21st we are right now developing school-based sessions that address specific areas as identified on School Improvement plans so principls reach out and they uh talk about and inquire about whether we can deliver training specific to their building needs and this year several buildings have already come forward with a request for implicit bias microaggressions and ra racial Equity um series training IPS in particular David Hill book though so a number of schools have already reached out um what typically happens is when a school comes forward with requests training sessions happen
010other schools start to come forward in that because all of our schools have climate goals in their school Improvement plans this this usually relates to the type of training that they want their staff to have um wanted to share too that our team is one of the diversity training resources at the ESC of Northeast Ohio we typically provide five to six training full day training sessions at the ESC two are already scheduled for this coming school year um with more as they develop their own virtual deliver dely of professional development those sessions are for school districts member districts and Community Partners who have staff that they send to those sessions so that serves others in a regional way um and we are one of the goto providers for that particular topic moving to employee resource
011groups which addresses section nine of the resolution we're working Erica and myself to develop the framework and timeline that has been completed um researching and looking at Best Practices around ergs including senior staff sponsorship of employee groups which really comes to the Forefront in terms of one of the best practices in doing this type of work um we've already had a couple of planning sessions there is a student sharing Committee of teachers and administrators who came forth on their own after passing of your resolution who want to be engaged and involved and this is important because this is happening organically uh these are folks who have a passion for the work and want to be uh a part of what we're doing we submitted a grant on August 1st to the akan Community Foundation to
012support the develop V ment of ergs one of the components of um an employee Resource Group that we will be recommending to the superintendent is that they be open to everyone but that they also have a community give back component so that they are providing service in some way to the community where they teach and so um we're looking forward to that there are actually three natural ergs already in process right now within our district and one underway the akan alliance of black school Educators has been revived our own Mary outley Kelly is the president and is developing her own board and executive committee and it's very interested in being considered one of our ergs Erica will tell you more and just a moment about the alternative resident educator lure program we call it AEL
013um they are very quickly uh becoming their own ERG and support group and then we have a group of Educators from elementary to High School uh who are representing every staff demographic who are interested in forming their own acran educ ators for social justice so the way we see this rolling out is that they are self-managed self-governed but we submit their Mission Vision goals purpose to the superintendent for approval they establish their own meetings they establish their own Focus for the year we identify a senior staff support person who was just there uh to bounce it is off of and to create that um communication to central office so we're very excited about what's happening with our ergs and happened very quickly I I might add and very organically um moving to the business engagement
014and Supplier Diversity we have been members of the greater acan Chambers inclusion and opportunity committee for about eight months now under Robert D Jette and Steve um Steve malard is it yes yes brain freeze um so we have been a part of that for about eight months and there are two subcommittees that we are actively a part of one is the corporate Norms that I sit on focused on resources for community orgs and businesses in this area and the other is the equity and inclusion MBE fbe uh support committee minority business Enterprise and female business Enterprise which Deborah folk is a part of and their focused on work around the inclusion Marketplace acceleration which APS has joined recently and as you know the proc procurement policies have been uh revised recently to reflect those guidelines
015around state and federal diversity purchases this is one of the areas that I feel we have a lot of work to do yet um one of our aha moments in debriefing after the Elevate akran event last year um our debrief led by Dr McWilliams woods and Dr James really was a for some of us maybe not them but for some of us it was kind of a aha moment that we have a business side of the house that can also be engaged in inclusion work um and so uh really doing a deep dive into that area I think is important um the annual report uh which is related to section 10 of the resolution uh we have been in conversations already with our Communications office on how to publish this um to really provide a
016document that tracks our progress that reports to the community on the work that we're doing so that is underway at this time I'm going to turn it over to Dr Glover to talk a little more about the arel program um and then uh if there are questions I think we're prepared to do that as well thank you Carla good morning everyone and um thank you to uh first of all superintendent Dr James superintend assistant superintendent Dr ell M Woods Williams woods and Carla and Karen GIC and last but definitely not least uh stancy Sykes um who is the DEA students at Barber Elementary um who has taken this process and program and owned much of the current success success of the program is because of her efforts her time her attention to detail and her
017own understanding of processes and supports due to her own experiences the constant and consistent support of Carla Karen EST stany truly demonstrates how shared leadership is not only valued but critical to any process that is to be productive and sustainable the process would not have had any of its success it has had thus far without a system of shared leadership and as we consider any type of fature with arel it cannot be considered without shared leadership so where we are with the process so last time we were all together the HR department provided you with a brief overview of what we and Vision as an opportunity to capitalize on two different goals minority Recruitment and growing our own during this time we share with you what a deeper dive of our data revealed that 40%
018of our substitute pool were minorities we saw this as an opportunity to not only recruit minority candidates but to also provide support so that we were as also able to retain minorities retention is critical to this process as re research has shown that the demographics of the teaching population does not match our student population and Across the Nation many minority teachers are choosing to leave education this program was built taking such realities into consideration we realize how much of an investment this opportunity would be for the district and and also for our potential candidates through collaboration and feedback from Carla and Karen stancy and I were able to build a structure for this process that's similar to that of a Project based learning unit we held informational sessions for both our candidates and mentors to
019discuss the process we were very transparent about the process that we were learning with them and that this was an opportunity to be a Trailblazer in the state of Ohio prior to developing assistant we put together a focus group of folks who went through the Aro process prior to the grant or who hadn't passed the oae initially we wanted to use their experiences to improve the Reel process from them we learned how to how critical it was to support our candidates through this process there were four rounds of interviews that included learning Specialists coordinators senior staff and other administrators the final round consisted of candidates teaching a lesson which solidified the selection of candidates mentors were selected based upon a process already in place in our district which is the resident educator program there are
020total of five candidates selected for the following areas sped music and Spanish a total of three mentors are selected as well to further ground our efforts towards grar your own current students within the teacher Academy programs are both North and bookal assisted us with the final round of interviews covid-19 drastically changed everything as you can imagine the grant dead deadline was extended to March 2020 additionally every session with our candidates are now virtual as are the meetings between mentors and mentees there's a time period where me mentors had not been selected or board approved to ensure that we remain connected with our candidates stancy and I coordinated virtual sessions with with candidates to establish a professional Community a system of support and to also allow for collaboration and sharing of experiences we realized that to
021truly Acron this experience that it was important that candidates were able to understand the importance of embracing our community and including our community and various cultures when teaching our goal was to establish a culture of learning with in which from our candidat testimonials that you'll see in a few moments is coming into fruition so where are we now at this point each of our candidates have been approved to move forward with the REO process we have used Grand Monies to purchase testing materials and to pay for lure assessments we have also created a study group for our spay candidates we have a total of three candidates from the program but as a result of the AR opportunity we found three minorities who have a master's in education from our subpool but have not yet passed
022the oae for sped we added them to the study group created a Google classroom with tons of resources and materials provided them with the mentor and also purchase test prep materials for them we have one candidate who is looking to obtain a teaching license to teach Spanish he has successfully passed one of two of his assessments our music candidate has already passed the assessment and must complete online modules to to obtain her statement of Eligibility this will most likely be completed in the next couple of months in terms of next steps for the Reel process well first of all RL is important for two reasons first of all it's cost effective for our candidates if you consider the cost for a masters which can run you up to $220,000 um going through an Aro process
023is about $3,000 Additionally the AR process allows us to Acron the experience for our candidates and to groom them in the way that we will want um our professional um Educators to be with that being said here's what we envision as next steps for ourl RL 2.0 to further develop the structure so that it truly it is truly a system for building in a district to intentionally recruit and grow our own Educators we are the beginning stages of Designing and structure that would we would hope will financially support this process outside of the human capital Grant similar to our aspiring principal Academy candidates with also experience teaching in real time critical to the success and sustainability to a program such as this requires support from our Community Partners and organizations next development of The Rao
024ERG we're in a process of building a community among candidates so that the ERG happens organically we are intentionally bringing in guest speakers who have shared with candidates the importance of supporting each other as well as others within the surrounding Community our next couple of sessions will lead candidates and understanding their role and helping those who follow them through facilitation of collaboration we are working to develop the structure of an ERG with candidates input our next session will include candidates sharing their learning experience recent or past with within cultures and communities that are different than their own this is a key piece embedded within ergs where Community engagement is critical and also very relevant to our current times and teaching approaches next Dei training at PD for those who support this process so that we
025are able to be strategic with our alignment to the district's goal around diversity Equity inclusion and so that our work is firmly grounded in the action spelled out in the board's most recent resolution confronting racism finally coming in October 2020 um our gr tours are going to be featuring Acron public schools in a blog um on betel for kids website that is share with OD it's going to be providing a preview and update around the ARL process as it relates to where we are with AC public schools and finally I would also like to take a moment Carla if you could scroll up or scroll down excuse me I also like to take a moment to share with you feedback from our candidates as they reflect on the Aro process thus far please take a
026moment to read through one or two reflections thank you and Dr abar I will go to my email and take care of that good thank you for the update um I'm sure there are probably questions and I guess before we get to those for any of the public that may be watching it probably is good just to review um we mentioned the resolution earlier uh that the board asked uh a couple of months ago um but there were nine things that were in that resolution that might be worth just reminding people about um and so I'll just list them quickly number one was to develop and revise a racial Andor revise a racial Equity policy number two was to revise policies and protocols integrating racially and culturally relevant content into the curriculum three was to
027recognize and honor indigenous people's contributions four was to conduct diversity equity and inclusion implicit is training five was to work directly with the acon police department to review our standards and expectations to further promote a culturally affirming climate six was to publish student rights and responsibilities when engaging with school resource officers seven to submit a report to the board outlining the hiring of promotion Trends and practices among the racial groups eight to draft a policy that establishes employee resource groups number nine to prepare an andal report uh that provides a number of specific uh items or data and it sounds like we're making some real progress uh towards at least half of those if not more um so I'd like to open it up to the board for questions and comments um if there are
028some yes and my uh good morning thanks for the presentation Carl and uh Erica appreciate what the work that you guys are doing I think it's very very important uh but I have my questions actually are for Dr Glover um you mentioned that we have uh back up how many how many candidates or staff do we have in the OA OAC spare cohort you mentioned three are there more than just the three are just those three individuals so three are specifically to the arel process that the grant is supporting from the beginning to the end they don't um naturally come they don't have a um degree in education so that's an alternative pathway that's what it stands for but we also found three um Subs in our pool that have Masters or degrees in education
029but struggle or have not taken the oae so we've combined because some of the grant dollars we are able to purchase materials so we've combined uh those three total of six uh groups of sped folks together to create a study group or a cohort okay great okay and then uh in this system I think this is talking about teachers correct correct okay are we gonna have something similar to this here to deal with uh going to seeing how many people will be administrators or could be administrators so I know that that that we do have um for example the aspiring principal Academy or aspiring leaders Academy we have programs in place um that allows for teachers who are interested in becoming administrators to go through a pipeline that's similar to this um there is an
030alternative principal route to education I'm not familiar with that but um that's definitely something that we can look into okay yeah because I think it would be nice to have a program similar to that will allow people to get into upper Administration so you're taking those people who may be principles and so forth uh that they could possibly be moved into program like that to be in positions maybe uh such as yours or such as you know other individuals that who are uh upper Administration so I'll just ask that question thank you appreciate it thank you Miss Manfield so on a teasing note I'd like to congratulate you both for creating a whole new set of acronyms that are hard for us I'm see you here going okay wait I heard her say it but
031I gotta look back and see what that um God love educators because we do create some serious acronyms um it is something so um just want to give a shout out to uh first of all the superintendent on his leadership for starting this um you know before the board had even asked this was something that we'd actually been working on in the past years I know that Dr Glover has given presentations to instructional policy and um we really uh love this update this is great I did give your both of your information out because I've been asked a few questions about what are we doing um during this time and so if you do get some emails and they mention me it is true and uh also um oh I I wanted to give kudos
032for the for the aspiring leadership program if um the newer board members haven't had a chance to see what that's all about I would encourage them to do so I think that's very helpful I love the idea of growing our own all right so there's a lot of us at the table who moved in here right but there's awful lot of us that are acri public school kids right on this board even and so um the idea of having teachers who've walked these streets who've gone to these stores who love the kids because they were these kids that is so inspiring to me that to know that we're going to be getting more and more of that um you know I stayed here because of that it you know we could we could have left
033and moved to suburbs or we could have left and gone to other cities but it it meant a lot to have that connection and I think as a city um the city should embrace this too because by doing that I think that we um you know we create that anchor to our community with our schools so thank you for what you're doing I think it's so important thank you thank you Mrs Mansville more comments Bravo if I can just mention one thing just to expand um what Mrs Mansfield said about the the we actually have four types of programs for the administrator grow your own that uh Mr Alexander was asking about we have a program for our own staff to be in a cohort on our own campus uh to get a master's degree
034that we tap people and help pay for their tuition to get to go through a master's cohort to get their Administration then we have a second program called The Inspired leaders program that takes people who already have a master's degree but it wasn't in administration and we can go recruit and tap people there too and we help pay for their tuition to go back and just pick up the coursework needed for the administration the principal license basically and then we have a mentoring program for people once as they're going through those and then the fourth fourth thing that Mrs mansfi just mentioned is the aspiring leaders program which is that tapping people who have their license or soon will have their license and they actually get to do a year-long internship and we can really
035then groom them and Mentor them in to the principal ship and that's a year-long program the superintendent established that I think it was his second year as superintendent he really focused on growing our own administrators so that we can focus on making sure that they're kind of that APS and culturation and what we want rather than just kind of passively hoping that the universities prepare diversity has been a significant piece of that um but but as uh Dr Glover has said that you know recruiting early on to making sure there's not a lot of candidates going to the universities that's a huge issue at all of the universities and College of Education and so that's why we decided to to grow our own the more we can diversify our teaching ranks and the more we
036can diversify the administration through these internal processes so it's kind of a it all is connected as a p line right I have a question on that too uh uh are of the those individuals who are in those groups whether the the makeup of those you know for example the number of uh African-American Caucasian Hispanic uh Latino whatever it may be what are the makeups of those is it possible we can get the makeup of those absolutely so um you want me to now you we have um three our sped our sped candidates all three are uh black women um our music uh candidate is a black woman um our Spanish candidate is a a male a white male um and then um our three folks who are getting supported with oae assessment are all
037black okay all right thank you Dr Hall I believe you had something yeah thanks Mr President I appreciate it um I just had a mix of comments and questions um first again would want to Echo the earlier conveyed Sentiments of my colleagues and just say that I really appreciate um the robust presentation and thank you for all of your hard work I know that that resolution uh laid out um you know was probably at least moderately ambitious um and so it's given us all a lot to strive and work towards and so um again thank you for for your your current and as well as your continued um contributions to um to that work um I know in reference to the ergs um you know I don't know if you all have have talked to
038other whether it's good year or children Su yeah I see shaking your heads yeah uh because I know Suma for example we have a very robust ERG system over there um you you know we have a diversity one that I'm that I'm a part of we also have a veterans uh ERG uh as well as a very active uh lgbtq uh ERG as well um and so uh not to mention we have a systemwide diversity Action Council that I think Miss Chapman um you know uh you know to your earlier Point uh you know has has very robust executive sponsorship so do so Dr devony himself um leads and oversees that diversity Action Council um and so we're very fortunate soon that we've got so I mean essentially all of our SVP um are engaged
039in support uh one of our ER and they go beyond M lip service you know they're they show up at the meetings they're very they're very active participants and uh and contributors and so that's super helpful because because it demonstrates um you know that the people you know that sort of occupy you know the top rung in the in the overall sort of hierarchy if you will very very much about these um about these various initiatives um so that's sort of my comment and then you know my the other thing that I I would hope for too is I know you you know one of the reasons why it's so important that our our folks in senior leers suuma are very involved is I think in some companies um you know you kind of have
040this Ivory Tower kind of setup where you know you have these sort of sort of uh documents that um I'm sorry you have these groups that sort of exist at the at the ground level right but there's no one who's really from the top that ever really gets involved or they do it's like twice a year and they'll you know come in and give an addable way to the group for what they're doing um you know and so um so that's where thinking about that I I would you know and I think you've already begun to say this as well I would also encourage um our you know our board members um you know to not that not that not that we view ourselves as occupying and I Tower because because that's not the case
