001Mhm. >> Mhm. >> Somebody right here? That was good. Seeing a quorum of voting members, I call the April 6th, 2000 06 2026 tonight's school board meeting to order. Uh, superintendent, do you want to uh introduce our wonderful students who will be uh leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance this evening? >> Yes, sir. So, today we have students from Hayes Porter School, where their principal is Ms. Nedria McClain West. On behalf Hayes Porter School. 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. You're welcome. Treasurer Augustine, please call the attendance roll. Ms. Armbruster. Here. Ms. Bolton. Present. Mr. Crosswait. Here. Mr. Lindy. Here. Ms. Matt. Here. Vice President Moffett. Here.
002President Craig. Here. Uh Vice President Moffett, please explain the virtual hearing of the public process. Members of the public who are online or in person and wish to speak during our hearing of the public this evening may do so by clicking that chat button right now. The chat feature will be open for your requests for 5 minutes. If you would like a direct response to your questions, please make sure to share your name, your affiliation to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information. All righty. Um so, I need a motion and a second to approve the uh April 6th, 2026 business meeting agenda. So moved. Second. Thank you. Um Treasurer Augustine, please call the voting roll. Ms. Armbruster. Yes. Ms. Bolton. Yes. Mr. Cross? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yep. Ms. Matt? Yes.
003Vice President Moffitt? Yes. President Craig? Yes. All right. So, tonight's agenda has been approved as posted. Um We'll move on to our next uh thing for today. Do any board members have any acknowledgements or announcements for this evening? Any kudos? Vice President? I do. I do. Um Rob's got my pictures coming up. So, I was joined by our Superintendent for the Women's History Month panel at Fairview Elementary. Elementary. Had a wonderful time. We were also joined with and I will share this this time with the Superintendent. Um she was one of the panelists. Myself, Commissioner President Denise Driehaus, Donna Robinson, who is the Cincinnati State Police Chief and the first African-American female police chief, and Angel Kennedy Kennedy, who is a parent and a children's author. Here are some pics from the wonderful girls at
004Girls to Women in that program, who are They were our hosts for the day and Superintendent Murphy, would you like to say some of the names? I'm going to I wanted to I told them we would say their names. Would you pass this to the Superintendent? They would say them at the board meeting cuz they're super excited. You know how girls are. They like really like it. I'm sure she'll get the names better than myself. Eleanor Lynch Tierra Morrow Kylie Goodwin Rica Random, Nia Jones, Hyndia Sass, Zoe Kupiec Chandler Simpson. They were awesome. They were They were awesome. Yeah. So, we have to give them a round of applause. And thank you. Rob, there's one more There's some other pictures from that evening from that well the Did you Did you see the pictures with
005the ladies? I'll get it up for the next one, but I want to send a special shout out to some teachers from Fairview who were super super welcoming. If you know me, you know I like the little the littles. So, I got a chance to see live and in color Ms. Diane Washington Turner, who is a K teacher. She's 35 years with CPS. Ms. Jean Smith, who was a K teacher 33 years with CPS. I don't I don't know why they're not there. I'll have to send them to Rob. Um because we're going to get their pictures up there. Ms. Elaine Brown, she retired 40 years with CPS, but has been coming back to Fairview for another 16 years to volunteer in kindergarten. And um they gave me welcome welcome big arms big hugs and
006then let me spend some time with the littles. I'm going to send that to Rob really quickly so he can get that up there because these ladies are awesome and I really wanted you to just be able to see them, too. So, I'll get that to him and maybe we'll see them before um for a minute. My next one Is Is the next one, Rob? Um I went to Silverton. They have the Leader in Me and they had a Leader in Me Day at their school. If you know anything about the Leader in Me program, it's based off the seven habits and the the program was entirely run by their students. They gave tours of the building. Lots of parents were running around learning about it. And they are they were super super awesome. So,
007thank you for the hospitality every time I'm invited, I try to go out and I love the Leader in Me program. So, Silverton is rocking it with their Leader in Me Day. And this was sent to me. I did not have an opportunity to go personally, but Western Hills High School celebrated Mental Health Month. And you cannot tell in these pictures, but the staff were they had like a dodgeball game. They had dance contest, they had some breakout sessions so kids could actually talk about what was going on um with within them and um be able to debrief and teach the adults and each other about mental health at the high school level. So, super proud of them for that. Um special shout-out to Ms. Halpin for winning with over 24,000 steps. They wore green
008for mental health awareness and they had random acts of kindness day. So, that was for them. Um Uh I think that was my only my last one. Oh, wait. Kudos to the treasurer and they they came up with a clean audit. Didn't have an opportunity to say that before, but I saw your kudos and I wanted to make sure that I said uh special shout-out to Kevin Ashley, Liz Martin, Lauren Haverkos, and Dan Hoing for their work. We had a really good audit and so I did send that to Rob. Hopefully, we can get the pictures of the ladies up during our kudos time cuz they were really really um it's impressive to be with the district for over 30 years and one the one lady had 56 years with our district working with our
009little so it was awesome. All righty. Um are there any other board members who had any kudos? Do you want to talk about it? Yeah, I'll do that. You sure? Okay. Um Well, uh I just want to give a big shout-out to everyone who came out and supported the students at the All-Star Showcase that happened on Saturday. Tremendous event. Um raised I believe it was 20,000 towards Project Connect, which is huge. Um the With the exception of uh former board member Weinberg's terrible scoring of the dog contest, Everything was a complete success. It was great uh attendance, great audience, great support. The students did a phenomenal job. Um many of our partners came out, showed out, and did their thing for us and that's a really great opportunity to highlight the great uh work that's
010done. Josh Harden and his team in athletics, uh Rebecca Beach and her team with Project Connect who were there in full support uh for the event to make it happen. The uh Marion Spencer scholars who were there and and recognized our middle school athletes, our high school athletes, both boys and girls. Um tremendous three-point shooting contest, uh tremendous uh skills challenge as well as All-Star games as well as the dunk contest, which is always one of my favorites. I had the uh great honor bringing my my nephew there, and he was like, "We got to come back next year." So, it was a great event. Really want to thank our vendors that helped out. I know we had several food vendors that were part of that process as well. Um And and everyone that was
011really there to make sure that day happened. And also the University of Cincinnati, specifically the uh CECH College that uh really did a lot of work towards keeping this going as as well as the folks in enrollment services who have been really pushing and working towards uh expanding the number of CPS students who come through UC. So, it was a great event, great opportunity. Um and we had a lot of fun. It's always a lot of fun. Um Any other kudos before I turn it over to the superintendent here? Yep. I just want to share that my picture is there of and I want to say one more time Miss Diane Washington Turner, 35 years with CPS. Jean Smith, um 33 years. Elaine Brown, retired 40 years and has been coming back to Fairview for
012another 16 years. Thank you so much to those wonderful ladies and thank thank you for to Miss Bullock for showing me around. And the principal. Thank you. Awesome. All right. Well, Superintendent Turner, do you have any uh announcements, kudos, acknowledgements, all that fun stuff? Absolutely. Uh I do have a couple and then I'll turn over to the treasurer. I do want to give a shout-out to Mr. William Harris. Mr. Harris is a counselor at Walnut Hills High School and he has been nominated for the 2026 Ohio School Counselor of the Year Award. So, we're very proud of him. And then okay, Mike. Well, thank you. Um as Dr. Moffett said, we did get our official notice from the Auditor State that we have a clean audit for the prior fiscal year. Uh they call it
013There you go. Yeah, their term is unmodified opinion, which is pretty boring, but I did want to thank thank our staff specifically um Director of Financial Reporting Kevin Reporting Kevin Ashley who comes up and does our forecast as well, Liz Martin, our new assistant treasurer in the audience there, our chief audit executive Mrs. Haverkos, and Dan Hoing. They were they were kind of the the prime time players, but really to get a clean audit takes the whole district. Everyone from the board members up here who turned in your fraud questionnaires and filled those out down to every single every single clerical first person at the school who's entering Rex, entering POs, enrolling students, all those things. All that data has to roll up correctly to get this. So, so proud of everyone's efforts and um
014looking forward to doing it again next year. And then finally, we just want to take a moment because this was before spring break. I've kind of lost track of time, but one of honor the Spencer Center Wolfpack because they were this year's elementary brain bowl tournament winners. This building was Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This building was absolutely packed with students and their families and kudos again to Josh Harden and his entire team for again pulling this together in a very successful way. So. All right. Last call for kudos. Just want to make sure we got them all in. All right. Um So, I will turn it over to Vice President Mack. Thank you, President Gray. We are now at the item on our agenda for the hearing of the public. Well, Rob, do we have
015anyone online? Oh, great. Each speaker will have 2 minutes and will address all comments to the presiding officer. If you have any materials or presentations wanting to be distributed to the board members, please give them to the board administrative assistant, Ms. Phyllis Davis, in front. If you are online, once a request to speak has been granted, you will be invited to enter. You should click on that camera icon to go interactive. Provide your name, your affiliation to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information if you'd like a response to any questions or comments you may have. This request is consistent with board protocol, and we appreciate your help. In the unusual event that someone is not willing to follow this protocol, we do reserve the right to end that person's time.
016Again, each person will have 2 minutes to speak. And when the timer goes off, your time is up. Please refrain from discussing any personnel items. After speaking, if you're online, you'll briefly see that welcome screen again as you transition back to the live stream meeting. Rob, how many do we have? We have one online speaker. We have one. And thanks, Rob, for getting that picture up for me. All righty. Tanisha, you can go ahead and unmute your mic and camera phone. You have 2 minutes. Good evening, board members. My name is Tammy Vocally with Urban Tectonics LLC. Budget season is often defined by unpleasant surprises, unexpected equipment failures, or sudden compliance mandates that force us to scramble for funding. I'm here to propose a shift towards subscription, managed, and consulting services. By moving away from
017large, unpredictable capital expenditures and adopting a fixed monthly subscription, this board can achieve 100% budget predictability. A subscription schedule ensures that your 10 core areas receive proactive 24/7 monitoring and maintenance, preventing small issues from becoming a million-dollar emergencies. It turns a fluctuating expense into a stable, manageable manageable line item that protects the district's long-term financial health. Thank you. Thank you. Any other online speakers? Is that it, Rob? Okay, I don't have any sheets. Do we have anyone? Okay. I believe President Sellers is the only speaker that we have in person. I don't have her sheet. But it don't matter. It's okay. She comes on down. And just as a reminder to those watching us online, President Sellers does not have the requirement of the 2-minute rule. >> I'm going to be quick tonight. Um number
018one, um I just want to let you all know and invite everyone, and I have a flyer here with an invitation. Um this will be our public education um is under attack town hall. Um people will be able to come together to learn about the current attacks on public education um that that's coming from the state. It will be Wednesday, April 22nd, from 5:00 to 6:30 here. And we are um co-hosting it with the district, so it will be um Mr. Gus Din, Superintendent Murphy, and CFT who is um hosting this forum. The speakers will be Scarlett Bader and she works for she's president at Advocacy and Communication Solutions and she will be updating us on all of the attacks that are legislatively coming from the state of Ohio. Policy matter matters and they will
019be talking about taxes and school funding issues and then Dennis Willard from he is the director of Vouchers Hurt Ohio and he's going to give us the update on what is happening with vouchers just statewide but also specifically Hamilton County and how that it has had a negative impact on all of our funding. I hope that all of you will also invite the people who you speak to on a regular basis so that we have a cross sector. Many people I believe that I've talked to they say, "Oh, my taxes went up. I'm sure CPS is rolling in the dough." CPS has not received one additional penny from any of the levies because what you vote on on a fixed sum levy is exactly what the district is getting. We don't get additional dollars just
020because your taxes went up. And so when you tell people that they're kind of shocked and then they ask, "Well, where is where is my money going?" And that is what some of this that they're going to hear. We may have to follow up with probably at another time. It will not be covered this evening but the amount of money that is collected has to be collected if one person is paying their fair share of taxes or a million people are paying their fair share of taxes. So when you're paying more it's because other people are paying less. And that is a direct correlation with the residential abatements. The agreement that we have is only for the commercial abatements, but nothing about the residential. So, I want to make sure that everybody is aware of
021that as we are moving forward with all of these cuts and the impact that it's going to have. Um and I hope that everybody invites uh their their group of people that they work regularly work with. So, that's all I have to say this evening and I will pass these flyers out. And do you want me to just give them the Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I believe that concludes our hearing of the public. Turning it back over to you, President Craig. All righty. Uh thank you for all of our presentations today. Um Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our first uh presentation for the evening. So, our Chief Operations Officer, Mr. Chris Burkhardt, is coming to bring an update on transportation. Good evening. I was advised to remind the board that when I started giving these transportation
022updates, I had a full head of hair and a ponytail and you can see what's happened since then. As we transition to the first slide, please. Um update on yellow bus. So, you'll see our uh uh on-time percentage for yellow bus is at 92%. You may uh have remembered that it was at 94%. Your first question is going to be why did it go down? And my first answer is winter. So, during the winter months, we always see a down uh tick in our on-time uh performance due to slick roadways, snow, ice, and those other drivers being cautious, which makes our bus routing a little bit less efficient than it normally would be. So, we're at 92% uh and 79.7% for Acre time. Just as a reminder, the anchor time is 20 minutes before school
023starts. So, that's when we plan all of our buses to be there. And this is binary, so if they don't hit that 20 minutes, it automatically drops. So, it's either on or off. And so, we're roughly 80% of the anchor time as well. GPS is about the same at 96. I think we capped out about 98%, but that's relatively stable from uh the first month of school onward. As we transition to the next slide, additional schools for the 26 27 school year. And since I put the slides together, we have one, possibly two additions. So, these are schools that have until April 1st to decide if they want transportation for the 26 27 school year. Last year, we had seven additional schools come on board. This year, we have at least four, possibly five that
024will be coming on board for transportation again this year. When I asked uh uh Director Williams about how many schools that we service or she had to do some research, but we actually have 130 schools on our spreadsheet. That's above and beyond our personal CPS schools. There's 130 additional schools that we have to reach out to to make sure that they do or do not need transportation every year. So, that's significant. It actually doubled the number of schools we have in half. As we transition to the next slide, we're going to take a switch over to the metro side of the the house. 12,000 passes issued this year. Of those 12,000, 10,000 are for CPS students, 2,000 for non-CPS schools. Again, shows 76 non-CPS schools are receiving metro passes on our behalf. Of those 10,000
025uh, passes, 74% are active during the day passes, while 2,600 of those are extra curricular extra curricular passes that can be used uh, after the school day. As we transition, the next question I'm going to ask or that's going to be asked is, how many of those are direct versus transfer? So, of the 12,000 we have 7,000 that have direct travel from home to school. There is approximately 5,000 that require a transfer. Of those that require a transfer, about 1,000 of those are Government Square, and about 4,000 of those are somewhere outside Government Square. Now, that's based on the actual data that students are riding. So, there may be students who are making a transfer who don't need to, and but this this num- these numbers are showing what the actual ridership looks like, not
026what it could be. As we go to the next slide, uh, the pass usage 10,000 taps per day, that equals it's pretty equal from uh, morning to afternoon. So, 5,000 approximate taps in the morning and 5,000 approximate taps in the afternoon. Of those taps, only about 5% um, run through Government Square. So, 250 in the morning, 250 in the afternoon. Uh, the 95% is everywhere else within the metro network. We're also seeing, let me go back, I'm sorry. As we uh, look at the trends, we have more direct routes and that is because CPS is working with Metro and making sure that we get those cross town routes uh, implemented whenever possible as we see ridership and where students are starting and where they're ending. Uh, we look at that in collaboration with Metro. Metro
027does a great job of seeing those trends, hearing those trends for us, and putting those into action. We also make robo calls to homes. So, if a student goes through a transit center, but they do not need to, they simply receive a a robo call saying, "Hey, your son or daughter has gone through the transit center. Just want to make you aware. They may or may not uh need to based on what they're doing after school." But, we do that as a service. We've had a lot better management at Government Square uh with a lot of partners. So, we've seen activity at Government Square um uh diminish significantly over the past 2 years. I think that as we um look at a couple of next slides. So, I've got uh almost all the schools uh
