001It's really >> [laughter] >> I did not have this sound I wanted. But seeing a quorum of voting members, I call the March 16, 2026 SA school board meeting to order. Uh first off, uh we do not have our normal treasurer in today. So we will have to uh have a treasure pro Tim for the evening. Um, we have our assistant treasurer, Liz Martin, filling in a role, but we do need to select a board member to be the treasure prom. Do I have any nominations for a treasure prom? >> I nominate Jim Crosset. >> Is there a second? Okay. >> Second by Dr. Moffett. Any discussion? >> Why? >> No. All right. Uh, assistant Treasure Martin. >> Miss Arburster. >> Yes. >> Board member Bolton. >> Yes. >> Mr. Board member Croset. >> Yes.
002>> Board member Lindy. >> Yep. >> Board member Matt. >> Yes. >> Vice President Moffett. >> Yes. >> President Craig. >> Yes. U. So now that we have a treasure pro Tim, I turn it over to superintendent to introduce uh our special guests for the pledge of allegiance and call and ask people to please stand. >> Thank you. Uh very excited to introduce the students from Covedale School where we are today with their principal Mr. Mike McGawen and their assistant principal Dr. Elia Benson is also in the building. Thank you. >> Please rise. Relax. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisibley and justice for all. [applause] At Coale School, I pledge to never give up, encourage others, and to
003do my best. [applause] >> All righty. >> And we have a we have a special uh presentation here. So, we'll have the principal come up and welcome us to Coedale along with uh presentation. Yes. Good afternoon everybody. We are incredibly excited to have our Cincinnati public school board here with us and our superintendent here with us this evening. Uh we have a small song uh prepared. Uh Covedale is very excited this May 1st and 2nd. We are going to be doing the Lion King Jr. here. So uh get your tickets now everybody. It'll be a great time. And we have a small preview here. Uh four of our students that are going to perform akuna matata. So no worries. I'm going to bring them up and we're ready to go. >> Right here. Right here.
004You got it. I'll stand right. Hakuna matada. [music] What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna matada. Ain't no passing [singing] face. >> It [music] means no worries for the rest of your day. [music] It's our problem. philosophy. Yeah. What's the matter with you? Mario. That's right. [music] Why? When he was a young robot. Very nice. >> Thanks. after everything [music] and it hurts that my sto [music] every time that from the CPS. >> Oh, sorry. [laughter] What a wonderful [music] no. [music] is our problem. >> Welcome to our humble boat. >> See, I'm starving. >> Yeah, I'm so hungry. I can eat a whole zebra. [applause] So, >> just want to say again, thank you very much uh Cincinnati public school board and superintendent for being here this evening. Just a small preview. Come back, visit us
005as our leader in me school. We've got lots of staff here. Excited to learn and see what we're going to do. So, thank you very much. You guys have a wonderful evening. >> Thank you. Uh, I gotta say I I I am a huge fan of the Lion King. So, it is not lost to me how great that was. And I really appreciate all the young students who make this an amazing time to come to a school. Uh, rest of the schools in the district. Y'all got to step step your game here. We come to visit. We expect a lot more now. Uh, but I will turn it over to assistant treasurer Martin to go through the roll call for today. Board member Arm Brewster >> here. >> Board member Bolton >> present. >> Board
006member [clears throat] Crossett >> here. >> Board member Lindy >> here. >> Board member Matt >> here. >> Vice President Moffett >> here. >> President Craig >> here. Uh Vice President Moffett, would you please explain the virtual hearing of the public process? >> Absolutely. Members of the public who are online and wish to speak during our hearing of the public this evening may do so by clicking the chat button now. The chat feature will be open for your request 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. Thank you, Dr. Moffett. Uh, I need a motion and a second to approve the March 16th, 2026 business meeting
007agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> As Treasure Martin. >> Board member Armbster. >> Yes. >> Board member Bolton. >> Yes. >> Board member Crosset. >> Yes. >> Board member Lindy. >> Yes. >> Board member Matt. >> Yes. >> Vice President Moffett. >> Yes. >> President Craig. >> Yes. All right. So tonight's agenda is approve as posted. Um we've already had our wonderful welcome from uh Principal McGowan and the the wonderful students here and again let's give them another round of applause for their [applause] so do any board members have any acknowledgements or announcements? >> Vice President I can go. >> No, you're good. Go ahead. So, I have kudos and I've mentioned my kudos last week, but now I have got evidence. These are uh and I'm welcoming all board members that were in
008attendance with me to chime in. I had an opportunity to to celebrate our CPS Marian Spencer scholars at the University of Cincinnati. You can't hear me? >> Not really. >> Is it better? Okay. Can you hear me now? >> Yeah. >> Is that a little better? I just need to talk up. And I know my mom is like, I keep telling you to talk up. So, it's just interesting she was here when I had that happen. Okay. >> So, I had an opportunity to visit the University of Cincinnati and celebrate our CPS Marian Spencer scholars joined by President Craig. Who else was there? Superintendent Murphy, Deputy Superintendent Smith. I'm going to Treasurer Augustine was there. We had a great time at the University of Cincinnati. I'm going to allow allow them. Superintendent Murphy, would you
009like to share what Marian Spencer scholarships are? I don't have the names of the winners, but we had a great time. >> Yeah, I am super excited to share. So, uh, several years ago, a couple of presidents back, uh, there was a donor who came to UC and said, "Hey, I want to find a way to give back. what can I do that would be impactful, that would be meaningful, that would support Cincinnati public schools as well as the University of Cincinnati? And the president at that time mentioned the work that was being done to honor Maryann Spencer, who is a trends setter in the city of Cincinnati in particular, but really uh across this nation. And so a scholarship fund was developed. The scholarship is a total and complete scholarship for the young people
010who earn it across our school district. And every year there is a selection made. The University of Cincinnati spends a lot of time going out to each of the high schools where they have a recipient acknowledging them, celebrating them with the balloons and their mascot. And so this is multiple years down the line. Now, we're starting to see young people graduate and get into uh uh co uh past post college and university. As a matter of fact, uh we recently hired someone to be a part of our internal audit committee who is a UC graduate and a Marian Spencer scholar. And so, uh this was the induction ceremony for the uh class. And so, well, well, well done by UC. >> Thank you. President Craig, you want to share? you were there. I know UC
011is we we share the love for UC. So what is UC providing our students? >> So the wonderful thing about the Barry and Spencer scholars is that they also in addition to getting their studies, they get a great experience to go overseas fully paid for uh every year I hear about this. I I get jealous because I wish I could have got to go to Tanzania um fully paid for and study. But they're going abroad and giving them an opportunity to learn, grow, and be leaders in those communities as they go out there. So, it's it's a really great experience. I just want to also highlight, you know, we have a school named after Marian Spencer. UC has a dorm named after Marian Spencer. It's one of those things her legacy in this city is
012so beyond um where any of us can imagine. And so, for many of these students who are going through and really being leaders in the community at UC and in Cincinnati, it is a great honor to have them as our mayor and Spencer scholars, especially because they are the pride and joys of CPS. >> So, thank you to Dr. Jones and the team over there. Rob, did I have another one? And I got an opportunity to go and see the Wiz where some of our SCPA students are participating um along with the um the arts programs here in the city. and they did a wonderful they they gave a during the reception they gave a wonderful rendition of um brand new day and it was awesome at the airoff so hopefully I think it's gone
013now but if you didn't get a chance to see it it was awesome awesome performance of the whiz and our own students attended were participants >> was that it just those two >> okay that's Dr. questions. Okay, that was it. Thank you. >> All righty. Uh, board member Aruser. >> Um, yeah, I just wanted to briefly um send some kudos out to the Dr. Odell Owens Center and the Promise Center that I had the pleasure of being at today. We have so many amazing buildings and staff members in our district. And um this building specifically I think um really just wraps their arms around children and the restorative practices I saw in place there were um really really humbling and uh just really proud to be a schoolboard member when I see moments like that.
014So um wanted to give them a big thank you for letting me be a part of their process today. >> All righty. Board member Bolton. >> Yes. Thank you very much. Um, I don't think it'll be a surprise to folks, but a number of school districts are coming to Cincinnati public in order to learn more about the community learning center Cincinnati model and particularly visit with the community learning center institute. In the past week, as some of you know, uh, we had both members of school boards and administration and city council from Columbus, Ohio spend the day uh, touring the district. And also uh just uh uh on Friday of this past week, a rather lengthy Zoom with uh board members from uh the uh school district, the 15th largest school district in the in
015the country, Charlotte Meckllinmberg, and then also around the state of Ohio, uh Campbell City, New Lexington, Ohio, and Chesapeake, Ohio are also engaged in dialogue uh with us and with the Community Learning Center Institute uh as we continue to model uh one of our um standard uh moments to be proud which is the community learning center model. So uh particularly enjoyed the uh full day with the Columbus folks uh especially considering uh they brought not only their board and their administration but also their members of city council. So thank you >> and I would hope to be able to do to join you on that one there. I unfortunately got stuck at work. So, uh, wonderful days here. Uh, board member Lindy, >> thanks so much. I had a wonderful visit to Aken High School
016a few weeks back and wanted to mention two things in particular. Uh, I got a chance to see uh, Ms. uh, Willil Helmmus. I hope I'm pronouncing the name correctly, but a fantastic engineering and robotics classroom uh, doing some things that I had never seen before. Uh, which I thought was just very exciting and the students were were very very into it. Um and then second I got to see a classroom that is uh run by uh refresh collective which is a course that students can take in hiphop songwriting and sound engineering um for uh CTE credit while they were at Aken. Um and um both the robotics classroom and uh the hiphop course uh were just very exciting to see. So, thank you to the staff and students uh at Aken for letting me
017visit a bit a few weeks back. >> All righty. Any other board member Matt? >> Uh yes. So, I first want to give a huge kudos to the students at Covedale and Principal Migo. Thank you for hosting us and I too have a uh love and an affinity for the Lion King. Um takes me back to my childhood and my children often look at me like, "Okay, is it that serious?" But so thank you all for uh just such a display um and wonderful talent. Um I have been extremely filled with just a lot of joy for the past week uh to two because I've been able to be in the schools and working directly with the students. I'm in several schools and so I just want to um give a huge shout out and
018kudos to South Aendale. I was invited to attend um by Miss Trey Turner who is their PBIS social worker um in honor of me world team mental health wellness day. And so I was able to work with a uh small group of students and we were able to have conversation about wellness which is something that I absolutely love because that's a profession from of mine right and so uh talking about you know uh boundaries talking about healthy friendships um talking about how to effectively communicate and so I I just really appreciated having those intentional conversations with the students. So thank you to Mrs. Turner as well as principal Simmons and Miss Young for inviting me. Um I talked at our last meeting about visiting Hughes STEM High School where I was able to have um
019the opportunity to speak with the ninth and tth grade students about what the role of the board is and also how they are connected and impacted by that work and how um they it's so important to make sure that they are connected and engaged with their data and the work that they do. And so, thank you to Mr. Dean Bryson and principal uh Dr. Williams for allowing me to be present. And then also Pleasant Hill Academy. If you all did not have an opportunity to attend their Black History program, you all missed an amazing performance that was led by their music teacher, um, Mr. Strange. And the students were just amazing. They were engaging in singing. They were engaging in dance. they had their drum line reflecting um H.B.CU and so it was just awesome
020work that was done and they invited the community in I'm sure and know that um Dr. Mafet will greatly appreciate that, right? So, everyone was able to be connected and we're just seeing these schools just take on that culture, right? Um, and as they're developing. So, I was really happy to see especially our middle schools um just begin to um find their identity and and grow in those spaces. And then lastly, attending Midway School. So, uh, this past week I was able to start working with my group of young girls, um, for the book club that's led by Deputy Superintendent Smith. And, uh, I was able to meet with 11 girls and we are reading A Good Kind of Trouble. And those girls were so engaged, so excited, asking amazing questions, and they are looking
021forward to the remainder of our time together. And, and as a teacher, it was music to my ears. We were talking about plot structure and all of the things and so I'm just really great uh grateful for all of the amazing work that's happening in our schools. >> Mr. Across. >> Yeah, just a quick thank you to uh the uh University of Cincinnati and their education department. On Saturday, they hosted the urban Appalachian School Summit and we had people from all over southwest and southeast Ohio here visiting with our high schools and it was a an exchange of information and ideas and problem solving and and it's uh was just great that they were willing to host that and to have that kind of interaction. Thank you. >> All righty. And then I'll give uh
022just a couple quick ones and then I will turn over to Superintendent. Um, but one I just want to say a huge shout out to Hughes and Aken and all of our teams that were competing this these last weeks. Um, I got a chance to go to the Hughes game. It was a lot of fun. They got robbed. They deserved better. Um, but honestly, I think to see our young people participating, playing their hearts out, and how passionate they took that game. I mean, you could see it in their faces when the when the uh last uh the last seconds rolled off the clock how important it was for them. It was a lot of fun to be there with them, but wish we could have pulled in a victory, but you know, next time
023maybe we won't have to play the other team and the referees. But that is my little uh editorial on that. But um I also want to just make sure we're also sharing out there that there are ways to communicate in I know Marcom will be really happy I say this but for those folks who are alum I'm hearing so much about people who are CPS alums who are out here in the world doing amazing things that we don't always get a chance to talk about and I know we've talked about it because it's one of the superintendent's big uh pillars was beyond the tassel and that idea of celebrating those folks who have taken that CPS education and gone on with And I'd love to hear more about those stories. And I think we should
024we would love to have those stories be able to highlight more um and to have those folks come back and work with our students here today because I think that's the way we lift people um is that we bring folks who have gone through and and achieved and and done more, bring them back into the schools as much as we can, but also bring the attention back to those efforts. So, I'll be sharing a couple that were sent to me, but I I will love to hear more of those be able to share be able to be shared with our administration so we can certainly highlight them in more of our uh outreach and efforts. Um, superintendent, you have any uh announcements andor retirees? >> Yes, sir. Uh, Mr. President, I do have one retiree.
025Uh, Miss Lois Fissa is retiring from Hughes STEM High School and she is an intervention specialist in our school district. So, congratulations to her. [applause] And then I do have one um announcement celebration and that is uh to our human resources team for a wonderful Cincy experience. Uh, board member map was able to come and attend. the room at that cafeterium at Woodward was completely filled. Uh we had support from the University of Cincinnati once again and the College of Mount St. Joe. Uh and so lots of people looking for social studies jobs. But uh it was a wonderful experience. I'm super proud of that HR team for being able to pull off that job there. >> Thank you. And so Oh, did you Sorry. >> Thank you, Superintendent. I figured you was going to
026share that so I wanted to save that for you. But it was an amazing experience and also people came out in the pouring rain and was present. Um and so that just really is a testament to um the hard work and the uh great things that we are doing as a district. And so, um, thank you for, uh, all of the, uh, intentionality around that experience and, uh, thank you to the HR, uh, human resources and talent team. >> All right. Always great to bring in more talent into this district. I think that's we're striving for at all times here. But, um, so, let me go back to my script here. I think we are now the time for, uh, the hearing of the public. And I know we do not have any in person.
