CPS Board Business Meeting January 31, 2026

001my nesting. Mhm. >> You get to >> We have not seen >> Hey. >> Yeah. Look at that. I'm trying trying. I like to like all of these extra uh >> seeing a quorum of voting members, I call the January 31st, Cincinnati School Board uh meeting to order. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. For those in the room here, we flag is in the back of the room. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. Um, Treasure August, please call the attendance board. >> Miss Arburster >> here. >> Miss B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B M B Molton

002>> present. >> Mr. Crosset is not here. Mr. Lindy >> Miss M >> here. >> Vice President Moffett >> here. >> And President K >> here. And while uh Vice President Moff is getting set up here, I just want to do some housekeeping for those in the room. Um we do have refreshments in the back here. Um we are going to ask all of our speakers today for our presentations as well as any of the hearing of the public to come to we have a side table here where there's a mic and sit for those presentations. Um and otherwise we are going to try and have a speedy meeting today and get through everything in quick order. Um, Vice President Moffett, please explain the virtual hearing of the public process. >> Absolutely. Thank you. And

003please pardon my delay. Members of the public who are online and wish to speak during our hearing of the public this morning may do so by clicking the chat button now. The chat feature will be open for your requests for 5 minutes. If you would like a direct response to your questions, please make sure to share your name, your affiliation to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information. >> Thank you, President. Uh, I need a motion and a second to approve the January 31st board retreat meeting agenda. >> So moved. Second. >> All right. Miss Arburster. >> Yes. >> Miss Bolton. >> Yes. Miss M. >> Yes. >> Vice President Moffett. >> Yes. >> President Craig. >> Yes. All righty. Uh do uh board members have any acknowledgements or announcements this

004morning? >> That's President Buffett. >> So after our uh most recent You Okay back there. after our most recent um Cincinnati blizzard. I want to say thanks to our facilities team for attempting to get as much cleared as possible. Uh we do appreciate it. Stay safe and warm. Um, just one second as we're getting ourselves addressed in this room here. Um, any other board members have any other announcements or acknowledgements? Uh, I just want to Oh, sorry. Does the chat is disabled? I'm getting some messages that the chat is disabled. That's it. >> Uh I just want to acknowledge uh all the hard work for folks in the district as well. Um but I also want to acknowledge all the folks who are here today on a Saturday and the early mornings uh cuz I'm

005sure all of us had other places we would rather be including probably just sitting on our couch and or still tucked in. Um Superintendent and Treasure Gustin, do you have any acknowledgements or announcements? Uh so yes, President. Um so we do have a few retirees we want to announce and Rob has I believe a slide uh with a retiree. Oh my goodness. So on the certificated personnel side, Mary K. Okonnell Good is a teacher at Western Hills University High School. And then we also have retiring principal Eric Rosir from our virtual high school. Thank you for your service. And then I do have I have one kudos and then I'll toss it uh to Treasurer Gustin. Uh I do want to acknowledge and celebrate Oilers media arts department. I don't know if you've ever seen

006those young people in action, but they are extremely professional. Being uh someone who um studied and majored in broadcast journalism, I absolutely adore this program. But they have a strong partnership through our career and technical education program with Local 12 News. And recently, you can uh take a look at the clip a little bit later, but Local 12 uh did feature them on a recent uh broadcast. So, congratulations to Oiler and the students who are involved in the media arts program. Um, just quickly, but not to, you know, everything that's been said, you know, thanks to the facilities team. They did a great job. Also wanted to thank our payroll team for for working when some of which worked when they when they really didn't have to work, but came in to get that done.

007Um, and also want to thank a couple folks on my staff who don't like to be recognized by name, but figuring figuring out the new stuff in the W2s. So, if you don't know, the uh one big beautiful bill changed how overtime is taxed, >> which was passed in the middle of the year, which means >> when the federal government changes things in the middle of year, you have to retroactively try to figure that out. So, they put a they put a lot of hard work into to working backwards to figure out how to make that work for folks W2s, which are in the mail, by the way, for the folks listening. >> Awesome. I I want to take a little bit of a presidential privilege also to go back into board and acknowledgements because

008I forgot to do a couple. But um so just want to acknowledge I went to went to a visit at Woodford. I appreciated the student uh body president and vice president giving me a lovely tour. Never got to see so much at Woodford even when I went to Woodford. So, but uh both are rising or both are sixth graders who will be uh planning to attend uh several of our schools here. One's uh approaching um SCPA and then the other student will be she had like a big audition actually that day. So, I was you know crossing our fingers for her. Uh and then the other will be attending Walnut Hills next year. So, both uh great tour guys and and it was a great time to visit and see how they get their day

009started. Um, also want to acknowledge went to a couple of the uh went to North Aenddale Monaster's uh girls basketball game. That was a fun experience. Girls played hard. Um, as well as uh went to Clark's game where they had alumni night. It was a great opportunity to honor an alumni every year. Clark actually came back from 20 down >> to to win the game against Mount Healthy. So, good job, Clark. and then as as well went to Walnut's basketball game which was a lot of fun as well. >> They dominated. I was impressed. >> Um but we got a lot of great things going on in athletics in the in the district these days and so I think it's just great to see um our our young folks uh skying higher than I ever

010could. So um all righty, let's keep us moving. So, I will turn it over to Vice President Moffet for our hearing of the public. >> Thank you. I apologize for being a little disheveled today. It is cold and I think my brain is just uh cold, too. So, we are now at the item on our agenda for hearing of the public. Each speaker will have two minutes and will address all comments to the pro presiding officer. If you have any materials or presentations wanting to be distributed to the board, please give them to our board administrative assistant, Phyllis Davis, who will be right back. If you are online, once a request to speak has been granted, you'll be invited to enter. You should click on the camera icon to go interactive. Provide your name, your

011affiliation 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 is consistent with board protocol and we appreciate your help. In the unusual event that someone is not willing to follow this protocol, we do reserve the right to end that person's time. 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. After speaking, if you're online, you'll briefly see the welcome screen again as you transition back to the live stream meeting. And finally, we ask that your public commentary be respectful to all listeners and our CTF president, Julie Sellers, per the bargaining agreement has longer than the two-minute limit. Rob, do we have anybody online?

012>> Four. Okay. >> All right. Our first uh before we invite our first speaker, Holly Miller, you'll have to accept that invite that we sent or you will miss your time to speak today. Sending that again. And then our first online speaker is going to be Bethany Weber. Bethany, uh, you can go ahead and unmute your camera and microphone and begin when you're ready. >> Good morning. I'm I'm calling today to speak. >> Bethany, hold on one second. I'm going to have you restart. Okay. >> All right. >> Okay. Bethany, try again, please. >> Yeah. I'm calling today. I'm speaking on the I Ready printed on the report cards. I'm very concerned about the negative social emotional impact of this policy as it targets students with learning differences. I'm concerned about bullying specifically. Report cards

013are sent home directly with students often on a loose paper in a folder. And from my experience, report cards are read by students first. So imagine reading for the first time that um you're doing great on your grades, but you read a line that says third grader reading at a first grade level. And um yet again reminded of your deficits. And then imagine not having strong reading skills and handing your report card to a friend and reading the narrative, having them read that narrative line back to you, saying um and reading your deficits out loud. So words are powerful and I think this single line narrative will essentially out any child with a learning difference, impacting self-esteem and potentially increasing bullying, all initiated by the school. Um, we've worked really hard to integrate students with

014learning differences and reduce shame, provide accommodations for success, and how is a student to feel motivated to continue putting effort into learning at school when they may never seen that single line narrative um improve. Standardized testing is not equitable for all students, does not demonstrate true intelligence or how well a student is learning. It is simply a tool and I feel a single line will lead to more negative than positive. And when the school is already having already has access to a single report that they can simply send home to parents directly um separate from report cards I already has a report that can be sent home directly and I think that's a better solution than printing it on a report card. Um, at the minimum, I think it's important that we have an opt

015out for parents who are concerned and do not want students to feel deflated or shamed because of their learning difference on a report card that's sent home. I hope that the um school board will take this up in future policy meetings um to address the impact this new policy will have. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is going to be Clayton Adams. Clayton, you can go ahead and unmute your camera microphone. And you can begin when you're ready. >> All right. Good morning, members of the board, President Craig and Superintendent Murphy. My name is Clayton Adams, and I I have two children that attend Dater Monasuri. I'm here to speak today about this board's rush decision to add I Ready test scores to report cards despite minimal parent and staff feedback.

016Although I am a staff member, my public comment today will be coming from a place as a monasuri parent. Uh my first point is monatory is designed around whole child growth not test scores. Monastery education emphasizes mastery of individual pace intrins in intrinsic motivation, multi-age classrooms, hands-on and concrete learning before abstract. So a standardized computer adaptive assessment like Irey reduces the rich development journey to a single scaled number. A monosur report card should reflect growth in independence, curiosity, collaboration, and mastery of skills, not primarily a percentage ranking from a computer program. Uh standardized tests capture a narrow slice of intelligence. I ready measures reading and math performance at a specific moment. It does not measure executive functioning, social development, creativity, problem solving, practical life skills, emotional regulation. So when we elevate I ready scores to

017report card status, we risk signaling to families that this is a narrow measure that this narrow measure matters more than broader developmental goals. Monosuri is designed to nurture. Uh, I also think putting test scores on report cards changes what families believe is most important. Monatory education is supposed to protect children from premature academic competition, not formalize it. Um, standardized scores often reflect developmental timing more than true ability. Monatory respects readiness. I Ready does not. Um, I guess my final point here is we understand the district's need for data. However, placing I Ready scores on report cards elevates a single standardized metric above holistic developmental assessments model that the monatory education's built upon. We urge the board to consider. Sorry. Thank you. >> Thank you. That's a pretty cool tone. A little two-minute tone there, Rob.