041but I I would definitely challenge us to you to want to be involved and be visible in supporting uh these efforts as well um you know whether it's whether it's whether it's attending an ERG um you know or um or or or or showing support in some other way um you know so and then my question I guess my question was going to be um is we sort of talk through the diversity and inclusion piece you know are there and I may have missed this in your presentation um you know I I know that we talk a lot about diversity inclusion goes beyond just race right and so now ideally now obviously with with the rest we talk we we passed we're recognizing that racism is a huge problem um in this country and in
042our community um I I don't want to forget though uh the importance of the inclusivity component of it as well um and ensuring that as we're thinking about the ergs that we set up I'm sure that we've got veterans here I'm sure that we've got folks who are who are lgbtq within our within our district as well and I just want to make sure um that this work also contemplates um some of those other groups as well um and then last but not least you know um I guess the what we're embarking upon here um is is not anything that's going to happen overnight um and I think we all recognize that that this is a bill that's going to have to happen in steps and that it's going to require a lot of patience
043with each other um as we as we roll this out um but I just want to say that you know I you know I know my Boral colleagues feel the same way that I I'm I'm committed to putting in as many hours as you all need or attending as many events EV or meetings that you need um to really make sure that that not only do we get this up and running but that we do it in a way that is um that is absolutely uh sustainable moving forward so those are my questions comments for now thank you thank you Dr Hall I can respond um the three ergs that I mentioned earlier is not an exhaustive list of course they were the ones that were loow hanging fruit if you will already um in
044place already positioned to begin that work there are I would hope dozens right out there uh we have already had folks calling from the lgbtq plus Community um we've already talked about veterans we've already discussed male males in education um we spent about half day at goodye uh back in January looking at their ERG structure which was pretty phenomenal I mean ER ergs at both goodye and Suma are probably the gold standard um one of the things we noticed right away uh with both of those organizations because Ariel Hopkins and I sit on a a group an affinity group of Dei professionals in the community and we're bouncing ideas and information off of each other um one of the things we've noticed right away in our conversations Dr cber and myself is that they have
045a tremendous amount of support right and and an infrastructure in place to support those ergs so um it's part of the conversations we've been having with the superintendent uh about putting the necessary supports in place I think that executive sponsorship is critical uh in everything that we're reading um kind of breaking down those silos of communication between staff and uh senior leadership is a really important component of that um it doesn't happen overnight but uh I think we're really committed to this work and the one thing I would say uh if anything is that we that concerns me the most is really ensuring that ownership exists across our divisions and departments and that everything we do right is is sort of examined through that Equity lens you know I I talk uh a lot about
046those key questions we should all be asking ourselves when we make decisions uh are we ignoring or worsening existing disparities uh are The Voice voes of those most impacted by a decision at the table um are we ensuring that initiatives are sustainable um so I I think that that Equity lens is important um I've been in conversations with the superintendent on um our plans for a racial Equity series for senior staff and Dr McWilliams Woods uh has been uh working with us from the very beginning on developing content for that and identifying providers so um I think that that too is another very critical piece is that our senior staff leadership are also receiving the training and information and opportunities for self-reflection because that that's really at the individual level Dei starts with how much
047you are aware of your own practices so um I I am total agreement Dr Hall with what you've said and we definitely have all of those things on our radar appreciate that I just had one quick followup to that um you know you also kind of outlined the trainings as well that are meant to really H have an impact in the classroom and definitely appreciate that as well um you know the one thing I would say uh in in apply to that is you know um one of the ways that that can have an impact in the classroom as well is is is and you mentioned you know this as well um in in viewing things through the equity lens and um I think also uh how we how we how we grade our students
048you know so equity and Grading uh is a is is an area that is getting a lot more um publicity and and and there's a lot more research I know that some of several of us attended nsba in DC last fall and found it um I'm sorry earlier this year really found those sessions myself included uh came away U really on fire uh and a Zeal um to to to to bring back uh those conversations back to APS and really start talking about how we can whether it's piloting equity and Grading um at various schools or in various classrooms um you know that's the one thing that um that I know that I have a burning desire to see us um do some work in as well as as because again to your point I
049mean you know all the things you talked about um you know as far as those trainings and and the things that they should do um you know one of the results of that is that we should see um of how we evaluate our students uh not just socially and emotionally but also um you know you know how do we determine you know what a student's letter grade ought to be um you know in a classroom right are we grading on Improvement are we you know again there were some again just some I could spend a half an hour talking about it I won't but but there were just some really great books articles and sesss you know that that that se several have been exposed to and uh and so again I just would love
050to be a part of those conversations and um you know as we move forward so thank you again thank you thank you Dr does anyone else have any questions because I have a lot I've been marking them off as Derek was asking um so I want to give other people opportunity because I don't you know go ahead yes uh thank you so much um thank you uh Carla Dr Glover and your entire team for all of the work that you're doing is so so important um my question is a quick one and I probably already know the answer to this um just in light of our recent resolution and all the work that is apparent that you're putting into this um do you anticipate and see a need for more staff in your department oh
051boy well um don't answer that I I we've had these discussions um I think that as we Elevate this work and we continue to focus across departments I think that there could very realistically uh see additional support at the HR level additional support at the cni curriculum and instructional level because again these are crosscutting strategies and I don't know Dr James it doesn't I've shared many times it doesn't just rest with me or Dr Club it really needs to be owned by everyone I can save you here if you want please um Carl and I have been talking about how you know we need to you know for which is why this Retreat is so important because the strategies that you all lay out for us we're going to have to take our administrative structure
052I feel and reorganize it so we can meet the needs and this is one area where I think we're going to need to do some reorganizing because you know I think the work that we've started and every successful initiative we've done in this District we started at the Grassroots level then we would reorganize so that there's some ownership and ownership has to be across the board but you still need someone to be the caretaker of it um and and getting it fully implemented so um I most likely will be coming with some reorganization and how we can uh you know do this work more effectively and make sure that it's vested in the right places in the organization and Carla's right there are some parts of it that are in HR but I think it
053needs to be elevated maybe potentially to its own uh Department that touches all of our others because there are aspects of this in purchasing and hiring and then also just people development not just you know Educators but all of our employees including our food service custodial you know this is an all employee issue so you can look for uh some proposals from me as we go deeper into this on how we can organize it thank you for so much for that and I do have a quick question and I apologize if you answered this already I had a solicitor at my door um so I missed a few minutes so my question is about the teacher Academy um at my alma Mo that I love so much that you all know um I'm just uh
054wondering uh is there anything specific that we're doing I know we've been challenged to get students um at bookle and other schools to go into the teacher Academy um which is again a pipeline for us um and in particular just looking at black males in particular is there anything like we've identified uh as a new strategy to try to uh you know encourage young black males in particular and and I know I've also talked about tying in sports to that and that happens to be such a big passionate topic um I think we would be remiss if we just don't consider how we can tie those things together because coaching is teaching teaching is coaching and with so many of our young black and brown young men you know with a high interest in sports
055how can we maximize that get them into that teacher Academy program and get them into our system thank you Dr so yep so um Diane Diana I don't know if you can see but I have my booked or t-shirt on yes um but anyway so prior to covid-19 um myself and um we met with kit State um bookto CLC we were we were beginning with bookto and not because I'm biased okay but because prior to me being this position as you know Mrs atrey I was the academy principal and I worked with that Academy so there were some things we were trying to put in place prior to me leaving that when I got into this position I was trying to continue the work with that being said um one of the things that we
056are working to develop at this point it's either going to be with K State or Cleveland State or whomever can give us the supports that we need is to develop a program beginning for our Rising fifth graders and so that every summer they're on a college campus and they are within the bookto cluster um learning the different components of leadership coaching and teaching and they also become ambassadors for those that follow them and participate in that same program every year so we'll grow the program year to year with the hopes of funneling those students into those acmis um again this is something like we literally were sitting down just unpacking prior to covid-19 and we're hoping to revisit our goal was to develop something so that it was in place for next summer we worked
057we were at the table also with uh Krauss and with schoemaker and their administrators and we wanted it to be something that Academy or the teachers within all theems also um um owned so we were developing the framework we're going to take it back to the buildings Beef It Up and then work with Kent State to develop curriculum around what exactly a portrait of a student AB BTO would look like as they're coming through that Pipeline and Mrs Audrey we've also uh devel veloped a pipeline program with the University of akan it's called the Harrington Scholars just finalized in June um it is a full right scholarship for akan public school graduates interested in pursuing education um the University of akan has developed a mentoring component for those students to assist them throughout their academic
058careers um all intentional around cycling those students back to the aan public schools as future Educators thank you so much and I just again thank you guys again um I just hope we continue to uh tap into that passion of these scholar athletes that we've been witnessing especially in this last week thank you thank you Dr Hall yeah thanks Mr President I appreciate this I just had one more quick question actually miss ay is is what triggered this question in my mind um you know I know that there's a lot of competition out there for um for excellent diverse candidates um I know that we've done a lot of work over the years to try to you know try to recruit and I know that recruitment is just half the equation you know Rend men
059s of the other half right so so once we find and recruit like how do we keep people here um and so I know that this topic I think came up maybe several months ago um you know then obviously covid and you know and everything that kind of followed is followed but um but but have we and I think the answer this question is yes but I guess my thought is you know that what I'm about to propose makes sense you know I I've been interested in at least starting conversation as as to sort of what next steps would look like and where I'm going is is is thinking about um monetary Recruitment and Retention bonuses for um for you know excellent diverse candidates both both to get them here uh as well as to
060keep them here uh and so I just was again interested in kind of getting um you know Miss Chapman Dr Glover um you know others you know you know Dr James uh and others on here um obviously no you know every we all have an I guess I could have said all your names right we all we all have an interest in probably commenting on this um but again we just love to kind of get the thoughts on um what kind of first off if if the will exists to kind of even go down this pathway uh I hope it does uh and then secondly if the will does exist you know what are some of the I don't want to use the word barriers or obstacles but but what are some of the things
061that we would need to think through you know what are some of the opportunities that we would need to think through to make something like that happen thank um Dr Hall one of the things that um I think we all need to acknowledge through the work of elevate akan that um getting diverse and excellent Talent is a CommunityWide effort and so one of the things that I've talked to I think Carla is the one that I probably spewed all of the thoughts about this is you know with working maybe with the chamber in terms of um you know doing something for um not just us but how do we you know attract that Talent if we can't grow everything ourselves I mean there's you know it's a multi-pronged approach but one of the things is
062the financial incentives and you know we have had some internal discussions about sign on bonuses for people who you know sign on who are going to come here and work but then the other one is I think working with our you know business Community you know our banking industry like if people come here in addition to a sign on maybe they get you know if they're moving from out of the area to this area to live and work that there be some advantages in terms of their you know Home Loans or discounts and things like that and make that I think if it was where all of our institutions were combining with that and maybe work through the chamber that may be a you know just another way of adding some value to the prospect
063of people coming coming uh to this community to live and work and help the community grow because this is really it is you know it's a CommunityWide uh problem I I think this whole Talent uh piece whether we're developing our own or trying to get that talent to come in from other places yeah thank you for saying that I appreciate I know that Mr Bravo and I go back some years to a group called tors bears that I think many of you are probably familiar with and uh I was on a committee started during my time there were called the talent acquisition and retention committee the tar committee um and I know that this was a topic we had we we had we talked about even then that's probably been eight years ago Mr Bravo
064I would I would say um you know and so uh so so again you know to your point Dr James you know maybe part of this is trying to like through how we engage those folks um you know with organizations like torch bears and some others um you know because again a lot of these folks would I sens be young professionals as well so maybe that's an additional kind of uh tie in to help you know help them Garner some some you know initial networking and support for why for for you once they get here so and I know that commit has done that work has done some of that work over the years as well don't want to um I don't want to sell them short but it's but to your point thinking about
065it through a through through through a community connectivity lens yeah thank you m thank you very quick question I was wondering well this is a big wonder I'm assuming that we'll find a way to tie some kind of signing bonus into minority teachers but then is there a way to tie those signing bonuses into a commitment where they would be placed at specific schools where they would reflect the minority population thank you and none of my staff want to answer that one okay so I I think I think in terms of giving signing bonuses before people you know as part of their hiring process I think we could do that but tying any kind of compensation to their assignment will have to be I'm pretty sure negotiated with uh any particular Union that would cover
066that staff okay thank you and just that I know Dr McWilliams Woods has done some work I can't remember uh what was the grant under the President Obama administration we developed a a a think tank on teacher incentives and learned a lot at that time to the top yeah race to the top y yes um so thank you both for uh presenting today and even uh Dr James he and I had a conversation previously about the whole incentive process and how we could make that happen um and understanding some of the uh challenges here um under understand them uh but I think it is uh as he pointed out something that we definitely should at least uh look into how do we uh attract uh more diverse candidates to our our district I I shared
067with h Dr James I didn't I don't know if I've shared with anyone else but after I received my teaching license and was on the market for uh rols I got uh an offer from Baltimore um I think it's Baltimore County Schools or something like that and uh they gave you a bonus for teaching in a title one school plus the subject that I was teaching in as well as for me being a black male so I had three different bonuses and when you added all of that up it was somewhere around like $48,000 now as an entry level uh teacher $48,000 sounds pretty good um compared to what most of our teachers got uh and this was so obviously even back then it was even better than now um and so I just wonder
068how do I know we can't do all of those stackable type um bonus or incentives but I think that it is important that we think of it so I have uh quite a few questions and I'm sorry if um this is not an inquisition so I'm really just trying to gather more information as Bruce and I are putting together the equity policy so I have my thoughts that we've shared about the equity policy both the equity policy that we're looking to revise and the racial Equity policy that we want to develop and I'm overlaying that with your presentation and just some some thoughts that I've had and just want to get your insights as the the districts experts um so one of the things that I was thinking about while you were talking Carla about
069the training is exactly who goes through training and is it always upon request or is there a training requirement is that requirement just for teachers or um as Dr James mentioned earlier so maybe he's already going in this direction but are we also looking at training for our um nutrition workers and um custodians and every level of the institution so that's I wanted to gather more information on that yeah so we have mandatory training for new hires regardless of their position if you are in a new position within the district uh instructional position support position so counselors psychologists um tutors elll English language learning staff they are required to participate in training buildings because of their climate goals usually request trainings and then the secretaries bus drivers educational assistance are on a cycle and so
070they receive training and updated trainings on an annual cycle so that we're hitting all classifications um now I I'm a trainer I I'm a diversity trainer as good as I think I might be in it I am not uh a proponent of sit and get train and then everybody's competent um you know the research says that you know you you provide training you grow an understanding and awareness but it is really the coaching the mentoring and all of the other supports that we provide in our district that really matter so uh you know we would want to be uh beefing up the supports that we have in place in terms of our mentoring um coaching and supports of staff I appreciate you speaking my language it was like a song I really appreciate that um
071um so the other the other question I have is around the ergs um as uh the the policy the legal contracts and policy committee is um looking to put together a policy uh to support and structure the ergs and I think what we would like from Dr Glover and uh uh Carla um for for you to help us do is provide us a suggested structure for how um the staff would like that to to uh come about I think that um us receiving that sometime before like October might be helpful as you know that will be on our our list of things to start working on in in one of our next two meetings so I just thought I would put that out there as uh something that we would uh like to receive we
072think that um just in again I haven't talk this through with everyone but just in my conversations with Mr Alexander uh we would like as much of that policy to be employee uh driven as possible yeah we have that Dr abbar we have a draft that we have working right now um on structure so we'll get that to you okay thank you very much and then um some few points but one of them is uh diversity training or I'm sorry hiring and the hiring Trends um and uh that was one of the um nine actions uh I'm wondering is there a status report on that and I don't know who answered that but so where where we'll be able to have that specific data hopefully next month or so um there's a process that's in
073place in terms of obtaining that data for the reports for the new hires that we have for this school year so as soon as I'm able to get that data I'll get that I'll get that to you okay well what we wanted to look at is um the trends that we've had even over the last three to five years um not just what where we are today so so what I do know um it's been fluctuating back and forth between so anywhere between 11 to 133% last year was around 10% so it's been fluctuating over the last three years between 11 to 133% okay all right well if if we could just get the data on the trends which is um around who applies for each classification uh position and who actually gets hired um