027Rob, do we have any virtually? All right. Well, Dr. Moff, you want to give them the uh the good old script here? >> Alrighty. We are now at the item on our agenda for hearing of the public. Each speaker will have two minutes and we'll address all comments to the presiding officer. If you do have any materials or presentations wanting to be distributed to the board, please give them to our administrative assistant, Miss Phyllis Davis, in the back. If you're online, once a request to speak has been granted, you'll be invited to enter. You should click on that camera icon to go interactive, provide us with 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 you may have. This request
028is consistent with board pro protocol, and we appreciate your help. But in the unusual event that someone is not willing to follow this protocol, we reserve the right to end that person's time. Again, each person will have 2 minutes to speak. When the timer goes off, your time is up. Please refrain from discussing any personnel items. And after speaking, if you're online, you will briefly see the welcome screen again as you transition back to the live stream meeting. Rob, how many do we have? >> Thank you, uh, vice chair. We have two speakers today. The first will be Sarah. Sarah Vank, you can go ahead. You have two minutes. Good evening members of the board and superintendent Murphy. My name is Sarah Vank and I am a speech language pathologist at Roslon. I just wanted
029to start tonight by extending a sincere thank you to board member Dr. Moffet and board member Armbster. Thank you so much for taking the time to come visit Reese Rosland recently. You had the chance to see some of our really special and wonderful students. You even had some coffee with them that they made for you. And I just want to say thank you. Your presence in our halls really meant a lot to us. We felt a lot of hope after that visit. I also wanted to acknowledge the progress we've made thanks to your efforts. Because of your follow-through, we have finally received vital information regarding our endowment funds. Having that clarity is a significant step towards um what we want to do at Roson and we really appreciate the transpar transparency. And even um Mr.
030Guston, the CFO, came out to Rosant to talk to us and that was huge. So, thank you. So, however, while we celebrate these wins, we must address a really critical gap that remains. Despite the information we've gained, we are still not meeting the fundamental needs of some of our most vulnerable students. Their bodies and their learning are being impacted at a pretty significant rate because of this gap. Um, this is largely due to the loss of a staff position that occurred without warning. So, while we have managed to put some short-term solutions in place, we don't have a long-term solution, and we need to restore the level of support our students require and deserve. So, I'm here tonight to say thank you. Thank you again. Thank you so much. And I just want to say
031Roslan will be back. We will continue to advocate for our most vulnerable students until a sustainable long-term solution is found. But again, thank you for all your work and coming out to Roson. That's it. Thank you. >> Thank you, Sarah. Our second speaker is CTF um President Julie Sers. >> Hello. Um I am going to keep this very short. I am in Columbus for the STRS meeting. We have um a lot of business to be taken care of that's above and beyond and also trainings. But I noticed that there is going to be discussion about the truency policy 5201. And one of the things that I think is very important is that all CPS staff, parents, and students receive notification of this policy and communication and that the policy become part of every school's handbook
032and also um becomes part of our code of conduct. In order for us to improve chronic absenteeism, I think we need to make sure that there is a strong communication to all stakeholders so that they understand that these are um laws coming from the state and it isn't something that's just being made up here um in Cincinnati. Um the other thing that I would like to talk about is um it seems like the last few meetings when there has been talk about the levy in the strategic plan that there's a lot of um negative um vibes coming from the board some of the board members around the levy. We are working on the strategic plan and tonight there is going to be a timeline discussed. Um as I think we need to make sure that
033we are moving forward because we have not had one penny of new money since 2016. That was the levy that passed that um some of about a third of the money went to the preschool promise. So, we would like to make sure that um the district and the board is following through with this. It is I do want to remind everybody the board's number one responsibility is for fiscally to become fiscally sound and to be fiscally stable. So, this needs to be decided before July of 2026, which is phase three of the timeline of the strategic plan. So, I would just like to say have a good evening and I hope that we can continue having these conversations. Thank you, >> Rob. Is that all? Okay. Well, I'll turn this back on over to President
034Greg. >> All righty. Um I guess Superintendent uh let's have our first presentation for the evening. So, I'm super excited for the board and the public to hear from the two leaders of our next phase of working on our strategic plan that is Belleather Consulting along with Rice Educational Consultants. If it's okay with the board, they are joining us tonight virtually and they do have a deck that was only shared with you this morning, but hopefully you'll have a hard copy uh in front of you. So, Rob, are they ready and available? uh to those two individuals, if they would please click their hand icon so I can find them in the group, that would be wonderful. And we'll invite them over. our uh team met with them for the second time uh Friday evening
035and uh we have been doing a meeting of the minds based on the first presentation that we shared with you during the last board meeting and getting some feedback from them based on the questions that you had and I know that with this presentation in addition to sharing this deck they'll also of course open to your questions comments feedback >> thank you and they're now free to unmute the camera and microphone And for the presenters, I'll move the slide deck along as you present. Uh, but I'm going to bring you on first so the board members can see you. >> Thank you. Yeah, ready to go. >> Whoever's starting, you may begin. >> Uh, good evening, uh, board members, Superintendent Murphy. Uh, my name is Aisha Craraven Howell. Um I am delighted to be with
036you um this evening uh just to share a little bit more um about the strategic planning process that is ahead of us. Um I have just a few slides to share to provide um some context in addition to what Superintendent Murphy shared with you during your last meeting. Uh and then welcome um your reactions and questions. Um before I move on, I want to make sure that you are able to uh view the slides. I am not seeing them on the screen but if you are I am okay with that. >> Yes ma'am. >> Okay. Fantastic. Um we are really excited uh to partner with you on um this really comprehensive effort um to develop the district's uh strategic plan over the next five years. I just want to take a moment to characterize what
037you can expect uh from this planning process. Um our approach is very intentionally inclusive, collaborative and data informed. Uh what we mean by inclusive is that we recognize that many voices uh need to inform this plan. Uh and that across stakeholders there will be a wide range of um experiences with and of the district um as well as pri priorities for the district's plan. And so we want to make sure that we are being very intentional about capturing and including all of those voices uh in our deliberations. Um it's also a collaborative process. We'll talk in a little bit about how we will engage you as board members. Um how we will engage CPS leaders um a number of standing committees uh and the broader community. Uh we know that no one knows this district
038um as well as you all do as well as its leaders, its teachers, um its communities and so we want to collaborate with you uh in defining the district's path forward. Um and then importantly it is data informed. Um we've talked about kind of the voices that we will capture through engagement and so that qualitative data is incredibly important as is quantitative data. And so we've already started um to collect and dig into um trend data across students. For example, we'll also be taking a look um at the district's financial data as a part of our process. We structure the process in that way um to help you do a couple of things. First, to really understand your current state. Uh what are the strengths and opportunities and risks um for the ways in which
039the district is operating today? And then where is it that you want to be at the end of this strategic plan? What is the shared vision and the associated shared goals um that you can articulate uh for the next five years? And then the bulk of our work then is helping you to make the decisions about the work that you will do and importantly the work that you won't do because strategic planning is as much about what you won't do as it is about what you will do. Um but making decisions about those priorities, how you will allocate finance resources and how you will implement and manage change over the next five years. Uh and do that in a way that intentionally bridges where you are today with where you have articulated you want to
040be in five years. All of that work will come together um and be codified in a number of documents. Um the first is the strategic plan uh which will communicate to audiences external and internal uh what your goals are and how you will achieve them. We will also um develop and support a fin a dynamic financial model which I'll talk a little bit more in detail about uh in just a moment. Very importantly a detailed implementation plan as well as a performance management and continuous improvement plan. Um the strategic plan itself is just step one. It articulates what you will do. The implementation plan, the performance management and continuous improvement plan, it articulates how you will do it and it provides a roadmap for district leadership and staff uh to execute against the strategic plan
041over the next five years. On the next slide, you will see just a little bit more um about your partners in this work. Uh Belleather and Rice Education Consulting or Redcon um are partnering together um to support you in this planning effort. Um Belleather is uh a nonprofit organization. We focus fully on education and our work spans K12 schools and systems to state education agencies, institutes of higher ed, uh funders and education nonprofits. Um our team members are former uh school and district leaders. I come to Belleather having led in senior roles in Charlotte Meckllinburgg schools and Chicago public schools. Um and so bring some of those insights and experiences to this work. The Bellweather team um will design and facilitate the overall planning process. We will take the lead on generating insights, developing the
042strategic options that you will decide among um and completing the financial analysis. Um we will also um be facilitating decision making um among CPS leaders uh and standing committees as well. Uh we are partnered closely with Redcon who is leading um the community and stakeholder engagement and I will turn it over um to Rico Rice uh to introduce himself and to share a little bit about Redcon. >> Thanks Aisha. Hello board. My name is Rico Rice. I am the president of Rice Education Consulting. I realize that is a mouthful so we go by Redcon. We're an organizational development firm based in Cincinnati, Ohio with clients throughout the country. Uh we specialize in five different areas. Strategic planning, learning and development, analysis and reporting, advisory services, and facilitation and engagement. Um as Lisha mentioned, we will
043be leading the stakeholder engagement process of the plan. Um engaging all the schools with outreach and um developing a plan where we capture the voices and all the the different stakeholders who will be involved from parents to students to staffs to administration um community leaders as well. Uh me personally, I am a CPS grad with Ro class of 99, a parent of one CPS grad 2023, the school of creative and performing arts and the parent of two current students uh one at uh Gamble Monastery, a freshman and a eighth grader at the school of creative and performing arts. So uh born and raised here in Cincinnati. So this work is not only professional to me, it's personal um as one who's experienced it as a student and now experiences the uh district as a uh
044parent. We hope our team um we have a lot of different professionals, a lot of different fields from from education to HR to analytics and we'll use their diverse perspectives to develop these lead the develop and lead the stakeholder engagement um and really tap into the community and our networks to uh capture the voice. So very excited about this opportunity and um we look forward to sharing more with you in the upcoming weeks. Thank you, Rico. Um on the next slide, um there's a lot of words on this slide, but I just wanted to give you um some insight into um how we have organized this work. Uh we have organized it in three phases uh between now and the end of July. Uh this first phase of work that we are in right now
045is really about understanding the current state and doing that again both through data and document review but also importantly uh and making sure we are hearing from a wide range of stakeholders um across the district and across the broader Cincinnati community. I think what I might point your attention to are just the interim deliverables across the phases uh leading up to those final deliverables that I um that I talked about a couple slides ago. Um by miday we intend to have a complete current state assessment. Um it will highlight the district's strengths, those opportunities and risks that I referenced before um and the implications of those for the district's go forward planning. So what are the opportunities that we want to take advantage of? How are those reflected in our priorities? Um what are the
046strengths that we want to leverage and build upon uh as we think about where we're going over the next five years? Um as part of that current state um fact base, we will also share back stakeholder engagement themes um including um things that we heard across stakeholders but also importantly how experiences and priorities and needs might be varying by stakeholder group or varying by which part of the community uh stakeholders might reside in. We will also as part of phase one and as part of those phase one deliverables share um emerging thinking on a graduate profile, a five-year vision uh and the related measurable goals uh and then the range of strategic options. Um all of those drafts uh will be informed by uh stakeholder input. uh and our job will really be to synthesize
047across what we're hearing um and share a draft for uh reaction, feedback, and iteration. I want to take a couple of slides now just to um touch on two parts of the strategic planning process that I know are of particular importance to you. Um one is stakeholder engagement and what our process is there and then the second is the financial analysis. um and modeling. Um you can see here just uh a deeper representation of the roles uh that Redcon and uh Belleather will play. Uh Rico, I will invite you just to to characterize Redcon's work u a little bit and then I will add on there in terms of bellweather's role for stakeholder engagement. >> Yeah. So thanks Aha. Yeah, as um Aisha mentioned, we will be leading the stakeholder engagement process. So that involves
048developing the overall strategy with input from uh Aisha and also from Aisha and Baleweather and also from uh the CPS team. It'll involve developing the discussion guides for all engagement activities whether that's uh listening sessions, one-on-one interviews as well as the surveys. um also helping understanding and providing guidance on the timeline of deploying the different uh the different sensing mechanisms, the surveys and the uh and the listening sessions. And finally, we will be doing u community outreach and help and speaking with individuals on a individual level uh different community influencers to understand their perspective as it relates to um the work and the visions for CPS. Thanks, Rico. And I think uh Redcon's like deep Cincinnati grounding and knowledge will be an a really important part and add a lot of value to the stakeholder
049engagement pieces. We have also already received um from Superintendent Murphy um a list of um kind of groups that we should be mindful of uh making sure that we are engaging as a part of this process. Um Belleather's role in stakeholder engagement will primarily be around leading and facilitating um CPS leadership as well as standing committees. Uh we will um stand up both uh an internal steering committee uh primarily comprised of CPS leaders um who in aggregate should represent kind of all the different functions and bodies of work um in the district. Uh we will also seat an advisory committee uh that will be primarily made up um of external partners including business uh and civic partners and funders. Um and then an important part of this group is also you as the board. Uh
050we know you play an incredibly important role in terms of ultimately approving this plan. Um also providing ongoing oversight and ensuring accountability for the outcomes and goals in the plan. Um, and so we want to make sure that we are uh engaging you intentionally uh but also being mindful and respectful of your time uh throughout the process. On the next slide, you see just a little bit more about um stakeholder engagement. Um and I might point you to again phase one so that you know what to expect. Um in this first phase of work that takes us through mid what miday um we are setting up weekly to bi-weekly meetings uh with CPS leads including uh superintendent Murphy. Um we will be interviewing um Superintendent Murphy and her leadership team as well as members of
051um each of those standing committees and we intend to have two working sessions with each of those committees um between early April and then our miday end of phase one. We propose um also engaging with the board during this time. Um having one-on-one interviews with each of you to get your perspectives on the district's work today um as well as uh your priorities uh for the district's work in the future, including around goals and vision um and where you would really like to aspire for the district to be. Um and we would like to come back to an early to midmay board meeting um to share updates on our phase one findings um in the relative to the current state and financial analysis and also our stakeholder uh engagement. uh Enrico has shared uh a
052lot of his phase one the phase one work that Redcon will be leading um is that set of targeted interviews and focus groups um but importantly engagement sessions that touch all of the district schools uh local school decisionmaking committees uh community partners um and organizations as well. I want to transition um briefly to the second part of this early work that I know that you um also had some questions about and that are a high priority for you. Um and that is around making sure that this plan is financially viable. We want to leave you with um an ambitious plan but it has to be one that you can actually take action on and a part of that is making sure that it is financially viable. Um so early on we will be working closely
053uh with the district treasurer and CFO um to understand CPS's current financial position including the various revenue streams um but also existing um expenditures um and how those are allocated across your existing priorities. As we move further into the work um we will develop or refine if there is one already in place um a financial model. We will use that financial model throughout the planning process to help us understand the implications for district budget and finances of the different strategic priorities and decisions that the district might make in terms of the scale and the pace of implementation of those priorities. We will um throughout the process develop um a small number of viable financial scenarios and as we get more and more defined in uh the strategic plan have made more decisions about the priorities