018>> I like that one better. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is uh Holly Miller. Holly Miller, you can unmute your camera microphone and start when you're ready. >> Holly Miller, you can unmute your camera microphone and start when you're ready. We're going to move on to our next speaker. Uh Mara Samson, you can go ahead and unmute your camera microphone. You can start when you're ready. >> Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to provide feedback on the proposal to include I Ready scores on student report cards. I share the district's goal of keeping families informed and I agree that parents deserve transparency about student learning. My concern is not about assessment itself, but what I Ready scores actually measure and how those results are communicated. I Ready is often understood as showing whether

019a student is on grade level. However, by its own design, it does not. For example, using I Readyy's own published national norms and own published grade level cut scores. When students complete the fall diagnostic in November, approximately 80 to 85% of kindergarteners nationally score below grade level. This does not mean that most kindergarteners are behind. It means that benchmark for on grade level assumes mastery of skills many students have not yet been taught. When scores like this appear on report cards, they are very likely to be misinterpreted as judgments of progress rather than tools intended to guide instruction. I'm speaking both as a parent of two children who use I Ready and as a professional work with children's data and child development. In my own family, I Ready results have not consistently aligned with learning.

020From fall to winter, my younger daughter completed all the required math minutes, followed her my path, and passed all of them with strong scores. Her I Ready assessment showed zero growth. Meanwhile, my older daughter struggled through many lessons. Yet, her score increased by approximately 15 points. When children's effort, engagement, and day-to-day learning don't align with what the assessment seems to show, it raises important questions about what the score represents and how much weight it should carry in decision-m. I'm also concerned about the emotional impact. Children talk, they compare scores, they worry. My older daughter is currently two points away from being considered on grade level. Labeling her as below grade level on a report card based on such a narrow margin would undermine her confidence without providing meaningful instructional insight. Parents need information, but they

021also need to know specifically how to help their child in concrete terms if the district moves forward. >> Thank you. And we're going to try one more time. Holly Miller, if you can unmute your camera and microphone, we'll invite you to the meeting. >> Holly Miller to the chair. No response. >> Okay. Well, let's um in the interest of fairness, if she happens to come back on while our hearing of the public, then we will try to accommodate. Just let me know. Um, first up we have Brad Smith and then Julie Sers will be after that. We only have two. >> Good morning, Board of Education. My name is Brad Smith. constit constituent and a CTF field representative. I'd like to take a moment to respond to a recent op-ed from a paid parent group

022taking money from the family or farmer family foundation, a group known to push school privatization that attacks teachers and supports the narrative that standardized tests are the end all beall in education. In my second year in CPS, I was teaching middle school rocktail. Had a group of students who 8% had passed the proficiency test the year before. I was asked to identify 40 students that I could work with to help pass the test. By the time I got to student 20, I had pulled students who scored below 350. Cut score was 400. Um, my passage rate didn't go up all that much, but when I looked at the data, every single one of my students made a minimum of a 20 point jump. Most made 40 to 50 point jumps. Well, if a student scores

023320 and, you know, jumps 50 points, they're still not proficient. And so I'm kind of confused because by this op-ed I should fail that student. That doesn't seem right. Um because that's what that, you know, suggests. Um teachers assign B grades based on the work students do. A student who shows substantial growth in the year should be encouraged and rewarded, not shunned because they're still not on grade level. Grades should not be tied to 48 multiple choice once a year standardized tests that have been proven to do nothing more than identify how many low-income students your school serves. Teachers are not the enemy. Teachers welcome students each year who are at varying levels of proficiency. Teachers work hard to ensure every student in their classroom succeeds and communicate regularly with parents. To suggest teachers are

024protecting the status quo is disingenuous and meant to demonize the professionals who educate our children. The status quo is the drill and kill approach that focuses solely on raising standardized test scores. It's a nation at risk. No child left behind all over again. teachers are the ones pushing back against the status quo to so they can deliver a rich and rigorous education. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. And our last speaker today will be President Sers. And as a reminder, President Sers does not have the two-minute limit. Rob, really quickly before President Ser speaks, we are we finished online. You want to try again? >> Just give it to Phyllis. She'll give it to us. Uh >> that way we don't have to trip over everything. >> It it we'll try it one

025more time. >> Ollie, I'm going to unmute your camera as I've locked it and then we are going to try to unmute your audio again and you can try again. You have two minutes. We can't hear. We can't hear you. >> Okay. Hi. Can you hear me? Sorry. >> Yes. Go ahead. >> Okay. So, my name is Holly Miller. I'm a parent of a Gamble Monastery High School student. I am calling to let the board know that I received word on Monday that federal agents were at the Children's Hospital Medical Center and that my daughter's records had possibly been compromised by federal agents. I received a phone call at 5:40 p.m. last night from the endocrinologist who has been treating my daughter, offering her gender affirming care at the hospital. They have shut down the

026transgender clinic at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. They are denying gender affirming care. Again, this was federal agents. The hospital is pretty much gagged at this point. I have spoken to records. I have a call on to Greg Lansman. I am going public with this today, but my message to this board is that ICE is here in our city. Federal agents are here in our city and if they can obtain records at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, we would be naive to think that they are not coming to our schools to retrieve records from our students. I urge this board to pass resolutions today to protect staff and students. We need ICE protocols in place. We need training. We need guidance. Thank you for your time. Thank you. And President Sers. >> Good morning, members of the board. Um,

027Treasurer Gustin and, um, Superintendent Murphy. Um, I have a packet of information, um, concerning the putting the report card, um, reading and math levels on the report card that is separate from the standards. Number one, I ready is not aligned to the state standards and that is something that we need to make sure that we are focusing on. Are we as a district focusing on standards or are we focusing on curriculum? But I ready is not aligned to the state standards. So CTF, we are writing to express concerns about the proposal to include a one-time standardized benchmark test score directly on a student report card. While assessment data can be useful for instructional planning and family awareness, displaying a single test score as part of a permanent academic record is not only misleading, educationally sound,

028but it's unnecessary. Report cards are intended to communicate a student's overall learning progress and mastery of standards over time. A one-time test score does not do that. It reflects performance on a single day and is influenced by factors such as stress, health, language access, and test familiarity. Presenting this snapshot alongside course grades risks confusing families and overstating the meaning of the score. This issue highlights the important distinction between a sumitative and a formative assessment. If anybody needs descriptions of the difference of those two types of assessments, you can talk to any teacher. Summitative assessments evaluate learning at the conclusion of instruction and should reflect multiple measures of student work over time. Formative assessments such as I Ready are tools for improvement. They guide instruction, identify areas for growth, and support student progress. Most most benchmark

029or standardized tests function primarily as formative tools and the results require interpretation. Using grade level labels can be especially misleading. For example, I ready. The designation on grade level does not necessarily reflect comprehensive reading or math proficiency and it does not measure deeper skills such as um reasoning um comprehension in depth problem solving or creativity. Like many computer-based assessments, I Ready can mclassify students, particularly those near cut scores or those affected by testing conditions, fatigue or digital access issues. Relying on I Ready or similar tools alone, especially for high stakes decisions or public reporting is not supported by any independent research. Displaying these results on a report card treats formative imperfect data as if it were a definitive judgment of a student learning. This is particularly concerning for younger students, students with disabilities, English learners,

030and students from historically underserved com communities who are more likely to be negatively uh affected by a one-time high pressure assessment. It is also important to recognize that the teaching profession has evolved based on research and experience. Major education research organizations including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Educational Research Association and the National Council on the Measurement in Education have consistently cautioned against using standardized test scores as indicators of individual student learning or overall academic performance. In plain terms, these groups have found that standardized tests were never designed to give a parent a complete or fair picture of how a child is doing in school. Long-standing issues such as cultural bias, limited validity for individual evaluation, and weak alignment with daily classroom learning are why educators rely on multiple measures, not a single

031test score. When reporting student progress, there are there is a fiscal consideration. Modifiying report card systems to embed one-time test scores involve software changes. There will probably be additional vendor cost, staff time, training, and ongoing maintenance. These resources would be better directed towards instructional support that actually improves student outcomes. Beyond these practical concerns, it is important to acknowledge the broader context in which this proposal exists. Across the country, selective and decontextualized test scores are frequently used to undermine confidence in public education, portray schools as failing, and justify policies that divert resources away from public schools rather than strengthening them. Including a one-time test score on a report card without context or evidence of growth risks reinforcing that narrative. As a district, we should be cautious not to adopt practices that contribute to efforts to discredit

032teachers and public education. If the district's goal is to help families truly understand how their students are doing academically, the most effective and meaningful approach is direct communication between families and educators. Parent teacher conferences um allow teachers to explain student progress in context, discuss strengths and challenges, share multiple sources of evidence, and collaborate with families on the next step in a way no single test score can. To ensure these conversations are equitable and effective, conferences must be accessible to families. This includes providing interpretation and translation services, offering flexible scheduling for working families, and maintaining virtual or hybrid options when needed. Strengthening these supports does far more to build trust and understanding than adding a one-time test score to a report card. If the district still wishes to provide access to assessment data, a more responsible

033and cost-effective option would be to include a link on the report card directing families to a secure portal such as where they go for um on focus to see the report cards or an assessment report where test data can be viewed with appropriate explanation and context. This preserves transparency while avoiding misinterpretation and keeps report cards focused on the learning over time. I urge the board to reject the inclusion of one-time test scores on report cards and instead adopt practices that support clarity, fiscal responsibility, equity, and public confidence in our schools. Our policy should strengthen public education, not inadvertently support agencies and agendas that undermine it. Thank you for your time and consideration, I have all of footnotes from all of the sources of the research. But I also want to let you know that in