074I think that would be great uh that would also help us and then and uh there there was a few times when the word minority was used uh I just want to again if if I want to sing my song for a bit uh I just want to continue to uh impress upon everyone to to eliminate the minoritized language from their uh lexicon and began using more inclusive language uh that that elevates everyone you know to as close of the same uh Plateau as possible and so there's many different ways you could do that um you know one of them just by saying diverse or what have you but there's other ways you can incorporate uh that and I'll leave that to you if if there's other ways you want to classify it but the
075word minority um definitely should be removed from all of our uh lexicon as well as our policies and everything so um then Dr Glover then I only have one other thing to say after this so um but there's a few things embedded in it but uh when you talk about the um ARS uh and that program um can you share with me a little bit more about how can we support the growth of that program because you talked about there being three uh in in the program for sped and three additional that you worked with and then when you um and uh Kathy and there was a few other people presented to the board preco I don't even remember when it was but because everything after Co kind of Blends together but um preco you
076came and presented to the board and you mentioned that there was $50,000 at least when I went back to my notes that's what it said so if any of this is wrong please correct me um but $50,000 grant that you received and you were working with five uh individuals who were in different classifications like substitutes or what have you they we get get their license um and it was a onetime oneye grant that you received so when I'm thinking about everything that you shared which I'm like almost in love with um how do we further grow that program and support it from the board's perspective um so that's my question well when I think about um College of Career Academy and I think about the Partnerships that we have as a result of college of
077career cies um there's been conversation with specific buildings around tapping into those partners um that might be able to support candidates who buildings what want to see um in certain positions as a result of this option um so I know the chamber has been done a lot of work across the city of akan in terms of um diversity recruitment I think that this is a prime opportunity to tap into that system to be able to um utilize Our Community Partners to help us grow our own Educators so if you had if and this could be a re right but if if all possible if our if Huntington Bank was able to support a candidate through the process um that is housed out of that specific Academy then then that would be ideal okay I appreciate
078that um and and I think that as a board based off what I'm hearing at least for myself so I'll speak for myself but uh I think that um I'm pretty impressed with the program and um the support structure that we're having in place to give uh people alternative license and I would love to see how can we as a board or even Administration um put some skin in the game and support that program even further thank you is I agree thank you yeah and so my last question um Dr James kind of hinted to it so uh it might already be thought about maybe it's not even a question anymore but um I I really I really think hold on one second sorry sorry my dog is crying I don't know why he wants
079me to P him or something um but sorry so my uh other question has to do with how do we institutionalize diversity equity and inclusion across the district across the system and you know as the two uh resident experts I'm really interested in understanding more about you know how would at least an idea that I have elevate your work if we're thinking about our Equity policy we've talked about having a district level um a district a board level Equity committee uh that worked alongside with a um Equity policy name Chief diversity officer type Ro um how would that elevate the work that you're doing or do you think it it will keep it the same I guess I'm just wondering if we're on the right track Dr abar um Dr James has my thoughts on
080that so I'm going to defer to him um you are correct though uh elevating the work is important in terms of accountability and the way this is done is you know through the policy the superintendent's job is to create the guidelines and the infrastructure and bring those things to board you know for approval in terms of funding um in terms of approving staff so those are things that you know Carla Dr Glover and I and other folks on senior your staff you know are working through yeah I appreciate that so the last thing I'll say is I would love to see uh in line with what Dr James said um as we begin the work it it would be great if you could begin the work with a decentralized model but we know decentralized models
081do not work when you're trying to begin this work when you're trying to build the runway and so there needs to be some type of centralized support that focuses on you know supporting our ergs supporting diversity hiring Recruitment and Retention supporting training development systemwide audit and climate uh um assistance and elevation even leadership around other Equity uh initiatives and Community engagement um and all of those things School climate all those things are important and so the last thing I would say is um I'm wondering how can this centralized office also and maybe even in Dr Glover's role support the become Scholars because one of the one of the issues that I've I've noticed and and I don't think it's to a fault of anyone so I'm not faulting anyone but one of the things that
082I've noticed as a person who I've worked with become Scholars um for years is that many of them don't get hired and so we're as a district now me as a board member I'm thinking of this as as a district we provide funding so scholarship dollars to them to attend University acrid H State and then as what should be a pipeline but it's not there's a leak in the system and so I'm wondering if this office maybe even in the role that you serve uh Dr Glover could help kind of put some glue over that leak and fix it so that it can actually serve as a pipeline absolutely um Carly and I actually have been meeting with the University of akan to I think uh to even refocus how uh we are even supporting
083students when they get to University of akan um so that while they're going through the University of akan they're still you know wanting to come back and support come back and work with that public schools Carla did you want to add to that with the conversation that we had with uh was it Dr yeah a Dr tutor and then uh Daniel Nielson at kin State University we so the support at the University we knew needed to be more FOC more focused and intentional but one of the things we're seeing upon graduation I know you know this Dr abar is that we're either losing those candidates to other districts because the timeline for openings on our end are or don't match right what's available to other uh to candidates from other districts so that's that's one
084of the pieces and then I think that um Dr GL and I are also looking at our processes within our human resources recruitment retention as well as the interview processes just to make sure that we are not even unintentionally excluding folks who might have the opportunity to be a part of our hiring um and so there were a number of things the other third thing with the become Scholars is that we were finding that they majored in education graduated and then pursued other careers and were no longer interested in teaching as a profession so there's some of that as well even on the front end of receiving become scholarship dollars at graduation from high school we found that a number of them had switched their Majors after entering the University so there are a few
085things that we really need to tighten up and I think a lot of it has to do with that again that mentoring coaching and support that folks are getting all along the way yeah and that's one of the things we talked about with our system is how do we stay connected with those folks throughout their time at the University um so that is not when they be when they're leaving us or leaving to go into college the next time we see them is when they're about to graduate it's how do we sustain that relationship so that they're more likely come come back to AF schol this uh related topic came up um you know uh in another uh organization and you know really connecting it to our College and Career academies where you know we
086really need to continue working with our partners after kids graduate high school and move on to that postsecondary world and keeping them tied to the employer that may have been exposed to while they were in high school so we know that many of these cohort programs where kids are followed whether it's in high school and then in the postsecondary if there if we keep those connections and keep those cohorts together we're more likely to achieve some success and having those kids persist in a career choice um the other thing is um you know there are ways that um when we look at hiring teacher candidates you know we do have the ability to hire people earlier and then just put them in what we call a Super Sub category until a opening comes into the
087position that they're you know like if it's um science or whatever we can hire Super Subs where they pretty much will have you know um full-time work for um a whole half a year or year until we get an opening where then we can move them in and that's another way where um because we know we have certain numbers of openings every year we can't always predict exactly where they're going to be but there are times where we can use that ability to have there's a certain number of Subs that we would be using every day um particularly for some long-term assignments so there's some things that we have to look at with HR that we may be able to do to help um keep those folks you know in the teaching profession yeah I
088appreciate that and I'll just end with saying thank you for uh providing that level of uh context and um Dr Glover and uh Miss Chapman both of you uh for the work that you do um every day as a diversity professional I an equity person I could tell you I know that your work is not easy um and I know that changing systems um and shifting uh paradigms uh do not happen overnight and so uh um I'm not hopefully none of my questions or comments were taken that you need to do it right now but just U as something that I know uh that we you know where we need to go and we need to stay focused on it and I'll just end with saying just for the become Scholars and even any of
089these pipeline programs that we're building um you know we we have to create a system where uh not only uh are we building a pipeline for supporting them along the way uh but we also need to build a system uh where when they uh get to that point to Dr James point that we are um catch bypassing any of those places where they might get trapped up and so um if we've worked with them if we've coached them um over the years then you know in essence you know why do they need to go through the screening process um in essence why even do they need to go through the interview process if you or at least all the interview processes maybe they automatically become a final candidate so it's it's those type of things
090that if you're coaching them then this is the same for the arel program and I hopefully I'm using as Miss Mansfield said the right acronyms um but even for that program the alternative license program um you know it it would be a travesty is if those individuals finish they get their license and then we still aren't able to hire them and so I'll get off my soap box now so I see there's some other people in line that's why I wanted to wait till last Dr Ellen MC Williams Woods in case you have a comment that's relevant to Dr MJ will let me go yeah I just wanted to add on because it's been talked about sort of throughout the last uh hour plus but um Miss Chapman and I have been kind of diving
091into some recent studies that sort of look at more The Meta analysis kind of studies on all of the Myriad of uh strategies um not just for hiring practices but for kind of that raciality across all of your staff and and where are those key levers and the studies kept coming back to sort of one of the major strategies is that highlevel um like Dr Hall mentioned sua's uh diversity Action Council but which Miss Chapman has you know teams around that but elevating it that system work of elevating it to the CEO level superintendent um kind of level but not the Nuance was not having them decide the strategies that get kind of pushed down and imposed on everyone but requiring all the Departments and teams to identify the strategies and then that monitoring piece
092for the monitoring and accelerating and pushing piece so I know we're talking you know we're going to be talking about the Strategic um planning pieces and the role of the board committee versus you know either in addition to or is it this highlevel diversity Council that we restructure and making sure that people own those strategies but then we're monitoring kind of keeping that focus on it making sure the structures and systems are in place that's also been an important part of the discussion a great example the ergs in my 30 years in the district we've had ergs two times and they never made it past a second year because we didn't have the structures and systems to support them you know they were great everybody got excited by year two they were all you know
093two people would show up and they were all you know done so that's where this team could make sure the structures the systems the resources are in place so I just wanted to kind of put a push in for that thank you miss m Mr Alexander and then Dr thank you Mr President my my question is um shifting gears a bit quite a bit actually and I'm thinking more in terms of process so you've talked about how every employee in the district goes through training at some point or another what happens if it comes to light that there's an employee and I'm thinking specifically in an instructional capacity but if it comes to like that that employee is posting inflammatory rhetoric that's counter to the safe and welcoming uh workplace that we're trying to create
094what processes are in place to address that and I know it's a slippery slope especially if it's social media right because I certainly don't want to trample on anyone's um constitutional rights but at the same time I know full well that you that those kinds of deepsea of philosophies aren't turned off if they walk into a building in their work working with children so what what sorts of things do we have in place to to address that thank you uh We've addressed those issues in the past um usually when something happens and it's like an inflammatory Facebook post um um particularly if that's going to cause a disruption to the school and we've had some of those issues in the past um you know it can go all the way from uh you know it
095might be a verbal warning it might be something stronger it may might be an HR reprimand in some cases it could be uh the persons removed from the district but we work with HR and legal counsel on uh those issues because you're right it could be a freedom of speech issue but sometimes it crosses a line if it causes a major disruption in the school and um I know our uh uh three veteran board members are aware of some of those instances that we've had in the past thank you because I'm thinking even if it doesn't cause a major disruption it's still those kinds of if and again especially if it's in an instructional capacity what kinds of biases are presenting themselves with that person's interaction with our kids and those kids may not have
096a way to voice to voice that and so that's that's my concern thank you yes thank you Mr Alexander okay I'm going to go back a little bit just when we talk about the Recruitment and so forth because when we're talking about the become program and some of the other program I go back when you know some years years ago uh when I was working on getting my teaching certification through the University of akran uh there Dr Deeds was the individual from akan public schools who was a leaon for akan public schools with the University of akan who uh spent time at the University of akan uh looking at potential teachers or individuals to come into acan public schools uh and particularly minorities because she brought some minorities in some years ago who came to
097akan did well in akan and then a couple are still here and some are gone to do some other other things but uh bigger things and better things but uh uh that is something we might need to have as that liaison person to make contact with those individuals stay on in touch with those kids who are on campus from the beginning to the end and then guide them towards akan uh versus uh allowing others to get in there and steal them from us because Carl I'm use a athletic analogy is that you know that uh there are coaches who and Erica you understand this too uh that uh there are coaches who uh go out and they steal other recruits maybe someone is going to one school and they steal them and go to another
098school we want to try to prevent that so we need to make sure that we're involved with them all the way through just like a good coach would make sure they recruiting all the way through with them and then make sure we sign him AC public school so I just wanted to bring that up and there was a liaison and I don't know if we're going to still continue to have something to have something like that like we had with Dr dies but I thought that was really good because she stayed in those kids faces and any potential individuals to to try to ensure that a high percentage of not all of them came to acan public schools so that might be something to think about too thank you and that really is part of
099Dr Glover's role to work with the these universities to make sure that all those you know that we can be first out of the gate um but there is a good amount of work needed with the universities to make that happen and to help their own Recruitment and Retention strategies as well thank you Dr H yeah thank you Mr President I just had a couple so as you all were talking and again this is one of the great things about having about working with really smart people is as you are were talking it made me think of other of other items uh I wanted to ask uh ask about um the one thing that you know I think is and I meant to ask this earlier and didn't um but the one thing that's very
100abundantly abundantly clear I should say uh is that there's a a lot of steps involved in this process and there's a lot of balls that you are all juggling um at the same time um and I think as as and I was thinking about how as a board member um I could keep track of it all and uh be able to speak intelligently about this uh when question in the community by by other stakeholders parents Etc um and as you and the way the outline kind of laid out uh you've already I think started to do this um but I would but one of the things I'd ask you to consider uh would be sort of putting together um uh an action register um where you're able to list um sort of the task or
101initiatives uh who is tasked with overseeing the completion of set initiative uh and then what date or dates we would anticipate those initi being completed by now that kind of a document doesn't wed you to having to achieve it by a certain date but again it kind of creates it helps to really sort of manage expectations for folks on the board as well as um other community stakeholders um you know and so and then kind of part two of that is I was thinking about sort of how do we um what kind of cadence make sense as regards to providing a regular update to the board um around progress on that action register because if we're saying that this work is important and this work and that this work should be Vis very visibly uh
102supported it almost you know the idea that popped in my head was it almost made sense to maybe at every other board meeting or you know we could figure out the Cadence right but at every so many board meetings you know Dr B you you know and Miss Chapman you know come and present and say Hey you know we were we were last with you two months ago uh and here's where here's where we were two months ago here's where we are today here's where we're going tomorrow um you know and so uh that way the board can you know can stay informed and be able to be um Community advocates for the work that that you are all continuing to do um other piece too I think this question I think it's multiple times
103I think Dr James has addressed it in part as well is when we talked about I think was to the Staffing piece right and so do we need to hire more folks or repurpose folks and I know that um that that we that there that we probably have some bandwidth that we could probably repurpose and reorganize um you know but it got me to thinking about what does an org chart look like as relates to um diversity equity and inclusion um and an or chart that would show the connecting points um with the folks who work in that area um and show how they're connecting with folks who work in other areas um whether that's via um liaison you know that we identify at various schools um or Liaisons we identify out of the folks
104who work downtown that would liaz with you know various schools or you know or various of employee groups um but again but but sort of showing you know at the district level sort of how we've how we've built or you know or how we're planning to build out um this very vital piece of uh of infrastructure and that's just more of a comment than a question and then um Dr Williams Woods referenced the ergs and how um how there have been challenges in the past and you know intermittently at Suma we we you know some of the Dr ergs I say drgs but ergs that we've worked with you know there are times when we reach slow points too I think to your point where you know um where we really have to kind of
105take a step back and say okay well what are the what are the current goals that are out there you know because a lot because oftentimes keeping people engaged to your point Dr is is keeping them engaged is really around them having actionable items to be involved in you know you know work they can be engaged in um that that will result well it will that will result in results right you know um meaningful results so whether so whether it's figuring out for these ER you know what the metrics or outcomes that they'd like to achieve in the short me and long term you know um I think I think that's important to sort of short medium longterm engagement at the ERG level as well probably you know you know as important as having executive
106sponsorship as well you know and so um you know so that's so that's just a suggestion then miss m kitri had had had also started to ask some things that that made me think as well and I think I had what I hadn't noted down here was uh and again I think she asked this question already as well but it was around identifying and addressing individuals that aren't supportive of this of this kind of work um because you know large probably several at least several in the district you know I I mean listen I hope the answer is zero that there are none who wouldn't be supportive of it but the law of large numbers would would suggest that there's probably several um and sort of how do we address you know and you know
107either remove or possibly if that's even possible possibly reh rehabilitate those who are who are less than enthused or less than engaged so that's that's kind of a a bridge that I think we'll probably have to cross at some point um and then again thinking about how this connects to various areas um I kept thinking about sort of and and again maybe we're already doing this and perhaps we probably are but um but thinking about how does when we sit down and we do a teacher observation in a classroom um you know what rubric or checklist or algorithm you know um are we using to be able to assess whether or not we think that instructor is um appropriately engaged in you know in actively teaching or explaining or communicating um through through and with