028listed here. We're just going to go through a couple of them, but all of them are in the addendum. So, we actually took the data from each one of our schools along with those students who are riding from home to school, and we mapped them out. So, the red dot is the CPS school in this case, it's the Schroder High School. Then, we have the dots of where students are starting, obviously ending up at Schroder, but whether they go through Government Square or not. So, this is actual data usage, not the fact that they can go through uh or have a direct route. This is actually what the students are doing on a day-in day-out basis. As we look at Schroder Middle School, which is the next slide, you will start to see as we
029um the growth plan is implemented, you'll start to see all those dots closer together, closer to the school as we look at neighborhood schools, and look at where students are living and going to school. As we look at the next slide, Hartwell, even even more, you can see the cluster of folks uh become a lot more concentrated closer to the school. I'll remind folks that you won't see any dots right next to the school because that would uh indicate they're to school, so you'll see that that uh 1-mile radius outside of the school. Then finally, I have I think one more slide on here. Uh Ethel Taylor, which is a middle school, just wanted to do a representative of all the different schools here. You can see Ethel Taylor uh where students live and where
030they go to school. Again, all those maps are in the addendum. Just wanted to put a couple of examples up. What this is helping us do is figure out where students live and where they're going to school as it pertains to routes and figuring out what routes uh might be needed. And then also looking at um whether or not they're going through a transit center or they're making a transfer going from home to school. So, we've seen some clusters of some students who uh have gone from home to school without a transfer. And every now and then you'll get two or three with a transfer uh in the same neighborhood going to the same school. So, just nuancing that to figure out are they doing something else? Are they going someplace after school? Are they,
031you know, going to grandparents' house or something? So, we're trying to to get all this data together to make really informed decisions. So, with that, happy to answer any questions. All right. Um do board members have any questions? Uh board member Crossett. Yeah, on the um uh on the 130 additional schools outside of the CPS schools, um how many students approximately would that represent versus the number of students that are in the CPS transportation system? I don't have that exact number. Um we know that 2,000 of those are high schoolers. I don't have the the um the number for elementary. So, we have a couple of different options with elementary students. Whether or not we transport them, sometimes in in some cases it might be a payment in lieu of transportation. So, we might not
032transport them directly based on the situation, but I can get that information exactly >> what you're saying is the numbers of those students in those 130 schools is significantly less than the number of than the number of students in CPS. Yes. Thank you. Um so, I have Board Member Roberson and then Board Member Bolton. All right, I have two questions. Thank you for loving me so much. Um the first one's easier, so I'll start there. If you go back to the shorter high school one, I think it's it shows it a little bit easier. Um you said that these are what kids are actually doing versus what the routes are. Okay. So, when I see a blue route literally on top of a black route, that's because a child is choosing to take a transfer
033route. And those are the ones that are getting the calls. Correct. Perfect. >> Correct. That and that's exactly why we wanted to look at it this way so that we could nuance why, you know, two two or three students on the same street, one is using a transfer and one is not. Okay. Wonderful. That was the easy question. The harder question I think is not one you can answer for me today, but I think something um I have heard uh during my tours and also looking at this, I think it's really fascinating. Um if you look through the addendum and specifically going to like the Western Hills and Dater student location and seeing how clustered it is towards geographic proximity and then you go to a Withrow where it is all across the district. I
034mean, it looks like a Walnut Hills almost. Less volume, but like same scope. Um when we're talking about equity and we're talking about kids being able to get to school on time, be their best selves I think we have a problem in this district because if students are seeing that the program they want is at Withrow, and the only way to get to Withrow is an hour plus bus ride, meanwhile, they have a school like Western Hills within walking distance, say of their home, what are we doing wrong here as a district? I love school of choice. I'm not advocating against that. I'm just saying from an equity lens, we're not offering students the best experience by not offering equitable programming across the district. And that for me is something I am concerned about because
035when we're talking about chronic absenteeism, when we're talking about students being ready to learn by first bell, what have they gone through to get to that school? And um yeah, that's that's something I think as the district we we should be addressing. So, I think Miss Armbruster with the corridor model, we're at the infancy stages of trying to address that. We would like to get to the point where we're keeping young people within their corridor, but two things. One, with a high school 10th, 11th, 12th grader, uh we didn't want to change their school, so that's one. So, we're probably going to be seeing this for a few more years in terms of how kids are choosing um their school. The second thing is one of the reasons we have public service at West High
036and on the west side, and that the plan called for us to put public service also at Withrow on the east side, is so we can begin to alleviate that things that are on the west are on the east and vice versa. Well, with public service for example, we have firefighter on the west side and police on the east side. The proposal I shared during my um evaluation submission was that we would begin next year to put in some pieces on the west side and on the east side that then the following year they would rotate. So, kids would have equal opportunity and access uh for some of those courses. Not perfect, but we understand. I think it makes sense. I I think one of the things I have been hearing is that the narrative
037is that the corridors aren't being utilized when directing for high school and middle school. Um so, I understand completely about 10, 11, 12 grades. We're not going to disrupt their schooling, but as we're bringing in middle school, as we're bringing in ninth grade, really focusing in on not just building the programming, but allowing students and their families to know what's available. So, hosting eastern corridor middle school nights, right? So, sixth-grade parents can see what's fifth-grade parents, right? Some certain sixth grade can see what's available to them that's near their house and what the programming looks like. Um cuz people don't know what they don't know. So, I just think as a district we need to do a better job not just of building out that programming, but communicating. I know, it's a big word. Um
038communicating what those corridors are intended for and how they are hopefully going to improve our student experience and allow for greater opportunity to excel. Uh board member Bolton. Thank you. Uh, for transportation, uh the uh is there a I didn't see it or I I think it might be there, the number of seventh and eighth graders versus high schoolers on Metro. Can you tell me the percentage or what your what the numbers are? Yeah, we didn't tease out that data in this in this report. We were looking more at where students were and they were going versus the the specific grade levels, which we have teased out in the past. Um that can obviously be the next um reiteration of this data. >> Yeah. That would be great cuz I really like to see the
039in part to that what the member versus just brought up uh to see what's happening from a standpoint of where they're going, whether they're going to the 7-12s, high schools, or if they're going to the middle schools, is there a difference in the transportation piece? Um another issue for transportation and I think uh member Cross has hit on this, the 130 uh beyond our schools. Can you still talk a little bit more about that for me and the public? The there's another 130 schools. Yes. >> Besides us. I can't imagine. With within the city of Cincinnati, we are required to transport every student in the city regardless of whether they go to a In our district. In our district is bigger than the city. Correct. >> Okay. Correct. And so we are required to transport
040every non-public and charter school um within that that realm. And so every school, based on House Bill 110, has until April 1st to let us know if they want transportation for the next year. The caveat to that is they can tell us after after April 1st, we have 30 days to put a plan together to transport them. So they can tell us and we've seen this last year, on August 1st, tell us that they need transportation, and we have to transport them within 30 days of hearing that. And and our district still punished by the state if somehow we don't do that, or has that been changed? I know we won some kind of case somewhere along the line about or Columbus did and saved us several million dollars of an unfair uh penalty. there
041there's different levels of punitive damages, so uh the first is a a basically a written warning where we have to put a proactive plan together, um and then it starts off with 25% of your daily funding, goes up to 50 50% then 75, and then your entire funding. Um if if for I believe it's 5 days in a row that we do not provide on-time transportation. On-time means we cannot drop them off more than a half hour before school starts, and we must pick them up uh no more than 1 half hour after the end of the school day. So there are very very um prescriptive parameters within those that we have to follow. And if they're not CPS enrollees, uh they the seventh and eighth graders uh can be still be taking yellow bus.
042As at a higher cost than metro. Correct. Okay. Um So the the the point >> sorry, and this these regulations apply to regardless of whether it's a CPS school or not. So if it's a charter nonpublic, we still have those same rules we have to follow in relation to dropping them off on time and picking them up on time as well. How much uh just as your let's say this past this year, and then thinking about next year, what do you project or are anticipating being the costs part of the total budget? I mean, is it Are we at around the 50 million mark again for the coming year or less or more? >> We we just had that conversation this morning with Treasurer and myself. We are, I think, right now at 44 million
043and we are still seeing shortfalls because we have schools that come to us after we've already done the budget process. So, if we're doing the budget process in April, May, and June, and we have seven schools come to us in August and require transportation. We're also seeing more students who are who have special needs and special transportation getting to schools, and that number has risen significantly in the past 3 to 5 years in the number of students. Again, if they have special needs, we are required, regardless of whether they're charter or non-public, we have those same rules that we have to follow along those lines as well. And and thinking back, it's it is interesting to review the ad hoc committee decision that it was a bridge too far to think in terms of this
044ending, if you will, high schools of choice. And it it was a determination though that within the quarters, at least hopefully K-8 or PK-8, you would have similar programs in all three quarters, but not necessarily the, you know, the 7-12 or more particularly 9-12. Just because it that would be huge change and very frankly, part of that One of the one of the issues that just I won't dwell on this, but the the grades, uh especially the uh 10, 11, and 12, uh that might be able to be addressed from a career tech piece if we recognize certain home campuses, but we recognize that our kids could travel from school to school uh based upon the need if they changed Once again, I'm going to say it, change the high school day to celebrate more
045of our career tech efforts and employment efforts uh for our kids where we recognize the ability to virtually also uh share that. We have done something close to that regarding our our itinerant AP uh programming uh to try to make sure that we had AP programming at every one of the high schools. If the academic piece is the piece that's most important, but it might be the it might be the career tech that allows us to uh fix that problem or adjust so that there is more uh equal opportunity across the high schools. Thank you. You you brought up one one point that I didn't say earlier that um I were missing out bringing up. Uh charter and non-public schools can set whatever times they want for start and end and length of day. So,
046they can say their length of day is 7 hours, 7 and a quarter, 7 and a half, 7 and 3 quarters, 8, 8 and a quarter. Uh where we try to make all of our schools um the same, meaning all of our elementaries, all of our junior highs or or middle schools, and our high schools trying to have that so we compare them together. That isn't necessarily the case for those charters and non-publics. They can set whatever time that they so choose. To follow up on that real quick if I might, Mr. Chair. The On that, I mean, we've set our high school times and our school times to benefit our kids, but also to benefit the budget and make things as efficient as possible. And that same kind of criteria is not for the
047charters or the parochial necessarily to do that. So, that's another kind of unfair disadvantage that we have. Um interested to to know besides that differentiation between the seventh and eighth and the other grade levels for metro. Be interested to know I was looking at some old you know, me looking at some old records here. Uh all the way back to 2010. Be interesting to see maybe not that far back, but how many bus bus routes, how many kids we were transporting then. Uh you know, that's even before preschool and what have you, but it might be it might be interesting. I think if you're talking in terms of 44 million for the budget, you're still in the same ballpark that we've been for a while. And I think that's to to to the the group's
048credit. Really is. And all the adjustments and the decisions that the board has had to make over the last four years. But this is great. Thank you. All righty. Board member Matt. Uh thank you for the presentation. One thing that I really wanted to comment on and ask question about was around this kind of the safety aspect of things. And so, I love how this presentation and the the slides that you have shared has really um uh provided this level of intentionality around where our students actually are each day. Um and if you notice that there are some variations that you all are communicating that out cuz I know early on in our um our meetings, we've talked about just the safety component. And so there were a lot of questions as it related to,
049you know, seventh grade being on Metro. And also just what was happening at the different transit centers. So it looks like you all have made an intentional effort to drill down on this piece. So thank you for that. I do want to know, have we noticed a decline in maybe certain behaviors that was happening on Metro with this type of information and data being provided? And then my second question is, um, how have we or have we been able to receive data as it relates to those students that are on Metro, maybe seventh grader, eighth grader, that have siblings in maybe the elementary schools and being able to sync that like transportation. Have we been able to work that out throughout the year? If that makes sense. Yeah, so in relation to to safety, um,
050I'm just So so we don't have actual hard data right now, um, but we will get that, um, as we have our government square meetings. So we have quarterly government square meetings with all of our partners and our partners are the city, Metro, um, and and other community partners who are at government square, who have a presence there. And we can see that if even if you look back from a year ago from today or even two years ago from today, the narrative and the headlines are vastly different. Two years ago, there, you know, the the narrative was there's a lot of students at government square. They're there for a length of time. Um, we've been very intentional about not only cutting off passes at 5:00, which which forces students to get on the Metro
051and to get to where they're going. Having those partners at government square and the other transit centers helps us uh, sure that students have not only a a a level of safety that they are safe, but also that they feel safe. And I've said that previously, it's not only to be safe because we know that very few instances happen at the transit centers, but students feeling safe is really what we want the takeaway to be that there's a presence of adults there that students um, and families can feel good about going through wherever they have to transfer, whether that's Government Center or not. Um, we have in the past to your question about 7th and 8th graders and siblings, I know that we've put together extensive data around um, uh, folks who we know to
052be siblings um, in schools where 7th and 8th graders are riding Metro. I believe uh, at the beginning of the year we um, modeled that to figure out if those 7th and 8th graders who are on Metro could ride the reciprocal yellow bus and we found that it wouldn't be cost-effective at that time. It's something that we again are looking at as we drill down on all the data. So, we're in the point now where we've got a lot of good data to look at for this year and we're doing just that in relation to not only our partners at Metro, but also our yellow bus partners in figuring out what are what are our efficiencies, where do we need to look at students coming and going where we don't have that efficiency. We don't
053like to push students to payment in lieu of transportation because that doesn't necessarily solve the problem for kids getting to school, but we also have to realize that we don't have a finite amount of resources to be able to, you know, put a bus in every neighborhood across the city for every single school or across the district. And so, when would that data be made available about this this more of the concrete information about what that I guess that scope of how it's actually working for those families that have to take different transportation routes. Great question. So I we just started talking about routing for next year. Director Williams and I had a conversation. Our database opened last week, so we are starting that process of routing for next year starting in April. And so
054part of that is the data gathering of exactly what you're seeing here from Metro side, doing that on the yellow bus side. Where's Where are students? Where they at? Where do they need to go? What is our load capacity of all of our buses? What does that look like? How many of those are special needs students who need special transportation? So that's again a conversation we actually had today in relation to That data is ongoing. So as we as we start to look at different segments of that population, we will start drilling deeper and deeper. That will happen between now and really July is End of July is when we want all of the routing done. So on August 1st, everyone knows what that looks like. So we can give obviously updates. I would say
055April and May there's not a lot of really deep updates. Once we get into June and July, we start to have really tangible information that we're actually acting upon. Okay. And then lastly, how much of that information would you say would drive kind of the budgeting area conversation? Yeah, so sadly and we and and I try to say this as many times as I can. We are actually doing our budgeting process now. Yeah, we don't know all of our students who we're transporting. We don't know where they're coming from or where they're going to. I believe we had over 2,000 students in the first week of school last or this this current year that changed routes, changed where they were being picked up. and so it's constantly a moving scale and that's what's really hard.