054the associated initiatives and the timeline of implementation. we will be able to share with you um a small number of highly likely financial scenarios um including places where the district might make budgetary tradeoffs um and or where you might need to uh seek additional funding um in order for you to accelerate the pace of change. I know that you are already in a process to uh determine the budget for next school year um and that your timeline for doing so is in June. Um, and so as we um are having conversations and have some um outputs of the district's finances, as we move into our phase 2 work um and begin to narrow to strategic priorities, um we are happy to have that part of our work also inform how you are thinking about allocating
055resources the same or differently um as you head into next school year. Over the next several weeks, um you can expect um to see um the momentum continue to build around this work. Um we will begin uh facilitating stakeholder engagement uh towards the end of this month and early next. Um and so we will be able to publish a calendar uh for those touch points and um begin to see invitations for uh committees uh and listening sessions go out. We will also schedule a site visit uh during which we hope to be able to engage some of those standing committees in purp in person. Um but our primary purpose of the site visit um will be to get into schools and have an opportunity um to engage um with teachers and students and families. Um
056get to observe school level culture and instruction um and implications of that for how the district's priorities uh going forward. Um and finally, we want to be able to share with you uh before the end of phase one um just emerging insights from um our initial analysis both of data and documents but also in the early um stakeholder engagement uh that we will have over the next several over the next several weeks. Um I welcome any reactions to uh this plan and approach and also any questions that you might have. >> All righty. Thank you both uh folks from Bellweather as well as Redcon. I appreciate you all coming. Um we we kind of asked you to come in and fill us in with more detail and and you showed up with more detail. So
057I will uh kick it over to our board members to see if anyone has any questions. Mr. Crosset, >> thank [clears throat] you for that um detailed presentation and the charts and the slides is great. My question is uh I think regarding the timing of the uh strategic [clears throat] plan, how confident are you that you'll be able to be done by July? >> Yeah. Um I feel quite confident in the plan that we have laid out. Um this is um a timeline that's relatively consistent with uh similar efforts in the past. Um but inherent in our process is making sure we are checking in with CPS leaders along the way. Um and if at any point we see that we are de deviating from the plan and from the timeline uh we want to
058be intentional about course correcting. Um while we certainly have a plan and a timeline, it is less important um that we stick to that uh and more important um that we deliver a plan um that is shared, that is wellinformed um and that you all can feel good about um executing over the next five years. >> Thank Thank you. >> Other board members, member Lindy. >> Uh hi, thank you so much for the presentation. It was very helpful. Um, I I think my question is just a variation on Mr. Crossets, but it might be um might be slightly different. Um, Assistant Treasurer Martin, can you remind us me the date when the board would need to pass a resolution to have a levy on the ballot in the fall? >> Uh, June 22nd is the
059date we have for that. >> It's not in July. There there two two, right? So one one in June and then one and then the second second one is in July. >> Yeah. So we would have to pass two votes in order to and so we would have to have it done in July because we'd have to get it all finalized by August 6 in order for it to be on the ballot. Um so we would we'd want to make that decision a little earlier as far as voting on the levy. >> Um but yes, it would likely come before unless we move really quickly through the budget. uh it would likely come before we had passed our final budget resolution. >> So a first a first vote in June 22nd and a second vote
060on August 6th. >> Uh I believe it has to be [clears throat] done um and I maybe ask general counsel if he has any clarity on that, but I believe it actually has to be voted on before August 6th. So like we'd have to have voted and turned in and all that stuff before August 6th. Um, >> I think the date Miss Martin cited is the last possible date that you could pass the first resolution in order to get it to the auditor's office to get us the information to pass the second resolution. Uh, we have previously passed when we've done levies pass that first resolution in May or even April of uh of the year in which we're seeking the levy. That's great. Thank you. I'm I'm I'm going to do my very best
061to remember and I'm likely to maybe need to ask one or two more times, but I appreciate it and thank you. Um I think [clears throat] for for the the Bellweather and Redconcot teams, um from my perspective, I'm asking about the timing of the of the levy vote. [clears throat] Um not from a place of concern, but from a place of I think this is an opportunity. Uh I think our case to the public is better if we can say we've done xyz careful thinking. Uh here is our case for why we're asking the public for more resources and what we'll be able to do with those resources over a series of years when it comes to student outcomes. Um, and so I think my hope for this process, and I have a lot of
062hope for this process, is that it creates a context for us to put those ideas together and ask the public. Um, I think for speaking just for myself, it's going to for for me to support a levy, I have to be able to believe in good faith that we have a real plan um for how it's going to lead to outcomes that are different. Um, and I think this process provides a real opportunity to add rigor to that. So, I'm excited. Thank you. >> All right. I I believe I already owe Treasure August an apology now because I told him I would be very careful to make sure I had all my ducks in the row to know everything so that I could answer any questions also. So I'm sure he did and I just
063forgot and so it's blame blame me. Um >> board member Robert. >> Uh you can ask about it as much as you want because August 6th is my birthday. So the more we talk about August I just love it to be honest. It's a great day. Um yeah I mean I this is wonderful. Thank you. Um, I have been one of those badgering u for more information. So, I appreciate all the detail. Um, I uh I I think as long as we can hold true to to this consistent just update and checkin, like as long as we know what's coming as far as feedback goes, progress grows, um, you know, we can make those really tough decisions, but we are going to be relying on you guys to really help us. uh understand what's coming.
064Um so I I hope that that's been made uh apparent to you that we're relying very heavily because we're trying to do about three different things all concurrently. >> Um that's that's a difficult thing to do without having um as much information as possible. So I really appreciate your work and I'm excited to see how it how it goes. >> Other board members. Uh board member Bolton. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate the report and I'm I'm am reassured uh from from both uh uh participants and I feel really strongly that uh the calendar is is uh going to be our greatest challenge more than anything else and I think this is a great start to have uh this outlined for us. couple questions um or comments. I think at least from the schoolboard
065angle and I probably the administration I think it's very likely that we need to be thinking about fasttracking the budget for fiscal year 27 because we're more likely to be able to fasttrack the budget than we are necessarily to fasttrack all aspects of the strategic plan. And I think tonight is going toward that when we're being asked to vote on something that may not be necessarily up for debate, but something that we are required to uh to do and I think that was part of the reasoning that the treasurer had in in bringing that to us at this early date. U I have a question about the five years. I my recollection from dialogue uh throughout was that it was not going to be five years that we were talking in terms of either three
066or at most >> four I don't have a problem with five uh but I but at least as I recall the public dialogue we had was three or four at the most uh the five-year is interesting because in 31 we will have accomplished the remarkable thing which is in 31 and a a little bit before 31, if I recall, we will be paying off our $ 1.7 billion facilities master plan, which gives us a real opportunity uh to make some huge decisions financially about how to then um uh take the next step after that. And certainly within the five years as everybody hears as I always say within those five years we're also going to be celebrating the district's bicesentennial u so these are some wonderful years but I I think our emphasis had been
067four uh but it's interesting to to think in terms of five and I we don't need to belabor that but I just that's how I recall it and and then the other piece of it this is very much the same model, frankly, that we used in the passage of the uh preschool promise uh levy where indeed we had uh uh big planning and we had outside folks come and and evaluate our financial situation and I know this board is not wanting to necessarily create a strategic plan we can't afford. My question to that is my problem with that I don't know if it's a chicken and the egg or whatever but our current financial status does not necessarily provide us any money to implement a strategic plan. So, I'm looking at our current reality. I
068don't necessarily want our current financial reality because we don't want to pass something we can't afford. We've we've been clear about that. But I I'd also don't want us to limit what we're going to be thinking about or strategizing about be so limited by our current uh financial connection. So, can you kind of address how we're how you're going to be addressing that that issue for us in some really appreciate it. Thank you. >> It's a really great question. Um, and on the five-year relative to three relative to four, I I noted that um and we will follow up with Superintendent Murphy um to make sure that we've got the right time frame in mind. Um your questions about the finances um are just really spot on. And so when we talk about a dynamic
069financial model, um part of what we want that to do um is to be a tool that the district can use um to understand how changes in um the district's revenue uh can drive changes in implementation. Um used another way, you can model the scale and pace of implementation that you want and have that inform then the revenue picture. uh that is needed to the uh previous question around making the case uh for why you would uh pass a levy for example. Um I think another important part of um assessing the district's finances is making decisions about things that you currently do that you will no longer do uh in order to prioritize um the things that will emerge from the strategic plan. Um, and so there are lots of ways within existing finances, um,
070we can help you think about implementation, but we can also help you model, uh, the the decisions that you would make over the next several years, um, as your revenue picture changes. >> Great. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> And just to give a little bit of clarity on the uh, four to five year, I know we originally started with the four-year when we were going to do the smaller modeled strategic plan. I think part of the conversation that we had with Belleather and um with Redcon was is this idea that if we're doing something so expansive now, it is best to prepare ourselves for the future of the district even beyond the five-year. And so what's that fiveyear plan that prepares us for 10, 20, 50 years? Um as opposed to what
071we've traditionally done with with strategic plans which are just five years at a time or three years at a time. And so I think that's still definitely something we can all still give feedback on and give thoughts on as well um as to what that model looks like. But the hope was that whatever we would get from them would prepare us to go into the next years after in that conversation. Um other board members uh board member Matt. >> Uh yes, thank you uh to the both of you for this um very informative presentation. um it helps to address a lot of questions that um I know many of us had and I also thank uh uh member Bolton for um asking the question. I had one very similar. Um so I'm I'm really curious
072as we talk about our financial um status and where we are and also really striving to be very ambitious um to with our um our planning to move beyond the status quo. Um, I'm curious to know how do the two of you intend on really leaning into those conversations that can sometimes be very difficult, right? Because we all can have different priorities from a board lens, from uh community stakeholders lens. How do you all intend to navigate those conversations to really help us um have a accurate synthesis of what the direction should be in terms of the strategic planning process? And I do see the outline here, but just wanted to hear a little bit more from you all. And then also, is there a way for us to have like a clear dashboard of
073how we are tracking and monitoring our process, whether with the inputs, the outputs to let us know that we are um on course, right, in a positive way or if there needs to be some adjustments that are made. And then lastly, um what supports are offered from the both of you after we have approved the strategic plan? Because maybe there are some things that need to be adjusted. How do we adapt in those instances? And what does that support look like from you all? >> Right now, I'm making sure I got all three of those questions. I heard um helping to navigate uh potentially like challenging or tense stakeholder engagement. um kind of um how do we make sure we're tracking uh against this uh three-phase approach and project timeline? Um and then I think
074the third one was just support after the planning process. >> Um so on the stakeholder um engagement part, I'm happy to start and then I would welcome Rico to um to chime in as well. I think it is incredibly um important um to be as transparent as possible with stakeholders. So to be really clear um about what we heard and what we believe um the implications of what we heard are. Um anchoring in a shared vision and a shared set of goals is also really important. Um and acknowledging that there will be more than one way uh to achieve those goals. Um and so being really again like clear and transparent about tradeoffs uh and sharing the rationale and what went into the decision- making. I think it is also very important to adopt a
075decision-making framework at the onset of the project so that when we are having conversations with stakeholders, they are clear if their role is to inform, is it to recommend, is it to decide, is it to approve? Um so that folks are clear about what we are asking them and why. um before we even have the conversation and that we continue to uh return to that. Um Rico, anything you would add on the stakeholder engagement portion of that question? >> Um no, I think you uh touched it. I think the other piece is that um the questions will be framed in a way that looks at vision setting. So um looking forward, you know, we're going to set that as as a big piece of it. Um not just looking back and reflecting back, but what
076what would you like to see? Another piece is to allow stakeholders to be in rooms with other stakeholders with their perspective. Um so we're going to be doing a lot of centralized whether it's um support staff, administration, leaders, parents, LSM, LSDMC group. So allowing the stakeholders to be in in um conversations with themselves so that um there's that shared vision from that from that group. Um those are all things that are we plan to do and we will execute over the next month. on the project management dashboard. Um we have not shared that level of of detail today, but we do have a very detailed kind of week-toeek project plan around um the decisions that need to get made week to week uh the milestones that we need um to reach. And so we will
077um use that uh as a management tool with um with Superintendent Murphy uh and um the leads that she has um identified. And um we are happy to um you know prepare interim updates between the times that we come uh formally to the board to share an update um but make sure that uh Superintendent Murphy um has the information that she needs to provide you with interim um updates. Um and then the last thing on the support after the plan. Um one of the things we always tell our clients at Bellweathers that you know when the engagement is over we don't turn into pumpkins. We are always here. Uh we are happy to support you and provide questions. Uh we truly think of ourselves um as partners in the work and so we encourage you
078to reach out. Um that said um you all did something that I think was really thoughtful in the RFP which was you included in the scope a one-year step back and planning conversation. So one year after the strategic plan is done already in scope is coming back to facilitate a conversation with you to reflect on implementation. What went well? What did not? what do you need to change going forward and how do we adjust implementation over the next uh over the next 12 to 18 months. So those are just a couple of ways um that support extends uh beyond this March to July uh planning phase that we've just shared. >> Thank you for that. Uh, I absolutely love the responses that you shared and just really wanted to highlight the decision-making framework being at
079the forefront of each of those conversations for uh, the respective rooms. I think that is truly instrumental in helping driving us to have that shared vision um, and everyone being on the same page as to um, being informed about what their roles are and so I just thank you for that. Thank you both. >> Absolutely. >> Uh, Dr. M. So, thank you for the presentation. Um, I am I'm very excited to get started. I think that the community is uh ready and so I won't I will try hard not to be redundant in many of my questions that have already been a asked and answered by my colleagues. Um, I'm going to make some kind of observation [clears throat] statements and then um ask a question at the end. So, I do love the decision-making
080framework. I think it's very clear and concise and if we lead with that, I think the community will benefit as well as the district. Um I I did have some concerns and I circled the five-year vision, but I didn't do that because of any other reason except for the fact that legislatively our state is changing regarding education laws. And so I think a five-year plan, while I think that would be normal, I don't know if that is feasible with regard to how fast pace changes are coming from from the state level and the federal level, but really the state level. And so I am a little nervous about a 5-year projection when things are changing for us yeartoear, monthto month. So I think that having said that as well um I'm also a little concerned
081about um who's in the room u and so and who's being interviewed and would also invite legislative conversations with current legislators so that you all are kind of fasttracked on what are some of the things that we're experiencing to have to make some of the decisions that we will be forced to make um coming up. And so that's a list of constituents that I did not see on your list. I also um think interviewing [clears throat] board members should not be an option. It should be definitely uh something that happens expeditiously so that you all get a clear and concise picture of the people that are having to make those decisions as well. And then I also wasn't clear around staff members being um considered PTO's. I hear a lot of LSDMC's, but unfortunately I
082don't know if our LSDMCs are in full complement enough to be representative of their schools, but I do think that community councils would be helpful PTO's and then some of our retired community members. Um, I'm not suggesting which ones, but I do hear a lot of feedback from community council members around the schools that are in their neighborhoods. And I think that that's a voice uh that oftentimes gets overlooked when we talk about who should stakeholders who what stakeholders should be sitting at the table. Um site visits are okay and I think they will give you a a a picture. In addition to that, uh I just would welcome more uh diversity from um that the the the groups that I've already mentioned. Um, I would like to see some vehicle that we could see