108um an equity lens um we may already have that in place U but it but again is but again those are some of the the thoughts and questions that that were popping through my mind as you all were talking and I and I'll I'll I'll I'll leave it there just um Dr Hall there is a very robust um action and accountability plan process in place um there is one huge Dei plan that has four sub plans that are owned by individuals and departments throughout the district um and so uh I will say that that what became the most challenging part related to the plans is the monitoring updating and ensuring that we have the most current information from everybody that touches either the plan in general or all the pieces and parts of a plan
109um it it it's almost another system in and of itself of of that accountability but there are detailed plans um I'll defer to uh Dr MC Williams woods and Dr James on the organizational chart but the metrics for ergs are certainly being considered we think we have some that will really help get this started and again we want our ergs to be self-governing so that they also um identify what is important for them to measure about their own affinity group um and there is finally a teacher check check list that we are vetting now acronis if you will we've used the Lexington City Schools as a model um and I was actually just reviewing that list yesterday uh with one of our teacher members so that we're working through that process as well how it
110becomes a part of you know the observation of teachers uh working on individual Improvement PL with teachers I can't speak to that yet but I'm sure uh Dr MC Williams Woods may have some thoughts about that I can tell you that when um principls and administrators have identified folks who need more information more uh selfawareness training and cultural humility um they have sent them to training sessions um both those provided by the district and others offered throughout the community and our teacher evaluation system in the standards there it is embedded that there's language about meeting the needs of diverse Learners and addressing diversity in both the families and the students so there's ways that it's already built into the evaluation system but there's also uh professional growth plans that get written each year for teachers
111um and depending on what level you are at the evaluation those are self-directed plans or they're done in collaboration with the evaluation and so and there's Improvement type plans that we can put teachers on if there's specific issues and there are numerous times that issues um that get targeted interventions with teachers that get written in either through the diversity training option s that Miss Chapman's office uh provides or actually Mr Alexander's wife does a whole series on classroom management that is heavily built in with diversity and Equity built into that and that is a very common uh professional development that's listed in the Improvement plans or in the professional growth plans to deepen teachers knowledge and then that gets tracked you know the evaluator then tracks that to make sure there's improve Improvement and they
112can continue people on the Improvement plan if there isn't growth so those are the checks and balances that can be built in to the um evaluation system thank you and I just want to remind folks here we have about 10 minutes until we're GNA pause for a a break give everyone a quick Comfort break and then uh when we come back we'll pick up a little bit more on diversity um since we have about 10 minutes left I'd like to sh shift the focus if I can just a little bit to one of the other topics that was brought up in one of our meetings uh just a discussion on the merits of establishing an equity and diversity inclusion committee um and and the options are you know we could we could establish one we
113could not establish one if we establish one it could be an ad hoc committee or it could be a standing committee um we' need to talk about the makeup of that committee as well to make sure that it itself was probably diverse um so I just want to open it up for some conversation and get some general thoughts around that it is on our agenda and it was mentioned a few times um as part of the board retreat survey so I just like to open that up for anybody that has comments Dr akar yes um well Bruce and I have talked about this a few times and in fact at our last meeting we talked about it as well our last Le legal contracts and board policy committee is what I'm referring to sorry um
114and we want it to be at least the way we've discussed it because it would be a fourth board level committee it just would not uh it would be chaired by one board member and co-chaired by the chief diversity officer for the district um I don't know uh Mr Alexander has anything else to say on that but that was our initial discussions that we're working through um if board has a different will we'll definitely hear it so so there would only be one board member on the board committee yes anybody can attend yeah anybody contend but it would be one board member would be on there be a person from the senior staff and then You' have other individuals who would be on that committee to monitor what we're doing what's going on as far
115as Equity what's going on I think uh Mrs Chapman has been doing some of that already too to help out but uh to see who see how we're doing where we where we're at are we making progress are we not making progress and where are we going so it be other individuals who would be on there as well and and it goes back to the original Equity uh uh policy that I had we talked about having individuals maybe from uh uh a board member maybe a teacher a principal someone from the the city or or a community person you know maybe all those individuals who can who can help monitor what we what we're doing and that that was not in the uh current Equity policy but that was in the original policy and so
116we're going to be revisiting that I did send Dr AAR a copy of that so he can look at it and we can structure it the way that we think it really needs to be structured so we can uh make sure we're making progress when we we get this up and running I'd like student on that as well that's a great Point Val um can I just mention then uh and I don't disagree we we can Acron eyesee or do whatever we want around this I would suggest that that doesn't necessarily sound to me like a committee like a board committee it sounds like a policy instructing the superintendant to establish a committee that includes board representation or board and student representation um but it doesn't necessarily sound like a board committee if it yeah
117Mr Mr President if I may if it was a board committee you know like the current structure of a board committee where you know under the proposed structure I'm I don't think you could do like how we do policies you know because one of the hearings is actually in the board committee so I would recommend that the committee be structured as the other board level committees and just like on those we have either assistant superintendent present for like instructional policy you know we have our legal representative uh you know for the board policy and we can easily have um our uh diversity equity and inclusion officer or whatever title that position might be or H you know whoever and other staff has needed attend those committee meetings exactly Dr Hall looks like you might have
118[Music] something no I think you all said uh and conveyed the thoughts I had uh you know I think this was going to say that uh that I definitely think it should be a board committee um and the structure of it um I mean at least I'm flexible to to how we structure it uh but again you know um I I keep coming back to appearances matter um and you to have it you know as a subset or as a subcommittee or ad hoc committee I don't think the gravy toss that this particular topic uh and work uh deserve candidly and so so regardless of how we structure that that board committee I do think it ought to be a board committee on on par with Finance legal policy and contracts uh and in structural
119policy and curriculum those are my thoughts thank you I would agree that other comments and what I was mentioning before while we're I'm waiting on to see if anyone else jumps in um just my opinion I and I'm to give it that to give it to put as Derek said I guess to put it on par with all of the other committees I think just my opinion it should have representation like the other committees and being a committee of the board also comes with certain legal components too um that that give it a little bit more weight behind what that committee does so um just some thoughts anybody else have comments or thoughts or feedback as Bruce and Mr Alexander Dr Akbar continue to discuss this I agree that it should be a standing committee
120of the board everything that encompasses I concur I believe the work involves warrant it being a standing committee of the board and it's important that the board is present and and visible as the work is um carried out I agree with that too and I love Val's idea of having student representation hopefully maybe um maybe more than one I know that the Committees we've had that have had that involvement really are eye openening in in ways that you just don't imagine so maybe a Schoolboard student Schoolboard member and perhaps even someone additional that's a great suggestion any other comments or thoughts or feedbacks before or feedback before we break and I do want to thank Dr Akbar and Bruce for taking up that conversation I think it's important I agree with everything so far everyone
121said it should be a standing committee um we should give it the full weight and focus that it deserves we've been talking about it for a while so uh let's put our weight behind it Miss Dr Hall yeah thank you uh just real quick going back to miss mckitrick uh her point about the student involvement um I agree with that 100% And you know again the other idea head is maybe what we end up putting together to ensure that we've got uh accurate student sort of Engagement and involvement is maybe we end up having sort of a student you know diversity subcommittee if you will uh that you know that basically uh that we can that we can support because again I think pulling a student or two in you know again maybe that's what
122we need to do um you know um from a committee standpoint but I'd love to see there be a a a sort of student diversity uh you know a student diversity and inclusion um uh committee as well um you know so just as we have a student School Board it'd be great to have a student uh diversity equity and inclusion committee as well that way we get more St students involved but again I uh but again that's just my thought Dara's gonna love that we're putting more on her plate so she does a great job anyway uh Dr Akbar and then we will take a quick break okay um thank you my question has doesn't have anything to do with the the equity policy or the diversity committee uh I think it should be it
123it'll probably be easy to um respond to but as we were talking about the nine actions in the uh resolution um two others um that I would like to at least get a brief update on is the uh meeting with the police and then the production of the student rights and responsibility um any updates on those to Dr abbar those are discussions that I would have to have along with Dr James Dr McWilliams woods with Dan rambler's office who would be the primary person responsible for those in terms of really driving that particular work I can get more information for you and provide you an update well that's where if I if I may if I can interject quickly and apologies um if I'm out of order um but just jump in like that's why
124I really think we need an an action register um because again there are multiple folks that are going to be involved in touching this work whether it's Mr Rambler Miss Chapman Dr Glover others I think that the only way that we're going to be able to keep this in front of us and keep it all tied together is to have some sort of action register where we know definitively sort of who's task with leading what initiative um that we as a group can come back and review um on a periodic basis and the when and the where of that review um we can you know we can we can keep talking about but I would really highly suggest and recommend um that we have an action register together that kind of keeps all this in
125one place so we know who's doing what at what time and we still have the question on the students rights and responsibilities oh I thought she was answering both but you're that's for both Miss Chapman yes there there are actually two action items on the resolution one is the rights and responsibilities and the other is our work with school resource officers okay all right anything else before we take a quick break if not I'll entertain a motion for a recess and miss mckitrick miss and miss mckitrick for a motion in a second and when we uh before we uh take a quick acclamation vote here when we return we'll be talking about uh we'll be wrapping up our diversity Equity inclusion conversation talking about transparency and spending forecast five dashboarding flash reports and also what
126kind of data you would like to see on a more regular basis which we sort of started touching on earlier um but but Ryan will uh have part of that conversation when we come back so uh once we vote we'll return at 1110 so all in favor signify by saying I I I we are in recess and we will suspend the live feed and return at 11:10 goodbye everyone thank you car thank you very much okay have a good day you see you take care afternoon and welcome back we've just returned from a brief recess uh during our Retreat for those of you who may be joining us in the public we're in the second day of a two-day Retreat uh focused on discussions around uh diversity Equity inclusion uh today um vision and strategic
127planning and some Levy Finance discussions we're picking back up uh with and should be wrapping up in this hour our conversations around diversity equity and inclusion and where we'd like to pick up um is on uh more more around the data uh collection and Reporting piece of diversity Equity inclusion in our resolution as a little background we talk about um receiving updates on the number of complaints received from uh the community parent students Etc regarding uh or any complaints that are that are made the status of Investigations and general outcomes but we've all obviously talked about a lot of different data that we'd like to see around diversity equity and inclusion whether that's in curriculum and instruction itself uh whether that's in hiring practices hiring retention recruitment strategies and practices um it could also uh
128be around uh transparency and spending between buildings or students um so I want to open it up uh for Mr Pendleton first to talk about a little bit of what is possible and then we'd like to hear from the board some of uh your ideas on the types of data around Equity that you would like to see a little more frequently reported to the board Mr Pendleton thank you Mr President I have some visuals that I can show uh but I won't bring those up unless the board really wants to dig into some of those details I know finance committee prior to covid we had be begun to test and display some of the forecast 5 analytics software where we were digesting uh expenditure per pupil data and uh we can even look at as
129far as attendance um and we were in the process of building a number of dashboards so I've actually got a screen up where I'm I'm looking at a lot of this data right now and between technology HR and finance we've got these mapped out ready to go so I think the conversation that would help us immensely is the data that the board wants to see reported on regularly whether it be like you said the expenditure per pupil analysis by building or cluster um or whether or not there's an equity dashboard and transparency dashboard that we build we've got some Frameworks already built and so now now let's uh let's dive into the data that would complete those and um if it's okay with you maybe that's where we can spend our time otherwise I can
130share some of these dashboards but think I think a little bit of both um we've talked a lot about uh even before forecast five within the last couple of years we've talked a lot about creating some dashboards for the board where we could start to see in real time live data that sort of tailored to what we might like to look at either individually or as a group we talked about Flash report sort of reporting to the board on various metrics and it's probably been a little bit since some of our board has seen some of what's available through forecast five so maybe just a few things that that can kind of spark uh some discussion while our board is lining up with comments or questions want to go through two sites does everybody see
131my screen where it says five site not very well the screen please and if not if you could just share it that also is helpful and depending on what devices our board is using too U much like our own photos or video feed you can scroll over it and hit the little push pin and pin it so that it gets a little bit bigger and then if you're on one of our Chrome pads or even a personal laptop you can pinch in and pinch out like on your iPhone or your Android phone and you should be able to make it big a little bit bigger yourself as well yeah I'll try to I'll try to maintain this here so everybody can see so right now I'm on What's called the five site uh Financial components
132and this is called the visual section of uh forecast 5 and on the left hand side as I zoom in these are all categories whether it be enrollment financial report card where I've got various have various charts where we can look through and report on whether it be enrollment live birth charts open enrollment transfers you can see those are all the categories where we have dashboards built they parallel the fiveyear forecast they parallel so as we look at negotiations I know some of these charts were very helpful to us and staff about our health care benefits versus revenue or compared to our peers we have our salary schedules loaded in here we have Staffing report or position control we can tell Staffing ratios by cluster by building and then we have some student performance data
133in here as well so we have very very robust uh amounts of data and ways to display the data under the story section we have some really interesting um stories that we can tell about District finances enrollment and uh academic performance where if we want to um Mr President talk about displaying some of this to the public where we want an interactive process where we can say here's the story on enrollment you know what what have been the overall changes in enrollment and then you can tab through the enrollment story and it leads you on a historical perspective and gives you some ideas about what current enrollment Trends are in the district and these are all inter active and then we really have um the probably the most robust and interactive tools are in our
134five lab section and I know when a group of Administrators and maybe a couple board members a few years ago traveled to Columbus Public Schools we were looking at one that they were building themselves internally well that was a really difficult task for us to do but we built a lot of these dashboards already around attendance daily attendance chronic absenteeism discipline summaries grade distributions uh we have a start of an equity audit and that's really the dashboard that the feedback from you will be very helpful but we can start to dig into this data and the ultimate goal of this data in any one of these sections is that when you highlight it you can begin to expand all the way down to the classroom and see really granular classroom data uh starting at the
135highest level all the way down to classroom and grade so a lot of investment in time and and unfortunately we haven't been able to I guess show this off to our committees and finance committee because of covid but I think we're ready to get back to that so we'll open it up to the board then um to start talking some of you had things to say in your uh board retreat planning survey um a little bit about like what what you'd like to see but we'll open it up to get some comments from our board and maybe better inform what Mr Pendleton and his team are putting together in terms of diversity Equity inclusion what kind kind of data points what kinds of things would you like to see Patrick I'll weigh in a little
136um I know that we said that uh part of this has been put on hold due to covid but I know we talked about having you come to instructional policy you know it's really apparent um just when you hear about forecast 5 that it's great for finance right um so seeing what you showed me already today it gives me um the uh you know I want to poke around in it a little bit more and see what I can learn from an instructional policy point of view but I would love to have you you know even if it's just a few minutes and just to show us how to best dig into that from that committee's point of view I would really appreciate that and then I think what I learned yesterday and I kind
137of brought this up in the notes that I wrote for our later discussion on strategic planning but Dr abbar pointed something out yesterday that was language I guess some of the things for diversity inclusion I feel like I don't know what I don't know even in um even in having discussions and taking sessions and classes and sitting things on it I'd like to learn more about what what we should be looking for right so when he said yesterday about um it's not would would she put her child on the bus but will she that was like a aha moment for me that was one of those wow I never thought of that from an equity point of view and through an equity lens it's not just would you but will you and so I guess
138I don't I need some more guidance on what we should be looking for from an instructional policy point of view at least um you know I'll admit that that is is a something I want to learn thank you while we're waiting to see if any others have comments I someone that had mentioned the transparency in spending was similar to something that we've been talking about for a while that I would love a better way from an equity standpoint to look at our spending across the district our spending on various programs um sort of the value of the programs that we put within and among the different buildings and you know is is our is our spending from a program standpoint from a per people expenditure standpoint are we sort of equitably driving programs into certain
139buildings or certain areas to support um the the students that are there uh and so I know we've talked about that a lot it's evolved from the days where we talked about sort of a p&l uh from a p&l kind of standpoint for build uh you know by building to something that I think is a little bit more Equity focused and and a little bit broader in context but um I love the idea of being able to quickly see sort of that transparency and spending um across the district other thoughts Dr rbar well well you know um I I think that what Lisa Miss manfi said was um I mean it made sense I think that even those of us who do this work every day is still learning are still learning things every day
140so I don't think that you know it's good to you admit the things you don't know I mean that's the part first way of making anything improve just acknowledging what you don't know what what is happening um but um so I don't um what I'm about to say doesn't mean it's the end all be all and I I don't purport to have all the answers so um I just want to make that clear and there are some things that probably Ellen can provide more insight on I'm uh I'm sorry Dr MC Williams Woods can provide more insights on that I'm interested in learning about uh and so just to Lisa's point I'm Sorry Miss mani's Point um I I think that one of the things that I would like to see um around curriculum is