034the packet that you are receiving today, I have an example of what an IR um report is that is sent to parents of the children with their scores. It is very detailed. It gives suggestions like discuss these results with your child, understand key terms, reach out to the teacher. It gives them examples of questions to talk about at the next parent conference. This report is three pages and it's very detailed. It's in very easy to understand parent language and this is something that parents receive currently. It is not a test score that is going to become part of their permanent record on their report card. And you can see the amount of detail that parents are already provided and maybe we should just give training to parents on how to access these if they are

035unaware of what their students progress is. There is also a copy of my December 8th statements that I made to the board. Some of you may not have had a copy of that, but it is all filled with um actual research of why I ready and um assessments are not to be used for um decision making on report cards. There is uh a copy of the op-ed because some of you may not um um subscribe to the enquire. So I included that and I also included um a response to that of a one test score doesn't tell the whole story. Why CPS report card should reflect learning and not a snapshot of learning. So I hope that this goes back to the policy committee. there was real no um input from like a full focused

036group of teachers. But as teachers have been reaching out to me and parents have been reaching out to me, I am telling you that the majority of people within this district with children and employees who are experts in all of this information do not support this practice. It is irresponsible and it's um a mismanagement on the part of the board to have a policy such as this and I don't think you want that going down in history that you were part of something that was negative to our district. So, thank you for your time and I hope you read these because they are full of research. Thank you. >> Thank you. That concludes our hearing of the public and I'm going to pass it on back to President Craig. >> All righty. Hopefully we can

037uh keep ourselves on schedule here. Um up next we have our presentation. So, Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our first presentation today. >> Yes, ma'am. Assistant Superintendent Deb Klene is responsible for working with Director V. Brooks. It looks like Director V. Brooks is coming to give today's update from our early childhood department. Good morning. >> Good morning. >> Board members. >> It is my privilege to give you a quick overview of all Is it on now? >> The lights on. >> The light on. >> Is that it? Okay. Okay. So, good morning everyone again. Um, so it's my privilege to give you a quick update on all the great work that's happening in early childhood preschool. So, next slide, please. So we are very very pleased that we are able to offer a wide range of

038preschool experiences to families within the 98 the perimeter of the CPS boundaries. Um parents have choice. Parents have opportunities through multiple ways to make sure that we are laying a sound foundation for our children. We are currently at 39 schools throughout the CPS boundaries. And you can see that we have a variety of Head Start, expansion, monastery, and preschool disabilities classrooms. Excellent. We continue to focus in on um our registration enrollment. We do register and enroll throughout the school year. you will see a we went January to January to January because we are not at the end of this instructional year yet. Um you will see a little bit of a decrease. We were informed over the years last couple of years through children's that there has been a lower birth rate. So that has

039had some impact but percentage- wise we are maintaining and we are so pleased that our families are selecting CPS which is a high quality program with gold medals and we are maintaining our gold medals with department of children and youth to continue to offer opportunities for our families. We also have the opportunity to provide families with a variety of funding sources. So we can combine funding sources, we can have just one funding source, but there is opportunity to make sure that we can meet the needs of all parents and all families. I do want to reach and give a lot of credit to our collaboration with other departments in our district to help us maintain especially treasur's office um to help us maintain these grants. It is a lot. Um, but they are wonderful in

040helping us make sure we stay in compliance and that we are providing highquality services to all of our families. Attendance. Attendance is a very very important and even though our attendance is not part of the report card, we are the foundation for helping students and families learn how important attendance is. We do have a tiered system collaborating within the schools that we also have, of course, our social workers in the building and our teachers that reach out to families, but we also have two early childhood social workers that every week monitor that attendance throughout the district and collaborate with the school social workers and teachers to make sure that we are meeting the needs of the families. It may be a family that may need to be connected with another service to make sure that

041they're able to get to the preschool. Um, it may be a child that is in children's that we needed to help support in another way to make sure that they are still receiving their services. So, attendance is one of our priorities and between our social workers and our family service assistants that are in our school buildings working with those teachers daily and talking with families continuously. Um, we are hoping that we will continue to lay that foundation for lifelong learning of being good attendants throughout their career. And this one, I'm going to ask for Mr. Hoy to join me. >> Good thinking. >> Good call on that one. >> Been around for a while, you guys. >> And we thankfully have another seat with the mic, so we can just join. >> Or I can

042share my mic. >> Yeah, we can share. >> Do you want to? >> No, I got it. Okay, >> that's dangerous. Don't do that. >> Uh, good morning. Uh, wanted to share an update about a new piece of legislation that was passed earlier this month. Uh, House Bill 114 uh, which has now been signed into law by the governor uh, changes the date, the cutoff date that schools in Ohio uh, must use for starting kindergarteners at 5 years old. So, the former rule that CPS has followed for a long time, consistent with the law, has been that we have allowed parents to start uh their child in kindergarten as long as they reach the age of five by September 30 of the year that they enroll. And HB14 uh makes a uniform rule across the

043state that state uh that school districts must use the first day of the school year, that the child must reach the age of five by the first day of the district's school year. uh to enroll in kindergarten. Um this applies immediately into the 2627 school year. So for the kindergarten class uh entering in August of 2026 on its own uh this this provision is not objectionable to the district. There's we don't have any objection to starting kids who are slightly older and um that that's not a problem. Uh but there is no provision in the law uh that creates any kind of transition plan um which is particularly problematic for a school district like ours that has such a robust early childhood and preschool program. So consider that right now we have four year olds

044enrolled in their second year of preschool who enrolled properly. they they uh enrolled according to our rule that they they would have reached three or four by September 30 uh but will not be eligible for kindergarten this August um uh when when they were expecting to enroll their children into kindergarten. The same is true for our uh three-year-old class of preschoolers. We have three-year-olds who enrolled this year, uh, will do their first year of preschool this year, their second year of preschool next year, but won't be eligible to enroll in kindergarten in August of 27. Um, this is even more problematic when you consider many of the funding sources that we have for preschool only allow for two years of preschool, including, by the way, our own preschool promise program is a two-year program. Uh

045so our um our proposed we've been working a lot on this. We've had a lot of discussions with enrollment, customer service, early childhood, DSS. Uh and our proposal uh which we had hoped to share with you on Monday of this week and then have uh perhaps implemented at the Wednesday policy meeting, both of which were cancelled. We do have a policy meeting on Monday. The proposal that is supported by the administration is to utilize another provision of this same statute. I have copies which I'll distribute to you. But uh uh Ohio Reise Code 3321.01 01 which establishes these rules also provides an opportunity for school districts to offer early admittance to students as long as uh the district agrees um and that uh they will have reached uh the age of admittance five by January

0461. So, our proposal uh is to uh enter those students if their parents are asking for them to be admitted into kindergarten next year uh and they would have met our September 30 deadline uh that we would offer early admittance to those students uh this coming school year. And if if the board is um agreeable to that, we would present a policy that would change and create a essentially create have the board approve early admittance for those students. >> Say it again. >> We will present that on Monday's policy committee meeting. Uh but it will help if if uh if the board's in generally in agreement, we can start to communicate this out to families. We're getting a lot of questions from families who were expecting to enroll their children in kindergarten this year. >>

047All right. Well, let me do this. Let me pause the presentation because I know there's more slides afterwards and just open it up to the board if there's any uh questions, comments. Um I see vice or I see uh board member Bolton. >> Yeah, thank you. Um, and thanks for the summary. And I know uh a number of us have been contacted by families that have been quite concerned about it, rightfully so. And it was actually from those family letters, interestingly enough, that I even found out about the exception and then of course thought, oh, I'll I'll be sure to tell y'all, but you already all knew it. And I know we've talked about it briefly in finance as well. Um, does this have to be a policy or could that be an administrative interpretation

048of our existing policy or what what why does it have to be a policy? >> So, I'd recommend a policy to make sure that the board is is signing off and approving and supportive of this. The language in the statute says that you can offer early admittance per the board's own rules and and so that's where I'd like to see the board sign off on this as well. >> That makes sense. That answers the question for me. I appreciate it. And again, uh my cynical lens for much of this, I see this as another way to reduce uh enrollment in public schools and make it more confusing for all the families. And it's just every single thing seems to kind of hearken back to that especially now that preschool in part because of CPS has

049taken off to a certain extent in in the state of Ohio and uh hopefully will continue even though Mr. DeWine is is gone. Thank you. >> To that point, the rules do not apply to private. >> Of course not. >> And in addition to that, everybody doesn't have the same start date, >> right? >> Um and so that just puts people at a disadvantage and causes more confusion. >> It's obvious member Arm Brewster. >> I I would just say I have I have two kids in September, so I understand the rule very deeply. um because I didn't want to start a 4-year-old into kindergarten. So, I held both my boys back and out of CPS for preschool because of it. So, I do actually understand the rule and I do appreciate that we are working

050with the families that have planned so hard for their kids and and worked to get their kids into kindergarten in the timeline that they anticipated. So, I appreciate your work on this. We've heard from a lot of families. Um, and yeah, I I think that we as a board need to reassure our families that we'll do everything we can to support them and and I'm here for that. >> Uh, Vice President Moffett, >> so I want to say thank you because that was a tricky one and I think you all kind of dug deep and and worked work our CPS magic so that we are covered. I do think it should be a board adopted to the at the board level so that it's clear and concise and cannot change with administrations. So that makes

051me feel really good. I for the policy meeting on Monday, I'm really interested in any academic data that we have that could substantiate um how we currently do it and how it may change for our our littles. um particularly because I think there have been a slew of parents that have prepared but what do we anticipate is going to be the academic or educational impact by this positive or negative? I just I'm just thinking of it from an academic standpoint. >> So may I have a clarification of what academic specifically you're looking for? I I'm not looking for anything specifically other than what would be the impact to our kids like what has been that what have we been doing that has been successful and what do we anticipate if anything could have be could