083results. I don't know what I It wasn't really clear on what the timeline is going to be. So, is it going to be monthly updates? Is it going to be, you know, quarterly updates? But because we are making decisions around budget, I'm very interested to see more rapidly what the community is saying since you are engaging them. [clears throat] So, I would like to invite you to give find a way I don't know what that is, but to find a way to provide consistent updates to what you're hearing, particularly around uh the budget in the future. Um, Mr. Rice, I did hear you say it's forward thinking, not necessarily looking back. Um, but I do think you're able to capture a lot of information that the community is going to share with you because they
084are looking at what they want based off of their own experiences, based off of what they want for their children and they're able to inform us uh of that. And some of that we may be able to do and some of that we may not be able to do. But that having that having you be that conduit for us as we decide make some serious financial decisions I think is super significant. So, I don't want to miss the opportunity to have regular feedback sessions of what you're finding. Even if it's not formalized, it is uh informative because I think that's what one of your roles is to inform the board timely of what you're seeing. I do like the shared vision. Um, I just would also welcome that your financial plan be inclusive of pending
085state laws that are um have passed since January since we've had this discussions, but that also uh h will potentially get out of committee and be passed by June 30th. So, um, I'd like the financial plan piece, but I do think that we're we're unfortunately under the gun and you are too in giving us the information. And so, we just need to have I I like the plan. I like the um proposed timeline. It doesn't have a lot of meat or details, I'll say, but it's very overarchingly perfect for me, but I do want some of those details to be um more filled in. And then I want the consistent relationship so that we're hearing what you're seeing um more regularly. Other than that, I think um I do think it's good. Thank you. >>
086Thank you. >> And I I will just uh maybe throw it to Mr. Rice here just for a quick response because I also wanted to note when we spoke with Mrs. Rice, uh she brought up a number of the different ways that you were going to be doing engagement within the community to, you know, whether it was going to sporting events, whether it was going to school activities and putting up uh survey options and those type of So, I don't know if you want to quickly just kind of walk us through some of the other ways that you can creatively gather some of those voices that could be shared with the board and shared with us as we walk through that process. >> Yeah. So, there are some ways. Is it possible for us to
087share that with the board through uh Superintendent Murray Murphy after our meeting on Wednesday? I would >> we haven't presented to Superintendent Murphy yet. So, out of respect of the process, I want to um our first collaborative meeting with with the u with the superintendent and her team this Wednesday. And so, um after we have that conversation that we work out a few um kinks in that, we'll be happy to share soon thereafter um with with the board in whatever way she feels. >> And Ris, I don't mind you sharing possible ideas or whatever. >> Okay, that's fine. So, yeah. So um so we we're going to take a hybrid approach of both um so so for surveying to uh the different stakeholders specific stakeholder specific survey. We'll also have a database we've been on
088the culture calendar and looked at all the different events that are coming up on the culture calendar. Um there's a a database of of different um individuals within the district we'll be reaching out to. We have a different program. So, not only just the academics, but the student programs, the more programs, the student leadership programs, the arts, um looking at also um the the school leaders as well as school staff and um really going to some of those community events, setting up and not only um just talking to them, but some quick in addition to the online service, just some quick pop-up information to gather four to five question surveys that they can answer on spot. So, there's a comprehensive plan that we will um share with you after Wednesday. >> Perfect. Perfect. And again,
089I think this is an opportunity for us to also use our marketing communications folks to make sure that we're passing the message on in a wider fashion as well so that we're all working in one uh team towards this effort. Um I you know, my colleagues have asked a lot of information. They've gathered a lot of information. I think it's been a great opportunity for you to share. I already had my chance to talk to you all, so I don't really have anything additional to add on to this. I just would say one, thank you both for for coming. Um, and then we would certainly love to have you back to kind of as we start walking through the process, start walking through these steps and just ensure that we're also still staying aligned to
090the same point and same goal and making sure that we're on the on the right track um to to stay on path. Um, but again, I appreciate both of you all taking the time to to come and talk with us today. I tried to do y'all a service last time we had this discussion, but I knew it was much better coming from you all than it was from coming from me. Uh so I appreciate you both being uh available tonight. >> All right. Thank you all for your insights, questions, and comments. >> We are truly happy to be here. Um, one of the things we will um do as a followup um in our conversation with um the superintendent and leads on Wednesday um is to propose a board um update um cadence um and
091we certainly want to um interview each board member. It was listed on the slide as proposed because I was mindful I had not yet uh approved that with uh President Craig and so didn't want to um >> fully approved >> no uh share that as affirmed um not having had that conversation. Um but we will um make sure superintendent had superintendent Murphy has um to share back with you um a proposed cadence for updates uh including when we will prepare her to provide you an update and when we will be present uh at board meetings like we are today uh to provide a more comprehensive um update and uh opportunities for reaction and questions. And then the last thing I will just say on this as we go on to our next topic so uh
092our our next pre presenter can make their way on up uh is that um part of what we will do with all of these things with regards to the um strate strategic plan is just to make sure we're making time to to continue the voice and the message um through the rest of the things. But we also want to make time for board members who also share feedback along the way. And so please feel free to share thoughts and feedback with superintendent or myself, we'll make sure it gets to both Bellweather and Redcon. Um, and once we've connected you all up and we're doing the one ones, please give all the information, use up as much of the time as we are paying for uh to share your thoughts um with how we will go
093forward. Uh, superintendent, you want to introduce our next uh presentation? >> Yes, sir. I'm happy to introduce our director of student services, Miss Chrissy Reeves, who is going to give us an update on all the wonderful work happening in her department, members of the board, Miss Murphy, and the wonderful audience from Covedale. Thank you for inviting me back again to speak with you. Um when I was here in November, we kind of walked through the basics of our department and special education in CPS, how we're structured, um the specific metrics that the state uses to measure our performance and then some challenges and opportunities that we see. So tonight, I want to show you how that work is beginning to translate into some results. the newest state data for students with disabilities has been released
094and we have some signs that our work is paying off. Um, most importantly, we're seeing large improvements in our graduation rates for students with disabilities. So, I'm looking forward to walking you through those numbers as well as some shifts that we are making to ensure that our resources are aligned with those successes. So, next slide, please. Um, this is just a quick refresher on the scale of our work. You've seen these numbers before. Our department supports over 6,300 students with disabilities just within our CPS schools um and over 3,700 gifted learners. Um these numbers are still consistent with what we showed in the fall. But um just that we've one of the trends that we're noticing is that the complexity of the student needs has been increasing over time and we are seeing more um
095twice exceptional learners which are students who are gifted and identified as students with disabilities as well as students who require 504 accommodations. But tonight I want to um focus on how we're getting better for these students. First, we're going to take a look at some new data. Um, again, specifically the significant increase in our graduation rate and then we're going to discuss how we are trying to position the department to um be more sustainable going forward. Okay. In November, we took a look at these. These are the 17 indicators that the state uses as benchmarks to measure the performance of students with disabilities. Um, this tells us how our students with disabilities are achieving and if we are implementing regulations correctly, if we're in compliance. So, tonight what we have though is some performance data
096from phase one of the special education profile that was released in December. What you can see on this slide, very, you can barely see it if you look closely, is that the indicators that are bold are the ones that are reported out in December. So those are the ones that we have the data for for tonight. So next slide please. This slide will show some of the highlights from this data. Um and really what this slide is is a testament to the hard work of the staff that we have in our buildings. Our graduation rate for students with disabilities reached 76.06% for this reporting period. That is a huge achievement that far exceeds the state target for that year. Um, in addition, for the fifth year in a row, we achieved 100% compliance in secondary
097transition plans. And what that means is that every high school student who has an IEP has a documented plan for their path after graduation. Um, we also saw timely initial evaluations improve a slight bit to 99.8%. That is the one that's really hard because you have to get 100% or you're out of compliance. And that 99.8% 8% represents only two ETRs that were not in compliance. So, we were very close, but those two count against us. Um, and another highlight is that our dropout rate for students with disabilities fell um nearly 6% to 18.66% which um brought us within just it was so close to the target. The target is to be below 18% and we were at 18.66%. Um, but what that percentage means is that there were 43 fewer students with disabilities who
098were dropouts that year. So, I just like to think about that overall number because I think that puts a little perspective to the percentage. Next slide, please. But now that I've said it a few times, can we just take a look at this graduation rate um for students with disabilities? This [laughter] Thank you. [applause] This is a 14 and a half percentage point improvement from the year before. Um we didn't just meet the state target. That year was 68.1%. We cleared it by eight full percentage points. Um and what this represents is a direct result of a really targeted effort on this that we worked on with folks in our school buildings. Um we were we made sure that every student has a pathway to graduation. That um students who were not appropriate for alternate
099assessment were not alternately assessed. That students were not excused from testing consequences just to just to get a diploma. Um we put some really really specific guidelines in place. And as a result of that, our school teams, our families, and our students, they really stepped up. You can see it here. We've been waiting for this year. We knew it was coming, but because graduation data is backdated, we've been waiting and waiting and we we we knew this year would be it, but it's really exciting to see it there. Um, so on the next slide, this is just a reminder of we showed these last time. These are our long-term goals and they include things like closing the achievement gap and increasing inclusion in the least restrictive environment for our students. But what I wanted to
100point out was that for phase one of the special ed report card, um really the graduation rate is the only thing that's measured. So the progress towards those other goals is going to be detailed in the phase two and that rolls out in later in spring. So we'll have that information later in spring that we can report back out on. But I just wanted to remind you of those goals. But while we're waiting for the results and that additional data, we are targeting two specific areas of efficiency. Um, internally what we're looking at is improving our internal monitoring processes across the district. Um, we're doing that with some help from our state support team folks. And what we want to do is make sure that we have 100% compliance because that's something that's going to
101protect our funding going forward. And also in addition to funding um when the when the documents that we have for our students are in place that makes sure that they're getting the services that they need and that's going to lead to better outcomes. So there's just only positives to being in compliance. Another thing that we're working on that we haven't really shared out yet. This is the first time I'm talking about this a lot because it's still in progress. Um but we're working on forecasting our specialized classroom needs for the next five years. Although I hear Dr. Muffett's concerns about the next five years. We still want to do some planning. Um, we want to make sure that we're proactive about making sure that we have a continuum of services for all of our students,
102but that we're not just randomly saying we need to add add classrooms. We want to make sure that we're adjusting to meet the demographics of our students as they adjust over the years. And then externally, a couple of things that we are doing is trying to streamline supports for our students who are parentally placed in private schools. In Cincinnati public, we have quite a large number of students who are parentally placed and we're trying to kind of streamline the work. We still have some pretty important responsibilities for those students that we want to meet, but we want to streamline how we're doing that and do it more efficiently. And we're also working to kind of find some creative ways to fill some of the staffing vacancies that we talked about last time. We're working with
103um some of our outside agencies to do that in some creative ways. This one is kind of exciting. Um and it's this is a whole new world for me that I've learned about this past year. This is um I know it sounds really exciting, Medicaid school programs. Um but this is a big big shift in Medicaid school programs for this school year. Before 2026, districts could receive Medicaid reimbursement for services that were provided to students, but they had to be services that were written into their IEP and they had to be Medicaid covered services. Now, we have plenty of those services. So, we've been receiving Medicaid reimbursement, but as of January 1st, districts are now able to receive reimbursement for any student who's eligible for Medicaid whose parent gives us consent, of course. um and
104they can have either a 504 plan or some kind of health care plan. Um it's not dependent on just having an IEP. So, this is going to open up a lot of opportunities for reimbursement for us. And we've been working really closely with um our new software that we have to make sure that everybody can monitor that and record it and that we're getting as much back as we can for that. That's going to be a lot of things that we can do um that we weren't able to do like some nursing services, some behavioral health services that we weren't able to capture before because those students weren't identified as students with disabilities. So, we're really excited because we think that once we get this online and we've already seen some progress towards this that
105we're really going to be able to improve our ability to recoup some of those costs and then we'll have that money that we can reinvest back into student health and wellness, which is the important thing. And this is another big um kudos for our staff in our buildings. This is um we have really the highest special education compliance numbers this year that we have seen since I've been looking at special education compliance numbers, which is longer than I'd like to talk about right now. Um and this is really really important because um again we talked about the benefits of having those compliant documents for so that students get the support they need that the services are in place. But this is also making sure that we get the correct funding that matches the amount of
106students that we have. So it's really important for those documents to be in compliance. And then on the other side of that, this is this has also happened for several years in a row. We've been able to verify and send information up on the highest number of students with disabilities that we've had to date, which is positive again because of the funding that makes sure that our funding is aligned with the number of students that we have. But we are also looking at that as we think that means that students are choosing to stay with us because and their families they're choosing to stay with us um because they recognize the quality of our work and the consistency of our work. Okay. Now just a couple a couple little um tidbits about other areas. We
107do support gifted learners as we talked about um and we are doing some things to advance our gifted work and make sure that there's a focus on equity and access for our students. Our fine arts team is working really hard to identify students in visual and performing arts in all schools across the district. That's going on right now. That's a a really time and labor intensive process that involves reviewing portfolios and they're doing a great job of that. We're also working with the different curriculum councils to create district-wide rubrics for um accelerating ELA and math especially. And I know that um Superintendent Randolph has been up and talked about the algebra acceleration. This is part of that. We want to make sure that there are consistent standards that we're using across all schools so that
108every student has access to an acceleration pathway if it's appropriate for them and it's not dependent on what building they're in. And then finally, I just want to mention school health uh because this has been a big project for us this school year, but taking a look at it, I think that we've made some really significant strides since we started this in the fall. We staffed every school health office across the district and that was a major collaborative effort from a lot of parties involved in our district. So, every building has coverage. Um, beyond the regular kind of daily care that you see in a school health office, they are completing the mandated hearing and vision screenings across the district. And this is the first time that we've had to do that ourselves as a
109district. So, that was a big lift. That's going really well. And another thing that we're really excited about is that we are strengthening um a long-term pipeline. We've been collaborating with local nursing schools. So, they're coming in and getting hours with us. They've helped out with the screenings and they're helping out in the school health offices. So, we get more support from them. They get hours and we've got some potential new recruits moving forward. And another thing that's been a real bonus this year is that we have been able to implement some real targeted professional development that we couldn't necessarily do before because the staff we didn't we didn't have that relationship with the staff that we had before. These are our staff so we can provide training and make sure that everybody's up and
110that we're all doing the same thing. Um so that's all I have for tonight. I just wanted to thank you for inviting me back. I know that that phase one report doesn't have all of the information on it, but that gives you a little bit of information on where we're headed. Um, and we hope that we have even more to report later. Thank you. >> All right. >> I'm happy to answer any questions. >> Yeah. >> Before your um questions, board member uh board [clears throat] members, I wanted you to know um this is now Dr. Chrissy Reeves. I don't think I said that. >> Thank [applause] you. >> Thank you, Miss Murphy. you know how appropriate it is to end on the school health for a doctor now. >> Thank you. [laughter] >> It