141um not just everything can't be put in numbers right so um I think that it's great to see numbers and so I I was very impressed with um Mr Pendleton's uh dashboards and to be quite honest with you some of it was a little bit overwhelming um it was a lot of them um but I think that what I would like to see is uh student experiences and having you know hearing from students experiences around what ways they would like to see themselves either in the classroom or in the school and what ways not only the the things that they've lacked but I also like to hear from students who um especially those students who have felt like they received what they they needed they they received um some relevant teaching and they've seen thems
142in the classroom they've seen thems in the curriculum um and that's the way we replicate that across the district if we learn about what's successful not just pointing out what's wrong um which I think part of this process is bringing awareness about what the gaps are but to me the more substantial part of this process is replicating the successes and what's happening that is going right and so that that can be more widespread and so I would like to see some of that and again I know that's not numbers or data that's uh a a quantitative but I I think that there's a space around the student experience that that lends itself to qualitative analysis I love what you said Dr akar and if I could just add quickly um we've we talk a lot
143about like our faculty and our staff the employee resource groups and all of that and you mentioned the student experience and I love that you did it also begs the question where is the outlet uh for students to communicate both successes and where they see areas for improvement and maybe that's with student involvement on sort of the equity committee or maybe it's the the student subcommittee on Equity diversity and inclusion whatever that is but do our students know how do they is there a forum for them to share those successes with us currently um to know that we do want to hear from them and it may be as simple as we want to hear from you and we want to know your you know where you feel like we're doing you know things are
144going well for you and and where you feel like maybe you're marginalized in some way um or that we could improve so I love that you bring up the student experience and maybe again that ties into those committees but yeah Mr President I like I like I like the idea too of the student experience but also just hearing from some of those students who felt they did not get uh what they think they needed what what could they have gotten or is there something else that they they they they needed or felt they needed to to be a little more successful in the classroom to do a little better so we need to get a a well-rounded piece from those who are who got felt they gotten everything and from those who felt they did
145not so you can get a a more uh well-rounded uh number of what what is going on so we can be able to try to give them what they need to be successful sounds like our alumni would be a good resource for something like that you know we don't talk a lot about alumni but there are people who have already Shar you know been through had an experience with acon public it would be good to hear from too any other thoughts or comments or Direction uh from the board Miss arrey yes thank you Mr President so one of the things that I would like to see and be aware of on a more consistent basis is how many Subs are in a building at any given time um I believe before I was appointed we
146had someone address the board and reported a significant number of Subs in a particular building which you know as a board member I want to be aware of those types of things you know as I encounter you know people in the community um and I think that's important to know um at any given time you know what that situation is like in a building so that is one thing uh that I would like to see um and then just kind of I concur with the the student voice always with my PTA background but I also want to uh you know if we can somehow also incorporate uh you know the parent Guardian uh voice as well I think that is equally as important yeah I'll jump in here as well just a quick comment I
147know that um Mr pen sort of talked about the the per pupil expenditure and whatnot um you know I'd love for us to kind of be able to connect because again you know uh equal and Equity are not the same thing right I mean I think it's kind of a kind of a buzz phrase now right that you know the equal sign does not equal Equity um and so just knowing what the per people spend is that's that's a very very necessary First Step um but I think but but the second step is is is us and I know I probably mentioned this before is sort of us you know as a group of thinking through um you know what conversion factor or factors do we need to put in place to be able to
148convert that per people spend to you know you know in in in economics there's the real versus nominal you know term right you know I think I think Ryan's probably pretty you familiar with that right um you know you know one takes into account inflation one does not right I mean and so so thinking about sort of our poor people spend what kind of equity conversion factor can we apply right so so so the dollar amount maybe maybe and I'm just making up a number here it might be $10,000 per student but when we apply the equity factor it's actually 7500 right or it's 1300 or it's 13,000 right I mean so again coming up with those factors um and this is where I I come back to a lot of times and talking about
149um just in general how we can be Market driving or Market driven you know and this you know and we talk a lot about as a board about how do we think outside the box and be Innovative and this might be a way um for us to do some of this right sort of com if we could come if we can engineer our own sort of equity conversion factor or factors you to be or formula that we can then apply to our our per spending or I'm sorry our per people spending so that way we have a better grasp you know at whether or not what a true Equitable spend or or division of resources actually looks like um and some just initial thought thoughts on that is you know you could start looking at
150sort of test scores over the last five to 10 years and looking at sort of what that what those test scores were in certain schools as compared to others uh and looking at the spend per people you know over time and correlated to test scores and that's just that's one very Elementary Factor you could look at but again you can look at in school you know you can look at disciplinary rates by school as well in school out of school suspension and not just those two by the way I know we those two get all all the attention you know but um but but there are other categories within discipline that that might make sense to look at as well um you know and so and then again and then I think open enrollment makes
151this a little challenging at times too because you know prior open enrollment you know was a little easier to kind of look at you know each school by Community but now with open enrollment that that can complicate things a little bit as well because you don't always have you know um the same sort of uh homogeneity you know by by by School District as as we may have had you know 20 years ago um but again those are some initial thoughts as as to you know ways that we could be thinking about um you know more practical applications of equity from a you know from a from a cultural and sort of financial standpoint I agree and Dr H I'd like to add to that just a little bit because you bring up a good
152point and we had a really we've had these conversations before and then even recently we had a good finance committee meeting where we were kind of picking that apart was one of our forecast 5 discussions so I guess maybe it was a little longer ago than I'm thinking but to your point it's it's not enough to to see the just the pieces that I mentioned earlier for example but you have to put that in the context if we're talking about diversity equity and inclusion here you have to put that in the context of the relative need of whoever you're talking about and so and I don't know to the extent that forecast 5 pulls in additional data but they're also you know to to layer or engineer as Dr Hall is suggesting to be able
153to engineer sort of those factors it would be interesting to pull in Public Health Data 911 data 311 data um and be able to say but what is the relative need of for example the the particular cluster that we're looking at because to Dr Hull's point the relative the spend you know might be X but when you apply that sort of uh relative need factor or whatever that is it may be reduced it may not be enough maybe in that particular area it needs to be and again just to build on Dr H I know he just picked a number but you know maybe that 10,000 needs to be 13,000 um and so it would be interesting to look at engineering or building what that relative need Factor sort of looks like and then how
154do we apply that once we know what we have but I I know that's a bigger discussion than you know for this retreat but I like that it was mentioned anybody else I would like to follow up there from some comments as maybe some others are thinking about questions and bring back the concept nationally that got some attention over the last few years about academic return on investment um I understand it's it's not all about numbers in finances for sure but as we align resources um Equitable resources across the district we should be able to track uh return on investment so I do want to see where we can get through finance and instructional policy about our alignment of Staff our alignment to programs uh and the investment behind it and then what you know
155is it paying off right is it is it providing the uh Equitable platform to succeed so I I would like to personally pull in some of the academic return on investment Concepts uh and kind of blend them with some of the concepts that that folks are talking about today great Dr Akbar and then miss m yes so I'm no uh Finance expert so I just want to put that out there um I have been having um quite a few conversations with Mr Pendleton as he knows I've been trying to dive deeper into the research behind this so that um one I can do a better job as we talk about Equity but two to it spend my own knowledge base around Equity um with finances and so one of the things that's been very interesting
156is um there there is a uh I've been reading this book by I believe his name is Bruce Baker if I remember correctly but it's downstairs and I'm upstairs so just going off the my memory um and it talks about uh funding and equities across the district or across District Lines um and one of the things that I thought was interesting that might be relevant to this dis discussion is when building a an equitable uh funding formula is really about what items are you you going to consider um you know which which items are you going to wait more so um you know in a traditional model someone might say that uh we give every school the same amount of money based off the per pupo cost so for example if we gave each student
157uh we said each student deserved or was would get $4,000 for per pupil well we know some schools are bigger than others and therefore the schools that are bigger with more pupils would get more money uh but that may not necessarily equate to the way you do Equity so if you look at equity and you're looking at um the social economics for example like how many students I know we give every student free reduced lunch but if you look at the the economics how many are at or below the poverty line that's weighted a certain level um differently how many English language Learners do you have that's weighted differently we already do give additional funds for students who are in special ed Bas off the number of special ad students that they have because we
158need to do that um but it's similar concept I think uh there and then you know some of the areas that I was thinking that was not in the um book but I added just thinking about our district is not just test scores but the racial makeup of um the student population versus the racial makeup of the teaching um force and that uh being a part of the weight potentially as well because that as you're basically trying to fund schools and provide support to help students overcome certain barriers and so if you can identify those barriers may be you can come up with an equable funding model that um doesn't eliminate them all together because we still have the social context but we at least try to help mitigate by providing Services um for it
159and so U with high poverty we know also comes um a lot of other social uh and emotional uh differences that we need to attune to so I think those were the main things that I had oh the last thing I was going to add was parent educational level um also because if we have you know you can have uh there's there's research out there that suggests if you have a parent even if they are living in a low economic Community or they have lower resources themselves you're still more likely to persist in college um because you have the support of someone who's been through college compared to someone who has no you know has have a parent that has no experience with that and then the last thing and I know this may sound
160weird but maybe it doesn't but I also I know we have um quite a few students in our system also in foster care um and looking at um that possibly as a weighted system as well uh because we know not everyone is is in a loving foster care situation and hopefully all of them are but we know that that's not always the case but also even just even if they are in a loving situation now you know what might have led to them becoming uh a part of foster care system uh for some may not have been the prettiest and so uh that also you know will give us some something to focus on agreed and Miss Manfield has some comments but just to add on really quickly to what Dr Akbar said um some
161of those other issues and and data that we could overlay on top of our clusters as well would be homelessness food insecurity things like that that could really be you know you could almost heat map our community with lots of that data and 211 data and request for services where are those coming from without identifying necessarily who or what the Services needed are some of that data would be really interesting then to lay over our district heat map look at the Clusters and see where the greatest need needs are as we start to sort of think about you know engineering that whatever we're calling it that relative need sort of factor that Dr Hall was kind of getting at Miss Mansfield sorry it took me a second to click um couple of things on on
162my part are as we're we're talking about these demographics also um possibly figuring out or looking at how many of our families are being raised by grandparents I know that that's a a big issue right now um with the with the job that I have that works with seniors we see more and more of that um it's always been but it it seems to be a growing um part of this pandemic um and mul hen is is huge so trying to work into helping tell that story as well um I'm sure that we're already doing this because I know how important the work is with United Way and the Family Resource Centers but um I'm sure we're already using this data to help um inform those choices as we're putting those expanding the Family Resource
163Centers across the district um my one concern about data is sometimes can be misused against us in ways right so it's depending on your agenda you can pull pieces of data out and use them to tell a story that is inaccurate so I think what someone mentioned I believe it was NJ talked about telling the stories or maybe it was Derek um along with that because it's it's really H having worked on a levy before having worked on two I I I remember going from parts of the city to parts of the city and having you know numbers thrown in our faces about well you spend more money you spend less money here so why should I give you more money um but trying to tell those stories in a in a positive light of
164the differences right and you talked a little bit about um how we link that to achievement um I think is incredibly helpful some people aren't going to care I mean that's the honest to goodness truth is some people are going to use data against us um for I believe it's the most powerful tool we have also so I'm not saying it shouldn't be there I just think that um as a board we should be aware that it can be used um negatively as well to try to tell a narrative that is false so just throwing that out there too um just because I can't let it pass thanks yeah um if I can hop in you know I I again I continue to be amazed at um the number of parallels between um healthc care
165and education uh and trying to deliver the two um and the terms that we use in health care and education are they're practically synonymous terms you know and so as as we sort of talk about issues you know as you know home environments caregiver status food insecurity you know what we're talking about is social determinance of educ ation you know in healthcare we have a term called social determins of health and they're all basically essentially all the same terms that we use in education and vice versa um you know and it's it's it's why Equity a lot of the work I do within uh my day job um is about ensuring that I mean value based care is a term that we use but but e but Equity is the foundation of providing value based
166care in our community it's what I do in my day job so again I'm just amazed at the par s um and it's part you I think it was it was actually Dr o barisa that that that referenced the stories um and and he's 100% right I mean you know whenever we sit down to do with with our finance folks to present on Roi around our Care Management you know nurses and support and the again these are the folks that address the social determins of Health right um you know there's always there's always that sort of Finance Roi component but there's also equally important perhaps more important um you know the part of the prision where we Act give actual patient anecdotes and stories you know where we where we drive home hey it isn't
167about you know numbers you know here's how these numbers translate to impact on on individuals lives um you know and so I think that's certainly important that as we build out this work that we do have um you know a narrative that does that that that has inweave through it um uh a plethora of patient stories um you know and types um the last thing I'll say is that I know that as we move this work forward um there are always going to be individuals in the community that that view Equity as taking from some to give to others you know I.E you want to take from one school to give to another school um or take from one part of town and give to another part of town and um and I just I
168think it's important from a community messaging piece how we how we message just and explain it because as as we all know that's not what Equity is you know Equity is not about taking from something to give to others Equity is about giving everyone what they need you know um according to sort of what their needs are um and so so so that's where I my head is at as we sort of walk this forward is you know how do we you know consistently messages in a way that makes sense to the people in our community that we're asking to ultimately support us in supporting you all in doing this work good thank you anyone else before we break for lunch hearing and seeing none um we are rather than try and uh Force anyone
169to eat on camera or try and have food delivered and make sure it was all delivered at the same time and everything uh we opted for a 30 minute break for lunch so everyone could uh re-energize get something to eat um and come back feeling a little bit more refreshed when we do come back uh we we going to pick back up on our vision and strategic planning conversation uh we're going to take a look again at the advanced APS document the illustration that we sent out previously we're going to brainstorm a little bit on your ideas uh what you've been thinking about the last day or two on the areas uh from everything that you've heard and from where we're already headed what you'd like to see us uh improve upon or Advance on
170in the in the next couple of years and then we'll close out our session with um Levy and finance so when we get back there uh it's a little bit um shorter time and and there aren't any breaks but we'll plug through and we'll get everyone done by two o'clock uh is there anything final before we take a short 30 minute break for lunch all right we're a little bit over so I'll take a motion for recess so moved second thank you motion by Dr Akbar second by Mr Alexander uh when we vote we'll uh suspend the live meeting and we'll all take a break we'll come back at 1225 all in favor signify by saying I I all right we are in recess thank you so much ready good afternoon and welcome back to
171the special meeting for the acam Public Schools board of education for Saturday August 15 2020 we're just returning from a recess uh a lunch and we have about an hour and a half or so to go left in our Retreat as part of a about a 10hour two-day Retreat uh We've covered a lot of topics so far uh we still have uh a couple more things we'd like to get to before we wrap up um for the weekend um and part of that we're going to start with our vision and strategic planning discussion we're going to pick back up on uh the Advan a it gets lost in the clutter in the noise so trying to figure out how to do that on um on a real and sincere basis I think we do such
172a good job in our buildings right but as a community so few people come into our buildings um especially now but you know in reality there are so many times when people have formed an opinion or have a preconceived notion about who we are that isn't real and you know my argument is always oh you think this about such and such school when was the last time you were there you know what well you haven't walked in since you graduated come with me let's go let's go see what it really looks like so trying to maybe get when we can right trying to get people to do that trying to set up days where maybe as a board member or maybe as a board member and a council person we do a meet and GRE
173out of school with the teachers like a more of a a way to engage people to actually get them to see the Fantastic things our students are doing I mean goodness some of these um some of even the the things we've sat through recently that are um virtual are Fant fastic so sharing those as much as we can in in different ways again there's so many channels that there's none so um working on that even more would be great thank you thank you just a couple of things that you guys said that made me think of something as um when Miss Mansfield was just talking about engagement there's there's probably some goals that we can set for ourselves too you know there's engag Eng agement by the board itself and then engagement by the district
174and we're kind of talking about at least in here the family and caregiver connections really are I think was geared probably more towards the district but um Lisa kind of made me you brought up a good point and it made me think like the difference between the engagement piece by the district and the engagement piece by the board all of this also made me think that at some point it might be worth a discussion amongst ourselves um you know these are goals we'd like to see for the district but maybe there's a conversation we're having around goals we'd like to see for ourselves as a board um but you know I don't want to muddy the water too much today who else has thoughts again we uh I should probably say too when Dr abar
