001Mhm. >> Good morning, Jeremy. What's up? It's all good. All right. All right. Seeing a quorum of voting members, I call the May 13th, 2026 Student Achievement District Instructional Performance Committee of the Whole Meeting to order. Please stand for 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. All right. Mrs. Augustine, please call the attendance roll. Ms. Armbruster? Ms. Bolton? Present. Mr. Crosson? Here. Mr. Landy? Here. Ms. Matt? Here. Vice President Moffitt? President Craig. Here. All righty. Uh Superintendent Murphy. Please introduce our first presentation for the first and only presentation for the evening. My pleasure. So, tonight we have an update on our equitable resourcing. Uh we're appreciative of
002Director Turner for putting our deck together, but our expert of the evening is our Director of Purchasing, Ms. Trina Levens. Hello. Here to present our equitable resources for our guardrail's for A and B. And um okay, the first slide represents the present percent of suppliers meeting diversity criteria receiving RFP solicitation will increase. So, this actual guardrail four is to increase the participation of solicitation for request for proposals. And on the left it has guardrail four A goals, which will be met by May of 2027. Local, minority, and owned women. They are Our goal is at 58% for local, 19% for minority owned, and 30% for women. And here on the right it represent how we increased over the time of the FY26. For local, now we're looking at 62, so we met that goal right
003now. Minority owned, we are at 11.4. For spring, which at 19, so we heading in that direction. And for women owned, we at 26.4%, which again, we're heading in that good direction. Guardrail four B. Guardrail four B represent the percent of suppliers meeting diversity criteria on the approved vendor list. So, that means our preferred vendor list. Again, on the left you'll see that guardrail four goals, local is 80%, minority owned is 20% and women owned is 25%. Right now for local we are 73.1% so we're getting there. Um for minority owned we have 14.6% and for women owned we have 25 I mean 18% so we're actually working towards that goal as well. So we are working towards that goal and increasing. Now how we doing this? So we're doing equitable resources through our partnerships.
004So we're building and strengthening CPS partnerships that we made which make it easier for us to do business and to understand how to engage with the district and identify the best entry point based on their services and readiness. So we're working with Ohio Department of Development, we're working with We Back and um Hamilton County. We're actually doing some um we're sitting in on some of their discussions. We actually had a whole panel here for vendor management working with Department of Minority Business Assistance Center for Ohio and trying to engage with small businesses, local, women owned and we were able to do that and increase our participation. We gave them three pathways to try to do business with CPS which is actually on our website. They can follow those pathways and get into a place where
005they can do bids and they're actually actually having the opportunity to be part of the vendor database. Action steps and impacts. The purchasing department has strengthened outreach efforts, increasing participation and request for proposal and expanding the district preferred vendor list which focused like I said on local, minority and women owned businesses. We are engaging directly with vendors to build relationships and collect key data, established three clear pathways for vendor onboarding which is on our district website. Promoted uh upcoming opportunities and outreach events, provided guidance to help vendors register in bidding and payment works on boarding assistant. And again, we hosted an event with the African-American Chamber of Commerce and Minority Business Assistance Center here at the Education Center for over 50 businesses. And one of the things I want to point out for this, we
006had, um, Miss Dr. Mike Turner there. I didn't know he was a doctor. I was like, "Okay, Dr. Mike." Oh. >> [laughter] >> So, um, we actually had him there and he presented internship apprentice pre-apprenticeship. And they were so excited. When I tell you, everybody wanted all his business cards. He had no business cards in the room. They wanted his number. And the minor minority business center wanted to work with them on making sure they get people in place to help the kids. Build relationships with, uh, vendors and what they do for their business. They were kind of scared to do that because they're thinking they're too small. And Mike informed them, no. We need your help. We went through the comp, so that was very, very, very exciting. And they loved that piece of
007that when we had our, um, engagement, uh, on that day. Uh, the impacts and what that happened increased our vendor participation. So, we was able to get people registered in I am waves. They did that. We was also able to get people to go out on the website and be part of our three pathways. Uh, we expanded and diversify our vendor pool. So, we have payment works there, so it's a very robust on boarding system that gives a way of identifying who we are in the system now. So, we're working towards that. And having these events and working with our partners also increased that as well. Improved access and understanding of procurement process. So, we gave them how to actually do the procurement process. Like, what does that look like? High level. How do you
008What What What happens? We have visitors come in and have success stories, tell them how to work with the same public schools, how that looks for them. It was a really This has been a really engaging time for for purchasing with other vendors and outside organizations to increase this actual goal. So, what's up next? Next, we have more events ahead of us. So, on our next engagements, we have other engagements coming up. We have our small business day with um Hamden County, which actually on May 18th. And we also have another day, save the date for contacts to contracts with African-American Chambers. They're calling us and asking us to be part of their team and meet and greet with the vendors, give them pathways to becoming vendors with the same public schools, how do they