056I know I had this conversation in the audit committee on we're trying to do our best work but sometimes you don't have all of the information that we need when we're doing that work and and this is one of those situations where we're trying to take our best guess at what August looks like in April and sometimes you're really really close and sometimes you miss the mark. Thank you. Again, one of the major highlights for me was again being able to track and be accountable for where our students actually are and be able to communicate that you know to the district but also to be able to communicate that to families and I know that you have been working a lot step with Metro. Metro has been working with us in lot steps so I
057appreciate the partnership. Uh vice president of the board. Thank you Mr. Board I I won't repeat some of my questions that my colleagues asked cuz I did have a question around equity and I did have a reflection around what the intention of the app was regarding neighborhood schools and using that type of model but I but I will and thank you for this presentation cuz I do like the the dots. It's very interesting to see to see it in that manner. The visual is very very helpful. I do have a question which kind of encompasses everyone's um direction around the interest level for some of our students to some particular to particular programming is pretty significant and it is an issue of equity but I think it's not really that hard to to find with
058regard to a data standpoint. So if we know that students are wanting Let's say for something out. Let's say a particular program. I won't specify and they're wanting across town to do that. It that that has a cost to it. And then that cost also can impact absenteeism and it can impact it can impact a lot of things. Have we looked at and on the same venue around middle schools, have we looked at um the schools that students are choosing and I guess it is it is not just to to to students who live in it versus the the cost to get there. So, we have students who are for instance not choosing some middle schools because they want to go to they don't want to go to that middle school, but they're choosing different
059schools. So, they're traveling a significant distance incurring, you know, for us it may be metro, but they're incurring time to avoid a choice. So, I'm wondering do we have any data around address of that particular student and where they would be going or they could be going versus where they're choosing to go because this data is where they're going, correct? So, could we look at the data to say, "Hey, you live in this zip code. This school is right there." And I'm not talking about magnet schools. We're talking about neighborhood schools to neighborhood schools. So, they're choosing to go to a different neighborhood school. Do we could we look at that data based off of address and then also incorporate maybe interest level to academic programming? Because we're we're trying to replicate things in a
060corridor and that's not really happening. If if in theory it's great, but it's not happening as fast as we'd like it to in real time. So, I'm wondering if there's something if if that has a dollar amount to it that that we're in cost that's costing us that maybe we can look at it from that measure as well. Yeah, I I don't want to get ahead of the superintendent, but I will I will stand for both. Okay. I'll let the superintendent You want to let the superintendent answer? I'll be happy to answer. Um I'll start anyway. You know, in this first year of this corridor model we know that it's not perfect in everywhere we want things to be in terms of making sure it's on the east side and it's on the west side.
061That is going to take us some time in terms of being able to build out even financially, cost of programs, cost of staffing, and making those adjustments. So, in this first year though, um I think that we are in a decent spot in terms of knowing what the vision is and where we want to go. In terms of doing the address modeling, I have not done that, um but we definitely can. And Jeremy's nodding his head, so I appreciate that. So, we can work on that for sure. I think Jeremy knows exactly where I'm going for this, so we'll have to definitely talk for sure um because as we look at attempting to write five based off of budget I think that there may be decisions being made that will impact some of those long-term
062and I guess we're really technically in year two for the um for the academic piece, but um how do we maintain what we're attempting to do and not make budget cuts um based off of transportation? Do we happen to have transportation costs per school? Yes, I believe um it is in the board assignments and I believe it was shared at the previous board meeting this year, uh cost per school. Um that was not So, the schools that were added after the school year were obviously not part of that, but that was shared earlier in the school district. I'm I'm specifically looking for CPS. I don't want those 130. I'm not interested in that, but I am interested in um cost per building with regard to transportation for us. And um has that been disaggregated by
063Metro versus Yellow Bus? Yes, it used to be. Okay, great. I'd love for you to send that back out as well. That'd be great. My last question is Can I Can I answer your question before that real quick though? So, uh as we were modeling the growth plan, uh Mr. Golla, you and I, and and at point at sometimes uh uh Assistant Superintendent Badgett and Randolph were all in rooms together modeling exactly what you're saying. Where are students? Where do we think they're going to go? Where are they actually going? What does our trending say to us? So, now after this year that we have even more trend data, I don't know uh um Jeremy puts together projections, and those projections carry on as we get more data and more time, we will be able
064to model better and with more accuracy, and be able to give you more information about those types of questions. Um I will say that one of the decisions as we move students from Yellow Bus to Metro was a big cost savings, and it cost us roughly around $2,000 per student. But, that also uh on Yellow Bus that also includes all the specialty transportation we have to do that we um run together with Yellow Bus, and that's white fleet, and those are vans and cars and other transportation versus Metro costing us roughly $500 per student. So, the the equity piece um we're trying to be both equitable um from a cost standpoint in allowing choice, but doing that at a lower cost. Um I tell folks, "If you need to send a bus to every neighborhood
065within uh CPS, that's roughly 16 buses at a cost of roughly $1.6 million if we were to send a bus to every neighborhood in our district." That's definitely very interesting. and it's it's great information. As we look at budget cuts, um and I I wanted to I wanted to marry theory and application and I want to make sure that we're not um setting unrealistic goals around this sounds great, but if we're cutting programming then you know, we're not being equitable across the district if we don't have the staff needed to do those programs and stuff. So, my last question is um do we happen to survey our students around or our families intermittently during the year to see satisfaction of transportation and or um transportation expectations? You You mentioned that we had a I think
066it was 2,000 students that kind of shifted their transportation needs. Did we do any interaction and or engagement? There's that E word again. Did we do any of that around finding out what their needs are or their satisfaction with our services? Yeah, great question. So, we um after the beginning of the school year, we we noticed that trend and so we got together with uh Tony Fields and the enrollment office to not only try to figure out why families waited until right before school started to either make some changes or not and this year we have a plan that we are going to start early in giving folks um uh additional information very targeted from our communications department on making sure that we have avenues for folks to be able to do that sooner rather
067than later, which helps obviously everyone in that process because when people change at the last minute, we need time to be able to get those students routed on the bus and to be able to get be picked up. If that happens the the week before school starts or even the week of school starting, that's alwa- always challenging for both us and the families. So, we are looking at that. Um and in relation to the the question questionnaire, we did have a survey on our website up until I believe it was November, December. We noticed it wasn't getting a lot of traffic, so we pulled it down. We want to revamp that so it's a it's a uh more inclusive survey um that we can send out and kind of launch again. It was getting um
068not a lot of traffic, so we wanted to rebrand. Well, I know you all did just you know, I'm always fascinated by you, but you all did a great job at the beginning of the year in collaboration with Metro around messaging. I think we had like the Metro student communications come up with like the Metro student that walked people through walked students through how to get that. Um I and communications is always um great kudos to um Mr. Fields and his team cuz they're always communication and customer service are always doing great jobs around engaging our families. I'm actually speaking more like utilizing um bus advertisements or utilizing cuz they're our partners, so maybe they'll give us advertisements free or just some opportunities at the bus stops where kids can tell us how their experiences
069are going in real time if we need to. Just wondering if families were engaged um in that manner so that we could potentially cut down on the 2,000 that are moving or know why they're moving rather than it just be a data point. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to the other data as well. Thank you. All right. Um Dr. Moffitt, um Assistant Superintendent Badger reminded us that the zip code data is in that middle school booklet, and if there's some other way you might want to see it, we're happy to take a look at that. Yeah, well, I'm I'm actually thinking um of trying to figure out why the students, if they live here, they're going far. Um is it programming? Is it you know, what is it other than and they're passing
070a neighborhood school to go to. So, the data probably there I I guess I'm looking more about just segregating that to why they're cuz we have a significant number of students when we look at the dots, they're traveling distances to go with with our bus but our transportation to go to different schools. And so, I'm just wondering um even overlapping, Jeremy, this school is the red dot represents the school. Is there another school that they could go to within that same perimeter that they're not going to? I guess that's what I'm looking at. Is it Is it about um what's being offered there? Is it interest? Is it a lack of interest? What is that that we've got students that live in in the transportation cost will be smaller if they were to go to
071this particular point versus their their their We're incurring a cost for them to travel. So, in lieu of neighborhood schools enforcing that, what is it that that they're looking for? So, but I'm happy to take it off board. Thank you. Um so, I'm going to go to uh board member Lindy since he hasn't gone and I will go and then I'm going to ask for anyone else who would like to go to please limit it to like one question cuz we do have four other topics under presentations as well as the rest of the agenda to get to. So, I will go to board member Lindy. I got one question. Go for it. We're going to do it. Mr. Burkhardt, thank you. Really appreciate all your hard work and presentations. Um I feel like transportation
072is often one of the things we hear the most I wind up hearing the most complaints about and this is difficult and want to say thank you. From your perspective, I was just trying to understand from the presentation, do you feel good about where we are with transportation? Should we feel badly about where we are with transportation? And can you say a little bit about why? Yeah, I feel really really good about the work that our team has done in the transportation office to get us to this point. I think uh the transportation uh presentation I did earlier in the year, I referenced back when I started we had 27 students who could not get to school. And that was problematic. Um most of our concerns are what offs. Meaning we're not we don't have
073a groundswell of issues that we're dealing with. Uh we are still still dealing with a lack of bus drivers across the nation, quite frankly. Um we are still looking for additional vendors to help us get bus drivers into the district. Even though we've almost cut in half our dependency of transportation for yellow bus, we still are are in the situation that trying to get bus drivers is still challenging. And then obviously the resources and the funding um and the regulations are always challenging and they continue to be more challenging every year because we have to Our goal is just to do the same work you know, with less resources as cost of living goes up and salaries go up and gas obviously goes up right now. There's all those things that are that are hitting
074our factors and we're trying to stay cost neutral, but in the budget cycle it's really really hard to do. So I'll go really quickly here and then I will allow folks to go through with one or two questions uh for both of them so we can get through the other topics that we have. Um these are just both statements and not really questions. So the first is I think the reality with our transportation issues is there are many factors that involved why our students would be going from one part of our city to the other. And that includes everything from programming at the school to even a student moving and choosing to stay at the school they originally had. Uh parents, kid you know, younger sibling now wants to go to the same school older
075sibling's at. All these other factors. There's multitude I think that caused that. I think there's the the steps we've made towards ensuring a lot more equity with regards to programming across the district. Great steps, we're not there yet. We still need to do more. Um I think the other part, and this is kind of the second part of that, is that, you know, we make decisions also as a board on on how we will provide and what we will provide in regards to transportation. And I think that also creates the the ongoing question mark, right? Because I think the fact is that we are providing greater than the state's level of mandated level of transportation. That is absolutely, you know, maybe the right thing for us to do, but I think that comes with a
076cost. And so, I think in some ways we just have to be prepared to say if that's the level we want to stay at, if that's the expectation we want to stay at, we can't both say we want to get everybody an opportunity, and so we're going to provide these bus services, and then also think that the bus service is going to be cheaper or not cost as much as it does. Um and then the third point, I know I said it to you, but I had three. Uh the third point is really I think the other thing that we have to be mindful of is in it was actually to what your one of the earlier questions you had with regards to how the state operates and addresses transportation. We really do need to
077be mindful of how the state's looking to how some folks in the state are looking to change how transportation can be done. And specifically for those students who are not attending a CPS school, but is being provided in transportation by CPS. Um because I do think that may run itself into a course where we are having problems with our uh charter schools and private schools that are that are supposed to be communicating, supposed to be providing information, and and the ability for us to adjust within that 30-day time window is a really tight time window when you may have a thousand students all across the city attending a school that you now have to find transportation for. And it just is not Some of these things are also not like viable to do in a
078normal way. And in the efforts of the state to change how you can pay for in lieu of transportation may have a really dramatic effect on some students who are really it's just infeasible to provide transportation on a regular basis to them. Um where they're one student in one building going across the city. So I think this is stuff you have to be reasonable looking at. Um I saw board member Bolton, I saw board member Matt. Uh so we'll go really quickly to board member Bolton then board member Matt. I'll be as quick as I possibly can. One thing that Mr. Crossett just mentioned to me uh in conversation about one of the issues regarding the number of folks uh number of students on the west side uh very frankly is the incredible growth of
079the Hispanic population. Uh and it's been centered mostly on the west side. I mean in in 2010 that was 1.9 of our enrollment uh as a percent and and now uh it's it's uh for uh 25 significantly higher 11.8 and majority of that increase is on the west side. And another issue I'd say about the quarter piece is that we actually did make efforts to make sure that there's appropriate number in each of the quarters regarding elementary schools be they neighborhood schools or be they uh magnet schools uh or the number of Montessori's being appropriate and that's why we figured in the middle in the middle quarter or the center quarter we may be needing one more Montessori because the other two quarters had two and two. But I think that Hispanic piece is is
080an important part and I I and very frankly looking at and I'm I have some ownership of the whole bubble dot uh effort to have some ownership of it going back to the Fairview controversy of of uh sleeping outside, but I would say that this this mapping is is is proving that nearly all of our high schools are citywide, which is very interesting. That where you see less of it, of course, is on the west side. That is also a culturally traditional situation as well. So, very interesting stuff. Thank you for all the work you're doing, and I think we are in a good place, all things considered. The transportation cuz some of our colleagues in the urbans have decided not to transport their kids. And what is that? Uh yeah, so just wanted to
081bring up as we talked about equity, and this was something that we were able to work through at one particular school as it pertains to after-school programming and transportation. And so, yes, we have established a corridor model, but we recognize that there were obviously many gaps with students not being able to participate in maybe after-school care or programming or after-school events. And so, we're talking about engagement, we definitely want to ensure that students and families are able to participate because we know that helps to support and enhance the learning experience. So, can you speak to the work around that? I'm sure it was not a one-off with that particular school. How are we supporting those initiatives to make sure that transportation is available, and then also what does that look like in terms of the
082cost associated with that? That number doesn't have to be provided today, but I definitely want us to make sure that we are in a position of continuing to work through that piece because that was something that was a challenge, and yes, we were able to make it. Hopefully we were able to make it work for one particular school, but again, we want to make sure that it's equitable across all of our schools. Yeah, that that I'm glad you highlight that. That continues to be a challenge for us because we don't have right now the resources to to be able to address all the schools holistically like we would like to. Uh we do have 10 buses that are extra extracurricular buses and those typically um are for those students in the past have been high
083school students. Now it's high school and middle school or high school and junior high students to get from school to their respective um sports teams, games, matches, whatever they happen to be. Um we also back in uh purchased 17 microbuses and those microbuses are non-passenger buses to again help with that situation. Our goal was to buy as many of those microbuses as possible year after year. Obviously the budget constraints did not allow us to do that. That would have been um over a a number of years even, you know, uh 24, 25, 26 would have just given us a larger footprint of those microbuses. Again, to your point is sometimes you have a small group of students need to get from point A to point B doesn't necessarily warrant a large bus. Um but those
084those situations always give us some pause on trying to get the resources together to make that happen. Thank you. So if possible we can add a like the assignment's part of the meeting I would like just to follow up to um just for you to report out some of those nuances, some of the shifts that we're seeing if it's actually working and definitely the cost. Um either where we're seeing if this is helping us with uh like a decline with reducing our uh budgetary, you know, um expenditures or if it's actually increasing, right? Um the expectation with our budget. Um so that would definitely be helpful information to report back uh to the board. I would be happy to. Thank you. All right. And Mr. Speaker, you are free to go. I'm sure in due
085time those flowing locks will come back when all these transportation issues are no longer a problem. Thank you for presenting today. Next up on our agenda, I'm going to throw it to our treasurer and superintendent but give it straight caveat for our board members today. The purpose of this next section is for us to talk about these issues. We will not be voting on any of these things today. So, I will now turn it over to the treasurer and superintendent. Thank you President Craig. I think I'll kind of start and superintendent just jump in when you when you want to. If you go to the first slide Rob. Just wanted just wanted to remind folks of how we got where we are today. So, based on the budget and three-year forecast we did in February,
086we established a budget target of 627.9 million. Last board meeting on the 16th, the board approved what we call the legal requirement items which were all shared with you. In detail that was 147 142.7 million. And so, the remaining amount to be allocated for next year is 485.2. Keep going Rob. First thing we're going to talk about today are the high priority items. So, we again second time published what we'll call the budget book high priority items as well as the data addendum. So, big thanks to Mr. Gallahue for for working on that. I know that's a and a couple other folks too. Cody Hutchins does some does some proofreading. It is a labor of love to get to get the book created. For sure. So, high priority items I would say trying to think