111took a long time to get here. So, >> uh board members, you have any questions, thoughts, statements? Uh Mr. Cross, >> I got a question. the I think it was goal four I forget one of the slides but when you're trying to get your students into the least restrictive >> environment >> uh what's the biggest challenge there [sighs] >> the the increasing complexity of needs of the students that we're seeing in our in our schools right now we have a lot of students who have complex medical needs a lot of intense behavior concerns that we're seeing and they're presenting younger and it can be very challenging to meet those needs in the general education classroom even when we add supports in. Um so and we always try to do that first. That's always our main
112option but sometimes we just can't do that and those needs we are seeing them increasing across the board. >> All right uh board member Matt >> uh thank you for the presentation uh Dr. Reeves. Thank you. [laughter] >> Um so I am really interested in the gifted and accelerated learners um work that you all are doing and so that you said that this is happening in all schools where um teams are trying to identify students that will fall under um this uh description. What specifically I guess um like who is working to identify that those students? Is it the um music teacher like you said um music and visual arts like can you give or performing arts can you give just more context? >> I can try there. Um we collaborate with the curriculum and
113instruction department on that. So hopefully I say this right. If you're specifically talking about visual and performing arts gifted identification, that is um a group of fine arts educators who um have I don't know if they've volunteered their time or if they are getting I don't know exactly how that works but they are going over the portfolios and the auditions for the students across the who are nominated pro basically by their teachers probably um that's how we get the recommendation for them and they they have rubrics that they follow in scales that they use for measurement and that's how the students are identified as gifted. >> Okay, >> that's a very different process than some of the other categories. Okay. So, I I I love that there is an opportunity for access, but I'm just
114wondering maybe about exposure or equity in terms of how we are identifying these students. Like we know that some of our schools have a lot of opportunities for students to present, right? Uh their different gifts and talents. Um but in some situations where that may not be available, how do we work through that to make sure that we're not um missing students that are would fall under this classification? >> I think that's always a you know that's always a concern that we have in all of our buildings. But I do know even if we go back to when Dr. Rednick was still here. He began doing a lot to increase access for students across all buildings and not just focus on the buildings that have strong arts programs. And I know that the team that's
115in place now is continuing that work. As I said, the recommendations come from >> the school staff. So, they're the ones that really know the kids and see them. So, we are relying on them for those identifications. And we can always, you know, we can always take suggestions for how to improve and make sure that we are reaching all of the students. >> Are parents able to be a part of the conversation? >> Absolutely. They're a vital part of the conversation. >> Okay. So, who who would we then have conversation with? Right. Who would the parents have conversations with to say, "Hey, I recognize this." Um maybe they're involved in extracurricular activities. Maybe they have different things outside of the school lens um that they're able to show up in that capacity. Who would we
116direct parents to to? >> They could always start with the teacher. That is always the easiest thing to do because they're probably the closest to that teacher. They can let someone else in their building know if they have to. They could reach out to us at the ed center. We can always direct them to where they need to be, but I just think it's always easiest to start with the teacher in the building because the teacher and the parent are going to be the ones who know the the kids best at that point. >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. Um, I appreciate uh you sharing information about the Medicaid um school programs um and um just finding additional ways right to receive funding um to support our students in their academic uh journey. So I thank
117you for that. Um I my my question is around um last time we had conversations it was around students that may have an IEP or or maybe um being recommended for IEP. And it's not necessarily that they have a learning disability. it may be more of a behavioral um experience or response to um different um you know maybe trauma uh incidents and things of that sort. And so I'm always wanting to make sure that yes, we have the supports in place for students that need a individualized education plan, but also being very mindful and cognizant to ensure that we're not um you know over diagnosing, misdiagnosing. And so how do we how are we working through that with the discipline piece? I know that you've come before us as well as um uh Mrs. House
118has come before us. So that is still very much a a focus for me. Um how are you all and your team navigating through those discussions? >> That's a really important focus actually because there is a fine line between a student who just may need some help, you know, and some some supports in place in that that need turning into an actual disability. And that's we rely on our teams to to be able to tease out those differences. That's what the evaluation process is for. It's, you know, it's based on data. It's based on the teams that know the student best. And we definitely don't want to overidentify. We want to make sure that every student has what they need. But overidentification is also a really big concern because that's something that sticks with you
119once once you have it. >> And and we do a lot of work with our teams um who who do the evaluations to make sure that we're all using the same materials, that we're looking at things equitably, that we're not over again, that we're not we're not We're looking at the right things but not looking at too many things and just pulling everybody in just to identify them. And then making sure that school teams and parents and everybody involved with a child understand that we can still provide supports for that students even if they don't have an IEP in place. That doesn't mean that we're not going to help them and we're not going to support them. >> That's an important piece because sometimes that seems like the only pathway for people. >> Thank you
120for that. And then final question, since we have a lot of parents that are um in the room and having been in a position um just in previous districts um in my role as a counselor um sitting in the IEP meetings, I know that there's a lot of um it is helpful to have a lot of awareness and education around right those IEP meetings. And can you just speak to the um perspective of how parents um are able to advocate for their children um in those um in those conversations and right or what is important for parents to know to be able to support uh their child as well as themselves during that that experience. >> Of course, we know that parents are a key part of the IEP team, right? Um they're a they're
121a required member of the IEP team. they're a vital member of the IEP team and they should be in communication with the um the school team all the time. So, that's just a basic that's the basic tier one, if you will, level of support. We also have districtwide parent mentors that we can um kind of refer parents to if they feel like they need some support beyond that. somebody who these are parent mentors are parents who have had their own children with disabilities and kind of understand the system and then their job is to it's not to advocate for parents but it's to support them through the process and help them understand what's going on. And we also have monthly they're are called tool talks um where we present topics to parents on different aspects
122of special education and we have things that we send out. We also have information that goes out after those to make sure that we're reaching parents as well. So, we try really hard to reach them through multiple avenues because they really are key members of the team. >> Absolutely. >> Final thing, I know I said it before, but final thing as you're talking about the parents and the IEP process, how do we how are we supporting our uh multilingual learner families? Do we have um interpreters that are available? Okay, >> we always have interpreters and we translate documents into their native language as needed as well. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All righty. Uh, board member Bolton, then board member Arbrewster, board member Lindy. >> Great. Thank you. Great, great presentation. I really appreciate
123it. U several things that wonderful news about the change regarding Medicaid uh monies. It's one of the very few things that's been a positive >> I know >> for us uh from either the federal government or the state government. So, uh, appreciate it because indeed, uh, your department, uh, is very costly, uh, staff-wise and and the more we can see the revenue, uh, coming, I think the the better and I think it it it actually impacts probably our our budget talks as we move forward. So, that's good news. Um, glad to see too a rededication to identification of gifted. Um uh I think that's been an area where we have actually uh failed over the years uh uh and not devoting enough time or staff to it. Matter of fact, it's one of the reasons
124that we even created the Spencer school uh was the board feeling strongly that somehow the way we were doing it before uh was not good. But this is I think this is good and I think that shows up also on our report card uh regarding whether or not we're successful in the identification health services in every school. We need to be able to say that and that's congratulations for for that. I know that's one of the areas that city council always is talking about because they're hearing in the community that not nurses here or health services there. So I think that's great. You mentioned this post-graduation transition which I find interesting the uh that you've you've gotten that now that where it's 100% or >> Yep. five years in a row. >> How how does
125the transition especially now that we've moved kind of to the middle school piece and um uh how is how are we doing the transitioning uh regarding special services um uh as kids move from division to division? Is that creating a problem or to be solved or is are we embracing it or what have what would you say? >> No, I don't think it's creating a problem. Um it it specifically about transition or just in general it it's not it's actually we have a lot of ideas about how we can bring some of the things that we targeted for high school students for transition activities down into middle school to make sure that they have that pathway to follow. We have we have a really great >> transition team and they have a lot of ideas
126for that. So really what that does is make it a little bit easier because those grades are captured there and we can target them specifically with what they need. So it's actually a benefit for us. >> Well, that's good to know. I appreciate that. And my last thing and I say this all the time um on the vision screening. I keep remembering something that they did at Oiler a number of years ago where they had an even more extensive vision screening and it I think it uh made three times the number of kids were really identified with vision problems than we are just in our regular vision uh efforts can can pick up. And I just wish somewhere within our budget I was try to get it on the list to increase uh what that
127might entail. I think that would be very helpful, but I I don't know if I'm overreacting to that or not. >> I can tell you I don't I I I maybe I shouldn't say this because I don't know the details at this point, but Angie Maddox was talking to me about exactly what you're talking about, how she's talking to some folks about that. It might be I'm not sure exactly who it is, but that actually came up, the more extensive vision screening that I don't know the name of it. So, other people are talking about that, too, so we're all on the same page. I I hope we can try to prioritize it for our our young people, especially since we do also provide opportunities for kids to have glasses and what have you. So,
128thank you. Uh very good report. I appreciate it. >> All righty. Board member Armbster, then board member Lindy and Vice President Buffett. >> Uh this is great. Thank you so much. Um, I just really quickly wanted to talk about I've seen the gifted um, enrichment programs at a couple of the schools in the fine arts program and I know specifically even at my school and I'm assuming at these other ones cuz I've seen it um, the ILT has implemented for the um, fine arts teams an enrichment period in their day where they have just a couple of students that come in and work on those. So um, it's wonderful. I think as far as equity goes, my concern would be those schools that don't have full-time in those areas, um, we're probably not capturing as
129much as we could. So, just as a budgeting and and staffing model, um, that creates problems, but I have seen in action and it it's a wonderful program. Thank you, >> board member Lindy. >> Uh, thank you very much, [clears throat] Dr. Reeves. Thank you. >> Um I just have two questions um or questions on two different topics and and um the first one is about uh just our capacity around self-contained units. Mhm. >> And I want to see if I can uh explain the issue correctly because I I do deeply believe in the idea of least restricted environment and not putting a student in a self-contained unit if the least restricted environment genuinely is an inclusion setting in a classroom. And there are some cases where truly the right setting is a self-contained unit.
130>> Sure. And so what I wanted to try to understand was how common is it for a student to be in a general ed classroom when really if we had all the resources, space, teachers that we wished we had, we would have them in a self-contained unit. Does that question make sense? >> I think so. I think we we should have around it should be I'm trying to think of the exact number. It should be close to like an 80 to 85% of students in general education if we were hitting targets. >> Yeah. And so, um, my math in public is bad. I tried this the other day and I couldn't do subtraction. So, um, if we were if it's So, is that saying that there really should be about 15% of special education students
131in a self-contained unit? >> Well, not not they could be somewhere in the interim. some we have there are there it's not just one or the other. There's a bit of a a range there. It should be a much smaller percentage of students who are in a specialized classroom. >> And that that makes sense to me. And this is about what if we're doing everything right, what should be true. >> Great. I think I'm trying to ask about are there cases where we can't do what we'd like to be able to do because we are constrained either because of physical space or number of trained teachers. I would I don't think that it's that because we really don't make decisions about least restrictive environment based on um what's available. It needs to be made based
132on what the student needs and it really is that student student needs are increasing. That's that's what we're seeing. So is it is it fair to say then that there aren't examples in CPS where a students should be in a self-contained unit but we instead have them in a general ed classroom >> if the IEP team has decided which is the way that it has to happen the IEP team has to determine including the parent the students LRE then they will be placed where they need to be placed. Yes. >> So, it it's I can I just want to make sure I'm taking the right message. I shouldn't I a board member shouldn't have to worry about situations where hypothetically we have a student in a general education classroom when we really should have that
133student in a self-contained classroom? >> No. >> Great. Um that was my first question. Um my second one is um as you look at um just how we assess success in special education. I think the graduation stat is wonderful. I think that's great. I'm glad we're celebrating it. It's a huge increase over where it was. Um and I want to thank uh you and everybody who worked on moving that outcome. I think that's a big deal. Um, are there efforts to at some point look at um the exp like the I'm trying not to use the word satisfaction, but I can't think of a better word, but just for the parents and the families going through the IEP process, how what the experience of parents is? Um, and does the does the team think about
134measures of success in terms of parent and family experience? Does that question make sense? I think so. And we the main way that we would get there's two different ways that we could get that information now that we have that information. One is every year just because of um funding we have to do a survey about our IDAB funding and it incorporates questions like that that student that parents and families can answer. And we also one of the indicators that was on there and that is not reported out now is that we do this is not while they're in school. So, it may not be exactly what you're talking about, but we do longevity. We are we reach out to students a year after to see um where they're at and get data on that
135and that it's part of that questioning as well. >> Great. Uh, I think to log for the future longer term, not a short-term request. But I think at some point as we're looking at um strengths, opportunities within special education, looking at some of the numbers on how parents are experiencing that process, I think could be a helpful thing to look at. >> That's a great idea. Thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> All right, Vice President Buffett. >> So, again, I'm going to try not to be redundant of questions that have been asked and uh partially answered. I do still have quite a few. And so some of my comments I'm going to invite you to come back with the correct or the updated information. I'll say um one of the things I'm really concerned
136about is um well let me ask this question. Can you define the um the the nurse in the building versus the nurse's assistant? Like what's their role? So it it's there's not a nurse in every building. the school health office is staffed. So there are some buildings that have a higher level of need and they have an RN. There is sort of a mid tier um that has some significant need but not doesn't reach quite to that level. They have an LPN and then the other buildings have a school health assistant in place and those are typically um those are going to be buildings where there is not a lot of need of students who are going to require daily like diabetic, asthma care, things like that. there the student body doesn't have as much
137of a need. And so is it fair to say that um we've when we when we look at budget constraints, we're not looking at it from the financial standpoint. We're looking at it from the need standpoint. That is how we staff them. Yes, there's no need for some buildings to really have an RN. It would be I mean it would be a nice to have, but it would be overkill. It's not really necessary. So, I'm going to just I'm very concerned about um and we've spoken about this specific situation that still hasn't been remedied. Um and there was a need for there still is a need for um staffing for the kids to be able to get up and and do use the standards standards is what it's called. And so, um, but that was
138that decision was based off of finances and not, um, or that's how it was explained to us. >> And I didn't I wasn't thinking about that. Apologies because that's not related to the school health office. So I didn't I wasn't thinking about that into that was really something that came about as a result of the it was yes it was you don't have to you don't have to go into that I just because that's one of those things I want to invite you to come back and and give some updated information about because I'm concerned >> about ma our decisions are not based on you know application it's based off of what we're being told but then when we go in we see it differently or we hear from parents more more appropriately. And um