009work with us? So, that's how we're able to increase our goals and keep moving towards where we need to be for our goal goal for A and B. All righty. >> Any questions? Uh thank you for the presentation. Let's see if we have any questions or comments from board members. Uh board member Crosett. Yeah, I had a question. The I I I I'm trying to remember the definition of local. Is it Does it have to be within the school district or do we have a perimeter that's a little bit bigger than >> a perimeter. So, anything outside of 250 square is part not part of CPS. So, that's where we have tiers that we break down to to identify our local vendors because we have a lot of vendors in our database that are all
010over, depending on what kind of business that we need for the same public schools, but we do focus on our local. And the impact for our business our vendor database vendor vendor database is local vendors. We have more local vendors than not. Right. And And does that those those parameters and tiers, do they are they the same for the minority and um women owned >> women owned So, right now, due to what's going on with the government and legal, we actually work to make sure they're part of the same public schools, but with the legal stance of us having given points and we cannot do that now because of what's going on with the government, honestly. But, that's why we're engaging with our partners to make sure that we we at the table. We're making
011sure that we actually you can come and talk to us and work with us. We may not be able to get those points, but we still want to make sure we're there. So, that's a little different now because of that reason. All right. Other board members? Board member voting? Thank you very much. And this is definitely your part of that goal. So, thank you for that. I Okay. Often remind the superintendent, and not just with this one, but before, there's also part of that goal, which is the equitable distribution of resources, which is really what the budget process actually is. And I I I think, you know, as we as we talk about that, part of it I would I would hope that the superintendent be talking about how equity played into some of these
012budget recommendations or all of the budget recommendations that are being made. For you, though, this week this goes all the way back to facilities master plan and what have you. So, when we would fill this room over this particular issue. I'd be interested down the road, and this can be a memo or something later, not urgent, that be great. I'd like to try to compare us, and we have before, to the percentages, Um, at least reported percentages from the city Okay. >> and also from the county. Okay. >> Cuz I know we like to try and we have, at least in the past, led been better at doing this uh than the city and the county, but I think they've kind of stepped up their game a bit. Um, but uh it'd be great to
013see if where we rank kind of in that in that comparison. Absolutely. I can get those for you. Yes. >> Thank you. You're welcome. All right, board member Matt. Uh yes, thank you for the presentation. I really like the um you all's opportunity to think outside of the box and um engage different partners, walk them through the process of, you know, what the expectation is for you know, through the procurement process, um talking about the different opportunities for internships. So, I really like that and so thank you for um providing that vehicle of opportunity uh for our students in our district. Um my question um is kind of similar to what board member Bolton kind of preference. Um as we're talking about, you know, the budget I am curious to know how does your team
014speak with other departments that are actively in the work to make sure that whatever um vendor we're working with, they're actually again yielding those results, that the implementation, right, is there. So, maybe they've had a contract for, uh you know, year or two or whatever the case may be um to make sure that we are hitting those um those metrics and we're getting those uh returns on investment. That's my first question. Well, we have we do work with our departments, especially on the RFP side of the house, because when we put things out for bid and they come back to us, we do [clears throat] work and look at the pieces. If we can actually give some other business to a small percentage to someone else, like um they could take on the west side
015or the east side to make sure that we be equitable when it comes to giving and looking at local minority women-owned businesses. We do work with our um our departments and to engage with them to say, you know, look at it. I know you want to maybe give everything to this particular vendor, but let's look at it in a way of making sure we're equitable and making sure that people are other vendors are able have that opportunity to be part of the same public schools. So, we work with our um departments and schools if we have schools for RFPs in that way. So, when we look them over, we try to make sure that we are looking at them in that lens of Like I said, we can't give the points like we used to,
016but we do try to make sure that we are trying to share out what they can do. Yeah. It's small businesses, right? So, if most of our RFPs are 100,000 and up. Mhm. So, we have a lot of property and we have a lot of schools and they just maybe not able to handle everything. Right. So, we do try to encourage that with them. >> Yeah. No, I I agree. I I agree with the equitable distribution, right, across the district. Um yeah, I think my question is more focused on, you know, if we're talking to like the curriculum and instruction team, right? Um and there's a vendor that's specifically, you know, supporting that work. Um are we able to check in and have conversations with the curriculum and instruction team to make sure that the