052be um >> a consequence of this that we need to be kind of aware of for our our our littles um because I think parents are really digging deep but I want us to at least look for any potential areas that we can offset in the future. So for the policy that's kind of for the policy meeting since that's on Monday now and that's where I'm thinking I'd love to have some uh inquiry from um just the educational I I can tell what the state was trying to do of course decrease our enrollment but what um what should we be looking for? >> Thank you. >> Dr. Muffy, can I share with you um we 30 days ago were ready to enroll these children into our kindergarten program. So, I'm not sure that there would

053have been any anticipated um negative to following a different pathway to get the kids enrolled. >> Well, then that's the data. So, I'm not looking for anything negative. I'm just looking for the data. I'm not searching for something specific. I'm just wanting to be reassured so that we can reassure parents of what it is. It's not looking for anything adverse. it's just looking for um data because the parents have been extremely informative of the exceptions etc. So I want to also just know. So it's not to search for something. I promise it is just to to know. >> And then board member map. >> Um so I just want to thank you all for your hard work on this um and keeping um you know, not only parents informed as well as the parents advocating

054and keeping us informed. Um but you know, you highlighted one of my major concerns and that was about the transition stating that we do have a robust um early childhood, you know, programming and to know that there could have potentially been a lapse in those that specifically were already enrolled and and preparing to transition um into the kind uh kindergarten um grade band. And so I just thank you for being able to find an alternative solution that uh obviously still honors um you know we're we're still doing what we're supposed to do by law, but there's that provision there that allows us to honor our um students and families that we are serving. So thank you. >> And I I'll be brief with my thoughts on this as well. I mean I think everyone said

055a lot of what um you know was coming to my mind. I do think it's it's somewhat ironic and somewhat backwards in the logic of our state legislators that having two times that you could select as to when you would start enrollment was too inconsistent. So now what parents have to do is pick a school district based on what time >> they start schools each year which will be different >> a different day every year. So again, I think the other thing that logistically I I do raise a little bit of concern around is admitting a student whose birthday is August 16th, 17th into third grade preschool when in a year we're two years down the line, the start date might be August 20th or the start date might be August 15th, right? like that

056presents a a its own level of challenges and issues that I think we'll we'll have to figure out, which is also maybe why I think we're doing a two-year calendar this year, but it may be something that the board takes as a directive to do a two-year out to try and keep the two-year out calendar going so that we then could make decisions on when we would allow students into third grade. Um, because I think that is going to be paramount to where this this goes. I think the other part to it and I think uh board member Balden said it earlier the re the reality is was this it was an effort to keep fewer students into especially large urban public schools um because I would imagine most of the urban public schools picked

057September 30th because it was just a better date like it's just realistically you got more kids that way right like it's not not a mystery um and while parents could make decisions as to when their child would start I think now we've taken that control out of their decision-m process and made the decision as to >> right >> where do I take my kid for those first couple years. Um the last thing I will say and I appreciate all the hard work that you all did and I think this is going to be great to inform the folks. I also want to note that when they did this policy change or when they did this law change was after probably most of every district had opened up enrollment. >> Sure. So, you know, part of

058the concern that a lot of parents were expressing was, hey, even if I have to hold my kid back, does this mean I lose my spot? That I've made an effort to that I was on top of, that I jumped ahead of the game to make sure I got my kid into this kindergarten that I wanted him to go to, and now I'm being, you know, my child's being pulled back. Um, so I appreciate the efforts to do that to to work through the system and the limitations that are there, but to find a resolution, but also I recognize that this is the timing of this was also not not lost to me as well, right? They didn't pass this in in September or August. They passed this basically when everybody was off on break

059not paying attention. And so it it is somewhat troubling that that's when they decided to make those type of changes. Um, but let's continue on to I think there's a few more slides in the rest of the presentation here. >> Isn't he amazing? Come on. >> We'll let Dan go hide back in the back. >> Um, I'm excited to share these next couple of slides with you um because we are laying the foundation for uh going into school age. So, thank you to Brian Cersin and his team in innovations that put this together for us very quickly. But this is our KR 2425 district results across different districts within the state of Ohio. And I want to just remind we do roll up a lot of students from that have had one or two years

060of a CPS preschool with a highly qualified teacher parah student service assistant along with other services provided to them. So happy to see green is good. >> So we like green. Um that we other than Columbus which was there was a 1.8% difference that we are making a significant impact on our kindergarten population. The next slide then breaks it down more into uh on track for literacy because language and literacy has been a focus in our preschool programs for the last couple of years. Um even pre-COVID we started about 2018 2019 really putting a focus in on how we can fill the gaps. Um we added not only our state adopted curriculum with creative curriculum but also heard and some other support services to help our children and help our families help their children at

061home. So we are pleased to see we lost ground during that co period but we are regaining it. So, we're very pleased with that and we're pleased to see that um we are staying competitive if not higher than the other um major districts throughout the state. >> The next is a very interesting slide that we like. Um this is CPS third grade OST as of May 2025 data by experience. So if a child, we had 693 students that were with us in preschool that once they hit third grade, they had an average ELA score of 709. So their average ELA proficiency level was 2.8. Now, there is an influx of other students into kindergarten, but my goal is that we get above kindergarten. But this was an exciting slide for you to see over time

062um that what we are doing in Cincinnati public schools is truly innovative and truly is making an impact on our our children and their families. >> Oh okay. So with that I want to take you into some of the work that school sites and our department as a support to the school sites has initiated this year beginning last year to be in alignment with the K12 programming and that is progress monitoring. So we have created pathways for our preschool staff to now be integrated and embedded and a part in engaging within the schoolhouse themselves to really address each individual schools areas. So we look at the schools one plan. We're participating in data meetings. We're collaborating on the goals of the school and the district at the school sites and we're focusing in on instruction

063to align with our K3 instruction. So, we have really worked on this year and we very grateful to a lot of the principles and the teachers that have embraced us as we've approached them saying we're just asking you to try this. Let's see how it goes. that we are working on a weekly basis, daily basis, and in those classrooms to help our preschool staff um acquire more understanding and knowledge of that progress monitoring, not just our three TS gold benchmarks we have to do for the state, but that in between time. And so they have worked with their K1 teams to say, okay, this is a gap. and then they are progress monitoring the specific standards because all of our standards do align starting at age three all the way up through grade three. So

064this is an example of the template that we've modeled after curriculum and then we have adapted it a little bit um credit to the Oiler team um that let us use theirs as an example um of how they're progress monitoring. We've asked staff to do it at least once a month, but we have some teachers that have taken off with it that they're doing it every two weeks. So, they're doing those spot checks to make sure that what they're giving as instruction is meeting the needs of the kids where they're at, especially when they're breaking out into what we call center time. Okay. We are very very proud of our collaboration with student dining and we are so grateful for student dining because not only are we able to provide our children with breakfast and

065lunch, but we also have a wonderful health and nutrition specialist uh Renee Huff who works with student dining with our CACF snack program. So, all of our children also um receive a snack daily and it's a nutritional snack and thank you to all their hard work, we are able to sustain it that it is no cost to the district. So, you see we're currently we're at 66,000. That's because we're only in January. Um it will be up to the higher amount at the end. Um but we are very proud of that because it is giving all of our children um who are with us full day an opportunity to remain healthy throughout the CACF snack program. Also in collaboration, this one we're very thrilled about because this one was new this year. Um through our

066health and nutrition specialist and our ECE nurse, we are up to date on our screenings. The first one you are seeing is head starts. We must do all head start students first within the first 45 days. So even though it says non- head starts, the percentages seem less. It's because we are currently doing those now. We will be at our 98 or higher percent by the end of the year. And we are very grateful to Woodward Career Tech Health Science Technology Pathway because they partnered with us this year and they have students that are working with our ECE nurse that actually go out into our preschools and they're learning how to do the screenings and helping the nurse do the screenings. So, it's showing that collaboration between high school and they're receiving credit for getting

067on the job training practice of doing the screenings. So, we're very pleased and happy about that one. We're also very pleased that we launched at the end of last year with a lot of help from um assistant super attendant Klein our Canvas page. So, we are in the groove with all the other grade levels. Um, so we do have our own Canvas page and everyone has access to it and this is an area where uh teachers, pair professionals, principles can go to look for resources if they need to order something instead of trying to call us and say I need they can go on this canvas page, put in that I need construction paper or I need a new dramatic play for instruction. They can order it and we're able to expedite and get things

068in the classroom sooner. It also has all our curriculum, all their registration, enrollment, and their tiers of support for SEAL. Um, so we can help and support in the classroom more. So, we're very thrilled about our Canvas. And our last and love this page, our connection to community through partnerships. We have wonderful, wonderful partnerships. I I could go through each of these and tell you how great this week I had a a meeting with the head of the literacy lab and we're we thought of new ways of how we can expand that and towards the pathway. We have mission to move of course CPP adopt a class. I'm very proud that my team is actually a third grade class at AWL. We're having a ball. Um they're really great kids. But even you know project

069we just have our partnerships are amazing. We could not do our work without them. So we thank you and that is the end of my update. >> All righty. Um we'll reopen it back up to uh to board members with all the wonderful lovely news there. So uh I see board member Matt Stanford first. So I'll go to board member Matt. >> Uh thank you. So, I do want to go back to uh just a question around um HB114 and it's really just a process um kind of operational question, maybe not all the way formalized, but with us having the uh provision date for January 1, would this impact anything pertaining to the funding sources or does there need to be any alignment with, you know, those funding sources? And so I'm just curious about