087through what that really means to us. It's more of a survival than an optimization. I would say that's more of a high priority here. I know sometimes you know, we have different opinions of high priority. So, it's about survival. Um, for central office specifically, what we put in there is very bare-bones. Um, for sure. I don't think any central office department got a full compliment of what what they have today, but but part of that was strategic to allow us more space in the pathways, which we'll talk about in a second. Um, other thing you'll notice for the first time we're starting to include some school staff. You know, there was no school staffing included in the legal compliance. Um, but we wanted to start bringing that into the mix as well as we go
088through the budget. So, school staff really included in this proposal are two things. Uh, one is federal and state compliance. So, think like sign language interpreters are good federal compliance measure. Um, state compliance, principals, you know, every building has to have a principal. Um, a lot of our special ed staff, um, also meets compliance. And then there's this kind of collective bargaining agreement compliance. And so that is things like your classroom teachers based on class size, um, building engineers, clerical staff in elementary schools, things that are built into collective bargaining agreements. And then there were a few things that we kind of found as we went through that are dependencies. So, things that were put in the legal compliant in the legal compliance group, as we went back and did further analysis, we're like, oh,
089if you have this, you have another dependency. So, those things got added as well. So, if you go if you flip through all of it, you'll see total of all of that is just over $400 million. Which which is a pretty big number, but this includes significant amount of of what it costs to staff schools as well as like I said, the centrally managed um, budget pieces. If you want to go to the next slide, to put it in kind of a graphical format, um, I think we shared this a couple times. This is I think our third time we've used this graph. Uh, which is cool. So, we have the legal compliance. Now, the high priority sits on top of that. And then it shortens the shortens the area of the pathways. So, but
090I think that's I think that's that's one way to look at each pathway has about 80 roughly 80 um roughly 85 million dollars. And so and so as we talk about pathways, the concept is reasonably, you know, what reasonable decisions, you know, can we recommend uh with that last 85 million dollars that will accomplish, you know, the goals of the district. All right. So, just high level on pathways, we go to the next slide, Rob. Keep going. Okay. So, so we had three pathways that were shared. I think Superintendent Murphy shared them last time. Um at the board meeting I wasn't able to attend. So, they're still out there. Also going to show you I'm going to call it pathway four, which is if we don't if no changes are made pathway, but I think
091that's important. So, if you hit the next slide, Rob. You can talk about what a decentralized options look like. So, you can kind of see the things up here. Um it is it's that idea of pushing as much um of our of our of our operations out to the schools as close to the students as possible. I think that is that is kind of a popular idea especially, you know, a part for the public would be a very popular idea. Um and every one of these pathways has a risk and rewards. So, so the risk of that is potential loss of consistency, you know, potential loss of central office support. So, you know, there's more more chance of of fraud risk. You know, there's going to be slowing down of the some of our central
092processes. Want to add anything to that? Just keep going? Okay. Second pathway we've talked about is this return to pre-COVID staffing and programming. So, so look at where the what the district looked like back in fiscal year '19. Uh and starting from that base then then look at all the things that we've done differently between now and then. Uh and kind of build up to the side, you know, you know, what the district should look like going forward. So, and then our third pathway we talked about leveraging partners and investment in talent. A lot of this is about investment in talent. You know, it it takes takes a lot of effort to onboard people, especially to find the right people at CPS. And and so keeping as many of those CPS invested people as possible,
093um and then looking for places where the district can strategically disinvest from things that we do. So, strategically disengage, but try to find and hopefully there's community partners who can pick up pick up those pieces. And then just to just to put a dose of um reality or, you know, as I like to throw cold water on all discussions, um the default pathway. So, based on our current budget requests and our current resources, we would not have enough money to finish next school year. So, just just to say the impetus is that we have to make some changes, you know, in order to get get to a financially sustainable place. Do you want to add anything? I would like to add just for each of the pathways, the starting with the first pathway, decentralization, just
094want to make clear to everyone that doesn't necessarily mean um more money goes towards the people who are doing more things. The second piece with the pre-COVID for clarification does not mean that if there was something that started in 2023, that that's what we're cutting. That's not what we're saying. We're just talking about that level of finance that we had at that time. All right. Uh and then before I open it up to board discussion, I just want to give again the kind of what we're talking about two different two things for discussion today. So, one is the um high-priority items and we kind of identification of that. This is the first run of that information, so please feel free to ask questions on that. And then also the pathways. And so again, we want
095to give them some direction, some shared information around the pathways. We will continue to have the conversation around the pathways at our next couple of meetings, but like to be able to have them be able to bring us back some products and some additional information as we keep going along that path. So, now I will open it up to board members who have questions or comments or thoughts. Uh board member Crosson. The uh 400 Let me rephrase has to do with the high-priority items is is how much of that is already spoken for through contractual Um so, approximately. Yeah, I would say all of the collective bargaining agreement staff is in there. And then, you know, there's there's a lot of There's a lot of contracts in central office uh just kind of exist. I
096mean, I mean, you can make you can get some better deals, but a lot of these things are multi- I use and sometimes the price of of changing the contract is actually more expensive than any money you would save. But like, I think the CBA the CBA amount by itself is we'll say 235 million. All right. Is there any money in the 400,000 high-priority items that is not a contract or an obligation. Yeah. Try it without having everything memorized. I I mean, this was this was a group effort for for the leadership team to look through, um, you know, every single area to try to try to come up with things. Um, I would say in our opinion, you know, everything that's in the high priority items would exist in the final budget and and
097are things that that we see in every possible pathway going forward. All righty. And just as a reminder, uh, everyone should have also access to the budget book that goes down through the different categories and where those things fall within the budget items. So, um, I see board member Bolton. Yeah, thank you very much and thanks for the work and I think it's a I think a I know it's a monumental effort and I and I think it's a a good strategy as we proceed. Uh, I I want some clarification though. Um, you mentioned our target and then you mentioned, uh, the first, uh, that we were legally required to do and and that amount, uh, which is the 142 and then we had a remaining balance of of wasted money to spend 485 and
098now in what you've presented um, of the high priority, is it total high priority 400 million? Yes. So, you've now left us the, uh, board with 85 million to spend. That would That's your That's your pathway. >> that's a really broad stroke on the administration's position as to what is required. I totally understand you doing it. But, wow. That is you coming and telling us that we're going to And this And we we seek recommendations. There are some board members that want recommendations. I'm one of them. My point is that's then done administratively not in the public. Likely so. It's you're doing your job. But, that's an awful broad stroke. And there have to be things there that if we are going to Well, first of all, if we're going to just do business as
099we've been doing instead of trying to change this district and not necessarily wait for the strategic plan to be done, but we're just funding the same old, same old. If we're talking in terms of 400 million, that's a little bit much for me. And I like it as a starting point, but I don't like it as an ending point that you're bringing as a recommendation. Uh it I'm very concerned about it. Um and I'm more concerned about us ever going back to line item by line item, and I don't want that, but you've almost created that groundwork right there that we might unless it's going to be an up or down on the total presentation. A thumbs up, thumbs down. I don't know in what might be a levy year, we're going to do a
100thumbs up or thumbs down on 400 million. Um and so I'm concerned about that. Another concern that I have is on the pathways, I like all three of them. I think that's very, very helpful. But I do want to see the pre-COVID kinds of numbers. And I'll bet you a lot of them are actually bad from the standpoint of things we weren't doing and things that also we had to lose because of COVID. Um so I have I have reservations about this 400 million or at the end saying that the board is only going to decide out of What's our total of the budget? Is it 627 or something? The school board's only going to decide really have anything or any input or the public's only going to have input on 85 million. That's that's
101probably not a That might be a flaw within this strategy. But I I welcome it. My criticism is not in in in frustration or anything. I'm just saying that I don't know that that is can can be tolerated. Just as a point of clarification, the 400 million includes things that would still be decided based on what pathway we go down. Teacher said earlier >> point. that part of that is like teacher salaries. Like we have teacher salaries we're going to pay no matter what pathway we go down. So we're not going to not say we're going to pay teachers. Um but what we may recognize is some of the other things that we use to support and that may be something we can clarify in the in the high priorities of which of those items
102are things that are truly something that has to be done because we just we have to pay teachers, librarians, whatever and things that maybe are the stuff that we may change between which pathway to go down but it may be done in some form of fashion. And I'm sure that's something they could they could bring more clarity to. I appreciate that clarification. That's helpful. I'm just more comfortable saying well if the CBA is that's that, but then that's that's not all of the 400 million. But thank you, that helps me. Uh Vice President Ma. So I I um I have some concerns because uh to one of the prior questions around how much of that is in the CBA that is 200 million, yet there's an additional 200 million on there. I haven't and I
103and I asked this question or made this statement the last time, I'm going to say it again. I have a concern about general strokes of approval and then we get the details later. And we did that before, I've lived through that before. I'm not interested in my item, but I do know that there are some some discussions and some proposals that are theory, but movement has happened and I'm not interested in just giving a blanket check to primarily what we've been doing now. I have said before I would love for some innovation and creativity and I I think that I think that that that I don't see that here. Just under high priority 400 million dollars is a lot of money and um I would love to hear and I guess there's space for some
104additional details on how do we meet our academic goals with what the superintendent shared is some positions may be ob- giving additional funding to the staff that's doing additional work. And some of that is already covered in the CBA because it ha- they have to they have to get that. So I I don't I don't see I see theory, but I'd love to see more details around meeting our academic goals with this particular budget with with the high priority items, I I just I want to see it. I think it's going to come, but um for me, I need to I just need a little bit more information on if we go back to pre-COVID financial numbers, the enrollment numbers are different. Programming is different. What does that mean to say we're going to go
105back to pre-COVID numbers? That's just financial number. But what does that look like with regard to academic support to the goals that we've already established that we need and not losing any momentum. I don't know if that's clear cuz it's not clear to me. So, under each pathway, what is going to be what is going to look different for us if we choose a pathway? I'm not interested in choosing a pathway and then finding out that I voted for something that I may not have voted for had I have more detail. I'm also not interested in supporting something that doesn't have full clarity, it's not thought out enough, and then it may or may not get us to our academic goals. So, I I'm proposing that we take that high priority item and maybe have
106it be a little bit more detailed. So, what is the CBA amount? What is What is the contract amount? I know that we should have within our contracts the ability to get out of those contracts because we've had this conversation before. So, whereas some of those things may cost more money to do the exact same thing, we should have an exit clause on some of those. If we're in year two of three, maybe there's a way that we can get out of that. But I think I think I'm interested in the disaggregation of that high priority $400 million um dollars um to be a little bit more detailed. And I don't I don't exactly know how that happens in this model, but that's what I'm interested in seeing. See, I think there's there's two pieces
107to this. Um obviously, the pathways were at We're at the early stages of that. I mean, the pathways pathways are kind of bullet points at this far at this point and it's really kind of the next step of the administration to dig into what those pathways mean. Um as if the board feels like all three of them are useful to go down and review and study, you know, we will we'll get to you we'll work through all those pieces and so yeah, like to what you said, what does it really mean? You know, what does it really mean? Enrollment was different pre-COVID. Services were different. So so it takes time to work through those things. Um for the high priority items I would I I think, you know, and and I'm happy to add happy
108to add more details and that we had the budget book that has the narratives. Um I was going to just add I'm glad you brought it up. Um in the narratives this time, so a couple things. One in the budget book is we added we we kept the column for legal compliance and now we added high priority so you can see the total by budget unit. Um but also in the text narrative we started putting in the risk. So So not only does it say at the high priority you get these things, but it also says here's the risk um of of stopping at that level. So I think that's a that's a good way to do the do the conversation and then uh happy to definitely work through more of the staffing stuff. I
109think there's some questions on on the staffing side so we can provide more detail on that. Um it is obviously based on enrollment. I know we haven't done we usually do a spring kind of enrollment update and so that is something that's on you know, on on the books to do to just look again to make sure, you know, our enrollment projections are still trending the way we expect them to. Uh go board member Map, Armbruster, and Lindy in that order. Um yeah, so thank you for the presentation. Um so far I agree with what my colleagues have stated about definitely wanting more detail, more clarity as it pertains to what is high priority as well as the different pathways. When I look at the pathways just kind of in isolation, as you talked about,
110I see a lot of high risk associated with each one of them, especially as it relates to decentralizing central office. I really have a difficult time being able to receive that because I know that we have not mastered operation operational efficiency. And so, if we are keeping at the forefront what our academic goals are, taking that central office support out, I think could be very damaging to helping us support reaching those goals. What I am interested in, I don't know if this is possible, I don't know if this is something that we've ever considered, but if there's able to be a healthy blend of the three pathways that you presented to serve as a like an alternative where is taking each one of these you know aspects to identify okay, these are the the pros
111of these pathways. What does that look like in creating an alternative right route that is maybe yes, we have to decentralize to some extent, but we have we've discussed what that efficiency would look like. We've talked about what the training and the support would look like at the school site. We've look we're looking at the pre-COVID numbers, right? We're looking at if it's possible to be able to lean on some of our community support and partnerships. So, I would be interested in seeing if there's a way to navigate the three three those pathways combining as one. I think for me, I'm just trying to better understand like what do you like what's the goal for tonight? Like we've got a lot of things to do. So like out of this discussion, like what what are
112you looking for from the board at the end of tonight from this specific thing? Yeah, I think I think the twofold goals. One was to introduce the high priority items and I know we just just sent that to the board on Friday, but but that there's there's time. There's there's time to review that. Um also would remind you um we created a Google Form for the board members um to submit questions. So I know a couple of you have already. So there's a couple of questions in there already. Um but that'll help the administration kind of come through and answer all those questions. But again, this the high priority is really to introduce it um preparation for for future meeting. And then I think the other the other idea was to get some feedback on
113the pathways. Yeah. Um especially if if there's a pathway that doesn't seem sustainable workable, Mhm. you know, we we won't spend administrative time going down a pathway that that isn't that we can't see an end to. And it just gives us a little more focus as we go to the next stage in this process. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you. Um If that's the case, I think I'm kind of with my colleagues. I'm not interested in a line by line, but I am a little bit interested in understanding how $400 million is going to impact student achievement in the next year. Right? So just like I think for me just I know that the goal today was not to ask for that. So just like as you're coming back to us, like tying that in and
114saying like you know, there's 18 million in technology, I think or something as I was looking through this. Like like, how is that impacting student achievement? Where are the opportunities for thinking outside the box and doing something different? I think in your note it says like we can't even maintain the like current level of service with just this high priority budget that we've set aside. That's super informative. Thank you for that. But now I want to know, okay, well, what are you going to do about it? Cuz we don't have you know, we have $85 million left. So, what are we going to do? Um so, I think just tying that 400 million back to these are the outcomes we're looking to achieve by investing in that. Some of them are very obvious. We're fulfilling
115the CBA so that we have classroom teachers. Got it. Great. Um That would be helpful. On the pathways I just don't feel like I understand them enough to really give you feedback to be totally honest with you. Like, there's no numbers attached to it. I understand it totals up to $84 million, but like what does that look like? I don't know enough to be totally honest with you to like rule one out cuz I I don't want to rule something out without being fully informed. So, I think for me I just need I That's not true. I will and personally for me rule out the default pathway. Um but for the other three, um I just need some more information. Thank you. This has been great. I was just trying to count. I think over
116the last 6 years I've been through five different combinations of either superintendents, interim superintendents, and treasurers. Um and I can't remember a single version of this that has been easy. Um and so just as context, I think this is always difficult and contentious. It's difficult and contentious not just from a um preferences perspective, like fund this not that, but from a process perspective, I think the board's role is X, I think the board's role is Y, you know, and I just I called President Craig earlier today, um I hope it's okay that I share this, just to say how much I appreciated the clarity of this budget process. I think announcing in advance, hey, we have blank number of meetings until we need to pass a budget. Here is the cadence with which we're going
117to share information with the board. We're not asking you for a vote tonight. We're going to ask next time. So, you can see it, think about it, ask questions in the meeting, ask questions later, vote's coming later. We're going to do it in pieces. Um and I I I'm trying to offer a um piece of positive feedback that is content agnostic, but process specific. Um because there's just no version of this that isn't hard. Um because these are tough decisions. We don't have the money that we wish we had, and people disagree with each other. That's okay. This is a democracy. I think votes are good. Uh I think putting a process together that gets us there is good. Uh I think we'll figure this out. I think what's way more important than this budget
118is the next five budgets, which is about the strategic plan and whether there's a levy that the board puts forward. So, just not to miss forest from the trees. This is going to be difficult. It's going to be painful. It's going to be one year, and what's more important are the next five years, I think. Um when with regard to this particular um set of high priority items and presentation, I had a couple of questions. Um and one one is about um you know, there's a way of reading what's in the high priority items as legal requirements. For example, when it says state compliance or when it says CBA compliance, can you just talk a little bit about what made you want to put that in the section rather than in the legal compliance section?