017vendor that is supporting this work, they are in fact um yielding outcomes, right? Yes. Okay, I understand what you're saying. So, I'm going to be honest with that piece. That's another layer that I do plan on working with the district on. Mhm. Um right now we are engaging um building up capacity. >> The The you know the you know what I'm saying? Trying to make sure that we have the people inside our database that actually do the work Mhm. to do you know to be able to come into Sustain Public Schools. The next piece of this honestly is to communicate more with our departments and stuff on that piece to make sure that who they do hire they are actually yielding outcomes. And listen, this is a this is This is good because Helmet County
018on the May 18th we talked to Robert Bell. Um he's over that division for inclusion. And part of what he's trying to do is we're going to be at the table. We're going to have nine people we're going to look at. But he wants to make sure similar to what you just said that we keep up with what they're doing. So if we hire them and they're working for CPS, Mhm. what does that look like? Mhm. So that piece is something that I do need to work on and we are planning on working on that piece for >> Okay. Thank you. And then the next question was really just around like cost-efficiency, right? So we do have uh I mean I don't even know how many vendors, but I know that there's a variety of
019plethora of vendors that we do have. And so I'm just under I'm just curious to know like what does the conversation uh sound like or look like as we're navigating the budget, right? Not wanting to shortchange those that's providing a service, but what it what will be most economical? Like what does those conversations I guess sound like from different vendors and partners as we're navigating the budget? And are we able to you know have uh room for kind of like cost-savings? Or maybe we've been with them for uh some time and maybe they're like you know, well this is a this is a discount that we're >> [laughter] >> able to offer. Well, um I'm not sure. I can't really answer that piece, honestly. I'm just going to be honest with you on that piece.
020Um because as far as like whether or not they can them being part of the same public schools and are they able to help with the budget budget and what I'm kind of hearing you say on that piece of aside. Right now, I can't really give you that information cuz I don't know I'm not going to be sitting here telling no children. >> [laughter] >> I'm just you know, again >> I but I do understand what you're saying. Um how does that look when it comes to the budget and are we looking at those vendors to say like, okay, we if we do have to can we actually do can you do um help us with discounting something for us and things like that? Um I'm not sure about I can't give you specifics on
021like, yes, we're looking at them just in the lens of local minority vendor owned. I can't give you that. But I can say for instance for and this may not be local minority vendor owned, but it's in the vendor database that we do look at we do look at all our invoices and things like in my department even just for paper and I'm just going to be, you know, just because you're talking about cost savings and things like that because of what we're going on with the budget um we look at that to make sure that we are like under we have been saving in that area in the last couple of years just because we want to make sure that we're looking at making sure that if it do go up what it's looking
022like and everything like that. But as far as local minority vendors, I can't really honestly give you that piece of whether or not we got that cost savings in there for that and where we are sitting at this moment. >> Yeah, but based off your presentation though, we do recognize that there's significant growth with local and minority and women owned vendors which is definitely a positive. So, thank you for that. Yeah, Mr. Crosett. Quick announcement. Um, two sessions ago on money matters with Mike, we had a great uh YouTube video on purchasing. It was fantastic. He did a great job. So, just for the public, you know, tune in there if you want to. Thank you. Thank you. Um, I'll just give a couple quick one quick comments here. I think once again, appreciate you
023coming and getting the chance to speak for the whole board on at our meeting today. I think we struggle with two things in our in the purchasing and in RFP process, which is we want to get the best value for whatever services we want to get and we want to expand the number of folks who are able to do the work with our district. That is a really challenging thing to balance between because reality is back in the day they would bid out these really huge contracts where there's only like two vendors who could ever do them. There's some cost savings in that. Um, there was also this reality we weren't using local to do a lot of that work. And now we're at a place where we're trying to get more opportunities for vendors,
024but that also comes at a cost at times of uh having to manage multiple vendors for certain things or having to figure out which vendor can provide how much in some cases. And so, I do think, you know, maybe a helpful next step as we go through these opportunities is to start to be able to evaluate who's been effective as a vendor and being able to provide the services like on time met to the goals that we were looking for or met to the goals they said they would do um, and then maybe that will help us also ascertain whether or not the next RFP that goes out needs to maybe be more focused on those vendors who are more consistent and or give some added benefit to those folks who are being more consistent
025and more effective. Um cuz I do think that we we talked about this in in budget finance a couple years ago, but that was also a problem with us having multiple contracts for the exact same service throughout the district is that you were now trying to ask okay, so which one provided the best paper towels? Right? Or which one provided >> [laughter] >> the grass cutting the you know, the the most effective and efficient in that type deal. Um The second thing I will just mention and I think this is one of those things that we are also going to need to have more thought and discussion around as we go forward is that the the district has a lot of needs for things that if we were able to buy it in larger supply,