070that. >> There has been discussions with all of our grantees like Head Start EC Grant. >> Um they're figuring this out also. >> Um I think and Dan jump in with uh the master agreement with CPP that could be >> adjusted with Euro's >> okay. >> Um recommendations and your approval. Um it will no matter what we do it will impact a hopefully a very small amount of families. Um we are trying to find ways where we can combine different grants that if we did need to go a third year we could >> okay >> for a child um that's been a a great discussion we've been having with the ECE grant. So we are we've already started looking at what could we adjust, what could we work on and still be within total compliance

071with laws. >> Um we are starting our our enrollment and returning child packets uh February 1st. So we are we're going full steam ahead. Um, we've already had families that are reaching out to us and we want to make sure that they are receiving >> everything we can possibly give them. >> Okay. Absolutely. Thank you for that. And if you all could just continue to share, I guess, how that's rolling out. Mhm. >> And uh board member map, I'm glad you asked that question cuz one of the areas that still kind of concerns me is let's say um a family moved to Cincinnati for the first time in November and their child turned five October 1st. So I am concerned not only about enrollment and not only about the finances, but I'm not turning that

072child away, right? So it's a lot to think about and a lot to process. I I think it would have an it's going to have an impact one way or the other on our school district. And so we want to try to have your support and I know we will to mitigate whatever kind of adverse consequences to this conversation could happen. >> Absolutely. >> And I don't want to lose families because they can possibly go enroll somewhere outside of CPS. And then there's the question um of um and maybe this is more for Monday, but the question for me of what if there's a child who's in another um private provider and wants CPS. There's just >> Yeah. I know it's a lot that obviously trying to, you know, think through and and kind of

073think about alternative, you know, uh solutions. So, I do think thank you all for doing that and um just looking forward to just hearing how it continuously, you know, rolls out. Um so, yeah, I just that was just something that came up for me in terms of like what will be the impact um with families being able to have access as it pertains to those funding sources. Um and then the other question is around Hegerty and um you talked about during the COVID years obviously we saw a decline. Um I am interested and this is just my own thoughts about I am interested in being able to see what that uh dip looked like during the co years and how we are seeing that increase now as it relates to being able to be back

074in school you know um not having any type of interruptions and how effective he is. And I'm really asking because I'm thinking about my own children, right? I have a child that was in kindergarten uh during COVID and I have, you know, and then since um my youngest, he's had the two years of preschool kindergarten. So I'm noticing the difference. So I was just would be curious to know what that um what it looks like in comparison. >> We can do that. And and realize he is a supplemental. Mhm. >> It's and and we train we're training all of our teachers and they do a a great job with it that we do all the levels based on where the child is at. So, >> yeah. Yeah. But I I I do know that what

075uh my son's teacher that was something that was really um I think pushed in his uh preschool class and and um to see the growth. So, I'm just curious to know what that would look like across the district. >> Can do that. Thank you. >> Uh, board member Armbster, >> thank you. Um, I would just say on HB14, how do you say that? I don't know. >> It is Saturday, you guys. Um, I understand the frustration. Having the state put us at a disadvantage is incredibly frustrating, but I would encourage us to look at this as no different than if we changed our own policy, right? we would have to make adjustments to families. We would have like we set the date at September 30th before we had families that were born in October that

076were talking to us, right? So, in let's just plow ahead with we're going to we're going to solve it. It's going to be okay. Even though it came from some place of resentment because of the government trying to put us at a disadvantage, let's um continue to look at it as an opportunity to engage our families and find a way to move forward with positivity. Um cuz we can't change it. So, um and then I actually had a question for you. I love the engagement we have on the health screenings. Do we have a program in the district for early childhood education where we're bringing in any of our high school students to have experience in the classrooms? >> We have started um with if you can go to the partnership page with us. We

077do with um the literacy lab that is a pipeline. In fact, we've hired a couple of the fellows this year into um early childhood classrooms as pair professionals as their goal is to go back and get their degree to become teachers. Um we also have partnered with uh student services with their program and I'm going to ask Amy to help me down at virtual. It's the 18 to 22 year olds. >> Aspire, >> what is it? >> Aspire. the Aspire program that they are doing um things for us to learn job skills. Um I would love to explore that because there is a definite need. >> Other board members, uh we'll go to board member Balden. >> Yeah, thanks and thanks for the presentation. I think it's very impressive and it and it uh hits

078some of the right tones too as to what we're interested in knowing more about. I appreciate it. Um, want to just say that over historically, if I can, um, with the creation of since certainly the creation of Head Start, uh, there's been no other school district that has actually been a leader in this state more than CPS um, in early childhood. Partly because we can look at that not only be while we fully engaged ourselves with Head Start in the mid60s when there was some hesitancy elsewhere but regardless of type of district or size of district CPS has led in kindergarten full day half day with our local taxpayers paying for that service because there's not the state funding that went with uh early childhood kindergarten half or full. So I this to me this

079is sort of a you're continuing a tradition and you're still innovating. >> To me I think you have a tradition of excellence and because all of our classrooms are gold or whatever it is that we do now or say and have been since the inception of the of the rating. And so you're innovating as well as honoring the tradition and this has to become much more part of our narrative. superintendent, this has to be part of our narrative. Uh that leadership and also some of the results that you're getting and and then if you top it off with the last report card, um that we meet state standards and readiness, >> I I kind of like those two post holes, if you will. Uh so, uh congratulations. I think it's great. And I'll say this,

080and I I'll say it a meaningful way, I hope. uh uh in large part it's due to the people in your group and the people that preceded you agree >> in both leadership but very much so uh very much a credit to you as well >> thank you but it's it's it's it's the team and it's the people >> I know it's a team >> I say best leaders always thank their team first right >> that's right >> Vice President Muffet >> so I want to go to slide nine if you will. Um, I have asked for this data and you gave it to me. You've given it to me along the way, but you formally presented it today and I want to say thank you for that because this is a question that um

081was asked a lot last year around the levy and passing that. And it was actually asked if I'm very transparent in a smart eloic way of people trying to discredit the work that we're doing. And um every time I come to you like bure this is what they asked and you give me the the data and I take it back and they have nothing to say. That's right. >> So I'm very glad that we formalized it this time and um whatever you need to support um I'm happy to do it. This just formalizes that our kids um preschool is so beneficial. Um, not only do I know it as a parent, but the data is right here and I'm really big on data. So, um, so thank you for that. >> Well, I want to

082thank assistant superintendent Klein for this slide cuz she helped me navigate through it. >> Okay. >> And Jeremy for helping us get the data. >> So, >> well, thank the team. Let's thank everybody. We going for >> this is I mean, this is actually bigger than people may realize because this is this is very huge. >> Huge. Um, the other thing I wanted to to do is kind of amend my request for Monday. And I was thinking of it from an educational standpoint, but we've talked about data. That is exactly what I'm asking about through this conversation. So, I just want us to be prepared around House Bill 114. Rob, I don't know what slide that was. It was earlier, but um, I'd like for us to get some of the impact to the district

083academically. um you've talked about it financially, you've talked about it um with regard to enrollment here just briefly. So that's the data that I'm thinking of now and wanting for Monday's meeting with regard to policy. What are some of the impact uh to the district that we as board members since this is going to be a board policy um what what what can we be prepared for? Uh so it's not just educationally but it is around enrollment, it is around financial and so that um that to me in more totality seems realistic that we as board members should be aware of. So that's the request to amend my original um request for Monday. Thank you. Thank you for all you guys do. I love the land of the littles. That's what I call them, the

084land of the littles. And that is my favorite favorite spot. So the work that you're doing is super impactful and I want to thank you, you, you and everybody in that department. >> Thank you. >> Awesome. >> Thank you all for your support. >> I'll be really quick. >> Okay. >> I keep trying to get to >> Yeah, I know you keep trying to disappear, right? This is what people do when they come up and present. Um I will say I just want to hit on two things. One is I thought the Woodward Woodward Career Tech Health Science Technology Pathway >> it's on the screen so I could just read it >> is is actually an example of how we can rethink how our high schools work. >> Thank you. >> And I think this

085is something Bolton said. I think I've said it before as well, but if we rethink the school day for even our just 12th graders maybe, but even in some ways our 11th and 12th graders, there's opportunities within the district even for them to be supportive to learn and to gain skills. And I think some ways that can also be part of the discussion we gave as a task with regards to expanding um our career tech opportunities within there. There may be things that we can think about and envision as to what are opportunities even in the health care world, right? What are opportunities in um in facilities or wherever they folks might be able to volunteer and spend time in the district and get internships within the district. >> So, we're also able to make

086sure that they're staying safe because I do know there's an interest and there's a desire to give opportunities that for them to go work and be in other places and I think those are important also. Um but there's a lot of ways we can utilize folks and I know there's some departments that are already doing that. >> Okay. Yeah. >> Um throughout the day I know there are some folks I was up on the second floor people were like yes we got this insert. I said where's our answer? We're going to work on that. We going to work on that. Um but I do think there's an opportunity to expand opport expand the places and the ways that we utilize even in providing some of the resources and needs in our early childhood uh classrooms

087and stuff whether it's someone who can walk with the students and make sure they go to you know lunch and and breakfast and that type of thing or the afternoon allowing them to go uh when they're being um when when they're leaving school >> and like those type of things where you have somebody who's able to monitor and help and exist. There's a great space for that. So, I I look I look forward to hearing more about those ways that we can do that going forward. Um the second thing I will say early childhood health screenings are so vastly important for a myriad of reasons, but most important in our district because we also provide a lot of resources at at some of our schools and and we're continuing to expand that. So, we're able