119Cuz I think that's important. That's a That's a That's a great >> smiling cuz you said this already and I wasn't paying attention. >> No, no, it's a great It's It's question. Um I know we I think we went really I think we said this over is that we went very strict very strict with legal compliance. And so and so anything that that either we missed the legal compliance we specifically did not include staff in legal compliance except for superintendent treasure and some students disabilities folks and the board obviously. We specifically did not include CBA compliance in legal compliance just to keep that keep that number really low and focused. And then and then this is kind of the next iteration which which part of it is yes we should what's it going to take
120to get us to CBA compliance. What what's it going to take to get get to some of these things you know and there's and there's a lot of internal discussions so that kind of the making the sausage side of it. You know is administration pushing back on things and saying yes this is a this is a legal compliance thing but how much of that Sure. >> really is legal compliance you know is it is it the full you know the full thing or is there a part of it that is legal compliance and the other kind of exist on top of that. And I think it makes great sense that there's some judgment and thoughtfulness that goes into these categories that that that aren't written in stone. I just I think the reason I was
121raising the question is it's not as those CBA requirements are flexible. Like we we have a contract we need to meet the obligations of the contract. It's not as those state compliance is flexible. We have to do these things. You know so like my my hypothesis is that within this 400 a lot of this is stuff we have to do. Not a lot of we should be able to articulate how it's going to impact student achievement for sure but it's not I just wanted to check my assumption. There's not a lot of flex or give in this 400 million. Is that fair? I we would agree. >> We would agree. >> One one question I did have about the 400 million. I know in past years this has come up. In the CBA, there are
122um class size limits that vary by grade level. And they're always like up to a certain amount. And there are also enrollment projections. And there's been some discussion in the past about do you do this part of budgeting based on the middle of that class size range? Do you do it based on like the very top of the class size range? And and it it matters, I think. I I could be quickly incorrect here, so tell me if I'm wrong, but I think it can matter quite a bit because the the salaries of the teachers add up very quickly. Is so AMI, is that accurate? And B, if it is accurate, can you just talk about how you approach that issue in the 400 million? It is accurate. Um we are at the top of
123the class size range. Um at this point, the thing that we have not done, I I mentioned it briefly, is the last couple years, we've had a really good opportunity, we call it spring TAC. As you folks who know what TAC is, but it's basically a reevaluation of enrollment. Um we do it in the we do it in the fall. Once students come, we started doing what we call a spring version, you know, where where we'll get together and we'll look at, you know, enrollments to date, projections to date, and reevaluate those things. I mean, there is it does make a difference, for sure, if if if enrollment changes at any school significantly, that can make a difference in the number of teachers. Um we also will, you know, because part of the CBA is
124school-based staff are based on average salaries. You know, so we'll recalculate the average salaries as well, just to kind of just to kind of hone those numbers in a little. Um I think generally for years, we did the um reconfiguration TAC only in the fall. And then last year, um we had discussions about doing it just as we entered into the summer. Where did we land? The whole um corridor and middle school piece we were making as uh was shared earlier by Mr. Burkhart, guestimations of where people would choose to go. So, we did it again in August before the kids actually came back to school. I would imagine we're going to need to um work on doing that again as Mike said this spring, but then also again in in August to make sure
125our numbers are are perfect. >> Yeah. And um is is that budgeting using the um still compliant with the CBA, but at the top end of the CBA? Is that how we budgeted last year? We did at one point we tried to reduce the class size, but because of where we were and where we landed, we had to lift it up again and and maximize. >> this is to do it this way is to do it exactly the way that we did it a year ago. Based on what we learned last year, yes. >> Yeah, got it. And then my last question is um when it comes to pathways, can we go uh I guess there's is there a slide that summarizes each pathway? Yes. I I think this point's been made by my colleague,
126so I'll just underline it and I'll be I'll be quick about it, but I think that what I would love to see from the administration is which like another column with this, which is which of these would have the biggest impact on student achievement in a positive way. And then whichever of those it whichever one does that is the one that I would support. Thank you. Yeah. Uh what I would say right now if you were asking me is probably what former member Matt was suggesting and that is a combination of all of them. So, I'll give a couple of my thoughts and then if anyone else has any additional thoughts, we can go through those as well, but um I want to say like kind of first thing with the high priority and I
127think this may be the the terminology we're using might give a different impression than what it uh really reflects, but it it um but I I the point though is still the same that the million of it of the 400 is strictly school-based staff. That's the folks who are in the schools, who are working at the schools every single day. And I think the reality is that unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way we want to look at it, a large part of our budget is built off of staff in the schools working with the students directly. And I think there is room for you all to kind of provide guidance as to, based on that information, how much of that changed, no matter what we do as from a from a programmatic thing, how much of
128that is connected to educational expectations, academic results. I mean, that's a I think there's great space to do that in there, right? So, if we say we need English teachers, essentially, we need to have English teachers to get English scores. Math teachers to teach math, so students learn math, right? Like, I think those things are re- reality-based. There may be some stuff in that that is different and and uh challenging in doing that, right? So, we're saying that we're going to have less um operational support from central office or any of those type of things in the pathways, then that might have an effect on how much is expected of a person in that office, and I think that's something that absolutely can be part of the discussion as to what potential risk or potential
129benefits may be gained connected to academic results. And that may give a little bit clarity on the on the uh pathways as well, but I think that that's something that we I mean, cuz there's a lot of information in the budget book that walks through what each of those things are broken down into and what those are what those positions represent. Um I do think there's an aspect of that that we could we certainly could ask some additional information to clarify like where these things fall within the goals that we have typically been looking at from an academic standpoint for our students uh for their academic achievement. Um but I just I just I wanted to make sure that that's kind of also pushed out there as the fact that a lot of what our
130budget is is just staffing. Just to be real about it. Like that that we've talked about this every year and there is just a small portion of our budget that is flexible in any kind of real way. Um and we can we can keep hoping to make that different, but the reality is we are a organization that runs substantially on staffing dollars uh alone. Um secondly, I want to say about the priority items and I think maybe this is a great way to break up the priority items in that vision uh for our next for our next time we talk about this is to specifically, you know, we look at what are those what are those uh CBA compliance dollars and specifically call it out in a more direct way. What are those things that
131are federal state compliance? Really calling it out in a direct way. Um And at least again, from there are things within the central office like uh and uh board member uh Armbruster talked about technology. Even expelling out why certain things are in there's, why certain things might be um things that we're obligated to do, we've been obligated to do for the last 3 years that we haven't paid. Things like that that we as a board made decisions to keep putting off and now we at some point have to pay it. Why those things, where those things fit into it, I think it may be helpful in understanding the priorities a little bit better, but honestly, I think there is a lot of information that is once we are able to connect a little bit maybe
132more to if this is if we only had this amount, what would we be operating under, what would we be expecting, what would the results potentially have that affect the results because I think that does help us understand the next part of that conversation, right? And so then to the next part, I I wanted to actually kind of echo a uh comment that board member Matt made. I actually was going to make the same suggestion, so I I love that she stole my thunder, but Um, but I do think there's a potential way of doing this where we look at, for instance, using the corridor model that we're currently working under to decentralize corridor. So, to operate to provide a level that kind of sits in between central office and the school base that can
133coordinate resources, coordinate efforts, make sure that those things are being done. Again, that is a position that's a little bit different than the nature of what we've been doing here uh currently. Um So, that provides the schools with still support but also maybe aligns that support more directly to where those resources are. So, for instance, if we talk about uh enrollment. And we have someone in that middle level who can really be focused on what are the struggles that a school might be having, what are the efforts to do reach out, what how are they coordinating. You go from your K-6 to the 7 to the 7-8 to the 9-12, like that pathway, they're really working with each school to do those things. Whether it's resource coordinators and these type of things, all these things
134that each school has currently that is somewhat managed, even security ideas, right? Like the the fact that we have somebody who can manage security levels at each school, those type of things. In that corridor, that might be a way to decentralize, bring our staffing levels as a total dollar amount down to a level that is more aligned with where we were pre-COVID without necessarily getting rid of the services at all levels. Um so, I do love that idea of maybe decentralizing but not to the school itself cuz I do think we're going to put a burden on schools if we're saying okay, every school's got to have I'd be able to do all their IT work. Every school's got to be able to do all of this all their accounting work. All their financials, all
135of these things, all their HR. That's that's a challenge to to add to the school and and to find positions within the school that we would make that work. So, I think something uh more in that line of decentralizing to the corridor and then allowing that corridor team to work with each other to marshal resources, to work with each other to build those things might be another way to to build off of the pathways there. So, it's really kind of combining the two. The only thing I will also say about pathway three, and this is just my opinion, so again, I think the board can give more guidance to this. My concern with us making a budget based on our dependence upon others makes no sense to me. Because I think it's lovely for us
136to sit here and say that all the people in our community really love our schools and will do all these great things for us, and they haven't some of them have been there, but not all. And I look at like what we the experiences we had with um athletic trainers is my example of where I I worry that if we had a year where we had folks who said, "I'm willing to work with this school and this school, but you know what? I can't go to that school." And so, now we have an even bigger inequity issue of community partners who are saying, "Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to work with these four right here." And then another community partner saying, "Yep, got you in these four right here." Then and and these other schools not
137having it. So, I would I I'd offer it out there I I wouldn't tend to not want to see any work done towards that third model because I think I don't know that it's guaranteed to have us be able to say that we'll have a partner to to do all the things that we're doing in the district um come to the tables in the way that we would expect them to, especially at this time of the year. I think we could move more things that way in the future, but I don't know that this year's budget is the year to try to start tapping into all the partners across the district. Um I will open it now up to I see Board Member Bolton and Board Member Matt, so go in that order. Thank you.
138Uh appreciate everybody's comments and agree with almost everything. Uh makes sense. I will one more criticism uh for the administration. I I I think when you're describing uh uh the pathways or what have you, you're you're revealing a little bit of bias and not just half full but and versus half empty or whatever. You're kind of telling us what the bad thing would be and I would I would I would prefer we say, "Okay, this could happen because I mean there might be some of that but I there's there's a tonality there that I think needs a it is hurting the presentation a little bit but I I would say I'm I'm kind of liking the idea of the corridor piece. Uh and I'm and I'm in agreement that we we the partnership that is
139it's not icing on the cake but it can't be the fundamental part of how we're deciding what to do. Uh it's more important than that. We'd have to see an inventory of all the millions of dollars that our partners are already contributing in service. We have to see that to appreciate it and not lose any of that in this difficult time. Um but I besides the bias piece, I I I want to know how many vendor contracts are in this. I mean are there vendor contracts in any of this 400 million? Um I'm sure there are budget for vendor contracts. And and that would be something to look at too. From a standpoint of contracts to get in or out of. I and I and I would like to separate and I'm the last one
140that should be saying it cuz it's really is hypocritical for me to say this and I'm going to fess up. I would like you to separate the the CBA school-based piece from this 400 and just keep it there as the schools cuz we always have worried about that we do the schools then and do the central office. It's two separate budgets. It should be just one and I'm the one saying that forever and ever, but at this particular time, I'm going to say how stupid I've been for a number of years because it's not working for me on this one. It's just not working. It there are separate things and and I so I would like to see that kind of separated, but to be totally radical on this, I think you only go with
141decentralization with the caveat as suggested by the chair and and member Map, let's invest in the quarter. If we've done this historic rearrangement, maybe that's a way to be going and and and the other reality is for the schools, we don't even know if all of our schools are going to be existing next year. to have to be funded. I mean, the reality is it's the we are still trying to fund what we've been doing and I think that we are farther along than we think we are. If we have three different places where whole populations might be gone, be it downtown or on the west side or up the central corridor and the Witten Hills area. I mean, there's some realities here that need to be addressed that I think rather than just you
142properly justifying doing what you've been doing and saying this is essential. Of course, it is, but that's not necessarily uh the direction we have to go right now. Thank Board member Map. Okay, thank you. So, to the piece that board member Bolton spoke about in terms of not knowing whether some of our schools will exist or not, I don't know if I can speak to that and I think I think it's even more incumbent upon us as a board to make sure that our schools do exist for our students and our families. So, I think that's that piece of advocacy work that we need to make sure that we're doing so that that can happen. Um but as it pertains to uh um the conversation around the corridor model and kind of dispersing some of
143that um work out to maybe to the corridors. I do think that it will be helpful if there's still kind of a centralized level of support to make sure that there is that alignment with the expectation as as well as equity across the uh the district as a whole. So, I would be interested in making sure that that is a part of the conversation as well where it's not just the corridors are operating in a silo, but there's still that level of reporting and accountability to some centralized um you know, individuals that's helping to support and usher that work. Um uh Vice President Moffett. Well, you know, I um I I'm I'm a little confused cuz we're supposed to be voting on this at the next board meeting. Is that right? We're supposed to be
144voting on something and we're asking for more details. So, when do we have an opportunity to discuss the details that we're asking for now before we vote on them? And then I have a comment, too. But just a point of clarification. Yeah, so I think if we are asking them to come back with new information and that type of deal, we certainly could have the discussion in that next meeting. I just advise we have now four meetings after this meeting to pass the budget. And so, the longer we take as a board to make some hard decisions, the less opportunities we will have to pass a budget on time. And And I'm not saying that we don't take those real conversations and go through those all opportunities, but I think we can Treasures offered up
145means to give questions about items that would could happen outside of the board meetings. And then we can certainly have the discussion at our next meeting. And if it's still we're not ready to make the vote, we're not ready to make the vote. I mean, that's the board's decision. That point. Well, that that that definitely is helpful because, you know, I remember at least one board meeting ago asking for details that we still don't have. So, I don't know if it's the board's responsibility as much as it is administration's responsibility to provide details that are more succinct than what we were receiving because we all are asking for more details and more specificity around what is underneath each pathway and what does that look like. And so, um I am all for an additional column
146with a specific maybe recommendation from the administration. Like, what does it look like for a mixture of quarter model, decentralization with the quarter model, partnerships investments. I I just I think that the administration has some thoughts. And again, I'm going to say this because we've lived through phase two where we were presented with one thing and underneath that iceberg there were a whole bunch of different things that we ended up having to live with because we voted I'm speaking for myself because I voted for one thing. So, that's not what I'm interested in doing this time at all. I've said that before. I'm going to say that this time. I'm not interested in that. And so, I would like some specifics around what are the details. To me, one area around leveraging partnerships, it's disheartening
147to hear one board member say we're going to be we could potentially be closing schools, but um if we're being that honest at this point and juncture, I look at partnerships as areas that we are not as efficient as we could be. I do think that we got a wonderful presentation around career tech last meeting. Um and if that was the administration's best effort, that's great. But I do think that there may be other opportunities that we could do career tech differently and or better. And so, when I look at partnerships, I'm talking about leveraging potential areas that we could do things differently and or better, um more efficiently with the intention of growth in the district and or improve improving scores. So, we are I'm not interested in upending this entire district with a
148model that looks very similar to get the same results. I am interested in things that are going to that may be different, but are going to really give us a good bang for our buck. So, um and there are things that this administration hasn't provided to us that could potentially not have us close buildings. Um I'll give that in my assignment, but I I just I'm not confident that we've seen everything that we need to see. What I am confident in is that much of that 400,000 400 million, excuse me, includes status quo. And I'm going to say it again that I think we need to um I'm interested in the details. I would love a fourth column or a fifth column that provides us with the details of merged corridors with partnerships and all