175and I were passing these back and forth I had a list I was kind of working from based on our conversation Dr abar had a list and there was a lot more to pull from uh we we just kind of pulled some examples so there there I'm sure there's more yeah and I want to add to um that um Mr Bravo by saying that um we can have five for example things under Equity we can have five things under academic achievement if we want to um you know those all of those things can happen um if we want to it's based off what we think we just wanted to put together some examples of what would go under each of those three broader categories um but I I think I do like keeping it as
176simple as possible um one of the things that when Patrick mentioned there was even more that we could talk about one of the things that he mentioned was how does finance and operations fit into this for example and I think that when you look at your um when you look at academic achievement in order to achieve any of those three goals or if it's five goals that we come up with whatever that number is some of it may require some operational changes some structural changes you know so it's so the the finances and operations and the business side makes changes in order to achieve those big broader goals so I don't see them being misaligned uh I think that it's if we're looking at goals that not only that we can continue to uh go
177back to that we can continue to Rally around um to push our our district District forward uh we have to you know maintain focus on the central core of the institution and then all the other pieces kind of attached to it if you will it's it it I just wanted to put that out there but um that's my perspective that doesn't mean that's a perspective of everyone and if we need to add an operational um goal or uh area we can do that but uh that was one I know that we had uh some lengthy conversation on uh the other pieces around technology that I wanted to mention and I I I thank uh Miss alri for mentioning that because that was that's that's something that I'm very interested in and trying to figure out
178how do we solve um and it can't it and what I've kind of surmised is it it won't be solved simply by by our district and so under engagement could we add a um a goal that that connects the district and the city and other entities to uh to to eliminate the Broadband disparities within our community you know that's like one goal that we could work on the only piece of that is uh Patrick and I also talked about wanting all of our goals to be measurable and specific and and some things like that you one I don't know how to begin to set a goal to measure that besides either we have it or we don't so it's one of those things where I can go back and forth on that yeah and as
179we so just a couple of followups to that um I like that idea I like the idea because we can do one to World which we we've done and we we we can put technology in the hands of every kid but if we have the connectivity issue from a Broadband perspective that's a little bit larger than us and you're right it's it's not necessarily us and certainly not us by ourselves that can solve it but with Partners around the community we can solve it and I do in fact know that there are a couple of initiatives right now aimed at addressing that that maybe we can jump in and throw our support behind you know everything from sort of iname only to maybe participation in those conversations and and Beyond uh because there are a
180couple of initiatives I think that are aimed at that uh the other thing I wanted to mention really quickly was um Dr McWilliams Woods uh flew through some really uh great goals and data that are tied to the College and Career cies and nothing says that some of those same goals and objectives can't be repeated here and sort of monitored more and said you know like yeah out of all these goals and and objectives that are set for the College and Career that we're reporting back to the community into the Ford NGL and or to Batel or whoever those folks are that they can't out of all of those we still deem these as some of the most important so we can borrow a little bit too um and and highlight that as ours and
181I guess the last thing was just words of encouragement as as we keep discussing this if you mind as a board are thinking to yourself like if we had done a traditional sort of analysis on what are our biggest what are the biggest challenges facing APS and what are the biggest opportunities is what's on this page does that reflect to you what you feel are the biggest challenges Andor biggest opportunities where we can make advances as a district so just something think about Dr Hall I think you've been waiting sorry no no no no no and this is purposefully why I wanted to sort of weigh in and then kind of listen to all of you uh kind of weigh in and then kind of come back um so so a couple things um one
182you know at a high level as we think about this document um you know one of the things I would I would suggest and this is kind of you probably heard me say this about 14 more times um as we sort of think through it but um I think it's important that around each initiative that we have an action sort of plan action register road map um because again you know these for example those three goals there there are there are task that must be achieved things that must be brought to bear operationally that have to be in order for us to achieve those you know those goals right for your graduation rates right so I like the fact that the document keeps it high level but I do think that the underlying sort of
183support documentation if you will on this um you know that each each of these sort of main pillars if you will would have its own sort of road map slac that way again as we think through progress you know um you know we know who's doing what you know and in what timeline um you know and so that so that's so so I would suggest that for for every for each of these pillars that we have something a document like that in place um other thing too I guess in number two is the equity and finance piece um you know again I think that could fall under Equity I don't need it doesn't need I don't think it needs to be its own pillar but I do think that if this is a three-year a
184three-year document right because there are things on here that um that you might think we can make some progress on in a year you know um or two years right um but but but if we're giving ourselves three years to achieve some of these goals or to reach some of these targets something like equity and finance I think it's I think it's something that should absolutely be included under Equity um you know whether we end up making it a sub part of the equity Committee of the board um you know but just something that sort of calls out that I I think we have to solve this Equity uh or Dei conversion factor calculation um you know I think that needs to be a priority because again you know I think to the point that
185was that was made by I think Dr Akbar you know that if if if we're gonna sort of Ensure the appropriate provisioning of resources whether it's teachers whether it's you know other sort of uh you know resources to fund various programs at various schools um you know we have to we have we have to sort of know um what the appropriate provisioning is for each school so that's where you know I really want to emphasize the importance of coming up with that uh that Equity or Dei factor that we can apply to our finances I think that's I think that's absolutely essential to moving this work forward um I agree with the technology component as well that Miss A brought up you know because as she was talking I was thinking I was thinking connection
186I was thinking technology and connection with with what items right um you know and so Community Partners that can sort of help us or build this out I mean I know that you know one of our neighboring cities which is which is certainly a lot smaller but you know but the city of Falon you they they have their own Broadband Network right so that that covers the entire city um you now I don't know that that we get to that in three years with akan but again it's something to work towards um and then I was thinking about the um next I was thinking about sort of the um the engagement piece um specifically around the college and cure Academy again I like these high level goals the one thing I I would again sort
187of add to that though is um and thinking about uh I think to drar report about we want to have things that we can measure um I know that Miss Tekk has sort of alluded to this in you know in the past starting around this but we would absolutely wna I think I think we actually should absolutely should be including um in that in that component um or maybe or maybe this goes under achievement but uh but thinking about data that we're collecting around students that choose to enroll or enlist or or or or be in PLL um you know so because we should we should absolutely know you know um for each of our graduating classes how many of them chose to enlist how many of them chose to enroll in college how many
188of them you know are employed where are they employed at you know which of our partners you know um are stepping up and actually employing um you know uh our students I mean those are absolutely things that we should know on a year-to-year basis um you know and so so again so again I know that's not fleshed out here specifically but again we can make it its own bullet point under engagement um you know or we can roll in under you know the I'm not sure what bullet point we'd roll in or or we can move it to academic or we can move it to achievement uh and that leads me to my my next point about acade so we're saying achievement um you know I wonder if now that I think about this a
189little bit more you know academic achievement I mean it's should it be in I know that we're a school district right so so you would think that academic should absolutely be the that that that right word but I I wonder if if if if if just achievement in general um you know might be more inclusive and thinking about students that maybe don't want to go to college so they're going to graduate but they want to be but their goal is to join the military or they're or their goal is to you know go work directly for one of our partners as soon as they finish um so I'm just worried that academic achievement maybe emphasize and again I get why it's in there and I I'm agreeing with it I just I'm struggling with wanting
190to uh much as with the College and Career academies I know that there are a lot of folks L people in the community that that they hear the College and Career part but they don't connected that means vocational education right so so words have changed you know the vernaculars changed a bit right um so I'm just worried that you know that when we say academic achievement that it's not speaking to the speaking to the enlist uh as well as the employment component and so that's where so that's where I'll defer to you all to kind of help me kind of flesh out what's in my own head um you know so again the the stats are on enroll and list and employment um you know whether that goes under under engagement or academic achievement um
191or just what call than that um I just would want to make sure that that was being reflected in there um and canou yeah yeah for what you're talking about too I mean I I would be open to something like more defining it more like Student Success um and so maybe it's a little bit you know just to throw that out there and as you uh keep mentioning like enrollment um employment enlistment I'd still like to since the since Dr akar was talking about our lexicon earlier I'd still like us to continue at least thinking about adding that fourth e of Entrepreneurship as well um because we missed that one a lot and there are a lot of kids and especially in today's day and age that have the ability much more easily maybe than
192even we did to start something on their own so anyway sorry I didn't mean to completely interrupt there no no no no no thank you for saying that um I just had I only had one more comment that was to miss mansfi point about uh the meet and greets with teachers at the schools um you know I think that's an excellent idea again is under under the engagement category um you know again you know it it'd be great this is where I think that you know and I know I've said this I know I've said this to some of you offline um but I but this is where I think that you know as a board um that that sort of next level of involvement and engagement becomes with us being a lot more um
193sort of engaged in the schools and in our and in our neighborhoods um you know being and that includes being visible and being being sort of very people out there in the community that that our teachers regularly have have contact with I mean you know I don't want the people in the schools to think to think of the board members as living in I you know as living in an ivory tower that they never see them they never come to the schools they never have chances to interact with them um because we're we're Community elected officials we should we should be out there we should be um accessible um you know there shouldn't be a Mystique about any of us you know um we should be just you know we you know we're we're common
194folk just like people in our community are you know so we're all all working together towards common Community goals that that will better all of us um so that's where so again I I like Miss mansel's idea about these consistent um sort of meet and greets you know within you know within our schools what you know what we're having and and not and I'll be honest with you what came in my mind was I I I was thinking about the FDR firy chats where I kept thinking like gosh for members can go do you know Fireside Chats you know in different clusters at different different times of the year um you know to with teachers and parents and you know however we choose to sort of or engineer it so um anyway so those are
195my thoughts Dr James um my comment was already covered thank you okay who else I'm taking copious amounts of notes Here Dr yeah I I'm taking notes too and thinking about what being said and um maybe to uh Dr Hall's Point um maybe it's not necessarily shifting from academic success or Student Success but again maybe it's just uh success in general so if or achieve in general whichever word we want to use but um you can add under that the uh increasing the number of students who are employed enroll en list or our entrepreneurs at at point of their graduation or we you know we can even do um what we we might even want to look at eventually establishing some some type of survey to see how our graduates are doing a few years
196after graduation even so uh just a thought out there uh so we could put that as a goal um and we can definitely measure the increase over time is we you know have the whole pie of 100% of our students and I don't know what the percentage is now but let's say if that percentage today from what we've measured with the three EAS with without the fourth e but I I agreee we need to add the fourth e uh with the three e is you know 70% and again I don't know what the percentage is but let's say that it's 70% and then that means the remainder are unemployed potentially or maybe they are um entrepreneurs and we're just not capturing that data but with that goal we can start to increase that percentage because
197one we're able to count um all of those areas out of all of our students um we can do that the last thing that I thought about um that might even be able to go under there that no one really said but it's um our our vision currently which is to become the number one uh School District um Urban school district and if we're really going to be serious about that as well you know we have to start looking at how do we measure that and one of those ways could be um looking at you know our recognition uh through grants and through Awards like um not to highlight um one one specific person again but just to put it out there you know just like the Pinnacle Award for example that Mr pendon received
198that's a award that our district should be celebrating as well um and the things that that those contributions have made to move our district forward so I'm looking at all of that as possibly ways that we could eventually um celebrate our success but again I do want to also keep it as digestible as possible so I'm not saying we need to add everything um but we can have some that are official on on the books goals that we're measuring but also some other things that we are looking at that may not be a part of the three or five goals but fall under that area that bolster that that that area I have a couple of additional comments but is there anyone else first I've got one but I'll refer to miss to go first
199Miss a yes thank you so as I'm looking at the uh achievement uh goal I guess one thing I see under there if we are going to really be leaders and move towards being the number one Urban School District um I I'd like to see us measure and evaluate um our priority and and voucher El eligible schools and how are we moving the needle to get those schools off of the list and what's our progress and and set some goals you know because I'm personally you know I'm not satisfied with us just accepting those where they're at and I know we're working on those things but I guess I'd like to see a a a a focus effort on you know what those schools are and how are we moving the needle in comparison to
200you know even five years ago so I think that's a measurable thing that's important and you know I know the report card debate is ongoing um but I just think it's something we need to look at as a district the health of our clusters and our buildings yeah I love that Diana and I love I mean it's a good indicator for a need for Equity when we have some of our schools have that designation and others do not I I love that you bring that up um one of the other things that as Dr Akbar was talking I kind of thought to myself and I've mentioned this before and even today um in that engagement piece I would I would love to see us and I don't know what the goal is uh some some
201individual schools do a great job as a district I don't know if if we're quite as focused or have a focus or concentration in alumni engagement um again some schools do really well some schools it's it's just natural whether it's the was the Kenmore Angels or the you know whoever those groups are they they are really engaged but you want to talk about building sort of that power base and the network and the support and finding out where people are and you look at um some of the universities and some of the folks who have gotten this kind of down to a science and and how they utilize that the power of their Alumni network um maybe it's just something that we think about and it doesn't necessarily have to be a goal on here
202but it might be a topic for another time Dr Hall you had a comment or question yeah I'm sorry I said a couple more quick things here one um the urban District you know I I'll be candid I've always sort of I've always it's always that ter has always given me a bit of a bit of indigestion um because in part because I've never really gotten a a great answer um on on sort of how one is H how how we determine whether one is a top reforming uran District you know what are the metrics that we would use to determine whether or not so we're going to set a goal to be the number one Urban district for example how do I know when we've achieved that goal how do I know how close
203we are to achieving that goal um you know I feel like it's this is on all of our documents and yet I don't know that we've ever um and we have and I just missed it then I Then I then you all have my public apology for even bringing this up but U but I I I just I've never gotten my head around what that looks like you know what a topnotch like from a metric standpoint um and I know it goes beyond just graduation rates right I mean you know with us having college and cies you know there are other metrics that we could be looking at that might make us a better Urban District so I just feel like you know if as we sort of move forward if we're going to continue
204to to to put on all of our documentation and urban IND that I think we should have talking points as to sort of what that what that looks like you know and and so when they tell you all so when they so when I get asked well how where do we rank right now you know do we are we a top 10 percentile District are we bottom 10th percentile are we somewh a 50 percentile how how where where where where are we performing relative to everybody else right now um you know so I I can't I can't I've gotten a couple questions about that you know over the last you know seven months and I I don't have a satisfactory answer um so that's the one thing I just want to bring it up again
205that i' like if we could unpack that a bit uh moving forward um I've never really liked the term number one Urban District because it just feels like a a dream with clip Wings you know you know though there's a part of my brain that can understand why we use that terminology because you want to have a cohort to measure to measure yourself against so I I get that um but but it just always has felt you know just I I I'd almost rather say you know to be a top performing School District as opposed to put as opposed to throwing the urban in there but um perhaps that's a conversation conversation for another time um but the other thing I I wanted to bring up too was in thinking about that that Dei um
206document I'm sorry the advanced APS document um just kind of putting on my devil's advocate hat you know by was somebody in the community that was looking at this this this document um you know some someone might say wait a minute this is a three-year document and you so you think so if your goal with ERG is just establish an ERG within three years that's your whole goal is to establish a committee in three years like um or establish an equity Committee in three years that that's a goal like um it feels like it feels like there it feels like maybe for example with ergs might we might say we'd like to have you know within three years establish ergs with 25% um membership um or 25% of the district's employees enrolled in in an
207ERG within three years um you know or if we have an ERG around um I I mean I'm I'm making this up but let's say we had an ERG around veterans to have you know half the veterans half of our veterans in the school in you know connected to the ERG within three years so again I just would so again I just I love the fact that it's a goal I just I it would just be I would add ERG groups with gold participation of X percent or X number of people um and for and under for for and then for the equity committee like establish an equity Committee of the board um that will um you know pillars right grading equity and finance you know equity and equity in the CL I mean again
208we can again we can talk about sort of what that looks like but again I I want to make sure that that that that that there's an and attached to the creation of the Committees that are in this document that way people aren't going to say well it took you well your whole goal was establish a committee in three years like so congratulations you you you established a committee in three years but what else so um so again that's that's just so again that's just me putting on my my devil's advocate hat there apologies I'm not I don't want that to sound offensive to anybody because again I I love this document but again I just want to make sure that we have um that we're thinking through U some of the feedback we might