026it benefits us. But we also have a lot of things where there may be a a thing attached to a school or a thing attached to a building >> Yes. that this service wants to not just provide the good or the service, but has an attachment to the building. And I don't know that we track that in the RFP process, either. No. You know what I mean? Like so like if if you have a vendor who says, you know, I'm a graduate of this school. I've been giving back. I'm a member of the alumni and I really want to be able to do something for this particular school. That's not really something that's necessarily scored in the RFP process in the way that we would do like other things, but it may be a part
027of what just gets evaluated as part of the RFP process. So Honestly, most of our small businesses that come back to Susquehanna Public Schools to do business, our RFP process typically start at $100,000 and up. Those vendors typically most likely won't be in on it unless we actually split it out. Yeah. So, when they come into the building like they graduated and want to come back and give services, they'll meet and talk with one of our schools or departments and they'll give their quotes to us. So, that's another layer. Got you. >> The quoting process because we do more the process for quotes of one quote, two quotes, three quotes, it's a lot more than that than we do with RFPs is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. So, when vendors do come back into
028CPS and do want to be part of us, but they're small, they might not meet that criteria to even be in the RFP process, but we put them on our vendor database so they can be part of the quote process. Yeah. And that helps also because like I said, honestly, we do a lot more with the quote process than we do with the RFP process to give back more to the community when it comes to local for minority women-owned businesses. And I think there's a there's a even in that that the thought process of using the quote process, I think there's still that space we need to be able to say we appreciate all that you do. Not all of it is something provided as part of that goods and services you've offered. So, for
029instance, you're wanting to create an internship, you're wanting to work with them on other things in addition to I can provide these resources or I would love to hire students to do X, Y, and Z at this other place that I got where I can use their services. All of those things are things that I think we can we can find a way to some way incorporate into those conversations as we talk with those those vendors who are looking to give back is is what's the more holistic thing that picture to that. So, I think that's a it's a space that we are growing at and we we can continue to grow with. But, it also builds the narrative of what is a product of CPS mean. Right? Like, if you're you give back, you
030bring back, you carry back, you lead with for those who are following you. And so, I think that's a great opportunity for us to have more that talk. And I agree. And that's why I thought that when Mike came and they were so excited about the internship, pre-apprenticeship, I was I was excited because that's actually one of one of our board policy. So, you know, that was very exciting. They were really wanted to be part of it. And Ohio minority business assistance center, they actually stood up the director was there and said, "We're going to do this. My team may not be happy at this moment because it's going to be more work, but she's really want to engage. So, that is part of that, right? >> Exactly. Yes. Totally. >> And and that's a
031great thing to hear. Uh board member Bohm? Yeah, just as a follow-up to what you just mentioned about even the terminology local. As we think in terms of the foundation, or we think of every one of the schools that does engage the community and there is a real uh marketability about a particular school and reaching out to your market, so to speak. People that are devoted to their particular high school or their neighborhoods Mhm. And I I think that's it's very interesting to talk about it in that terms in those terms because it it is part of a whole partnership. It's not just the altruism of of many people that want to help us or support our kids or something. It really is there is affinity and loyalty to particular schools or for various and
032sundry reasons. And that should be part of our our market efforts, for sure. And so it's another way of looking at defining local, I guess. >> Yeah. Yeah, it's a good point. Didn't really I think one other thing I will just say and then you will let you be able to be free from our our front desk here, but it's probably actually goes more towards the treasurer's work in in connection with this, but I think are our schools updated and familiar with the processes they need to follow if someone were to come to the school and say, "I want to I got this great vendor who's able to do this and that's something I want to be able to connect with." Um because I do think that's the other part that at least we've historically
033seen a problem with is that a vendor wants to do it, they're absolutely ready to do it, and no one seems to direct them through the right steps until it gets very late. So. I'm sorry. >> [laughter] >> No, I think vendor management is your is your area, so So, when we had our actual vendor um uh when we had the over 50 people here, that was part of the discussion as honestly, how to navigate that part of being part of CPS and what to do next. So, when you engage with a school or department and they say, "Yes, I need your services." What's next? So, the schools and department know they have to go into the system and create a a new profile to be part of and then my team will review that.