149of that, but I think the administration has more work to do in providing that information for us um under the under the responsibility of accountability. So, I'm all for providing additional columns so that we can get more succinct information hopefully with the guys of not continuing the status quo that we've had right now. I'm going to tell you right now partnerships with regard to career tech and investments in talent doesn't look like contracts the same way that I think some it has been described, but it does look at doing some of our existing programming better, more efficiently and um that and I I've spoken to Superintendent about it right after our last meeting where we got the presentation that we have 50 seats for the Zoo Academy, but we had 50 seats last year, we
150had 50 seats the the year before and all we're doing is providing, we're decreasing it for one school and we're expanding one seat, not even one seat per high school. To me that can be done more efficiently for our kids to be able to benefit from that. So that's just one example of where possibly we could utilize partnerships or explore the ability to do some things more efficiently and that's what I'm looking for in pathway two three, but I do think that there is a possibility to mix that with decentralization and maybe pre-COVID staffing program, I don't know, but that's the role of the administration to do that and to present that to us so that we can have those details, disaggregate that data and then make an informed decision and not a rushed decision
151and not have everything that we need. So that's my expectation. And just as a point of clarity, we were only next week's meeting was only to vote on those items that are considered in that high priorities list. The pathways were not scheduled to be voted on until the end of May. Um and that and that and it may provide some So it gives some space where if we want to have this conversation, but there were two different things that we were going to be looking at is the list of items that were within the high priorities which again I think there could be more clarity and more information provided and guidance around those things and the pathways, which again there may be more clarity and information can provided. But the that pathways was not scheduled
152to based on the schedule we presented last meeting to be done until uh the last meeting of May. Um there was certainly things we can give guidance on and we can get more information and have plenty of space to talk about. Any other thoughts on this particular topic or anything else the superintendent or treasurer would like to share this time? So just just kind of going forward, um we'll I think that with that a consensus, we will continue working on all three pathways as as options and maybe some blends of pathways. Is that Is that the consensus on them? I think what might be helpful and it and this may be a way to share the pathway I concepts or ideas at at our next meeting. Um it so one, I think breaking the high
153priority up into the the legal or to the CBA compliance and maybe specifically like the school related compliance CBA uh as well as legal compliance. Central office dollars that would go and go across there. The information's there. They could just maybe add something to that part. That's one. The pathways I do think there seems to be a little discussion around the merger of a little support around the merger of decentralizing and and the uh pre-COVID staffing levels using the quarters. There doesn't seem to be a little more support to that idea. But with any of the pathways, I think what folks are asking for at least and again, please you know, feel free to anyone to correct me on this. What they're kind of asking for is kind of what's by using this pathway what
154are the expectations of our academic us being able to achieve academic goals or how will we do those things? And I do think we still should also have in there what are we giving up? Because I think it is a reality we can't sit here and keep talking about all the positives without also addressing what we would be giving up by doing those things, but putting them together, so it's a more clear picture of everything to that part. And then based on that, maybe in the next discussion we if we identify pathway that looks better than others or if we say all of them there, then will we start then asking more information on for the next couple meetings is the dollars behind those pathways. Like what does it look like? What does a potential
155budget look like built upon those pathways? Any Just really quickly cuz I think we need to set expectations. Mr. Gusman did provide the school based staffing breakout in the information he sent. And we're worried about the 400 million. If you total up the state federal compliance and CBA compliance, it's 330 million of that. So like I just I just want everyone to understand if we separate that out Set me up. It's still we're still voting on 330 million dollars. So to your point, we are just a staffing based budget. I just want to call that out. But um but yeah, again, I think we can I will encourage everybody also again, Treasurer Gusman provided a means to provide thoughts and feedback and questions. Please use it. Uh but if for the sake of of discussion
156today, I think that is where we were kind of landing at and we'll bring more information back at the next meeting. Cool. Thank you. Rules. All righty. Uh um Where are we at on my agenda? All right, so the next item um Superintendent Murphy, uh would you like to introduce the next uh topic? I am going to be giving an update uh about the strategic plan. Our next board meeting, uh Bellwether and Rice are scheduled to attend. Uh and so, they will be giving that um live presentation. But, I do want to share with you as of today, we've had a few meetings with both Bellwether and Rice. We have engaged in breakout sessions uh with them around several questions. So, on the next slide, um thank you, Rob. You can see and you uh
157what steps have been taken and things that are put in place already. Uh I think it was mentioned earlier that there are uh individual conversations with board members scheduled. Uh and we're excited about that. And in addition to those conversations, they met today with the senior leadership team. Uh and as they continue, um they're going to be meeting with the advisory committee in a small group format to uh get things started. But, what they're looking to present to you and to the public over the course of time are those things listed on this slide, which include the current state, the strengths, the opportunities, the risks, including our financial status. And so, on the next slide, you can see a little bit more about the dates um that they are planning to get things done. The
158first three blue ribbons have been completed. Uh the more program engagement is in progress. Um the student cabinet, we do meet on Friday. And so, they are going to take that my meeting that I have with students uh and talk with them about what they are seeing and what they are interested in. And then, we did identify schools at their request, a variety of schools for them to visit uh Bellwether when they're on site May 5th and May May 6th, I'm sorry. May 6th and May 7th. Then on the next slide, um those are the identified schools. Uh and basically that was done by the superintendents um getting together, having a conversation, and providing a variety of schools uh for them to visit. On the next slide, um we did the kickoff today with senior
159leadership. Uh they'll be working with different project leads. They are finalizing school visits with the superintendents and the principals in terms of a little bit more detail around who, what, when, where, why. They have a document uh that they have shared with us that we will also share out uh with the school houses. And then they'll be sharing specific um they've asked us to share any inquiries you may have with them, Bellwether in particular. So this is summary of what's happened since the in the last couple of weeks, actually. Mhm. Uh board members, questions? Uh board member Crossett. Yes. Um I've had a a couple people in the community come and ask me how they could be involved in the engagement processes. These are folks that uh some I've got a workforce development person who
160seems to have some background in that that might be interesting or some folks in uh some of the other um community uh development areas. Is there a way for people still to get engaged? Yeah, absolutely. Um if you want to share with me, um that would be fantastic and that's for anyone who uh knows someone who is interested in particular and I will definitely give to Rice and to Bellwether. Mhm. Uh let's see, board member Matt. All right. Yeah, so just the question. So, for for the identified school site visits, um this is consisting of Rice going to those particular schools to have discussions with >> I believe Bellwether is going to those schools. Okay. Mhm. Okay. So, what does that then look like for, I guess, um I guess Bellwether and Rice to engage
161with, you know, other schools within our other school communities within our district, whether it's students, teachers, parents, um what does that look like? And then also, I guess, you I know you talked about the assistant who's kind of identified these would be schools to uh target for Bellwether to attend. Is there additional, you know, discussion around why these specific schools? Uh we basically were simply looking for a variety, you know, K-6, K-8, high school, middle school. That's it. They didn't give us any parameters for which to make the decisions, um and I think this is just a starting point as well. Okay. And then what about that second piece, uh that second question around like the additional engagement for um school communities to be able to participate? Yes. Uh so, I believe that Rice is
162going to be doing the bulk of that type of engagement in terms of getting with the teachers, having conversations with students. So, for example, I mentioned the more um students participating with Rice, also uh Friday with the superintendent's student leadership cabinet. So, there's going to be more of that that'll be handled by uh Rice. Those students are or those schools shared Bellwether is doing those. Okay. Okay, thank you. Mhm. Vice President Moffett. So, thank you. I I asked this question a little bit earlier um and they said to ask on the floor, so here we go. I um I'm concerned that we're steering with the school selection, so I wanted to know um if we could and I think that there was some discussion around having like a QR code or something where um the
163opportunity to engage is broader than just what we're selecting, what we're hand selecting. Um and I also was um do we know how many like what what's their target number of people to engage with? Do they have that data? Cuz it sounds like I thought we were doing Rice for engagement and Bellweather for some of the other pieces and it sounds as if now it's both engaging. So, may I'm a little confused on to how what what the plan is. It doesn't sound very maybe I missed it, so I'm it doesn't sound clear to me, but I thought we were doing um Bellweather for the finances section and then Rice for the engagement part. >> Yes, ma'am. So, Bellweather when they visit the schools will be actually going in classrooms too to see what practices
164we have in place. Rice isn't going to be visiting any of the classrooms when they do their small groups or a variety of conversations, so I think that's what the difference there is. What is Bellweather looking for that is tied to the strategic plan when they're visiting classrooms? Well, our instructional practices, which is critical to know um so that we can talk about what direction we're moving in. What did you say? I'm sorry. Oh, our instructional practices, I'm sorry. So, they have shared with us a document that lists out kind of information that they're going to be looking for. Okay. Well, then I I'm very interested in whomever is doing the engagement to get as broad of an if we can cast as broad of a net as possible. Um I would love for them
165for the money I would love for them to visit community councils, get the community's perspective if we can. Um I I as as I suggested before that they kind of need to understand legislatively what we're faced with in order to truly engage around our future planning. But I But I'm also very curious around like the list. So, there have been some people that reached out and said that they would love to provide some feedback. So, that's why I'm I'm also curious around where do we direct them to? If where do we direct them to? So, can we also have a list of places that they've been, places that they're going to go so that we can add to it or suggest partners or so >> Yes, it I will get that information from them. I
166do know that they shared some people that they've already spoken with politically, legislatively, or if you have names in particular you want to share with me, I can get them to them right away. I just what we should be able to get a list of who they've spoken with. So, it'll be broad, right? Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. Any other comments? I'll just share two quick thoughts. One is I I believe when we spoke with them, there was the opportunity to provide like QR codes or something to that effect of of ways to connect folks into surveys because the reality is that not everybody's going to be able to go to a forum or whatever. So, like just if we can get some of those type of things so that we can certainly publicize it
167and make it at least more apparent through whether it's through our social media, whether it's through a website or something to that effect or some way of communicating it out in support of the efforts we're doing. Um and then I think it'd also be helpful when Rice uh is present at our next meeting to really walk through those things that they've been doing and what they were continuing to do based on the schedule they gave through May um to do that engagement because I do think their engagement is a little bit different. I know at least from what we were presented at the last meeting Bellwether was going to do a lot more of the strategic in-house engagement with the leadership team, with the board members. That aspect of Rice was doing the more community
168engagement uh student parent engagement uh lens of it um which is a lot more people, so um and I again I believe that uh when we had Leslie when we met with with uh Rice and Bellwether Leslie uh Rice had shared a lot more of the ways that she was going to do it than maybe any of them up in our last meeting. So I definitely think it maybe having uh a little bit more of the things that she was able to share about the ways that they were engaging in and maybe the the returns they're seeing or the the perks and benefit you know, the amount of folks that are getting they're able to talk to, the things that they've been able to attend and be a part of and that type of deal
169might be helpful also in that discussion next week. Um and I'm mindful of giving them time to do that discussion but also mindful of us uh using our agenda the best way possible to get work done. Anything else from board members? No. All righty. So we're pretending we've still got another one on the agenda here, so Okay, yes. This is uh a fan favorite. This is uh our community segment and I am going to start and then Ms. Shirley Green um so quick. Uh, but I do want to let everyone know on the next slide, Rob, if you are not aware, Cincinnati Public Schools is turning 200 years old. And so you will start to hear some announcements, uh, get some information about how you can participate in helping us celebrate our bicentennial. So definitely
170want everyone to be on the lookout as we talk about our rich history. Uh, our General Counsel, Dan Hoing, gives us a history lesson every February. Thank you so kindly. Um, but this will give us an opportunity to talk about how we started as the common schools of Cincinnati, um, how we were serving the families of the Queen City, how, uh, Woodward Career, well, Woodward High School, um, is the oldest school west of the Alleghenies, and more and more and more. So stay tuned for that. The other thing I wanted to share before Michelle E. Green starts is on the next slide. Uh, we had a chance to be in the, um, opening day parade. And in particular, our students, and these are pictures of students who participate in the All-City Band for Cincinnati Public
171Schools, were absolutely amazing and impressive. They, uh, not only performed, uh, they marched, they participated, but they also kind of did a polite battle, I'll say, uh, with Winton Woods, um, High School, and you would have if been so proud. Just would have been so proud. Uh, the streets are lined with people cheering for them, cheering on Cincinnati Public Schools, and wanted to make sure you were able to see some of those pictures. All right. Then on the next slide, Michelle E. Green is going to start to give everyone a heads-up about all of the activities we are engaged in with the community this upcoming summer. Is this on? All right, thank you, Rob. Um and board, I'm going to walk through some of our spring and summer events um that the district is participating
172in as well as leading over the summer. The first we have our Evanston Health and Resource Day. Um that is coming up this weekend on Saturday the 11th. It's from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. There's going to be free health screenings, free lunch, um there's family fun with a DJ, senior education session, um aging senior education session, and giveaways. Um our district will have a table there, so we're inviting all to come out. Again, that's Saturday, April 11th, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Evanston Recreation Center. Next we have our Evanston Memorial Day Parade, and that's taking place on Monday, May 25th, 2026. The Evanston Community Council is extending an invitation to participate in its annual parade that celebrates our veterans and our active military service members. Um the parade will start at
173the Evanston Recreation Center. That's at 3204 Woodburn Avenue, and participants who are interested should arrive at 9:00 a.m. The parade procession begins at 10:00 a.m. following a 2-mile route throughout the community. So, any interested participants, whether it be staff, students, families, community partners, please see the QR code on the slide as well as the Bitly link. We invite you uh to sign up and walk with CPS. Next up, we have our end of school year bash. Um this is a partnership between Cincinnati Public Schools and the Cincinnati Recreation Commission. This is happening on Saturday, May 30th, um also at the Evanston Recreation Center. Um they are working to extend their RecNight, so that's why it's happening at the Evanston Recreation Center. And it is an end of school year event that is focused on connecting
174students with recreation as well as community resources as they head into the summer. So, you can expect vendors, food, youth center activities. Students and families and community members are invited to this free open access event. Again, Saturday, May 30th from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. the Evanston Recreation Center. This is an exciting one. One of my very first events that I attended when I joined the district is the Employee of the Year celebration. It's happening this year Monday, June 1 from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. at the School for Creative and Performing Arts. Every year since May public schools recognizes 50 employees as Employee of the Year. The winners are nominated by their colleagues and selected based on their union group by their respective presidents. So, the Office of Marketing and Communications assists with getting the
175nomination out which it is currently active. We are accepting nominations through this Friday, April 10th, so we encourage all to nominate their colleagues for Employee of the Year. Our Juneteenth celebration happening June 20th, 2026 at Ethan Park is going to be from noon to 8:00 p.m. We are encouraging all volunteers as well as participants to again sign up using the link and the QR code. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865 when enslaved people in Texas were finally informed of their freedom marking the end of slavery in the US. So, again, we invite the community to join us at Ethan Park where we will also have a booth. The festival will begin with this traditional parade of flags representing the African diaspora, and then once the parade ends, please stay to enjoy fun family-friendly activities. And again,
176volunteers are welcome to support CPS's booth. We have the Pride Parade and Festival. New this year, CPS will have a booth in addition to participating in the parade. So again, we invite you to please sign up using our QR code or the link. Um the parade route begins at 7th Street and Plum, travels down Vine Street past Fountain Square, and ends at the Pride Festival location of Sawyer Point and Yeatman's Cove. So again, we welcome individual participation as well as department and school participation to support our booth this year. Um that's on June 27th, 2026. Please arrive at 10:15 a.m. for the parade, and then 11:00 a.m. kickoff, and then the festival takes place downtown Cincinnati, um again from noon to 8:00 p.m. The NAACP Block Party is happening this year. It's expected to take