209get you know when this document um you know as more people see this document you know once we finalize it great thank you um so one thing before I ask to Dr MC Williams Woods or or Dr James or anyone that might like to respond on the number one Urban District question um we haven't talked about next steps so I'm just brainstorming here and then you can tell me what you think but I think Dr Akbar and I you know are following you know the conclusion of this conversation um then we still have time to talk so uh but I think Dr Akbar and I should take back some of the the notes that were taking um and maybe you know add to this or or clarify or adjust this a little bit send it
210back out and make sure that everyone is good with it if they are then you'll notice that some of these things do have percentages or or things that have been left blank and you know we we sort of can guess as as Dr Akbar has kind of pointed out you know these are just illustrations and so when you gave the 10% earlier in an example we're just giving examples but I think what we ought to do is maybe then turn some of these things even over the to the Committees to work with our staff to say let's put something that's behind this and to Dr Hall's point you know they they should be attainable but they should still be stretched but they should be something that's measurable and and I do agree with you and
211again we've established an equity Committee of the board you're right we could do that before the end of this meeting and it's done um but adding something more to that is probably worthwhile and I think Dr Akbar and I can probably take a stab at that um in the interest of you know uh time and everything and then give that to the board and see if the board agrees um there have been some conversation or some some questions around number one Urban School District I didn't know if anyone I didn't want to not allow someone the chance to to say something about that I think I I would and some of you have heard me talk about this um two things when we were with the uh Darden School of Business through the facilitation process
212of the last version of the Strategic plan one of the major discussions that were happening in our uh days at uh UVA and then the uh coaching here but most of the discussion was when we were actually sitting at University of Virginia for a week long retreat we were we had already reached based on all of the metrics that we get evaluated on in the state of Ohio we had already we were consistently the top urban District in Ohio and that was compared to the districts that we are compared to by the state of Ohio in that cohort so we sort of had that natural cohort and that was already a consistent uh year after year that on almost every single metric the only other District we were competing with during that time period was
213Cincinnati um that every once in a while they would grab a few uh top spots on key indicators so the discussion was where do we go from there and maybe this is we are at a place where we need to look at more of an national uh Quest and our College and Career Academy work that that was just launching during that time the initial investigation of getting on this National playing field versus just here in Ohio really propelled us to be thinking about that National view the other context uh that was happening during that time was all the common core standard the national assessments that we were all going to be on the same assessments one of two assessments that everybody was adopting across the country um and when you think about that context there
214were going to be common metrics across the United States that would have been pretty easy for us to look at the the US Department of Ed was also requiring that everybody shift to the same graduation rates and so that there would be similarity across the state a couple years after that everything blew up uh and that local control and local state you know state level control and all that national movement to get those National metrics all kind of blew up um so that's why the initial the plan was to have specific metrics in the context and the environment was such that we could easily do that but then everything pulled back from there um which made a national ranking and and it's not like the universities and the hospitals where there's National organiz ations that
215rank hospitals and rank universities that doesn't exist in K12 because there's no no one uses the same metrics which is where the country was heading but now it has completely reversed from there so I think it's you know today it's a good argument whether we want to keep that without our ability to really have Fair metrics where every state uses different graduation rates and you know whether we could really hone in on some things may be impossible um and maybe there is some other aspirational what I wouldn't want to do is lose the sense that we're on a we are on a national stage now the work that we're doing and just putting that out there has that statement has attracted national funding has attracted national attention um so somewhere in there I think we
216need to keep out of Ohio out of the county because we are on a national stage now but how we measure that or the words we use to define that I think is a very good argument and discussion for us to have yeah I I I agree with that I appreciate you saying all that um I didn't know that we were number one in Ohio um I think that and I agree with I agree with the points you made about how we we don't want to limit it to that because we're on a national scale absolutely agree with that it might make a little more sense at least locally though to to to talk up the fact that we're the number one District Urban District in Ohio that I didn't know that I don't think
217I'd ever heard that um you know I don't know that our teachers even know that with those that I've T talk that I've talked to um so so so maybe locally you know maybe the middle ground is maybe locally we can talk more about the fact that with the ne Urban District in Ohio I think that would I think that goes to sort of morale too um you know and talking about sort of yeah we're number one Ohio and here's here's why we're number one in Ohio you know here are the four or five measures that make us number one um you know because again it's you know because our teachers are they're the ones out in the community doing the work and they they're families friends they have large networks and so so if
218they can begin to spread that information for us akan we have pretty good we have pretty good schools in akan you know um that I think I think I think that's an area of opportunity but but I do appreciate um the explanation and the and the further clarifications thank you yeah I um I want to add just one thing that what uh Dr Hall is saying is very uh on par with what I was mentioning before about um the ways in which we've been recognized um and so I maybe it's you know looking at us as a national leader in uh Student Success for example being what we say that's bold it's ambitious aspirational but it also is declarative and I think that that allows us to um potentially uh do what uh Dr Hall
219is saying will also um acknowledge what um Dr mcwood Williams Woods has said as well no just a thought from me too as I'm listening to that I it's there are like two parallel tracks of how we measure ourselves as a district and one is just how do we measure ourselves as a district period um and I see a lot of that in the College and Career Academy data that we're collecting right because we say um and I love the way that the College and Career Academy breaks it down and says look if we if our graduation rate is here and our district is currently at D but we can get it to here that's in the C Level if we can get it to here that's in the B level and we do that
220with a few data points I believe um so there's how we're doing as a district overall and then how we're doing as an urban district and it's hard to escape the realities of you know demography and where we are socio economically or or whatever that the case may be um because we are an urban district and so necessarily our demographics are a little bit different um but keeping our eye on both of those sort of parallel tracks of achievement for the district one is just how we're doing overall regardless of whether we're looking at Urban or rural or suburban and then the other being but how do we compare to our cohorts in this s sort of urban District context um because you want to see both and and I mean if you if you
221advance in one you're going to advance in the other but um it's just a just a thought because when we say number one Urban District we might be the number one Urban District but as a district itself compared to the state and we know that the state report card isn't fair or right but um but anyway Dr James you have a comment yes you know I think sometimes we fall prey to to the structures that have been imposed upon us I keep hearing Urban Suburban rural it really should be about you know how our students are doing with cohorts of students that have similar characteristics like percent of poverty um you know the the ethnic makeup of our districts I also think that sometimes you know we don't give ourselves credit for some of the
222very creative things that we've done in this District I haven't since 10 hours ago I haven't heard anyone mention the fine work that uh our partnership with the Lebron James family foundation and the academic gains that those kids who are some of the most struggling kids you know in America not just an arrine but if you look at some of the issues that those kids face and we've seen some huge uh academic and social gains and the partnership that has grown to encom comp other Partnerships that are helping um these families and the impact that that partnership has had on our relationship with United Way with Family Resource Centers Financial Empowerment which are helping you know our community as a whole because our schools were were not isolated from the community so you know I
223think when we talk about um you know moving forward with you know whether it's a new tagline or something else a lot goes into that and it isn't just all purely academics this is about really building up our community and you know doing it in a way where you know um there's equ Equitable access to resources Equitable access to an education and um Equitable access you know to um uh you know the economic tools to help make families whole and you know I just think sometimes we need to think a little bit bigger you know than just some of the things that you know we have those rules imposed by us in lots of districts it's not just the urbans but the Suburbans even the high performing districts in the state have all complained about
224the report car and many of us don't give it that much Creeds because it changes constantly you know remember five six seven eight years ago we were you know right on the cusper moving up to another you know a higher bracket in in terms of our valuation they changed the rules and then all the urbans fell down so that's uh just my comments about that thank you good comments Mr Alexander yeah patri I I I I agree with the Dr James has said about uh uh we can't get caught up in the standards and some of those things that we're talking about because it is all about the kids and what we're doing when I I'm going to go back when we first start talking about the uh be the best Urban School District in
225the in the in the nation or in the country uh that was something I was behind as well because I look at I want to be number one okay I don't I don't want to be number five six or seven because when you come to five six or seven nobody looks at 56 and seven uh the the the the people who be they don't give the Monies to the five six and sevens they give them to the one twos and threes because those are the ones who getting results who are showing results who are can lead the the the country and education say here's what what what what what we're doing and what can be done in other school districts to make other school districts better and so what we're doing by saying we're going
226to elevate ourselves to the number one Urban School District it says Urban because we're Urban School District I think that's where the the name Urban come from but not just in urban but in school district period you know where we at we've measured ourselves through the state of Ohio okay so now we're measuring with the state now are we going to go to the National level where we at on the national level in some of these areas and then we move a little further up the up the chain as what we we've done we we've we've set these goals these objectives and we measured them and here's where we at and here's where we at against other school yes we've surpassed us now we're going to the next level that's the piece that we got
227to look at and look at the the ultimate goal is where are we going and where we want to go but then uh uh uh put the map together as to here are the steps we need I think that's what we're talking about we want to see more steps as to how we get there uh to that to that point and so I I think what we have to do is make sure we focus on we want to get to the top but also the steps of where we're going to go to get to that that that that point and some of those those uh objectives are GNA be measured within three years some might be measured in four years some might be measured before then we might reach those goals but that's okay as
228long as we're moving towards up that ladder towards being the number one school district in the country and the last thing I'm G to say is and and and and and Dr James mention us here about the LeBron James School uh people don't look at what type of kids we having that school okay those are more hard to serve kids where have they how far have they gone what what what what what what what goals have they achieved and they and if it passed and surpassed and they're moving to the the next level one of the things that we probably need to work on a little bit more is tooting our own horn because we we're modest and I I'm okay with that to a certain extent but on the other hand we got to
229toot our horn and we got to Market what we do okay if we're doing something well Market okay our kids are our products and we need to Market them show how well they are doing in our school district but not just in our school district compared against other other school districts across the country so I I hope that we we'll focus on uh that we want to be at the top but what are the goals that we want to look at and I think that's what we're trying to say so I'm I'm saying but I also want to say that let's toot our horn a little bit more because we're doing some good things and and we do need to do that we need to Market what we're doing so the people know that and
230then that'll even show more of where we we're at in moving towards the top school district in the country thank you thank you Dr Oar I just want to Echo what uh Mr Alexander said and just say that um a part of becoming a national leader is telling our story and I think that that's important that we do um something that I'm really interested in and um it could be just my own interest uh but I I would like for us to also look at how do we add at our story in in the research and looking at how do we increase um our presence there as well as as academics and colleges are looking at teaching um and exposing their their future teachers to what success looks like um we need some case studies
231from right here in akan uh to to showcase for the to use we need uh some of the data that we've seen where we've seen the growth in uh I promise school and other schools um to be represented so I think that that's uh a part of also becoming a national leader as well thank you Miss Manfield so I think sometimes our um our size is to our detriment especially on telling our story um in some ways I mean some of the things that that the newer board members did get didn't necessarily get a chance to see just because it there's so much coming at us at the end of the school year this year you know one of the things to Dr akar's point that gets pointed out is how many of our teachers
232were published um in National studies and National articles um that's one of the things that we usually have the Teacher of the Year banquet and that's usually when I hear about those things right and and get to look them up and things like that there was so much to share it just got buried in the National Narrative of of everything and the fact that we were presenting the way we were we presenting um also I agree we do need to toot our horn we are modest that means sometimes as board members we need to jump in and fill out those forms when um osba sends us something that says nominate somebody for such and such or send a program we need to suggest it we need to fill it out ourselves we need to do
233that you know who does that really well and I complain about him all the time is too Toledo does a great job and we go neck and neck with Toledo and yet they make themselves sound like they are the the beeses man they just are really great at putting their their board members out there I know they have two board members that serve on as osba trustees who've been there quite a few years and that does help right they they've got those that double domination I think it would be great if we not only get to keep our voice that we already have as trustees down there but also if some if someone um maybe one of the board members who hasn't been down there decides to ask for to be placed so that we
234can get two people if Toledo can have two people on there then why aren we pushing for two people on osba um it just helps us get that that story out at the state level as well um so I would would I would recommend as those things come in I'm as bad as the next person um other than nominating when we nominated Reverend Walker um we haven't done that as much as we should I think David should be nominated I think Ryan should be nominated for this year's um I'm sure it's probably too late for this year's Awards but things have just gotten so buried in trying to do the the work that is um has been so crucial this year that some of those things have been pushed to the Wayside maybe this isn't
235the right year to be recognized because it's going to be a virtual ceremony I don't know but um just as those things are coming through it's easy we get so many Communications from osba and from the state it's easy to delete those after a while there's too many there's just too many but um some of those have things that we could do to help to to help us toot our own horn we were said to speak at the nsba the National Conference about I promise um it was going to be my first National Conference to speak at I was thrilled we were set to speak we we put in to speak for osba about it and um it didn't get pulled apparently because I haven't heard anything back from Mark Bobo but I need to
236reach out to him again signing up to do those things we can do that if you have a or a staff member can you can encourage them so encouraging somebody who you see is doing a fantastic program trying to get them to jump into that National Spotlight that's how we tell our stories letting our letting the people who do the actual boots on the grounds work tell the story great thank you anything else on this topic M thank you so I hate to be the negative Nelly Here that's not my intention and while I concur with everything that has been said one of the valuable characteristics of a good strong leadership is acknowledging your challenges and your areas for improvement so I think this District does a great job actually of tooting its horn and
237we can always do better um but just over the years and I'm a parent of a 18 year old and a 28 year old so I've been up front and center you know of being a witness to our various accomplishments and the I promise School certainly being one of them and probably the one that has launched us to that National stage so I just wanted to acknowledge that and also acknowledge that that population of students um exists probably in all of our schools um but they're just in third through 12th grade now so not all of them have had that opportunity um of the resources that are offered I would love to see each school be able to have a LeBron James but the reality is that that's not true but how can we piece
238a LeBron James together you know everything that that uh Foundation brings you know maybe for other schools uh that consists of five different who provide those same things so um I just wanted to mention that and again it's not a criticism it's a it's a honest uh reality and you know if we're going to be leaders in the educational industry on a national stage you know we we have to show where our challenges have been and you know where we have made those improvements and that we're willing to acknowledge them yeah I love that you bring that up Diana that's an excellent point we shouldn't lose sight of being able to stand up and recognize where we've where we've fallen short um so thank you for that that's those are worthwhile comments for sure what
239I would recommend um from this point and I have uh lots of notes here and I'm sure Dr akar does too if you guys have any additional notes that you'd like to send us and those to Dr to me and Dr Akbar uh we'll be meeting uh and following up on this conversation probably not this afternoon or tomorrow I'd like to finish some work here at home um but we'll be following up on our conversations and I would suggest that he and I revise this document and get you an updated format that maybe reflects some of the notes that you gave us today di fell off excuse me sorry oh did she I was looking down okay let's pause our meeting for just a moment and wait for her to rejoin maybe we fallen short
240than our internet connections we could have reached our time limit or something okay I'm back welcome back real quick waiting both no I I just I just want to say thank you to to Dr abbar Mr Bravo for for for for taking the initiative and getting us started on all this uh it is very much appre it thank you both thank you thank you we'll revise this document we'll get it back to you and we'll also come up with a strategy to get some of the um details behind the metrics so that whether that goes to specific committees to work with staff um we definitely don't want to do it in isolation so we'll work with everyone to try and get that done with that if everyone's okay uh because we only have about 25
241minutes left um I'd like to Pivot now to uh Levy and finance discussion and then I'd like to reserve just about five minutes or so at the end of the conversation for um an additional topic so Mr Pendleton um we've talked about a lot about the need for a levy we know the need is there we've talked about the fact that we are going to have to go next year so we're not going to talk about a lot of numbers or campaign Levy campaign specifics but we do want to talk about uh the levy committee itself we want to talk a little bit about the structure about how the board envisions we might uh start to build some support behind what we're contemplating so Mr Pendleton I'd like to turn it over to you if
242that's okay sure Mr James I'm sorry yeah in our Levy uh planning or prior to our board retreat when we were planning this agenda again you mentioned that we had discussed the financial need the end of the cycle for every six years on average and I think there's some momentum towards a May issue however we wanted to talk more about the mechanics and how to put that team together and I think I'll defer to the superintendent there because that's really the next steps in terms of any successful Levy campaign is that team and engagement of our stakeholder group so superintendent thank you yes um as you're aware um a levy campaign is operated by you know what we call a Citizens committee and um we need to look at uh who will co-chair that committee