034And depending on what it is, we will reach back to them and ask them questions or we'll just say yes, they can actually be part of the school, they need this service, and we don't hold them back. So, we do have processes set in place to help people do come into the system at public schools. And one thing about it that we are decentralized, so everybody hold their own budget. And so, one of the pathways that we created was that they have the opportunity to reach out to our schools and department to engage. To we we're not going to hold them back from that because what the schools need, we can't say, "No, you don't need that." You know what I'm saying? They have they know what they need in schools, they know the initiatives
035they're trying to get at, and as long as they got the budget and it's and it comes through the board and the board say yes or what not, we on our side of house, we encourage it and we don't always just push back and say no. Now, we will because we don't want to have a whole bunch of people sitting in our database and not being used. I mean, that is not very You didn't just like upset cuz you're not being but I'm in the database. So, we do look at those vendors and we have a lot of caterers. We may like, you know what? We may >> [laughter] >> We may have to give you another list, you know, or we may have a lot of this. We may give you a list to
036go by. But, if we have see something like, you know what? You know, this makes sense. Let's Let's get them in there. We do We do look at that in that in those lens. So, yes, that's part of our process and we do encourage them to reach out to the schools and departments. I will pass things on, too. If they sent things to me in the email, I'm like, you know what? I'm not sure if they need this, but you know, let me just pass this on. I do that, too, for them, for sure. All right. Um well, I think seeing no other questions here, I think that is all we have for you today. Thank you for presenting. >> All right, thank you. Um I appreciate it. Is there I don't think there is
037any other business. Um yes, Board member Landy. Thank you, President Craig. Um I am excited to be at the SCPA graduation on Monday the 18th, which is when we have our next board meeting. I was hoping I could take 30 seconds and read a short piece about a potential new money levy because I won't be here for the board meeting on Monday. >> Sure. Great. Um so, uh our next board meeting is May 18th. I'll be at the SCPA graduation um because I'll miss most, if not all of that meeting, I wanted to make a brief statement on the topic of a potential new tax levy this November. Um on that topic, I think two things are true. Uh First, there are good reasons why we should ask for a tax increase. Our revenue has
038been basically flat. Our costs have increased like everyone in America's, uh and we have some very real facilities needs that require new funds. The other thing that is true, though is that I have real reasons to be concerned that additional investments will not necessarily lead to stronger student outcomes. I say that for a couple of reasons. Our third grade reading results went down last year. Our goal for Algebra 1 would have us, if we hit that goal, make a gains that are smaller than 66% of similar school districts in Ohio. And we spend a lot of time in our meetings talking about our challenges, but less time learning from places that are seeing dramatic gains like Hayes-Porter here in CPS, which had 91% of its students pass the third grade reading test last year. I'll
039add also that some efforts that would increase student outcomes are met with massive resistance like the use of high-quality instructional instructional materials in classrooms. So, I'm trying to balance these two things. There are real reasons why we need new money and I have real concerns about how new money would be put to use. So, I wanted to just share that for me to vote in favor of a new money levy, which I am willing to do, there are three very specific things that for my vote need to be in place. First, um through our strategic planning process, we as a board and administrative team need a short list of the strategies we think are going to most improve student achievement over the next 3 years. We should be able to rattle that off with a
040list of three to four things. Second, we need a written commitment from us as a board, either through a resolution or in board policy, that we as a district are committed to doing and funding those strategies with a new money levy. And then third, we need a written commitment, from my perspective, from the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers that they are equally committed to those strategies over the course of those 3 years. I've been here long enough to know that for any instructional strategy to make a real difference, there has to be long-term buy-in and commitment from the union. If we can get those three things, I will proudly support a new money levy. Uh if we can't get those things, then I don't think I'll be able to support a new money levy. And I'm
041offering this not because I want to have a big discussion about it tonight, though I'm happy to. I'm offering it tonight mainly because I will not be here on Monday when this topic comes up because I will be at the SEPA graduation. Thank you, President Gray. All right. Uh it's a fun graduation. You get to rise up on a lift and go down on the lift. >> [laughter] >> Um All righty. If there is no other business, uh any we will be uh with a motion in a second, we'll be recessing recessing into executive session, and then we will close the business uh or from there adjourn from there, but um so I need a motion to recess into executive session for employment of a public official or employee. I just wanted to make a
042quick quick announcement. Yes. I'll [clears throat] be uh doing the commencement speech for Taft High School tonight. Excellent. Just wanted to let everybody know. >> Excellent. All righty. So, do we have a motion to recess into executive session? So moved. Uh do we have a second? >> Second. Second. Uh Treasurer Gustin. >> [clears throat] >> Ms. Bolton. Aye. Mr. Crosson. Yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Ms. Matt. Yes. President Gray. Yes. All righty, folks. Uh we will