139I'm just concerned at the disperate information and I want to make sure that >> everything that you're doing is just so wonderful for parents that we need to make sure that it is widespread and I'm afraid that staying at just the teacherto parent level may be not reaching as many as is needed for gifted and for explanation of disability services. So when you talk about tool time as far as the the newsletter, you know, I'm getting texts from parents that are like, I have no idea and I've been in the CPS system for years. So perhaps there needs to be, and this is the invitation, perhaps there needs to be an opportunity for things to be a little bit more centralized so that there's one space that they get for disability student information or how
140to advocate rather than to just make that local because that's one thing that I've really heard over and over again and I and I'm quite honestly not as versed as I need to be. So parents are the experts for me when they're asking me questions. I have to go and get the information and when many of them from different schools are asking the same questions with the same concerns. So that makes me feel like it's more than just one or two um issues. I I would I think your graduation rate is phenomenal. Congratulations on that. It's better than some of our other areas and I I welcome that. I I do have concerns and we don't have to talk about it now, but around uh the discipline data for students with disabilities and the disagregated
141data around students of color, their white counterparts, Hispanics or ELLL, which we didn't get that information. So, I'm still very curious about that and would love to receive that information as well. That information would be best um maybe if Monisha House and I could present on that together. The reason that we didn't put it here is because we meet the state targets for it, but we also know that just because we meet the state targets doesn't mean that we're where we need to be. So, if we can do kind of a deeper dive into that, we can we can look at that. >> Absolutely. And my last um my last concern is around or question is around Project Search. So we that was just such a phenomenal program that we had many years ago and
142I was uh instrumental with connecting some of our business partners with the department and some of the business partners are like at the um one of the hotels Mr. Gayen Gordon and one of the judges downtown are even asking where can we get the Project Surge students back? Can we get that program back there? There is availability of jobs without students and just can you talk about Project Surge? Can you talk about it's a wonderful it was a wonderful program where students were able to defer their graduation one year >> and then uh work in um are we planning on bringing that back? No. >> Well, we think we have an even better program now and you have visited it the workforce academy. That is our new >> um plan for students who defer their
143diploma. In addition to that, we have Project Life for students who are still within their four years so that we can help students not have to defer their diploma and they get those opportunities while they are still in school. So, both of those we would love to talk to those people. We're always reaching out to partners and those are exactly the programs that that these students could participate in. >> Well, I think that'd be great because they've asked multiple times so they're not getting that information in the invitation. So, I'm happy to make that connection, but I would love to partner with them. >> I would love to get some further information. um um at least publicly so that people can know what's out there. Absolutely. and then also um would like the information to
144be received back on how we can get information to parents a little bit more broadly around how to advocate for with their students with disabilities because I think that there may be I'm not saying that there's a block at the school level but when parents are asking the same question across the district then that that's one quick sign that we need to maybe look at how we can do things differently in your tool times newsletter would love to receive a copy of that. Thank you. >> All right, I'll go really quickly and then uh we'll go to uh board member map for a couple for a quick uh additional comments there. But um so just quickly two things. One, I think the the growth of the work that we've done with students with disabilities is
145tremendous. I think the honest truth about it is that unfortunately it is just a difficult area because of the extreme nature of a par a parent who has got to be able to advocate for their child in a way that they may not always be a perfect advocate for. Right? It puts a lot on a parent to do that. And I know that the hard work of every teacher, every administrator, every person who's working in the district to ensure that the students getting the best resources and the most of their needs is is definitely a a hard work. But again, it is such on the parent. And I and I just recall from my time working a little bit after law school with our general counsel's office, we had parents who, you know, they would
146advocate great for one child and not the greatest for the other and or they knew of certain things that they heard someone got that they thought was the perfect and and it's just a ongoing conversation that is never ending for some of our students in the district. And it's especially more difficult as you mentioned earlier because some of our students are coming in with even more needs in certain areas that may not again be per se a learning disability or be something that is always problematic in and always a challenge in their life, but it may require us to do more extensive things to assist that child. And so I I think the growth in in light of all of that, right, and all of those things that would be pulling down those numbers, the
147fact that we're seeing growth is is a tremendous thing. Um, and so I think that's that's one thing I want to want to certainly cheerlead. I think though sometimes we can say something where both things are true, where we're making strides and making efforts and we're not quite there. And I think the one aspect that I will will continue to kind of keep us thinking about and I would love again you've already offered to do another presentation see so when you come to the to the floor folks if you if you say you're going to do it [laughter] we will call you back but I think there are areas that we have also still got to talk about with regards to um some of the challenges that are I don't think of as being per
148se a disability related challenge but it's still a learning challenge. for a student and how does our curriculum map to those students who might experience those? Because one of the struggles is that it may not test to being a disability, >> right? You may not have a perceived learning disability or perceived issue, but you've got challenges that are related to other things that might be involving you as a student that again may not map as we currently look at disabilities under or map perfectly to a, you know, a uh an IEP or a 504 plan, right? And I and we've seen that with some students with especially if you're not getting if you're malnutrition, right? If you're having struggles with getting time to learn to read at home, if you're having these other things that
149are really the drawbacks that are challenging you as a student to learn in a space, you may be incorrectly identified as a person with a disability when in fact you don't. You just have never been given the opportunity and the tools and the resources to be successful in the same way that you should be. And I don't think of us as a district being able to be the people that necessarily fix that all the way. But I think if we're better able to identify some of those issues and bring those to the table of resources that we might be able to ensure that that student, even if the parent doesn't always bring them, that that student has a way to get to some of those resources that we have in the building. I think of
150that as well, right? Because I've seen that in a lot of cases where we've had students where the quite honest truth is that they just have never been loud enough for folks to hear. >> Yeah. that they're asking for help. And there's just so many kids in our district who are in need that like, you know, if we had the perfect world, we'd have, you know, one one teacher to every student, right? Like it's it's not ideal that we can we could live that way. But I think it also is just a struggle to make sure we identify those students who fall like just outside of that normal pool of people who we identify as either someone with a disability, someone who's gifted, you know, someone who's in need of an IEP, that kind of
151deal. And so I I appreciate the hard work we're doing there on that and hard work we're doing on on the students with disabilities. I just I want us to make sure that we never lose light lose the focus on the fact that there are still more kids who need our assistance as well. >> And I know Mike Turner is not here tonight, but I know that he's presented to you on our districtwide MTSS framework and and I think that that speaks to exactly what you're saying. It's it's our hope that that's going to reach exactly the students that you're talking about. And now that we've rolled that out to all schools, we're hoping to really get some momentum with that. And that's exactly what what the multi-tered systems of support is is designed to
152do is to reach those exact students. So I think that we're on the same page. >> Yes. No. And again, I I just I think we can we're doing great work towards it and I think we have to just keep on those targets there. uh board member Matt for >> um just quickly and I'll do my best to try to frame this uh question appropriately, but I'm curious to know how uh how do we support our teachers in the classroom to make sure that they are knowledgeable about understanding the IEP and helping the students that uh have an IEP um reach their goals, right? Um and and and so and I'm asking that because I know that there has been experiences not in and I'm not speaking about our district but just been in education
153for a while. Um it's off it's been an experience where individuals that have IEP um are often overlooked, right? And so it's like, okay, well, I'm just going to give them a C because they have an IEP, right? And and this that's not the goal here, right? And so, um, we want to make sure that our students are getting that differentiated instruction. We want to make sure that they are able to truly work towards reaching those goals and so that they can feel accomplished, right, and continue to advance in their academic experience. And and truly a lot of times it's not even really the educator's fault because it could be new teachers, right, that's not even fully aware of what goes into the very complex process of an IEP. And so I'm just trying to
154um ultimately ask about like what are those things that are put in place? what are the guardrails um that are in place to make sure that our students that do have an IEP are truly being considered and making sure that it is that collaborative approach to helping ensure that the students reach reach the goals that are set out and established by the full team uh to reach those said goals. >> That that's always a challenge. But one of the things that was and I didn't think about this when we were doing it an unexpected benefit of the new the new um student information system and the focus that we brought in was that having to train everybody on that when when it came in they automatically got training on how to access all of that
155information when we might have missed some of those. So we number one everybody has access to that information. Um but I know that that's just reading a document so that's not always going to give you all the information that you need. It is one of the it's the job of everybody on that team to make sure that they are familiar with those and that's one of the things that the intervention specialist should be helping the team to really understand the needs of the student and kind of give suggestions for what that would look like in the classroom and it really should be you're right a combined effort. It can be difficult. Um it we have a limited number of PD opportunities. So it can be challenging to get everybody on the same page to do
156specific PD about that. But we do try to do that in um at the school level when we have when we have um team meetings with them. We are invited to staff meetings. So we try to do that kind of training at that level so that it's really targeted to the students that are in their building and fits the model that they have in place. Okay, thank you. Yeah, again, just wanting to ensure that our students um are feeling supported in that as well and and also for um students to not internalize, well, I don't have to do this work. I have an IEP, right? Um so again, just making sure that um all parties are knowledgeable and what that collaborative work looks like again to ensure the goals for that student. >> Thank you.
157>> All righty, Dr. freeze, you are free to go. >> Thank you all. >> Thank you. >> Um, next on our agenda, Assistant Treasurer Martin, you want to walk us through our next presentation on the budget timeline and I will also assist in this. >> Thank you. Um, yes. So, I'm very excited here tonight to walk us through the budget timeline. The presentation up Yes. Hello. Be a little louder. Got it. Um for this exciting subject matter. Um so walking [clears throat] through the budget timeline, we can start with next slide, please. Where we are to date. Uh so back on March 2nd was the when we introduced the updated target with the three-year [clears throat] forecast and introduced the process that we were using for the general fund budget. Last week um we presented
158to the board the legal requirements the costs that are we are legally required to um have for their review and for questions. And then tonight we will be taking the vote on whether to approve those budget items. Um to review the numbers, the budget target from the three-year forecast for fiscal year 27 is 627.9 million. The legal requirement items cost 142.7 million um in total. Remaining 485.2 um in the budget left to um to spend. Okay. Uh so there are a few pathways forward and um we can think about these multiple pathways uh as as different avenues to get to a completed budget. We could think about different themes that organize the spending. Each will have gains and each will have trade-offs. But across no matter what pathway we choose, there will be high priority
159items as the additional building block to get to um our pathway choices. And those items, those high priority items are the minimum staff for district operations, the items that keep us in compliance with collective bargaining agreements and board orders um board policy and also address those largest areas of risk. So in terms of timeline, uh we the high priority items would be the next thing that we would tackle and that would help finish setting the floor for all the district operations. Uh we would We intend to introduce the list of items and costs in this next bucket, if you will, on April 6th and for the board's review and um questions and then hold the vote for approval on April 20th of those high priority items. And then also on April 6th, we would do
160the introduction of the different pathways that we are going to um pursue to understand and organize the rest of the costs. April 20th, at the same time as we're voting on the high priority items, we would have further discussions of the pathways. We would potentially eliminate some pathways, combine some pathways, or think about um what what we want to um consider further. On May 4th, we would review the pathways with budget details. On May 18th, we could approve ana a pathway that we'd like to choose and the associated budget items and all in pursuit of building the budget. So, if you can see from this graph, that big box is the 627.9 million that we have to spend. The legal requirements are the first base that's tonight. The high priority items exist in all pathways.
161That's the next task for us to vote on and get approved. Um, understand, vote on, and get approved. And then three different pathways that fill up the rest of that box um to potentially consider. And then finalizing the budget after every step has been approved. In June 8th, there will be the final review of the full budget based on the pathway that has been selected. And on June 22nd will be the final vote for the final appropriations resolution. >> Thank you. >> All right. And thank you, Assistant Treasure Martin. Just to add on a couple of things just as a point of uh note for the board and then we'll open up any questions. But uh as you can see, we only have six meetings after today to pass a budget. Um so that will
162mean a lot of work to be done from uh both our end but also from the superintendent and the treasurer to get there. Um the second thing and you'll see we have a presentation on or a uh yeah basically a a not presentation but an additional slide with regards to budget pathways. Uh it's certainly helpful for us to start talking through some of these ideas is to see whether or not these are even things that people will be viable with understanding that this that particular slide is just like the intro thoughts around this not necessarily something we are moving these are the the exact three but it's really to bring it to the board's attention to give feedback and thoughts as we go forward. Um, part of what I want us also to be thinking
163about when it comes to pathways, there are always going to be costs that we have to kind of weigh in. So whether or not something is of great value, it gets a good return, it's something we want to continue doing, and then what cost does that have associated with it? And what benefit does it bring? And so those are real thoughts we have to have. And sometimes with some of the budget pathways, it's going to create questions of whether or not something that we might have really liked is worth doing given the pathway we choose to go down. Um, so the pathways are not going to be predictive of of a specific result, but they're really going to give the administration an idea of what is the guidance as they go to make decisions and
164to bring back options. Right? So there would still likely be some options within a pathway. That's why it's also nice to get below three down to two if you can. Um, but the first three that has been uh kind of talked through is first is pathway one which is a decentralized model which would move a lot of the support services that are in central office out to the individual buildings. That comes with some benefits. It comes with some cost. Again, I think uh Treasure August had planned to give a little bit more extensive discussion around some of those things as well as superintendent at the April 6 meeting, but it's just a heads up. Um the decentralized model would mean less of support staff in central office when there were to be a problem. So
165buildings would be more likely on their own for things if there's a concern. Buildings also kind of would be managing a lot of the stuff. So again, it'd be more directly putting it into the hands of folks that are closest to the students and families, but it also comes at a cost. Um, returning to pre-COVID staffing and programming levels. That doesn't ne doesn't necessarily mean the exact programming and staffing that we did pre-COVID, but bring us back down to the level we were prior to the investments we did during COVID. Again, that's a another model of a pathway. what those programs and what the staffing needs would be would be something that would still get determined through uh discussion. But it really is just kind of bringing us down into a point of where we
166were prior to um a ramp up of some of the services and and and benefits we've and programs we've created following uh the co outbreak. The last pathway that they presented here in this uh presentation is on pathway three which is just leveraging partnerships and investments in talent. It means utilizing some of our outside partners to do some of the services and provide some of the resources as much as we can or utili utilizing uh partnerships um or further utilizing some partnerships to lower the cost of providing certain services. Again, this has its own benefits and drawbacks. That means those would be potentially outsourcing some positions and some work. Um, it also means it's a lot of lift to get all of those partners involved and engaged in providing those services on a reasonable basis