243and probably just as important um who will be the Treasure of our citizens committee um to begin uh getting donations we usually start uh internally uh with staff to get that process started and then also to talk about um you know who to engage to help run the campaign all right so we want to open it up to the board a little bit again this is more about Levy committee and Levy committee structure and co-chairs just wanted to start seeing if the board had any thoughts around um uh as the superintendent said around getting some committee co-chairs put together um in in the past we've had people uh that that we knew could help raise awareness and help raise funds um it could be a mixture of folks we're in a different certainly situation now
244than we were the last two Levy campaigns um not the least of which is that we're primarily virtual um but also the world around us is is looking a lot different so we just wanted to get your thoughts and feedbacks on feedback I don't know why I keep pluralizing that your thoughts and feedback on how we might approach uh identifying potential committee shares that can help us raise awareness and raise funding uh for a levy campaign so we'll open it up for discussion well I'll jump in I'll I'll jump in you know Dr Hull and Miss Mani I guess I I would start with asking a question Mr Bravo I mean I you know in historically who have been the the the kinds and types of individual ual that we've leaned on in the past
245to chair some of these committees I guess would be would be my sort of my opening my opening U reply well let's go back a little bit further than the than the only the two campaigns I've been involved in so I'll defer to Dr James Comm Maye talk about the types of FS we last uh in the past I believe we've had board presidents serve as co-chair usually we would have um active involvement from the you know from the city uh further back in the p past we've had some Business Leaders uh you know maybe it might have been someone from the chamber might have been an honorary co-chair um you know Dr MC Williams Woods is the brains behind a lot of our you know Levy campaigning and I'm sure she can add some
246commentary to that as well I know one councilman we could get on board it's nice to have that in yeah I think that the important thing whenever we look at the committee is strategically looking at who are people that kind of have that natural engagement with groups of people that are really important for our campaign and who are the key leaders that can then also go and engage other leaders to to pull off what we need obviously um but the board representation is obviously very critical because we will have schedules for you out uh in so many different places across the city so it's really important to have leadership at the table as we're mapping all of that out but then the key Community leaders I think it's going to be critical for us to
247make sure we're very strategic on who we bring uh and ask to join us agreed Dr Hall we have had business and industry leaders um you know that the folks that you might imagine that are typically around a lot of tables when it comes to these types of campaigns or initiatives um we have had past board folks um so in this case and I'm just throwing this as an example if as one of the co-chairs we wanted to invite someone like uh Reverend Dr Walker or we want wanted to invite you know someone from children's or we wanted to invite someone from you know whomever and and we kind of put that committee and with Co chairs uh again as Dr MC Williams Woods pointed out we're the board should be thinking about at least
248uh the types of folks that can engage other leaders as as Dr MC Williams wood says that that maybe can also bring some resources to the table and that doesn't always necessarily just mean money but that also means ties to the community it might mean um employee volunteer resources or something like that so we just need to be thinking about that and so you know we don't have to solve it all today we just want to introduce the conversation and get the board thinking about um that committee strategy as we start moving forward and the other I think we uh mentioned this before the the real critical um kind of firewall that we have to build that this is this is gathering input and then this is a separate citizens committee that it's not the
249district running this campaign it's not all of us running this it's a separate citizens committee so once once we brainstorm those names and put them together they're they're they're operating then um as that separate group and strategizing it's not coming back and us all signing off on that because we have to make make sure that's kept very separate also um historically we've had a lot of involvement from the akan Education Association I know on a couple of campaigns um uh I think they hosted the meetings at their uh facility and they've also written uh fairly decent size checks for the campaign as well great so maybe what we ought to do too and I know there are there have been I've received some suggestions from folks maybe what we ought to do is is ask
250you to start thinking about that and maybe uh emailing out some suggestions as you think about those people that you might know in the community or that you might recognize in the community um that represent again we're probably thinking some some diverse co-chairs that can bring bring some Community connections and resources to the table in terms of our Levy committee and then we could ask you to email those to me and Dr atbar and we can share those uh with Dr James and Dr MC Williams woods and Mr Pendleton and I'll Echo what Dr James said about Dr McWilliams wood she runs a tight ship when it comes to um uh pulling things together and making sure things click um so we'll share that with the group um but if you could just start emailing
251those is there anything else that that we want to talk about around this subject just one other um item about the structure underneath the steering committee then um because the steering committee they they're not just advisors these are people that can really go get things done and engage people but then underneath that each uh cluster will have a chair some volunteer from staff and then uh more of a ward kind of leader neighborhood by neighborhood or W by W that kind of lines up with our clusters and then the campaign really is within each cluster then because it's so unique in the city on uh the activities that happen so the steering committee isn't trying to do this whole Citywide campaign it then gets broken down to Ward by Ward Ward SL cluster align across
252the city and there's two co-chairs that will run each part of that uh cluster again although we do play a role we're not running the campaign necessarily or or contributing uh as a district financially or anything like that but we are involved and so we do want your input um for sure as as those things are put together sort of on our behalf if you will all right we are about 15 minutes out Miss arrey please go ahead yes and I'm sorry if this was answered so I understand that the campaign is is separate from the district does that also mean um we are not able to utilize any of the district resources in terms of like videos for example because I know we have a lot of like different videos that toot our horn
253um that I think would be very good in educating our community on on what we offer provide is that uh is that something we're able to do or or not like can the district would that be considered like a donation if we utilize you know videos Etc from the district they were pre-existing videos that would be out in the public domain I don't think that's a problem but we can't create videos for the campaign they would have to be paid for and create created by a third party hired by the campaign okay right and we always start off the campaign with bringing in and having a session for anyone any volunteer who's going to be a part of it including all board members we have a legal session on here's everything that has to be
254uh you know the firewall that I talked about it'll go through all of those rules about resources there's a big difference between providing information about our finances which we're allowed to talk about as a district and you all are allowed to talk about but that's very different than saying please pass this Levy and please vote for the levy that's the campaign so we'll go through all of that um on the difference between those two functions because sometimes you'll be going in between those two functions depending on what we ask you to do good sorry um we have Miss Mansfield and Dr Hall it's fine Patrick I'm gonna go ahead and just pull my time just because um it's pretty much been covered by Dr McWilliams woods and Dr James so thank you thank you Dr
255H yeah I just was gonna say something very similar that you know that we have more time um you know I I need a little bit more a bit more T tutoring if you will on on sort what our role will be as we move forward because I definitely think that we all have a a very large obligation to be involved and and to be supporting it um I just want make sure that that we're doing it in a way that's appropriate um happy to happy to help out in ways that that that are that are outside the box ways as well um so I don't want us to be constrained to well board members have historically only done x y and z um you know if we can if we can push this a
256bit um you know I I like to push it a bit so that way we're all doing everything that we can to help get this Levy fast when we put when we put it on the ballot thank you great thank you and I think it's the old editage be careful what you wish for uh I was just taking a lot of notes what Dr Hall was just saying about all that he wants to do my my my wife may uh may may um have some some some words for me putting myself out there like that remember there's two now that's right that's right yeah ly campaign season becomes like a a whole another fulltime job on top of the two full-time jobs you already have so Rog that I'm sure we'll all be put to
257good use once it comes uh once it comes time since we only have about 10 minutes left I I think we just kind of want to start wrapping up here um and before we do I want to thank all of you um for the great great conversation the feedback the the communication has been wonderful um despite the fact that we're virtual at the moment um I this is uh has been a really good Retreat and when you first start thinking about 10 hours worth of a retreat it seems like a lot of time to fill up uh but in fact we find ourselves having to truncate a lot of conversations because of time um so to that point you know I do just want to mention and we don't have to solve it today uh
258Dr aquire and I will talk about it and maybe come back to you I I would like to talk at some point about our next Retreat we've talked in the past in years past about um especially when there's been a lot going on and there's been a lot of uh board engagement um about maybe doing smaller quarterly work sessions rather than trying to force everyone into you know uh large Retreats um frequently um but there's clearly a lot here to talk about that we could spend more time on and maybe uh Dr oire and I can put our heads together and come up with a way where we can Engage The Board a little bit more frequently but maybe a shorter amount of time but where we can really devote some time to to talk
259more about some of the things that that everyone's been bringing up so um again and for the public that that is tuning in with us we spent a lot of time talking about reopening plan uh vision and strategic planning diversity equity and inclusion Levy and finance um again this has been part of the two-day Series where we've spent about 10 hours uh together um talking we'll take the notes from today's Retreat we'll work on our vision and strategic planning we'll get that back to you the last topic that I just kind of want to bring up um is is one that's been weighing on me just a little bit and I don't know yet what our response or or even our responsibility is or should be uh but many of you know as we lost
260um an eight-year-old in our community last night as a result of gun violence and it seems to be um an issue that's maybe On The Rise um many of us are probably old enough I suppose when we all remember a time even when I was younger that no matter what was going on out in the community kids were sort of sacran and they were sacred in schools were sacred and churches were sacred and despite what was going on anywhere else in the community there were places where people could go and you and you felt safe and and kids felt safe and I worry that you know as a community that we let it I I worry I don't want us to get to a point where it doesn't feel that way anymore um and losing
261another child last night is just something that I hurt enough that I wanted to to bring it up today and just talk about it I I sent out a message earlier and I don't want to put anyone out you know on the spot but I did send a message out earlier to one of our Community Partners just to say that I'd like to have a conversation soon about collaborating around where we might be able to find some common ground in some efforts the city by the way has done a great job in recent years on their youth violence prevention plan and some efforts that they've done and so kudos to Mayor Corgan and his staff and the city council over there but I think there is also a role for akan public schools to play
262a larger role for us to play um because we feel that in our community every time we lose a child and um and I don't like uh I don't like the feelings that come with that so I would really like to see this board and our district play a larger role and whether that's a joint committee with with you know the for example I'm just throwing this out there a joint committee with with the city and the county and any suburbs that want to join and we're all talking about as a community whether it's a joint marketing Communications public information effort um to talk about violence and violence against youth um I don't know what that is but I feel like there is a role for us to play I feel like we have a
263responsibility on some level to resp respond and I just want to put it out there for some discussion Mr President yes Mr Alexander yeah I I i' i' just like to say um and encourage all of us uh who are who are here in this this meeting uh as well as those in the public to encourage all the people that we know to to encourage their friends and families and uh community members to to talk to the kids about uh the violence and trying to stop the violence that's going on uh with our students because it it's we can talk about and meet and do a lot of things but there's got to be some action behind it but I but I do think that the more that we get out and we talk to
264people and talk to others about it and get them to understand the importance we that we're losing our kids you know fast and we it was always a time you really didn't lose many kids and maybe a small accident but now it's it's gun violence and the importance of the kids need to understand uh that the guns are not like they see on tv that you can point it a certain way and it goes off you can do all these different things that that's not true they're dangerous you know and if you don't know anything about gun safety then uh that's a that's an issue uh so I'd like for us to encourage all of our friends relatives community members anyone that we know clubs organizations to to get the word out to talk about
265you know gun violence and trying to stop the gun violence between uh uh kids in in our in our in our in our city because if we don't we're going to continue to to to lose even more because the the rate that we're going uh we're losing a lot as it is and if it continues to go on we're gonna lose more kids and that's not really good because you know the old adage the kids are our future that's the TRU we don't have any kids then we don't have any future so I want to encourage everybody to to do so thank you sir Alexander Miss Manfield so I saw the news story this morning before we came on and then um I started getting messages from the teacher who was this young lady's um
266teacher last year second grade I believe teacher last year and her heart is broken so um and our hearts are broken this is just awful and I I don't want you know to to just quickly try to move on to Solutions I think we also need to mourn with this community this is a child and if if I never heard the words black onblack crime again it would be too soon I don't want to hear that I don't want to hear anything about I I don't I don't care if it was youth violence I don't care what kind of violence it was it was this is a child and so I've seen some terrible comments online and I'm I'm just beside myself from it so I I just want to send out our best to
267not just her family but her APS family um I know I'm sure the assistant superintendent and superintendent are all over um getting some extra uh help for our staff as they deal with this as well because we have hopes and dreams the teachers have hopes and dreams the families have hopes and dreams for these kids and um Bruce is absolutely right this is our this is our future we're talking about here and you know we'll never know what what could have happened and this is this is too much this summer um and I I agree with Patrick I'm I'm on board with whatever we need to do to be a part of a solution um and and we need to mourn thank you thank you Dr Hall yeah thank you Mr President um I think
268you know all all this probably spend a ly am of time um replying and talking about this topic um and all the sort of contributing factors and um you know as well um you know and so but I think Miss Manford I think has a spot on in that acknowledge the life lost and and and and mourn uh with with open and broken hearts um you know I as a as a father of now two girls of my own um you know I can't I simply when I got the the information this morning I simply just you know you start you put yourself in somebody else's sh and I just cannot uh losing one of my girls and um and so you think about you know losing someone who's eight years old um there's so
269much that they just were not able to do um so much potential that was never realized um you know and I think it's also important to recognize as we sort of think about how we as a body can collaborate with other Community Partners know I'm sure we're allware of the story from just a week or so ago about the titler who was who was who was lost to gun violence um at toddler you know and so you start thinking about you know um No One Believes the to the toddler was the target nobody believes the eight-year-old was the target here you know and so we're see you know if you will right and Alexander's point you know and I think there are several on this board that have military uh service on their records um
270it's not easy shooting a gun uh it takes it takes training there's expertise that goes into that you know um actually say it's not easy to shoot a gun accurately right and so um you know and so but but we've got kids and young people that have guns in their hands that that in some ways they think shooting a gun is as easy as Call of Duty you know um you know and so there's not responsibility uh that that should go into it um you know and so so I think that as we think about how we collaborate you know I think a NE part of the dialogue has to be continuing to think about how do we remove guns from the from the hands of of of of folks who just shouldn't have them
271um and how do we think about those that are allowed to have them how do we ensure how do we partner with with folks to adequate training uh to handle those those as well um but in but in these two instant cases these two young these two young people the eight-year oldold and the toddler um again the it's just it's just it's it's heartbreaking um and um and I just my heart breaks for them and so I just want those families to know that um that you again I have a TI or too and I can't imagine losing them in that way either so anyway so thank you for letting me and sorry you know I if I rambled a bit there at the end um but I'm just a little bit overwhelmed emotionally about
272thiser Bravo how do you faom the unfathomable right and as a mother and a grandmother my heart is broken for the families again who have to bury a child so my plea and I don't know the details around how anybody got a gun that killed this child but I would beg beg gun owners to please make sure whatever weapons you have in your home are secure so that an accidental shooting can't happen or that somebody can get a hold of that gun who shouldn't who shouldn't have it thank you Patrick you're muted well the most the wisest thing I've ever said I just said so it's lost for the ages um I think it's clear that there's at least some consensus that that we have some role we have some responsibility at a minimum to
273be involved in the conversation at at best to be part of the solution um we can't solve everything we've talked a lot about social determinance of Education social determinance of Health lots of things that influence what's going on in the community that maybe we don't solely have control over um but I think there's some again some role of responsibility that we play to be involved in the conversation and maybe be a part of that solution moving forward I'd like to bring some type of recommendation back to the board and to Echo you know the sentiments of my colleagues are our hearts are open and broken um for this family and for her extended APS family and so our thoughts and our prayers are certainly with you Dr Akbar why don't you bring us home and
274then I'll close this out thank you um it's unfortunate that we have to make or are making comments about um a young person's life being cut short um I Echo um Dr Hall's comment around the specialization that it takes to uh use a firearm and use it uh safely and accurately and more importantly I think that it just hurts to know that um life in our community isn't sacredly and in a way that it should and it's just a reminder of how fragile uh life can be and I just hope that everyone on this board as well as everyone in the community remembers that um we all you know all of our Lives matter and we deserve a future we deserve to be able to live out that future and so my heart aches for
275the family and the community and everyone who's impacted um by this tragedy um is not a tragedy that you can isolate to one person or one family um you know so many of us are we We love kids we love uh seeing people Su seed and seeing people grow and change the world and whenever someone who was going to change the world life is cut short it it hurts so many more um and so thank you for allowing me to say that and I hope that as a community we can rally together um to relinquish uh so many guns from hands of individuals who who aren't using them um with the safest and best intents intentions thank you for that Dr Akbar at this time we are about five minutes over I apologize for that
276but I did want to to talk about uh to talk about that topic for just a minute so thank you for indulging me is there any other business to come before this board for this Retreat hearing and seeing none um again thank you guys so much for all of the time spent uh David Ellen Ryan thank you guys for uh your for helping to facilitate and for the amazing um contributions and presentations please thank your staff for us as well um we know it was a lot to for them to give up some Friday afternoon and a Saturday uh morning to be with us we appreciate it please let them know that um with that we'll take a motion to adjourn still moved second thank you we have a motion by Miss mckitrick a second
277by Dr Hall all in favor signify by saying I I we are adjourned thank you and thank you to the public for watching have a great weekend everybody thank you have a good weekend welcome back Ellen good to see you