088to recognize when a student has uh for instance a visual impairment. So, do we recognize when a student may have some general health concern that maybe we're not pay not going to see on a regular basis if we're not in that same space? Um, maybe they're not getting certain healthc care treatments at home in the same way that every child would want we'd want every child to have and be able to to see those things and experience those things in our district actually has an exponential value. Um because I know when we were at uh Oiler, I think it was a couple years ago now u when we were there with the secretary, one of the things they talked about is the ability to be able to walk a kid down here. You say, "Why

089are you squinting?" >> Right? >> So you squint all the time. Like and let's walk on down here, get you a vision test. Let's see what's going on here. Like the ability to do that in our school district is tremendous, right? It is. >> Um I think the same thing for dental, right? Like that same way of child's not eating, they're not getting nutrition. Now we figure out why they're not eating. I think that's also the hard work that many of the teachers and the folks in the classrooms have been doing for a long time. And so I just want to acknowledge that that is that's part of how our system has worked is that we don't just sit there and say this child is not learning. We say why. And I think that's a

090big part of the early childhood education part as well. So I appreciate all the hard work you all are doing on the health screenings and continue to want to keep expanding ways we can assist in that. um as we think about our our school district and our our high schools going forward. >> Thank you. >> Now you're free to leave. >> Thank you. >> Superintendent Murphy, would you like to uh introduce our next presentation? >> Yes, sir. So, um, board, um, a couple of weeks ago, we had a few families reach out to us about this particular, uh, bus stop, um, and made a request that we possibly change it to Nick Street and Thompson Avenue. Mr. Burkhard and his team did go out and survey um, the both bus stops, and they also agreed

091that this would be a good and helpful change to our families. And the we're bringing this to you today, hoping for your support because we do have to ask the board to approve all bus stops. Uh uh board president Craig did allow us to bring it today as opposed to waiting until your fe February meeting to try to accommodate families. >> I think we also we added the updated slide. I think Rob had the updated slide. So we have the picture >> so folks can see exactly where >> wonderful meeting will be. That's totally because of Chief Birkhard. >> Wonderful. >> And the superintendent. So, >> um, >> Chief Burkart, >> board member thoughts. Uh, >> yeah. >> Matt, >> no thoughts really. Uh, I do know that I would share this information, too. So,

092I just appreciate you all um working on this and making it a safer uh location for families and students. I would just second that that I appreciate the change and appreciate the community reaching out uh and and not only saying there's a problem and explaining why >> but also they presented some alternatives and I think that's great and uh there's there's very few things more important and yet we look at some of those that early vote about bus stops is kind of rudimentary and routine but in the end it's actually quite important. So, it's state law that we have to approve them. So, thanks to the administration, I drove out there and I saw what people were really talking about. And uh the the interesting thing, too, is they were talking about uh addresses that

093were close to the original one that we have to enter into thinking more about that sort of thing. We need more help from I think CPD uh in in um in helping us with some of our bus stops. So, it's not just a physical issue, but also another part of the possible threat. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Um, well, this does require a vote from the board. So, do I have a motion? >> So, move. >> We're in your head. >> All right. Well, let's let the treasur get caught. >> Come on. Turn that page. >> Yes. Miss Bolton, >> yes. >> Miss Math, >> yes. >> Vice President Moffett, >> yes. >> President Craig, >> yes. >> All right. The bus stops approved. >> Thank you.

094>> All righty. Um, so we will now trying to get my agenda here. Sorry. >> So, we'll now uh turn this discussion over to talk about our budget. um potential levy concerns or thoughts and as well as some discussion around enrollments. So we'll start with our budget with treasure. >> Thank you. Thank you, President Craig. Rob, if you'll go to the next slide. So I'll I'll use this as a talking point because I think this is kind of like the Yes. Yes. Love Gemini, love AI, but but this this is kind of my life. This is my life. Um the big the big point as we go through this I think there's budget slides there's levy slides a lot of the information could fit in either conversation or really one in the same conversation in

095some regards. I also think from sitting through a lot of strategic plan discussion yesterday there's a lot of overlap there as well. We'll get to that later in the in the agenda but a lot of overlap. Um I think you know my goal today is try to kind of level set for the board. Um, I know there we've had conversations at budget financing, budget finance and growth that maybe be a little more in-depth. Um, there are different conversations going on, different activities. Wanted to give everyone kind of a level set as we go into the budget season. So, we're all at kind of the same spot. If you go to the next slide, Rob, you can see kind of what's been going on. This was the slide I had as a teaser for today on

096Monday's agenda. U, but you can see there's a lot going on from the administration level. Um, I obviously want to thank our principles, thank our union partners. You know, we've had a lot of conversations even this week about, you know, school staffing, those sort of things, title one, all the all those things are going on. If you go to the next slide, Rob, first part of the budget, I think, is setting the budget target. So, that's kind of your your first big picture is is how much money do we have to budget next year? Our current target is 634.2 two and we set that at the October forecast. We will have a chance to update that at the end about in about three weeks almost three weeks exactly. Um the February 23rd meeting we'll be

097doing the five-year or actually the budget and three-year forecast now. Some habits die hard. So that'll be a formal chance for us. Yeah, same five-year forecast dies hard, but it is the budget and three-year forecast. Um and and so we'll have a very formal presentation about that. we can look at all of our revenue trends, our anticipated stuff, and the board gets a chance to approve that forecast that will that will update our revenue target that kind of builds the box. Um, we're thinking in the puzzle analogy and and part of the budget discussion every year is what analogy we use. You know, Treasure Wagner was big on the water bottle. So, I don't have one. Superintendent has one. She used to say, you know, once the water bottle's full, you can't put any more

098water in. I don't know. We'll make might we used the pyramid last year for a little bit. So so picking the analogy of the year is important but the big update the big update will be the setting the setting the target at the end of next month we will have another chance to do a slight tweak once we get all the property tax settlement stuff in that's probably April generally things don't change uh high level is our our budget target for next year is going to be equal to the revenue that's just remember that. So we are at a we at a point where what we take in is what we have to spend. If you go next. >> Yeah. So that's it. >> And I'm gonna and I'm and I'm going to show you

099why, Miss Matt. So if you go if you if you go to the next slide, Rob, this is kind of cool. This is 12 years of revenue expenditure. Um taken straight off our five-year forecast. So for folks in the public who may be watching, five-year forecast is is really a guiding document for finances. Every district has to do it. So you can compare districts across districts. Um it it is very standardized. So there's no no financial gains. Everyone has to do it the same way. And and so you can see over the course of time um blue is revenue, red is expenditures. We are getting to a point of flattening. Um, you know, we had years in the past where we had more revenue than expenses. We've had years we've had more expenses than revenues.

100Those numbers are coming together. The gray line is our cash balance. And unfortunately, you can see that that continues to dip. If you go to the next slide, Rob, if we just look at cash balances, that's a little it's a little scarier slide. Um, but the these are our cash balances, including our estimate of where we expect to end this year. So the the takeaway is we don't have cash reserves to dip into. So so we have to live with the revenue that we have. One more slide. These are this is a good example of all of our other funds. So so you know our local funds aren't just general fund. There's other funds out there. Um, thank you Miss Bolton for bringing this up from time to time and and she has and you

101can see there we have we have made efforts um to spend those funds. We've you can see the three-year change, you know, we've went from, you know, a balance of over almost 15 million to to about eight and a half, you know, and so and and rightfully so. Like some of these things should be spent. You can do some really good things with these funds. They're also very limited. you know, the permanent improvement fund can only go to permanent improvements and our our facilities team has done a great job of using that school supplies fund is is where we used to put um the district-wide school fees that we collect that we collected, which we we do not do that anymore. And you can see that fund continues to decrease in balance as those things

102are spent out. So, so that's kind of the revenue side. If you want to go to the next one, Rob, then we talk about building the expenditure budget. So, so I am not going to talk about cuts this year. Um, but what I'm going to talk about are choices. So, so as we go to the revenue side, there are choices to be made. They will probably be difficult choices as they always are. Um, and and so the expenditure budget really is about those choices. You know, we we have some choices on the revenue side. We have a big choice probably that we can we'll talk about in the next section. uh but but but a lot of those choices are made from us um from from the state from the federal government. So on the

103expenditure side, you're looking at, you know, school budgets are really student based. They continue to be student based. So we look at enrollment projections. Um and then and that builds out the number of teachers, the number of principles, APS, clerical staff, all of those things. Um you know, there's some other things that are kind of more building based. you know your number of security, your number of custodians, those sort of things. We also do what we call preloads for the schools. So the these are allocations that are again based on the number of students, but those are things like your bu your number of subs, the amount of money you can spend on substitutes for your building, number the amount of money we spend to make copies, which is always a controversial issue and those

104sort of things. We are at the point where staffing has been given to the schools. uh many schools filed appeals based on their individual school circumstances. Those appeals have been reviewed and those decisions have been communicated back. So that's that's where the schools are at. At the same time, we're trying hard to do central office budgets at the same time. So we don't have this concept where central office gets the crumbs of what's left in budgeting. Um every every group made a budget request and they did four categories. So people put a lot of work into this. Legal compliance was the first category. Then we talked about what the district must have, what the district should have, and then what would be nice to have. We're still reviewing those things, trying to make sure they're

105standardized across everyone. We also removed a bunch of duplication. So that was good where there was there were items that the departments include in their budget that were also in the school's budgets. So we went through we went through very very helpfully and and worked through those things to make sure they were the same. It's all good work. What's not included in any of this work so far um is any potential cost of living adjustment. So that's out there. Any strategic additions that we might want to add and then um any money that we want to reserve to improve our cash balance. All right, if you go forward, Rob, the next thing to talk about for setting the stage is just talking about where our trends are. You know, what are our drivers of spending?