177place in July, however, we don't have any further details at this time. More to come as we are made aware, but please mark that on your calendar. And then I'm going to do um go a little bit out of order and highlight the Black Family Reunion Parade and Festival at Sawyer Point. That's happening this year, August 13th through the 16th. Uh CPS will participate in the parade as well as have a booth at this annual event. We are looking for staff members, individuals, and departments to sign up to volunteer. And then last and certainly not least, we have our annual CPS Back to School Fest. That's happening Saturday, August 8th from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Washington Park. I know it may sound a little strange to already be preparing for back to school,
178but we are starting early and we are inviting again participants, community partners to sign up via our website. At this annual event, we will have staff on site for more information about our schools, programs, potential job opportunities. All CPS schools will take part. We are working to be new and improved this year accepting feedback that we received from last year hoping to help our families with things such as technology, how to navigate focus, canvas, other things like that. So, that is a high-level overview of our spring and summer events. All right. Uh any questions, thoughts, feedback from the board? Seeing none. Good job. Um there's a lot of stuff that we are doing and then love to have as many people as possible out there supporting us each year and each and every one of
179these events. Um all righty. So, now we will move to our board matters section here. We had three that were there, but are additional board matters or assignments or other inquiries. Certainly we'll take those uh opportunity as well. I think the first one Vice President Moffitt on preschool enrollment. Yes, it was I'm trying to bring up my my my I had asked a question at the beginning of March around um preschool enrollment data. I know that many of our schools expressed that they a few years ago that they would be able to fill up their enrollment pre- for preschool with siblings. At that time, that's when we had Bramble as a preschool. A lot of our families did not want to split their students up. They wanted to maintain uh the kids at one building
180and I know that we were directing students, preschoolers, to Bramble instead of allowing some of the schools to um open up classrooms. So, my question was around that and it involved being able to get data that um kind of how many students are applying that if if they're applying for preschool A, they're not getting preschool A, they're getting preschool B. So, that was what the impetus around my uh question was. It was answered partially, but not completely. So, I did send an email today with kind of want the um give the administration a little bit of time, but I know that I'm wondering if is there a way for us to capture how many of our families want preschools in certain areas that they're not getting in those areas. Um I did look at the
181spreadsheet from Mr. Gullahill and was able to see some of the preschools are low. Um the some of the enrollment is low at the school, but my question was around um specifically the areas of um as board member Bolton shared, Bolton Berg, Hayes Porter, the areas where Tazewell Elementary, John P. Parker, uh Woodford, some of our schools that have historically been able to fill a preschool on that level. My mind is thinking as a feeder to kindergarten, we can get the preschoolers in and um they've been limited around their um their preschool uh availability options. I know that we're for the future not opening up some s- Rising Stars classrooms or Ezor Charles, one of the two. And so, I just wanted to hear from the administration, what is some of the plans since I
182know that it's been possibly proposed to not have some of our preschool classrooms. What is the plan? Is there a long-term plan around that? So, I don't know, Dr. Moffitt, about students families choosing a preschool area and not being able to go or being funneled into a second choice. I'm not sure about that, but I will follow up. And then, as it relates to um Taft Elementary, last year the proposal was to move Rising Star Vine, this was last last year. Rising Star Vine preschool classrooms to William Howard Taft, but that was not allowed. There was there was not interest in that. So, I'm not sure about that. We wanted to actually add a lot more classrooms there. Um as it relates to Rising Stars at Ezor Charles, what we talked about this year, what
183for next year was is there a possibility to move those classrooms to Rising Star Vine because there is space available. The rationale around that is the number of students at the Rising Stars Ezor Ezor Charles and that allowing us the ability to move forward with increasing our adult education programs that are in that building. But, we're not there yet. So, those are the conversations I am aware of. Have not had a conversation with Rothenberg. I have not had a conversation with Hayes or Woodford about preschool for next school year. Those haven't come to my attention at all. Okay, well, that's great to know because I did kind of get brought into some city conversations around um extensive track data and um possible enrollments for downtown just looking at it from um actually from a real
184estate standpoint. And there is there there it was mentioned that possibly there would be an influx of little people into that to the downtown community. And so I'm just wondering what what our intentions are if we're closing you have low enrollment >> to have that data, that information, those reports because the only thing I believe I know is that City West, there are some residents were super concerned about where they will live because of sale of property. Uh I know last last week there was uh several residents at City Hall asking what's going to happen with them to us. Um I've heard that um the build the apartment building might be on hold uh for now. Little what am I thinking about? At Liberty and Stanley Row. Stanley Row. Mhm. But I've not heard about
185an influx of young families or young children at all. So if there's something that you can point me to >> I'm No, there's there's really not that My question was based off of that information, but definitely curious about why we're as a district not expanding some preschools um and we're closing classes for next year. I I just wanted to understand um and I know that we've done this before where this was applicable for Woodford where we were not allowing them to open up an additional preschool and families I know they reached out to myself, they reached out to board former board member Weinberg that they wanted to go to certain schools and that they were not they were directed in in a different direction. So that's what the impetus behind my question was is are
186we doing that because multiple families have shared that they have applied for specific preschools and they were not admitted into those preschools, they were admitted into others of some of the schools that I've I've shared. And um I didn't know that we were doing that and then also if we are doing those things what is the plan because I wasn't aware of one. Well, I I can just share when we spoke to Ms. Brooks about that question um she too said she didn't have any knowledge of people being redirected or if there was space for their first choice them not getting it and then for this upcoming school year I I don't know it's maybe it depends on how you look at it. I wouldn't say the conversation was around closing classrooms but those rising
187stars as in Charles perhaps moving those classrooms. Okay, well, I'm just going to and again I sent an email today. I'm I'm happy to continue the assignment but my um I sent an email asking for a little bit more data and my questions were for preschool enrollment requests by school, final preschool placements by school, the number of students not placed in the requested schools, the primary reasons requested placements were not granted, whether sibling preference is considered and if so how is it applied, capacity, staffing, transportation or programmatic constraints affecting placement decisions and any historical comparison data showing the requested placement versus final placement trends over the last several years. So I'm happy and I actually asked for data related to Ezra Charles Woodford Taft Elementary, Hayes-Porter, Silverton, John P. Parker, and Rothenberg particularly in light
188of conversations that their enrollments are very low and in those particular communities um there are discussions around um you know, of course gentrification, but the possibility that there there may be um some some in in increase and I don't know what the what what that is. I'm happy to share any information that I do get or and and or include you in conversations, but um I just wanted to know what we were doing. Mhm. Uh see board member Bolden had a thought on this. Just a recollection from this current year, one of the decisions I thought we did make uh last year in a budget was to consolidate some of our preschool uh sites >> We did. >> in order to save on staffing. And that certainly would contribute to maybe some people not getting
189into their first choice, but I think it was a budget decision we made uh and I think it was director Brooks that presented uh that to us through you um and that's just would be what my my uh recollection and then whether or not that would be would continue to be a cut uh uh this coming year would be something we could decide yet again or not decide to do. >> That's good to know, but it it sounds like the administration doesn't even have the data that we've directed them at other Well, so Deb is telling me it is it has been updated in board assignments. Is that accurate? So, I think I've gotten the information that was added from um Mr. Gollaher and Director Brooks. That doesn't answer my question, but thank you. But
190I did get I did get that information. If we made a decision, thank you for sharing that, that classes will be combined, then we should have the data on requested classroom, requested building, and then the redirection of them to a different building. So it didn't sound like we even had that data, and that's what I was asking for is what is the data around students, families that have requested building A? And it could be because we we merged it, but what is the data around I requested this one cuz I got a sibling in the third grade, and then where did they land? And those are the specifics that I asked for and that I didn't get. So it's still open. Hopefully we didn't mark it as as a completed, and then I know that
191we had that data. That's why I'm I'm just very confused that we didn't we weren't able to produce it. I'll bring this back up at the next meeting if we're able to Sure. continue it. Thank you. Um and I don't know if Board Member Map you had something you want to add on to the What are your thoughts on here? Just briefly that these Thank you for bringing this concern up around preschool expansion. I do know that we've been having conversation in the budget and finance committee meeting. And so I too have requested what is that demographic study look like, right? So that we can know where our students are, what we're expecting to see with our student population, so that we are able to make those very informed decisions as you're talking about. Um
192thank you for the reminder. I don't recall the consolidation piece, but I'll go back and reference it as well, but that is helpful to know. But as we are talking about the aspect of growth, I do think that it is worth considering having that preschool opportunity or that pipeline because again, we know that it will help to support our enrollment and grow our district. Yes, there there are some financial implications in terms of we recognize that we don't get funding for preschool, but again, that may be something that we have to look at in terms of a cost-benefit analysis. We may not get the the funding on the front end, but what does that look like as the students continue to matriculate throughout our district. So, I am too interested in that conversation, especially knowing
193that there are principals that are saying, "Hey, we can we can grow our enrollment numbers." There are families that's also looking for the opportunity to have preschool classrooms available as well. And also recognizing from the presentation that Ms. Brooks provided us at our retreat, the positive impact as it pertains to academic growth with our students. So, I think it's a great conversation to continue to have. All right. Um Just on that one last thing, my recollection is last year two or previous years and I and perhaps this is still true, the over time when we really had great dispersal of our sites, preschool sites, it's my recollection that it was Kilgore and Hyde Park that did not have preschool classes. If I recall, cuz they were cuz the buildings were too small. They didn't have
194space. So, I mean, it I want to just make sure that the the my recollection is that the two schools before the consolidation that actually didn't have preschools as feeders were those two and I think that's one of the main encouragements that I was made about Bramble, that if you wanted to try to get a preschool started at either Kilgore or Hyde Park too, that might be the only space available, but it was interesting to me that because the schools were small and the demand was so great, unfortunately, they they were the two schools of all of our schools, maybe, that didn't have a preschool effort there. But, that's my I That's my recollection, so take it for what it's worth. Not so much, but that's what I remember. Yeah. Um all right. Well, and
195I think what we can have is a uh superintendent, if you if you and your team want to just review the requested additional clarification points, Mhm. um I'll provide those um through the normal method, and then what uh there's additional conversation we can have at the next meeting uh about it. Uh the next topic uh is the junior high middle school naming engagement survey results. Um just So, A, I'm bringing this up so that this was just it was shared with everybody um in a packet, but I'm bringing it up because I think this is kind of the first stages of the general conversation points, which is just a survey was done, and I don't know if uh Mr. Bajer wants to come down and just give a really quick summary of what was done.
196Um but and I'm sorry, Mr. Bajer and Michelle Green come down and talk really quick about what was done. I think we all were given one. Yes. We we all were given those in a packet. Um but, just as a highlight, the next step is just for uh policy to ensure that whatever naming process we go through is in adherence with board policies. So, that's really the only discussion I've we've kind of directed to to policy, so not an actual name-specific discussion, but just that we're adhering to board policy when it comes to any particular name changes. And then we will do is bring back to the board um a bigger, more robust conversation. This is just to give some feedback that was done as part of the process. Um so and I was actually
197requested as an assignment. Uh so I want to thank the the two of them for honoring my assignment that was given to me. Making sure it gets done. But please give us just kind of a general Good evening everyone. Um first off wanted to say thanks to Jessica Shirley Green and her department. They really helped us behind the scenes make this survey possible. So thank you so much for that. Um can you go to the next slide or just Yeah, I won't read it word for word. Um but we were able to get out in the community and visit our schools. We we had talked to you um several of our parents, alumni um at different events. We scan we created a barcode. So at community council meetings um that we were able to attend.
198They were able to scan the codes and get feedback. Um And total responses was 537 and you can see those individual responses and overall feedback on the middle school model as well. Um just so you know we did three in semester one and three this semester for those community engagements. So what you'll see in the packet that was provided is just the particular names and and kind of the voting order that they that the folks who were surveyed and and and participated that just those who participated in the survey gave correct Correct. They gave yeah they gave feedback. I will want to highlight on a couple things. The Ethel M. Taylor, Cummingsville, Millville, they were very adamant that we their opinion their feedback with Ethel M. Taylor should stay and they didn't care what was
199behind their name but the Ethel M. Taylor they was very clear on that. Hartwell community they showed up and showed out and they believe the history of Hartwell, what it means to them and their small community. So, they they were all behind the Hartwell name. And Schroeder, Schroeder as well. Uh They don't want to be high school. That was very clear. Yeah. They don't want to be associated with junior high school. You're okay. You're okay. Um And again again it it I want to acknowledge that Assistant Superintendent Badger had provided this information a while back and I had not brought it to the table for us discussion. So, that is on me. Um but now I will open up to any additional thoughts before we kind of keep that process going. But I see Board
200Member Bolton. Yes. Um I won't spend a lot time this time because you're saying this is only the beginning of this discussion. I I do want to make sure uh that um this is very important uh to get this right. And I have shared some views along the way about at least one time thing to be thinking about. I think all of these schools need to be called middle schools because we made a commitment to starting middle schools regardless of the grade span cuz that can vary based upon space. We have made a commitment and I think this year having these middle schools has demonstrated that those that age group will will benefit from an actual authentic middle school philosophy uh implementation. And so, that is one area where I think very s- very strongly
201that these could be and should be middle schools and they some shouldn't be junior highs and some shouldn't be middle schools. They should be middle schools and uh I have also an interest uh I have preferred that none of them necessarily carry a neighborhood name and I said that early on because I think that it has an impact on the marketing. Uh but you know, recent maps that just showed tonight, maybe that is helpful. Uh not necessarily hurtful. Uh but that being the case, I think that makes sense for Pleasant Hill to remain as as Pleasant Hill and certainly Ethel Taylor to remain as Ethel Taylor only because I knew the woman, but she was a moving force in this community and that community and it's the only reason there's school there. Uh very frankly,
202period over and done with. So, I think that's important. I won't go further than to say too that we have 13 neighborhood schools as we look at marketing and it's here up here, too. That our neighborhood schools that don't carry a neighborhood name. And I would hope maybe as a part of the strategic plan, somehow those schools um actually say in their logo or on the wherever that they are located in a particular neighborhood. I think that would really help us to to present our total neighborhood package, which is quite significant and certainly the fundamental the building block for our district. Last thing at least tonight and I I think it's important to follow the policy for sure. Um I'm going to be adamant and sometimes I am and sometimes I'm not and I'm going
203to be adamant that a part of our Cincinnati public black history be rediscovered and that the name of John Isom Gaines reappears. We have lost somebody that was described by his contemporaries as second only to Frederick Douglass in the United States of America. He was a native Cincinnatian. His parents were native Cincinnatian. He's an entrepreneur who became the head of the black school board and created that separate system that wasn't existing. So, I whether that happens and there's any number of these schools could work. Geographically, either South Avondale could work carrying that name or Schroeder Middle School could carry that name uh for geography reasons. Mr. Gaines is buried in Madisonville because the body was exhumed from the African-American cemetery in what was then Avondale when the community decided they didn't want to have an
204African-American cemetery in their community. His body and the other African-American folks, many of them, were their bodies were transferred to Madisonville, which has a proud civil rights history. So, I I'm just going to say I'm going to be adamant about rediscovering that lost black history of John Isom Gaines and I just want that to get into the the churn. And we have students at SCPA that have done the research. Walnut Hills Historical Society did the research about regaining the Gaines name and I think this is one of those opportunities cuz we're not creating many more schools. Uh this could be an opportunity and I I just I'm heartfelt and and and committed that this that this go on and I'll be sharing and I know Mr. Hoing can share information too about uh Mr. Gaines.