167and being able to monitor that work again. But that may be a better investment of our dollars may see a better benefit, but it may come with its own challenges and we've seen some efforts to remove some of our stuff that we've outsourced in the past to bring it back in-house over the years. This will be kind of a reverse back in that direction. Those are the three just initial thought pathways. Um I'm going to open the floor for discussion both on the timeline as well as just some initial thoughts on the pathways. Understand that no decision on the pathways that needs to be made today. This was just bringing it to light for the board to have before we talk about it on April 6 and get kind of more of an investment into
168that discussion. Um but any questions or thoughts from board members? Uh board member Matt? Uh this only question is around well one let me say thank you for providing the timeline and some different options that we could possibly consider. So I recognize we have our budget target. um looking for I guess insight and maybe this will be coming obviously along the way with the timeline but looking for insight about what we uh what our um what would we have to close like what would be the budget gap right to be able to I guess understand what would be the direction that we may possibly take with these pathways that are being presented to us. >> Yeah. So one maybe answer to that and it's like maybe a different think thought process but each one of
169these pathways would be towards balancing the budget. So every single pathway will require us to get to that same number >> and nothing no cost differential will be done between the pathways. It's really about how do we use those dollars. Now we'll know better in April 6 because we'll actually have those high priority items identified and be able to put a dollar amount to that. So you'll know better what that last remaining portion is. Um, but every single one of them will essentially cost the same if not, you know, may may some may fall a little below. So, we'd have a little ability to save and put in some cash uh on hand. >> But otherwise, yes, it would all be strategically basically the same dollar amounts. >> Other questions? >> Thank you. >> Um,
170member I think board member Bolton and then board member and then Vice President Moffett. >> Thank you. Um, I I appreciate it. I think this is a good idea. Uh I like the the first two pathways and obviously leveraging partnerships uh um is a little bit more uh kind of uh the icing on the cake or what have you. Uh but I think the precoid staffing, precoid uh situation is is a is an interesting goal to to at least for us to see and and impact and and I I am very much in favor of of u directing resources in a more decentralized way um where the where the students are. I I have a question though about what what do we what do we mean by on a particular date we're going to know
171a little bit more about the high priority items. Mr. President, can you describe that to me? >> Yes. Uh so what they're defining as high priority. So what we did it what we'll vote on a little bit later today a little bit later tonight is like the floor like all the things we have to pay for. >> Got it. >> The next level are things that are either required by >> Okay. like the collective bargain agreement, board policy, in order to operate a district, you need these type of things. Yes. >> So, no matter what pathway is built, you know, you're going to need some teachers in a building. [laughter] So, >> fortunately, it will be teachers in a building. It'll be, you know, some level of HR. Now what may be different from the
172high in the high priority versus other things is the extent of which a particular item is necessary based on collective bargain agreement and policy and other things may be a much lower level than what we are currently staffing it at today. >> Right. Gotcha. That that's good. I was I was just concerned that the that we were the next step was that we're going to have to come up with our priorities, but actually this is the next thing that we have to address rather than put any uh value onto anything in particular. But yes, that that's great. Um I would I'm also interested uh as we look at this um also to something that the vice president mentioned the last meeting we had doing something differently uh and and certainly what we heard again today
173stopping doing things. I I really appreciate some sort of guidance from administration about what they might think probably may no longer be needed. Uh and I'm not talking about this this is this is semantics. I'm not talking about cuts. I'm talking about stopping something or things new new things have influenced us. Uh uh one of the issues that we're all reading about more and more is less screen time for kids. how does that impact how we're funding uh uh the our computer work or whatever. So, I mean, I would I'd like that to be part of the discussion when the administration comes to visit us again. Uh but uh I like I like this approach and I do think we can expedite uh the budget process and I think we probably need to and again
174it's getting more and more difficult because the revenue is less and less but we are committed to that pledge we made. I don't know if we have to make it again about revenue versus expenditure, but I think that should be some part of the dialogue the next time we talk to make that commitment again if we have to. And in indeed the administration's dealing with uh requests for the budget that we have not even seen, but that's their problem right now, not ours. So have at it. So thank you. I think this is a good approach. Thanks for the clarification. >> Absolutely. And just as a reminder and again superintendent certainly correct me if I'm wrong on this but I think part of the other thing with the pathways when we bring them forward is
175that they will iron out they will or not iron out they will demonstrate what are the the benefits to it but then also what are you giving up I think what you're also asking is maybe are there things that we would say no matter which pathway we go down we no longer can do x and so that may be an additional thing that we can ask the administration to kind of bring forward when we do the high priorities is just maybe there are some items that could we we just can't do this anymore based on no matter which pathway we would go down. >> I think early on uh the board made it clear to us that whatever the items are, we are either to share how this will be done differently, how it will
176be absorbed or it's not going to be absorbed and that would be the end of that work. >> Uh Vice President Mu. >> So thank you. I I think a lot of what I was the direction that I was going has kind of been answered. I I will say this to maybe expand a little bit on board member Matt's um direction. I'm not exactly certain that I have enough information to discern which pathway I like to vote on which pathway because what let me just say what I'm what I would need to vote. So, I would like to know. I mean, I think decentralization is is a positive in some areas, but I don't know what would be needed to train the buildings to be able to handle that or what what would they need
177versus what they currently have. So, I'm very interested in what would be needed to do priority to I'm sorry to do pathway one. What is needed? What needs to stop for all of that to happen at that level? Is there a cost savings with that? Is there an additional expense? that next year it would be um be over or some things could be um put in place to offset. I I just need more information for each particular pathway, which I don't currently have to be able to select the pathway. So, I I like the idea. I think it's great, but I do think that in order for me to make a very informed decision, I'm going to need the administration to bring back everything under that particular pathway. uh and the cost associated with that
178so that I could see with decentralization if enrollment is at the building level if training is at the building level I'm just giving these as an example then everyone would need to be trained this way this is how this fits in the collective bargaining unit blah blah blah um in essence what would be the cost of or the lift for each one of those and where would the cost savings be preferably over time but um that's that's what I would need um I also would like to see under each pathway what the administration views as the opportunity for new and innovative programming. Whether or not we decide on that is not what I'm asking for. I'm asking for, hey, if we decentralize buildings in the future in alignment with a potential strategic plan item, we
179could put this here in the future or we could do that. Um, what I think I'm asking for ultimately is for more uh thought to be put into each of these and not just, hey, vote on this. This is what I'm thinking. And then at meeting number four, oh, this is going underneath that which we had no idea because it wasn't listed. I don't want surprises. I don't want um things that we're not made aware of early on to be placed in a pathway or fit in there in an attempt to try to um to keep it or make it fit. I just would like to have everything itemized out clearly differentiated and what what we currently do. Where does it fall? What we are thinking about doing it would fall under this if we
180were to choose that. So I think that there's more work to be done. I definitely invite the administration treasurer team to u do that due diligence and bring back that work and look forward to exercising this particular way of doing the budget. We've done it all kinds of different ways, but I just don't think we have enough information at this time and I know that's normal. We don't have enough information to be deciding on a pathway, but I'm looking forward to it. >> Uh and and again, just a reminder, we weren't there was no intention to vote on a pathway today, nor is this uh intended to be the full set of information. the actual presentation will be when Treasure Gustin's back. Um, but I think the goal was to see if any of these
181were just like an immediate no from the board. Like if the board said no, we ain't doing that. There's no way we're going to do that. Then they we didn't want to send them on the pathway down to creating what those benefits and costs are. Um, and because there certainly were a lot of pathways that were thrown out there as part of the discussion. These were the three that the administration felt uh important to bring to us to to get some guidance on is whether or not we wanted to have them work on all three. We could say, you know, we could all say number two is just terrible. We don't want it. Or we could say number one is phenomenal. That's the only one we want. We can do that today. We don't have
182to, though, and that's the point. Uh board member Lindy, >> I might be able to come close to saying no, I don't want to do any of these. Um uh no, joking aside, uh I I really appreciate many things about this budget process. I'm excited to vote on the legal requirements tonight. I think it's a great place to start. I appreciate President Craig messaging really clearly how many meetings we have, not just how many months or weeks we have, but how many meetings we have to make these decisions. I think that is great. Um I think these are all good things. Um my request whatever pathway we choose uh is to treat this not as a how do we get to a balanced budget but how do we advance a strategy? So for whatever we
183pick, um the question I'm going to ask is superintendent, what is your argument that this strategy most advances either the goals we have this year on third grade reading, on algebra 1, on closing sixth grade reading gap, on um career pathways, this is the strategic plan or as we get further into the engagement with Bellweather and Redcon, how is this doing the most we possibly can with the resources we have to advance the emerging priorities of the strategic plan and that I think has to be our lens for which of these is the right way to do it. If we do anything else, we are working um I don't know like we are just not putting front and center the need to do the most we can for students in a coordinated strategic way. So
184that's my request. Anything that does that has my thumbs up. Anything that doesn't do that I got to vote against. Thanks >> board member across. >> Yeah, [clears throat] thank you for uh for the presentation and everybody's comments. Uh from my lens, I sort of see these pathways as possibly different tools and I could see where there's u certain parts of our expenditures where uh one pathway might be more effective than another. And I hope we can be nimble enough to to at least try to uh utilize that, not necessarily be lock in on a pathway that doesn't necessarily work for a certain expense item. Um, also I' to echo um, board member Lindy. I think we really have to integrate [clears throat] this as much as we can, as early as we can with
185the strategic plan because a uh, pathway number one, for example, decentralized, that's a pathway that will have a could have a five-year impact on how we do that. And if the strategic planners who are doing the assessment of our financials give us some insights that are otherwise then we might want to pay attention to those as soon as we can. So thank you. >> Uh I think that's a great point uh because I do think one of the things we'll have a a challenge with no matter which plan or which pathway we pick and maybe this is also to board member Lindy's point. um if we pick a pathway and then we get back and say we're gonna strategic as a part of the strategic plan, we're going to do the exact opposite, it's [laughter]
186kind of a waste of uh time there to do. So, uh Borman Bolton, you >> just a real quick followup based upon what has been said. Um, the COVID one is interesting to me because CO laid bare things that were so inequitable in our district and that then we found ways to try to use that crisis to make things more equitable. So, I mean, I think the the COVID piece is an informative piece. uh it doesn't necessarily mean cut back to that but it we can we know well some of the things we found out about ourselves from that and I do think philosophically the decentralization is is still a part of of the values for the for the district. Um, if if I want to say something though about the partnership, if you ranking
187all three of these, the partnership is not going to close the budget gap, but it will help us make a significant difference in regarding our innovative efforts, I think, or even having an inventory of how much our partnerships are already uh affording uh us the services or the the the money that we don't currently have would be of value. >> And I think this has been great insight. I know uh saw assistant super or assistant treasure Martin over there drawing down notes. I know the superintendent was drawn down notes also um to give them guidance on what to bring back in the bigger discussion around pathways. Uh I think from what I've heard from folks it needs to be at least giving us some idea of what's going to be the cost and the the
188benefits or what innovative things can you do based on the pathways. what is the reality of what that transition will look like? Um because I do think that's a re and and then how does it go towards achieving the goals we set either that either the goals for this year or what potentially our goals would look like for next year. Uh because I think that is a very valid point there. If we're not actually making a plan that is focused on how we achieve the things we're striving to achieve for that's probably also not a great pathway either. Um, and I think what we will also see in a little bit better light once we have the high priority items identified and structured out is what that amount will give us left. Um, recognizing that
189we're not necessarily budgeting towards the the or not necessarily making plans for the district based on like what dollar we have, but what can we use the dollars most effectively to do? Um, and so I think that's that's certainly uh I know Treasure Gustin was looking forward to having some of those discussions, but I think uh Superintendent also will be able to bring real perspective about how her team is able to build up what those pathways might structurally work out to be and how the district might look based on those pathways because I think that's the other it's really easy for us sometimes to say what this will do and then if we look down and say, "Oh, wait a minute. This is what this means." Uh it may have a very different uh effect
190on us. So, look forward to you all bringing those back for the April 6 meeting. Um, and again for April 6, we'll be doing the high pri I'll be identifying the high priority items for discussion and bringing in a more advanced conversation around the pathways. All righty. Um, next on our wonderful agenda, superintendent, our lovely our community section. What do we have today? So, I've had a chance to share with uh board members some potential uh new opportunities for our young people as it relates to career and technical education for the upcoming school year. So, I've asked assistant superintendent Amy Randolph to come to share about that a little bit more deeply in order to make sure that our public begins to know what some of those opportunities for young people will be. Nope. Here
191we are. Good evening. Um, just a few brief updates around where we are on some of our expansion with our programming. And so the superintendent did mention that we have some um career and technical education expansion, but we've also been working um with our college team as well um to align some of that work. So one of the first uh districtwide programs that we've been launching is our um college innovation pathway. So that originally started at Schroeder High School. Uh and as you know, Sailor Park also recently has started going through that pathway, but um in collaboration with University of Cincinnati, we have been able to make that a district-wide program. So um kudos to them because they added more seats for our students so they can get an um they can get up to
192an associates degree by the time they graduate high school. So that's really exciting. Um the other thing that we have recently launched which is really a collaboration between career tech and college is the Cincinnati State partnership around automotive. So we had initially hoped to have career tech actually open an an automotive lab but we started thinking about how to utilize some of the university partners. So Cincinnati State does not typically allow automotive to be one of their CCP programs due to the cost. So working with them, we are really grateful that they are going to open it up to Cincinnati public schools for a really small pilot this year while they work on their staffing. Um so we are actually going to cover the cost of the equipment that is needed. Um so we launched
193this program. So the students that are current 11th graders that are interested would go next year to Cincinnati State for four courses and then they would have the opportunity to come back to Cincinnati public schools and take the undercar 12point credential. So we will add the undercar 12point to our credential list. Um so that's really a partnership. The students do have to be CCP eligible. So, we do still want to get to a space where we can open a an autom automotive facility within our district, but for now, this is a starting point. So, we're really excited about that and grateful for both of our university partners um as we launched that. So, we did the launch date the same timeline as we did the Zoo Academy. So, the Zoo Academy, as you know, last
194year expanded in 11th grade. Um so, we've relaunched that this year for more seats. So, we'll have the current 11th graders that were in the Zoo Academy that were not from Hughes uh will continue as 12th graders and then we have 10 more seats now. Um so, we'll have more students from other schools that can participate in that. So, we worked really hard to align both of these processes at the same time because it's really studentled, counselor, and familyled. They have to sign up and then we have to go through and determine if the students are in a space that they can do that. Um the other program that we also have added through our career tech is entrepreneurship at Woodward. We added that program this year but also now 10 seats for out of
195not out of district but out of Woodward's um out out of Woodward. So kind of like how we did the zoo academy. So students from other schools could sign up and then we have worked with the school team at Woodward to make sure that this course would be the last two bells of the day. So Woodward is a little bit of a later start from most of our high schools. So it will work for the students that are interested in taking this course um and then they can either get back to their school for afterchool activities, but we are going to work um to make sure that the scheduling works for all of the students. So Emily and Mike Turner have been really key in this work around making sure that we can expand districtwide.