106So I have a few graphs here and I want to thank Cody Hutchkins who helped me out immensely with this. Cody and Kevin Ashley do a lot of great work of reporting. Um so if you go to the next slide this graph we actually looked at in finance um in January I guess or >> yeah trying to remember. Yeah. Okay recently. Um and this is a really interesting one. is kind of your ratio um for budgets between what's directly allocated to the schools, what's allocated to central office and what we call central support. So central support are things that are managed centrally but but it's out in the schools. So so some of that could be like some technology stuff. Um a good chunk of it is a student services work you know where we

107have a central PTO speech and those folks are working in the schools. Is it school support on here, not central? >> It's central support to schools. Yeah. >> Yeah. I just want to clarify what it's listed at on the chart. >> Yeah. I should >> for those people watching, >> be central office school support. Yeah, there's more words there. Sorry. Good good call out. You can see you can see over time um percentage wise central office the pure central office percentage has decreased over time. Um the school area school piece has increased and school support has increased. And I think that's that makes sense trending wise. FY 24 is going to be a weird little blip in every one of these slides. And I'll tell you why. Um in 24 we issued what are called

108tax anticipation notes. So in order to in order to preserve our cash balance and between there was the issue of property tax bills being delayed that year. There was the last reappraisal. County auditor and treasurer didn't know when they were going to delay property tax bills. Um, as the folks in finance know, we get really really close to to to the bone in December, January. So, we issue these tax anticipation notes. But what that does is for every FY24, you will see an extra $75 million at the central, but that that was basically we issued an short-term note. Uh, we didn't need it, thank God, and in J in December, and then we paid it off in March. It was like a 90-day note, but it allowed us preserve our cash balance. So that's a

109blip but but the big picture is school stuff directly to schools is growing as a percentage of our budget. Central office pure central office is decreasing as a as a percentage and school support from central office is also increasing. All right next one is spending by object. So this is the first kind of the one digit object is what we call it. These are big object categories. Um no surprise here you know salaries and benefits are most of our budget and you and you can see as a percentage of the whole those continue to grow. Um you know and then purchase services has kind of m maintain steady. the the big driver for our purchase services. The two big drivers. First is first is transportation. Um you know and that's that's a big one. And

110then you know there's some other things in there like utilities ends up in there which is just kind of odd to think about but that's another one that there's a huge chunk of that. Next um this one I think is really interesting. This is spending by function. This kind of shows us where where our money is going. So the big buckets are instruction and supporting services. In this case, supporting services is everything from it's literally everything from the principal um to the payroll team, right? So it's it's it's a big chunk. And you can see >> these these have maintained pretty st pretty pretty pretty steady instruction, you know, has increased a little bit over time, which I think people would say it's a good thing. These are all expenses. So if you look at

111our state report card, these numbers don't match. Um the state report card uses operating expenses. This is this is everything. So so want to point that out before someone goes and looks at the state report card. And I know we spent quite a bit of time in finance one meeting and going through what the state report card shows. And then the final one of these to set kind of the set the set the trend is instructional subcategories. So you can see the big kind of the big change as we go through is the amount of money spent on um services students with disabilities to instru instruction for them. You can see that is that is one of our growing categories. Uh bilingual instruction has leveled off after after a big growth um in 23 and

11224 and you can see CTE is kind of holding steady there. So so hopefully it gives you kind of an idea of what our high level cost drivers are. So, as we get into into the budget discussion, you know, we say where where's the money going? Hopefully, this sets kind of sets the basis for that. And then to end the end the budget discussion on some good news, I believe we're going to be in good shape with federal funds. So the latest kind of mini bus omnibus re um bill for department of education restored all of the um title two three and four funding at current year gave a tiny little increase to title one I mean like especially when you consider that split that number split across 50 states that that is a that

113is a rounding error probably for what we'll get um but this is really good news and you can see you know if you look a column obviously I have the circled column is what was approved. You can see, you know, against the president's budget, you know, there's some there's some major changes there. Now, of course, there's also a good chance we could have a shutdown. So, >> well, I guess they approved it this partial. Okay. I I did not have not checked the news this morning, but yeah. So, >> so House will do it Monday. Okay. So, that's good. I mean, that is that is good news. I mean, I think we were really anticipating some significant cuts there. So, so once once the ink is dried, then then we may we'll go back and

114revise some of these things. All right, next slide. This is kind of where I hope we have we'll have a little bit of discussion. So, big picture high level budget. Our deadline is June 30th to have a budget approved. If the board does not approve a budget, we cannot spend any money. That is that is that is state law. >> That's an option. >> That is state law. So, so, um, the last scheduled board meeting is June 23rd, just just to put it out there. There are there is the ability to do a temporary appropriation resolution for 90 days. There's also sometimes we've had to add an extra board meeting at the end of June to get it done. So, that's that's our high debt. So, everything we work on, we have to work backwards

115from that deadline. Um, we had a goal we talked about of getting staffing completed by May. that was really really about how how we treat the employees who may be affected by any of the decisions and choices have to be made. So giving folks the most time possible um to to make the adjustments whatever adjustments have to be made I think is important. We are going to be doing the strategic plan work concurrently to the budget and I think that's that's going to be a complicator to any decisions that are made is you're not going to have one done to reference the other. G they're going to be parallel work. Uh one concept that we've talked about I know we talked about budget finance and growth maybe talked about with full board is can we

116do some intermediate approvals. So so are there are there things that that this board would be willing to approve very early on? Um last year I think that we talked about fixed and obligated cost as as an example and ju and just to take those things out of the way. Uh and so and so these budget discussions can often be very lengthy, you know, and I think I think people have expressed in board has expressed interest in getting to to the hard decisions a little quicker. You know, we have we have millions of dollars of things that I would consider legal compliance >> that that would be things that we could not do. You know, I mean, one example um one example I'll say is our debt payments. you know, like I don't think anyone

117here is going to vote to default on on our debt. So, so, so I don't, so I think these are the kind of things that hopefully you're willing to approve early on and we and we move on with those things. And then the final ask is as far as presentation format and materials and I know administration is doing a lot of work doing a lot of work, you know, kind of in the background, you don't see it. Um so so when we come for for presentations you know what level of detail would the board members like to see um to feel comfortable reviewing and approving items. >> All righty. So we'll pause there um for completing the kind of budget update here. I think it's really important that we also understand there will be no

11890-day approval. >> There will be none unless the state decides for some bizarre reason they want to change laws again. It's on like June 1st. Um, but I want to open up for board members if they have any questions, any thoughts, anything they want to share with the treasurer and the superintendent about the budget process, vice president Moffett. >> So, I thank you for the presentation, Mike. Unfortunately, I understand it. So, I don't know if that's a good or bad thing, but can you go to slide 13 for me, please? And I asked this question via email, I think last week or maybe the week before. Um but when we talk let me go to the slide that was on my page. Um when we talk about um our students with disabilities and the the

119increase that that looks like wow students with disabilities were spending more money and we indeed are. But I asked about the possibility of kind of I'm going to use the word audit but I don't mean law and audit. I mean looking at are we are we leaving any money on the table around the classification of our students with disabilities and the services that they receive that we're actually not getting compensated for. Um, I've heard from a bunch of different staff. I think when we when we went on our our tour of a school even, um, and I've heard from staff across different schools >> that some of our students are coming in and I don't I don't want to mess it up, but classified one way, which is broad, and I'm think I'm going to

120say it right, just developmentally delayed DD. And forgive me if I if I'm saying it wrong, but they also have other services that they are receiving, maybe visual impairment or um auditory impairment, and they're not getting that we're not getting the money for those. So when I look at SWD, I'm wondering is there the possibility for us to receive or to rightsize ourselves so that our students are not getting necessarily the minimum because we can't afford it and we're not classifying them the right way that they're actually we're getting monies that is appropriate for them. So, I'm wondering um I mean our our our staff is having to come out of their pocket a lot and so that's where this is coming from, but I've heard it so often. I'm wondering um is there any

121and I don't know if this is you or this is the superintendent. When was the last time that we have um I'm using the word audit, but I don't mean it in a formal sense, but that we've gone through and actually rightsized the schools have right sized what their uh revenue is for the population of their students. Has that been done? Is there is there any any ability to do that? And I do have another question around students with disabilities after that. Um I this is not my area of expertise. I have a little bit I know I know the you know department of student services does a lot of work around this. I know there are you know multi-disiplinary teams that look at these things. >> Um I don't I don't have an exact

122answer for you. >> Well I did ask the superintendent so let's let her >> well I I could be missing something in terms of things that have been shared with you on your tour Dr. Maf. But what I really want to say as I listen to you is I feel like every year the Department of Student Services looks at where the children are and what the services um that are needed as defined by their IEPs and by law we have to do that. So there may be some things that I'm not clear about in terms of what is being shared that we may need to look at differently. But as far as I know, this is reviewed every year. >> Okay. And and and I'm happy to tag in um member Arber, but I want

123to I want to give the example >> um again and I put this in my email which was kind of shared with us. students are coming in diagnosed with one particular diagnosis that comes I guess minimally um from it starts from children's hospital and they they took us through the process and it's DD >> but yet we're and we're being paid for that diagnosis I'm going to give an example it's not the right number we're being paid $10,000 for students with disabilities or that DD diagnosis >> they that same student may have additional services that are being required for them that have a cost associated. So, if they are visually impaired, >> the and and it was diagnosed if if it was it's been diagnosed, but if it was designated, that would be an extra