205So, just a great opportunity. Thank you. And thanks for bringing it back to the table. Yes. Um Well, thank you for that information. Yep. So, I have a question for you. Um were were they given just two names or the like how did they come up with these names? So, I'm losing my voice. You want a mint? So, they had three options. Um one of the options where they could submit a name as well. Mhm. Um so, you remember we're dealing with junior high students, so not all the names that they submitted I could give to you. Okay. Um but they were able to submit names. Um if they had more than one, we we were able to uh put it on on the slide here. >> Yeah. Um we do have the individual, like
206the ones that just had one, we can send that to you if you want to see it. >> No, no, I just I'm I'm curious as to how they they they came up with, you know, Ethel Taylor Junior High School. Like I did they come up with those names or were they just presented with three names? My only other concern um is that I want because of the huge outpouring from Hartwell, I really want to make sure that every single community council was at least solicited. And I live in the South Avondale Community Council, so I don't remember seeing you guys at my my community council meeting, but maybe you were. So, the um Principal Lewis invited the Hartwell Community Council to those meetings. Um we sent out they each Jessica sent a flyer, and
207the principals sent those flyers out to their community. Um and the Hartwell Community Council came. Well, I know Hartwell sent us a letter. So, Hartwell, I know they have been engaged, but I'm really concerned about the engagement of those other community councils. And I I know, you know, that the principals, you know, may have done their due diligence, but I'm holding you all accountable that that actually happened and that they have been engaged because particularly when we had the middle school conversations, those community council people were very involved and I want to ensure of all of those communities. I want to ensure that they can can with certainty say we got an invitation, not oh, I missed it. So, if you wouldn't mind just making certain that they are aware and have been invited to
208participate in any type of um discussions and or engagement around those names. Particularly, I think um South Avenel, like the Samuel Oc is is around there, too. So, they may have other um uh another historical reference, but I would I I do not want to get into a conversation where they can come back and say that they weren't included. So, that's my only caveat. I do kind of like the middle school thing, but I do want to um ensure that they have that there was sufficient engagement of those community councils. Thank you. All right. Um the only other thought I will share with this one is just that while these Well, the names that were offered and I'm um you know, I'm slightly curious of what these other colorful names were, but I really don't
209want to don't want to see those. Um while these names were selected, there's certainly names that we can additionally add to the plate as as board. We can kind of make those selections ourselves. What I would encourage the board though as we think about the names on buildings to also think about the longevity of the building and the potential risk of naming a building on something that we may eventually have other conversations on. Not to say we don't do it, but to be real clear, if we make a big deal about naming a building after somebody and then two years later we're talking about whether or not we should maintain that building. Like, I'm not saying that that's where we're going, but I'm saying that that we really need to make an effort to make
210sustainable names on some of our buildings. I think that's one of the things in the past is that we've named things and then we're a year later talking about how do we redesign or rethink what's going on there? And so I think anything that line we should just really be thinking about that as a as a full process, right? Like the name, the selling point of the name is the school. Right? Like the the school building itself and the things that are going on in the school. So any of those things that we can sell about the building need to be a part of why we would change the name from something that it currently is to a person's name. It's It's really the only thing I would say on that end of it. Other
211names very fine. Uh former board member here. Just really quickly, um from a facility standpoint, I would also be interested to know what the cost of changing some of these names would be. I mean, I know the Spencer Center still has Riverview East outside, so I assume that was a cost decision. Um so just just putting that out there. They technically still are there. Well, yeah, partially because they are the partially cuz they are still there is why we didn't Right, but if you're going to visit the Spencer Center to tour, you don't see Spencer on the building. It's a little bit misleading. Um but I do think yeah, again, I think other things such as the cost of any of the changes to the buildings, those are things are all things we would want
212to know. Um It's a it's a fun fun uh process here. But thank you for bringing this to us. And then again, as I said at the beginning, the next step is really just to ensure that the policy committee just ensures that we are following policy on any process that we would choose to do the naming. And then the next stage is to bring it back to the full board for the actual names themselves. All righty. Uh the last one that was uh submitted as far as board matters, uh again falls back to me. That is our um our calendar. Uh for our meeting schedule, the board meeting schedule. So a draft of this was I'm sorry. A draft of this was shared with board members. Um we do need to vote on this. So
213what I what I would have asked if if someone would We get a motion and then a second and then we'll have some discussion. I move to pass the proposed budget or not budget. Rewind. Proposed calendar for 2027. Second. Okay, so we have a a motion and a second. Any discussion with regards to the 2027 board meeting schedule? Board member Bolton. Are we still looking at the same times? Yes. Yes, I did. >> 5:30 I mean start versus a 5 start or a or doing Cal at 4 or rather or lunch as it used to be done. I think the proposed start times of meetings had not changed. That is something that a board the board could make a decision on. I think the real concern that we were want trying to do is to
214make sure we get the meeting date on the district calendar. >> because it's in writing and printed. I understand that. I just think that it's something to talk about. A 5 o'clock start. I mean it's uh Absolutely. We can have an >> later. I mean I God forbid that we do what we used to do which is I think it was 6:30 or 7. Oh yes, ma'am. Well, we did move we did move the uh We won't be doing that. We did do a move of time since we've been here on the board of the start time. So again, I think those are all viable things we can we can have as part of that conversation. >> Especially about Cal. Yeah. Other any other notes? Yes. Board member Lindy. How tied are we as a
215board to the Saturday work sessions? I'm not. Saturdays can be hard. Um and I think there there is time or there's value in extended time to talk about big important things that are not a business meeting. I'm just wondering if people would consider like part of a you know, a Friday afternoon or something or or um keep people from having to come in on a Saturday. Would it be baseball season? Uh probably not. Um cuz both of them fall outside of baseball season. For It's not football season. Um I I will say this if if folks would prefer to move those dates, again, I think that's something we can always do. That's one, but I also agree I think sometimes we are using those meetings for other purposes than maybe what they were intentionally initially
216intended to. Um so for that you know, for that point I'm happy to always we can always amend the calendar as well. So I mean that's something we can always change on that part. But I I if board members would prefer to have the We can we can certainly pass it saying I'd like to register my request for a non-Saturday retreat time. Um again recognizing that that we can make those changes again we've changed board meeting dates and and based on other factors that have come out and those sort of things. So I think reviewing the potentially use of Friday instead of a Saturday uh it's certainly something we can add add to our future discussions. >> Yes. If you I think that it'd be even better to pull them and then add True. rather
217than necessarily put them on the calendar and and probably have a chance of losing it. Um I think that would be best for this calendar. Uh so that sounds like a friendly amendment. Uh, I would go to the motioner to see whether that that was an accepted friendly amendment. >> Yes, I accept your friendly amendment. Since she was raising her hand in agreement with with Ben, I figured it'd probably be accepted. >> So, uh, so to treasure goes in the the friendly amendment is to remove the Saturday, uh, sessions. This the Saturday work sessions from the calendar for the, uh, 2027 board meeting schedule. Can I just Mhm. add? For me in scheduling, it is I'm fine with removing them, but it is very difficult for me to add in real time. So, if you
218want to propose and flush out that whole Friday piece or now, I think I'm better with that. I would like to have those dates as head up as far ahead of time as possible. Even if we just make it so that we take that five or six hours and maybe make it an extra two hours, you know, once a month for three or four months. I would like to have as far advanced notice as possible because if you tell me if we go through this and then they're not there, finding a time for all of us to get something on the calendar is difficult. So, I just am proposing that we put we if we do remove them, that we actually put some tentative dates down so that we can secure something. So, currently the
219two dates that are listed for Saturday work sessions are January 30th and October 16th. And again, these are in 2027. Um, so, uh, I mean, if folks again, I don't know I I have no idea what my schedule's going to look like for then, but I think if we wanted to, um, add the Now, again, I'll also will say this. Let me add one other caveat to this. This is for us to put it basically onto the district calendar more so than it has to be hard and stone, so we can certainly make moving it one day forward and then if we decide to change it that way or if we would prefer to only have one, I'm open to whatever suggestions people make to send to our lovely person who has made the motion
220here today and to see whether or not it's a friendly amendment. Um, let's go Dr. Moffitt and then Board Member Bolton. So, this is a question that's going to require a little bit more historical perspective. So, it's directed at Board Member Bolton. Was there any particular reason why we got January and October? Yes. Uh, the reason it was October is that uh, all the scores and and data would be in uh, from the previous years and then the January was the our beginning of our our board year. So, sometimes there are new members or what have you. So, you could with having the data maybe earlier than October in total, we could move that up, but I think the January one makes sense especially if there's new members or as we are doing our organizing
221ourselves. That that yeah, so that's the reason. Thank you. Uh, Board Member Lindy. Um, that October note is interesting and given the timing of the superintendent evaluation, I actually think there's a great argument to stick it at the end of September after the report card is out before we have to vote on new goals. That way there's like dedicated time for that that doesn't have to come at the expense of some other business meeting. Um, so, look through um, that's it. That if if the calendar, the last Friday of that month is the 24th of September. Um so if the the recommendation is to again put it on the district calendar as the 24th we'll figure out the time and all the other details to it. Uh I don't know We we are talking about
222a date that is 16 months from now something I was just going to say this all sounds fine and we should really look at this September. Yeah and we can adjust that Yes. Two Septembers. But that we adjust that is separate from this calendar. So like that's already been sent out so we can do that still. Um happy to do that too. Um but if the I don't know if the recommendation is that we would do that September 24th which is the last Friday as a time if everybody's okay with that we can ask the uh the motioner that's a additional friendly amendment. Approved. Uh so the Treasurer Augustine so the amendment now stands to this is to pass the 2027 board meeting schedule removing the Saturday work sessions and adding in the September 24th
223which is a Friday as a work session. Okay. Any other changes? Step out of the room you miss things. Uh any Yes board member Augustine. Shouldn't we move the October 16th maybe to October 15th? Should we go ahead and do >> No so we moved the October 16th to September 24th. We just removed January. Say it again. We just removed January. >> Eliminated. We didn't add it back in. Okay. We can always again we can always add meetings folks. Uh but for right now that's that's where we were standing. All right. Uh Treasure Gaston. All right, Ms. Armbruster. Yes. Ms. Bolton. Ms. Bolton. Turn your mic on. Turn your mic on. So. I was unaware that we were eliminating the January meeting, so I'll vote no. That is a critical meeting with the beginning of
224the school board year. May I add to that? I don't understand this, but so no. Thank you. Mr. Crossley. I I'll vote yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Ms. Matt. Abstain is I don't even know. I just entered the conversation. Vice President Moffitt. Can you repeat what we're voting on cuz I thought that we were We are voting to approve the 2027 board meeting calendar as presented up there um amended without the either Saturday work session but adding back a September a Friday September 24th work session. So weird. Um So okay. I'm going to Abstain from this vote cuz I really just I don't I don't know how we got here and I'm wanting more discussion. So no I abstain. Abstain, thank you. President Craig. Uh yes. Um, again just as a reminder, we can always add
225meetings back onto the calendar. This is solely so we have past a meeting schedule that can be printed onto the board's calendars that are getting ready to be printed now. Um, so if we want to add more just as we will have an opportunity to amend when our meeting is in this year, we are absolutely able to do so. And just like we're going to be talking about this fall, so like we have more opportunity to to add so >> to add a meeting back in January. Yes. So I guess I just don't understand why we wouldn't do that now. We can. We No one put it a No one put an amendment out for it. So if you want to add an additional Friday in January, we can. Well, that's what I was proposing.
226No one put in the proposal. The date. Okay, that we They just missed it. I thought that's what I was saying is that we should just add that time. I'm saying we need to put a specific date. So the only date that was specifically targeted and picked was the September Friday. If we'd like to also add a January Friday, if someone wants to propose a date, we can happy to do that. I I again I'm just saying that we need to be specific. >> that we use Friday, January 29th to have a year-end meeting. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Okay, so we have a motion to add an additional meeting to the meeting schedule of for Friday, January 29th, and we have a second. Any additional discussion? No? Okay, Treasurer Gaston. Ms. Armbruster. Yes.
227Ms. Bolton. >> Yes. Mr. Cross. >> Yes. Mr. Landy. Yep. Ms. Map. Yes. Vice President Moffitt. Yes. President Craig. Yes. All right. Before any additional motions are made on this topic, Let's go to Uh we had a consent agenda uh and I want to actually clarify. This is a amended consent agenda because a item was added to, but it was placed on BoardDocs. So, we had an additional budget finance committee meeting that was not on the original agenda that was sent out, but was added in BoardDocs. It's been there, it's posted. So, the amended consent agenda is what we are going to call it and and vote on, but are there any exceptions or uh other things? Board member Matt. Yes. Uh exceptions to the treasurer's report. Uh so, page six, line items four and
228five. Page eight, line line item three. Page nine, line item nine. And lastly, page 11, line items seven and 13. All righty. Thank you. Any other exceptions? All right. So, do I have a motion to accept the amended uh consent agenda? Second. And carried. Treasurer Gaston. Ms. Armbruster. Yes. Ms. Ms. Bolton. Yes. Mr. Crosett. Yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Ms. Matt. Yes. Vice President Moffett. Yes. President Craig. Yes. Um so, I'll just say these two last things before we leave out of here cuz I want to get us out of here also. One is don't forget we have uh our joint meeting coming up on the on the 13th um with the city. Do Do we have the agenda for that? I know some people submitted when we >> It gets posted Thursday by the end
229of the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. >> you. Oh, sorry. Um yes, now so three things. So we have that meeting and then we have the calendar coming up, but any assignments um that we want to assign. So I have Vice President Moffitt and then Board Member Bolton. So I have oh shoot I'm on a list here. Hold on. I would like um I did a little bit after we got our presentation around Career Tech. I was able to do a little bit of inquiry and I would like the administration to help me understand why we don't have a relationship with the Oaks. They will bring programming to our buildings. They do they don't they also have what are called satellites. They have um where it's not transportation is not an issue where it had been
230in the past. And I would they also offer some expanded programming that I think um maybe our students could benefit from. It's a lot different of a model than what was researched and proposed pre-COVID. And so I've done a little bit of research and I'd like to um have the administration bring back some additional data on costs and what does that look like? They have models that provide staffing. They provide programming in our buildings which may help with our enrollment, but I would like for us to have some information about that. That's my one assignment. Uh and then Board Member Bolton. Yes, uh in in response to the superintendent's mentioning of the bicentennial uh I would like the administration to start to figure out how to put together a community uh committee of particularly local
231historians that uh have already expressed some interest in helping us celebrate and do the research and figure out what to do on all levels. Be it athletics or be it music, be it uh academics, buildings, uh historical experiences of for Cincinnati public would be one and the other one is kind of two for transportation. Just a reminder about seeing what the seventh and eighth grade numbers versus uh the other numbers for Metro look like and then you referenced, sir, the special uh uh uh special needs, but also field trips and whatever. I'd like a rundown of what that cost is looking like and if if the fleet thing is helping or hurting or how that's being worked out. If that pleases the rest of the board to make that assignment. All righty. Any objection? >>
232Um for member Mann. Uh so this is just a follow-up with uh Chief Burkhardt around the transportation pertaining to um our after-school programming um and those uh fleet or those microbuses um and just the cost analysis of that and um making sure that we're able to provide equitable access for uh after-school programming. I have one more. Okay. Uh Vice President Moffett. Um I asked a question around um Rawson House and what was the what what is the plan for uh Rawson the Rawson House and an update. And so I I know we had talked about commercial zoning was an issue and then um received some additional information. I just like a little bit more clarification about that. Um You So, uh we're certainly going to now have it where you have it where you can
233certainly give it as part of an assignment just to give clarity to that. Just clarity, Dr. Maffei, you you want us to answer what we're doing with Rawson administration. Sorry. So, so just the reason I'm a little confused, I apologize, is because what I understand the purpose is now is CAN support for space. What I didn't know, probably a year ago, is when we had the conversation with well, ABC at the time. So, are you asking administration Sorry. So, I'm confused as to what the intention of the Rawson House property is because we had a discussion around it being utilized but needed commercial license commercial zoning. We had a discussion around the foundation utilizing the space. We've had a discussion around CAN's utilizing the space. We've spent significant amounts of money in fixing it up
234that I'm I have I don't know where that's coming from, but that's fine right now. >> based on what I know right now, I believe the plan is that it's going to be used for CANs because they need immediate additional space. I believe all of the licensing zoning zoning pieces have been satisfied for a little bit. >> So, we're going to use the building for adults because it was it was were kids allowed This is what my question is. So, you all can take your time and do the additional research and provide it back or we can have this discussion. So, I didn't know that kids could be in the building. That's what That was kind of some of the update that we had had is that we weren't able to have classrooms there and
235then we pivoted a little bit to putting the foundation there, but needing commercial zoning. So, but we we updated and updated the kitchen. We've done a lot of different So, in this plan now for CANS to have usage of the building, is that for just adults or is that for kids? We'll prepare a a full memo for the board. Okay. Thank you for that time. Yeah, thank you. All righty, um any other business? All right, so we'll see everybody on the 13th and the 15th and seeing no further business >> Motion to adjourn. Can I get a motion to adjourn? So, I'll move. Second.