196And then the other piece that is not necessarily district-wide, but we did um get in the schedule for two of our high schools, Withro and West High next year, we'll have the 911 um telecommunications and the 911 just the basic certifications. So both of those would go towards um people that are interested in working in the 911 operator realm. Um so we've got that course approved and students are now optioning. And so we have two more nine-point credentials next year. So we feel good that we've moved in the direction of of expanding our credentials. And we are um also currently working with facilities on a fourth one around EPA refrigerant that is a 12-point credential as well um in collaboration with Woodward's um HVAC program. So working to get these going. Um so all of
197the district-wide seats, the launch date was February 9th. It closed this past Friday. So the teams are going through college innovation pathway had 66 applicants which is amazing. Um so really excited there. Schroeder and Sailor Park will have priority as they're the two sites. Um but we will also make sure that any other student that's interested gets access um as long as they're eligible. So you have all of this in here and I know that was a lot quickly [laughter] and I didn't have an official presentation but just wanted to share and any questions you have or anything I can answer. >> All right board members uh vice president. >> So I I think this is great. Um, I just want to clarify. You're talking about a total of 50 students for just these two
198additional seats. 10 for the zoo and 40 for the um automotive. >> Is that just for this year or there will be more for next year? I just I see it says seats available. So, is it just for this upcoming year? We're only talking about 40 seats and 10 seats. >> Yep. So, yes. right now. So, the zoo academy only does 50 students period in grades 11 and 12 combined. So, last year part of the growth plan was to expand Zoo Academy. So, 15 seats always stay with Hughes because Hughes is the home school and then 10 seats. So, every year we add 10 seats, not add 10 seats are available to non-Hugh students. So, the zoo academy is always 50 students. So, now we're at the space where 20 may or may not be
199Hugh students. If there are not enough students and more Hughes want to sign up, we're not going to tell a Hughes student no. Um, so yeah, the Hughes the Zoo Academy is always 50. >> Does that answer the question? >> Well, I'm just trying to say for what we're adding is just 10 seats for the zoo >> for the district 10 additional seats for the zoo programming. Is that right? I just want to understand. >> So, we didn't add 10. Oh, we it's in the past it had always been filled by Hugh students and there was um interest in it being citywide. So last year, this current school year, we opened 10 seats, but it's not new. So this year right now, it's 40 students from Hughes, 10 students from other schools. Next year, so
200it's not necessarily additional seats, it's just 10 seats available to non Hughes students districtwide. >> Okay. So we we just decreased the number of Hughes students that would be there and opened it up for 10 students who are not Hughes. So the program only has 50. Correct. It will we Okay. So then that that that's clarification. Thank you. And then for the automotive, we have 40 seats for all of our students across I'm just looking at the I'm just reading the first line. That's 40 districtwide seats. >> That's for our college innovation pathway. >> Oh, I'm sorry. That's not the automotive one. >> Nope. So, they're just And these are the two different programs. The first one was the 40 district seats and college innovation pathway. >> Okay. So that's the one that's currently operating
201out of Schroeder and then Sailor Park started it this year when we added the high school. >> Um and so then as we've been working with the University of Cincinnati, we wanted to make sure that other students had access as students choose to maybe move in a different direction. So currently right now um there are 30 seats um that are being at at Schroeder, but they do not fill 30 seats. like UC has dedicated 30 seats to us but we have not we have not used 30 seats so they expanded to 40 and said can we offer to other schools as well so it is they've really expanded but we will always give priority to Schroeder and Sailor Park >> okay I think I understand that how many seats are for the 911 certification >>
202that is any student at so this year is going to be offered um depending If you're looking at WRO or West High, that would just be a normal um our teachers can have up to 150 students. So that would be for any student um at Wro or West High. And then next year the goal is to add well both schools will offer both courses. So right now with row is I think one of them is Withro with row colors and one is West Tai but next year we'll have both at both schools. >> Okay. And that doesn't have a limit with regard to capacity. >> Just Yeah, just normal teacher limits. >> Okay, I think I understand. Thank you. Thank you so much, >> Board Member Bolton. >> Yeah, the the 911 one would be
203expanding the uh public service academy. >> Correct. That's why I said yes at those two schools. I do I I'm really appreciate uh us thinking about how you have home campuses for some of these career tech uh opportunities and yet you have district-wide availability or usage possibly whether it's going there or doing it virtually or whatever. I think that has to kind of be the plan that we have to use. And I think part of that is probably redesigning the the a new high school day >> so that as you mentioned like the last two periods, kids, especially now that we aren't necessarily forced to provide transportation from one school to the next, the kids are now using the metro or what have you at a reasonable cost uh to us. it seems that that
204could really be part of our larger plan down the road. Um, so I'm very interested in that and I like the the additions. I'm really excited about the 911 piece and I'm very, as everybody knows, we've we've all been talking at for a number of years about finding ways that when a kid graduates, uh, not only to have a diploma, but an associate degree, I think that has to be something that we plan on. uh in the marketplace just like college credit plus is making so at least one year maybe two years as is AP uh u uh college almost affordable >> and also a support system to get through the first year or so that our kids may need just uh because of the experience. So this is exciting. Keep keep expanding expanding expanding.
205Career tech is is crucial to to our growth. All righty. Uh, any other board members? See? Yes. Quickly, >> very quickly, what was the cost for the expansion? >> So, no cost to us for any expansion other than we are going to buy the materials for the students at Cincinnati State >> um out of our CTE dollars. So, um the cost is $1,200 for the kit, which is why so for CCP, um colleges do not have to open up every program they have if the materials are greater than I believe it's $750. Um and so we will cover the cost of that and we'll purchase one time. Uh we're working on figuring out how will we either like make that a benefit if a student like give them the tools like after they finish um
206or will we do one purchase and then they you know purchase them from us. Um but they're $1,200 and so it's just going to depend because Cincinnati State um is losing their automotive teacher. So they are they have one but they are they currently operate with two. So the students are going to go in with like regular adults that are interested in automotive. So they are working on staffing. So it will just depend. So in the budget, we budgeted for no more than 10. So 12,000 would be the cap. >> Okay. >> Just the supplies, but the CCP is just we it's just the normal CCP budget that we have within the district. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um how to say you have M >> just uh quickly. So thank you for the presentation
207um and um sharing out about the CTE opportunities that are available. I know for many of the um things that you presented on today, these were already things that we were kind of anticipating um based off of what was discussed um during like the growth plan conversations and things of that sort. Um I'm I'm interested in knowing if there are additional opportunities that we've explored around the CTE conversations that may um provide a little bit more innovation such as um as I've shared with my colleagues, I know that several districts are um around the country doing things that pertain to um you know aerospace dynamics and things of that sort. And so I'm looking for just possibilities that we are able to continue to extend out to our students, things that they may not have
208even considered, but it's a great opportunity for them to have exposure and access to. And so I'm interested in knowing um if those conversations are being had at an administrative level to again continue to provide and offer more opportunities for our students. So I don't know if this is the bandwidth or the capacity that we have or if there's room to explore other potential opportunities. One of the uh things that we have talked about as a team is what we can do with our strategic plan. So some of the bigger ideas we plan to bring to the table and to the forefront at the appropriate time as we move into what do the next four years for our students look like? What does that post-graduation beyond the tassel look like? So what we are doing
209now is with the confines of the dollars, the finances, the resources that we currently have, should we be able to get to the strategic plan at a level that is a little more ideal for us, then those larger ideas will come out. Uh we did I did share with you a visit um to uh the Northern Kentucky Toyota campus. Had some really great ideas, had a lot of conversations about what does that look like to have a center here in Cincinnati public schools, but we just don't have the resources right now to be able to do those things. Okay, that's helpful to know and that's why I framed it as such in terms of if this is the bandwidth or the capacity. But I'm definitely interested as we're talking about the strategic plan, we're talking
210about the budget to be able to include that in the conversation as well. Thank you. I think uh I'm triggered for one thought real quick and I'll just say it really fast but uh I think this is also part of why the budget is such a necessary thing to keep in mind of which pathways we think about in later discussion because I think if we are wanting to do more career tech more CCP more of these opportunities in the district or figure out ways to do those things we have to make a plan to do so and we have to build the right process and pathway to achieve that and so that that's just something we should keep in mind as we're talking through those ideas. The only other thing I would want to say
211on the career tech is that I think we are we are never at a we never at a loss of people who have reached out and said they want to do more. I think we did give you a task of coming up with two that were seven points or higher. Um that does not mean for ones that are less than seven points we can't do. It just also may mean that we have to prioritize how to do those things in the district. And I think that's always just been the challenge is. And so as part of our pathways discussion, as we were talking about this, I think it'd also be helpful to talk about what ways does the school day and the school year potentially change under certain pathways so that there are more ways
212to do other things because I think that's one of the struggles I at least know one of the struggles with career tech is that you need time to do it. And for some of these programs, especially automotive, you know, just you're required to be there. Even construction, you're required to like in order to go out and get a job with these things, you're going to have to have time and hours into those things. And and we just don't always have time in a normal school day to give people those hours. So, appreciate the uh update on that. And again, I love uh our community section here because it really brings new things to light. I would also encourage us to make sure that we're communicating these new opportunities and the way these new opportunities work
213more broadly to the public so they know how much career tech we are doing and how much work we're putting into these things and that they're able to bring ideas to the table. We'd love to have them there. Thanks. Uh so next on our agenda is the uh probably most important vote of tonight. Um, so I uh will take a motion to uh approve the recommended legal compliance budget items for uh board uh approval. >> So moved. >> Second. [clears throat] >> Board member Arm Brewster. >> Yes. >> Board member Bolton. >> Yes. >> Board member Crosset. >> Yes. >> Board member Lindy. >> Yep. Board member Matt. >> Yes. >> Vice [clears throat] President Moffett. >> Yes. >> President Craig. >> Yes. See how easy that was? That was wonderful. Um, we had only
214one item that was uh for board matters this week. It is a update uh with regards to our CPS city of Cincinnati uh meeting. Uh board member Arburster. >> Uh yep. Uh thank you so much. I'll be really brief. Um if people have questions, feel free to reach out or ask. But um we have our first meeting scheduled for April 13th at city hall. They're hosting us in their chambers at 5:30 p.m. Familiar Day Monday at 5:30. So shouldn't be too hard to remember. Um the focus um we're going to have a presentation uh by um violence reduction manager at ACT for censey Kate Bell. They're going to be presenting um that work which is amazing. Um one of the things we are hoping to focus on this year is um overall youth violence reduction.
215Um and then um CPS will also be presenting and I actually am going to work um with the superintendent on what that looks like. But um excited to have people come out. Um feel free to submit any ideas you have for joint work that the city and uh the school board could be working on. Um our goal for that meeting is to have some um conversation around that and to set some goals during that time. So, um excited about the work. Thanks so much. >> And again, we uh will be at the at the city hall. Yeah, there we go. Uh yeah, be at city hall for that meeting. So, they're hosting us. So, we're somewhat also at a uh at their privilege there when their space is open. But uh I just want to
216remind folks that we want to try to have at least quorum there so we can have um a technically a meeting for us as well. in that space. But um we've used these in meetings in the past to raise concerns and issues, but also to try and strategize around ways to work together. And so let's uh I think this is a great opportunity to do this with the new committee and uh do some great work. Are there any other um board matters of inquiries um assignments? I just I will give a quick update on something that um we will likely discuss at the April 6 if not April 6 at the April 20th meeting. um is that we the the administration um assistant superintendent Badget as well as uh director Shelley Green worked on compiling
217some information from some of the various different folks at the schools as to you know just their thoughts about their experiences at the middle schools and then potential thoughts on names. Again, board ultimately makes a decision on names, but this just uh some in some input and information that they had that would be helpful. So that'll get shared out to the board members and we would have a discussion. Ultimately still want to follow the process we've done generally with naming things which is to send it to policy and then policy would bring it back to to the board. But I wanted to introduce the information to folks. So we will likely just do kind of an introduction of what those that information was um at the April 6. Yes. We had a discussion about this
218in policy committee a little bit and and council Hoing may yell at me if I get this wrong, I hope, or throw something. I can't actually see him at the moment. >> He's smiling at the moment. >> Uh, no, but I I I just um I'd like to make sure that we're clear on what role policy plays and doesn't play. Um, and I think that the the the role of naming schools, other important things that need to be named is a board function. Um, I think what Dan explained to us on Friday was that it can be helpful for the um, policy committee to play some kind of early review function so that we're only bringing things to the board that um, we know cross at least some kind of reasonleness threshold. Um, I just
219wanted to say this because like we're really not interest Sorry, I am not interested in in policy playing a gating function. No, in in naming, you know, and so I think that that we really want to play >> I would like to play uh as little of a role in substantive decisions as possible. Is that fair? >> Okay, great. I just want I like I I wanted um >> we're not going to come with a recommendation. We're going to come with here are the reasonable set of ideas that we've received from the administration that meet the procedure requirements of what our policy says. Is that >> fair? >> Yeah. Great. >> Yeah. I think and I think that's a fair uh I mean again we have options there. Again the board may have their own
220as a whole board we may have our own decisions as what we think are good or bad names or names that we prefer those type of things and that ultimately be discussion on the floor here. I think the general process we've done in there is just to do kind of the clearing house to say whether or not something's aligned to policy. >> Yeah. >> More so than to say whether or not the specific name is what's recommended out of policy. >> Do these options include input from X, from Y, from Z. >> Yeah. Have we followed the process that we were supposed to follow to get >> um Yes. Great. >> So um but those those information will be shared with us. Um, we already have that data back from folks, so we can share
221that information out soon. Um, any other assignments? >> Matt, >> uh, I just wanted to follow back up on the Rosson House. Um, so I know that there was, um, inquiry and I know that, um, board member or vice chair Mafet had, uh, an assignment as well and so we haven't received any update around that. So looking forward to information about it the next >> to the status of what's going on at the Ross house. Okay. So we will uh redo that assignment to make sure that we get an update. Um I know there are a couple different parts to that but uh certainly can have superintendent and then uh her team as well as treasurer Gustin if there's anything connected there to provide an update as well. >> Yeah. >> Oh there's okay. >>
222Okay. So, it's on the it's on the emails on the uh board updates for each week. We weekly board update. Okay. Um Vice President Bolton. >> Yes. Um I'd be interested in if if it pleases the board. Uh superintendent shared in her update um some highlights of the governor's state of the state address. I believe that's what it was. And um there were things that actually uh possibly we could try to uh avail ourselves of maybe money or uh attention uh from Columbus in a positive way. And I' so I would be interested in knowing how we're approaching trying to get some of that money or get some of that support on those items because uh there was about uh school health. There was all any number of things that uh even the vision piece
223was was part of it. So I'd love a report back. It can be a memo or whatever. I don't know and it's whether it's lobbying or reaching out or is there are there grants available or what have you. >> Yeah, I think that's a great great idea. I don't any objection to No, I think this also aligns with some of the things we've that I know specifically vice president Moffets requested in the past with regards to career tech because there was dollars that were always out there that the state level that that were either hard to uh expend from the state or that we had not fully been able to take advantage of. And so, >> right, >> did you see the millions of dollars for charter school career tech notice came out today? >>
224Uhhuh. [clears throat] Yeah. Yeah. >> Um Yeah. And so again, that's more it's why it's really important for us to utilize all the resources that we can. Um I will also uh note that there's a lot of efforts around the state right now with regard to lawsuits on how certain dollars are being spent and so it's another thing to pay attention to maybe in that same alignment there is how we are incorporating some of those in. Anything else? All right. See none. uh proposed consent agenda has been distributed. We are making a slight amendment uh to this agenda to uh hold off from the budget, finance and growth committee meetings till the August or I'm sorry to the April 6th board meeting. Um so we were going to uh submit the consent agenda with this
225light amendment. Are there any exceptions? Board member Matt. Uh >> okay. Exceptions to the treasures report. Um, so assistant treasurer Martin, are you ready? All right. So, page 10, line items 2, 8, and 11. Page 11, line items 9, and 12. And finally, page 12, line item 7. Board member map was so much nicer to you, assist [laughter] your Are there any other exceptions? All right. Uh, do I have a motion to accept the amended consent agenda? >> So move. >> Second. [clears throat] >> Do you think? >> Board member Arburster? >> Yes. >> Board member Bolton. >> Yes. >> Board member Crosset. >> Yes. >> Board member Lindy. >> Yes. >> Board member Matt. >> Yes. >> Vice President Moffett. >> Yes. President Craig. >> Yes. Um, all righty. Seeing that we have uh
226completed all of our business today, I want to first say thank you to the Coale folks. Uh, really appreciate being here. The kids are amazing. [applause] Um, the chair will now enter the chair will now entertain a motion for adjournment. >> Is there a second? >> Second. Meeting adjourned.