124three or $4,000 that that student would be receiving. So, my but we're only getting the minimum. We're only being charged for that. So my question hearing that from staff across the district who are doing the work but paying for it out of their own >> um is that it looks to me like our students are not they're getting the service the m the services because the staff is putting in for it but we are not updating their diagnosis to adequately reflect the money that should be coming in. So my question is like when do we do that on a regular basis anyway? Do we go in and just kind of pick a few that to see if they align? And I'm gonna pass it to Robert Bruce because she heard the same. >> You've done

125a great job explaining it. I I think what I heard was that DSS would give them the DD designation. It would qualify them for so much from the state for reimbursement for the district. But Children's actually gave them a fuller diagnosis. we are not utilizing that diagnosis which would grant us more money from the state to reimburse for the services that our district is providing per their IEP. So um the the thought was that we are leaving money on the table with the state for reimbursement because of a lack of thorough diagnosis. >> So appreciate that clarification. So yesterday, um, President and Vice President, we talked about, um, setting the time when Chrissy would come and share. We'll get you a response faster than that, but I think we're scheduling it and, um, I can

126make sure she adds that to the formal presentation of how that's done, but we'll answer it before the presentation. Well, that that I think would it it it also needs to happen in tandem with the budget discussion because if we are leaving and we were told like you know numbers we were actually told numbers that we're leaving on the table per school just for certain classes. So I'm wondering um if as we are talking about this budget >> if we could do something like that. Um I don't know if it would necessarily >> be a other than the fact that we've done it. I don't know what the presentation >> and I don't know if the treasurer remembers this but it's been a long time when I was in a schoolhouse we used to get

127like for our student services you have x the number of students who might have multiple disabilities x number of students who are hearing impaired and you would get the actual weight and the amount I don't know that we break it out like that to give to schools anymore. I'm not sure but um we can follow up with that. That'd be great. I think our staff has it because they were sharing this with us. So, that'd be great. My my next question is around um >> the budget process and our students with disabilities particularly because the board received a question because a position was cut and the response to the board members was that it was kind of planned and um it was just something that had already been budgeted for. So from a budget standpoint,

128it looked like it aligned, but when when we visited the school, that position was very necessary. Um, and and I'm not saying that all of our cuts are necessary. That is not what I'm saying. But I am curious specifically around our students with disabilities if we are looking at that off the paper is what I call it. So that position maybe could be cut, but the services are being declined to our students in real time. For instance, in this particular example, that position was able to provide um standing is it standing services? So that so the kids didn't get the chance to stand all day because that position was cut. So from a data standpoint, we budgeted it. So, I'm wondering again, and maybe this is for the presentation, are we looking at this from

129strictly a numerical standpoint and then following it up with real time actuality because it it's it's being said, well, someone else is going to do that, but in real time, they didn't. The kids were not standing. And so I'm concerned again maybe the which takes me back to are we aligning on what the payment should be for students with disabilities and is there a way for us to possibly put some of those um those things back as services to students and it's not just a numerical a numerical number. So, >> I'll I'll start and I'll let Superintendent clean clean up whenever I mistate. Um there's there's a couple >> couple of things I will say. Um do do remember, you know, I know I know a lot of this comes through the state foundation formula.

130>> Do remember there's quite the discount from from what the state thinks we should get to what they get. Remember, we're we're in the 30% 30th percentile. So, so a lot of those stuff obviously for any of these categorical funings in the state side, you know, the more the more categories you can take off, yeah, the more the more reimbursement you can get, >> right? >> Um, we also do the um Medicare the Medicare school program, the MSP, we get reimbured in that. It's like a 2year lag time. We get reimbursed. So, so, so whatever you claim this year, you'll get it in 28. So that so that may that is also it's very hard to budget that right very hard to deal with that part. Um I think just to talk about staffing in

131a lot of ways. So so you know staffing is given out to the schools schools have the opportunity to appeal these things um and and you know the superintendent appro you know makes decision but you know the um assistant superintendent the deputy superintendent you know that there's a group that looks at those appeals you know schools schools put out whatever whatever information they feel is appropriate. Um all the decisions are tough. I will say I will say that probably for every position that is that ends up being eliminated there is a similar story to the one you shared. you know, just slightly different. But there there are very few at this point in our budget process. There there there are no painless cuts and there are very few lowpaying cuts and that and that we

132are we are at a s point where just because we don't have new revenue, you know, that that we've cut to a level where every every single every single elimination would be would be a similar amount of pain. And so and so sometimes things aren't implemented. You know, I know that's that's part of it. you know, we are we're a huge organization and sometimes the pieces don't connect and that's I I hate that obviously for the kids, you know, that if someone else was supposed to pick up uh to pick up and we not quite communicate it, you know, that's something that can be cleaned up, but I would say I would say every choice we have to make going forward is going to be as difficult. >> Well, thank you for that. you you

133kind of went your your budget mind went exactly where my thought was is >> if the revenue is the deficit then that's you know that's an impact in the services. So that made me think are we properly coding and auditing our own potential increase in revenue space. So I'm glad that that we're thinking alike on that. Thank you for that. So that that leads me that's my question. Thank you. >> All righty. Other board members. Um, board member Bolton. >> Go ahead. >> Oh, board member to the buzzer. >> See, it's harder to see in here who had their hands up. People low level. >> I'm need folks to bring their hands all the way to the sky. Okay. >> That's that's 101 just like family. Uh >> just a just a few questions and

134I heard you uh clearly and loudly, Treasurer Augustine, that um we are not in a position of uh spending beyond what our cash reserves uh are. And so looking at page five, um it does present to be concerning as we continue to see this or at least to me as we continue to see this decline. Um please help just articulate what are we able to do to help us uh maybe continuously have a a cushion. We know that there are some legislative things that are impairing our finances. Um but again beyond just we can't spend beyond what we don't have obviously what are we able to do to help uh put us in a position where we are able to be sustained? That's a >> I'm sorry >> I was like it as a timeline.

135>> So >> I'm I'm gonna I've said this before. I'm going to keep saying this like we need new operational money >> there. There is and as as as we as as as scary as slide five and six are, you know, as we as we talk about the levy side, you know, I'm going to show you a couple slides there that are equally scary, but >> this district needs new operational money. Um what to to get into the get into the levy slide a little bit like I no one is coming to save us, right? Right. We've we've been very fortunate. The 20 mil floor has helped us out um a couple of times. you know, ESSER helped us out quite a bit. Um, but but we have done we've done all the things. You

136know, we we've pulled a lot of levers, whether that is, you know, moving stuff in the federal side around. I think we, you know, we still probably some work to be done there, but we've done that. You know, we've spent those additional funds that maybe were kind of latent. You know, it is it is it is a it is a point where there is there is really only one solution long term and that is to get get additional um local dollars. >> Okay. >> And and maybe if we have a different governor >> well >> next year maybe the state will fund their things. I mean we we continue to advocate for the state to do to do what they should do. You know there >> there is a constitutional requirement that the state funds

137adequately funds um a system of public education. But, you know, we will continue to advocate. We'll continue to push. You know, you you'll see us do everything we can, but that is not something that we have a lot of control over. And so, and so it's really going to require, you know, our our district getting additional local money. >> Okay. That that's good to know. So, hearing that there is only one option that >> we and we will do everything we will do everything else we can try. Like we've pushed as hard as we can to maximize our investment money. we look at these additional funds, you know, we're working on, you know, some, you know, we working on, you know, sale of sale of some property. We're working on all of the all of

138these things, but but they they are tiny little adjustments to to the big picture. >> Okay. Thank you. And so, uh, just moving on, just a few questions. Um, one second. So on page 10, you you talked about that the um school budgets are growing um which you know is understandable, but I'm I'm curious to know as it correlates to enrollment, our school budgets are increasing, but our enrollment is declining. Help help me process that information. Right. Because is it like what for the school um the schoolbased budget what all does that encompass? Does that encompass payroll as well or >> Okay. So we're seeing this increase here but our numbers are de declining with our our student population. So >> how do we account for that? >> Right. Right. Right. And our our school-based

139numbers are really mostly payroll. They really they really are. I mean, that's really mostly payroll. They do have they do have a little bit of non-personnel. >> How how how do you account for that? Um I would say our enrollment enrollment's declining slightly, but it's also it's also across 66 schools, >> which means you can lose a couple kids at any school and that does not change your staffing picture. >> Right. Right. you you can have a classroom of 17 kids or you can have a classroom of 19 kids. It does not you still need that one teacher, right? Um you know obviously our collective bar agreements are built so there there are step increases built in every year. Those are things the other the other thing I would say and part of the reason

140we went to slide 12 or sorry slide slide 13 slide slide 12 and slide 13 is to talk is to talk about what's pushing that growth. um you know you know regular instruction as a percentage is not is not really growing and and that's because that's because other instit special ed instruction is growing you know it's because bilingual instruction is growing so so so part of it is the students that we have cost more to educate you know I mean the these are the sort of things that that are real drivers of our of our finances so I I I know a lot of people look at that slide and say, I mean, I've seen it a ton of times on on Twitter and I refuse to engage on social media. It's like my thing.

141I always tell myself, don't engage in social media, but I see lots of people say, look, enrollment's down and cost are up. >> Well, there's this thing called inflation, right? Right. That's right. That's going up at two to two and a half to 3% a year. So, everything the schools buy is more expensive. I mean, staff are are getting at least step increases. You know, we colas from time to time. that is increasing but also the cost of a lot of the students we're educating you know is it it's more expensive you know but that is that is our moral and legal obligation >> okay um and so the other question I have for that as you talked about uh the students that we are educating are um there are more costs associated with uh

142our student population the do our title dollars help to support um or it should help to support right um the students that have maybe different um academic experiences or different needs and are we fully maximizing um and it's pretty similar to what uh Dr. Mafet was saying as we look at, you know, title one dollars, are we fully maximizing our grants that we do receive um to support our students that may have um additional needs pertaining to their education? And I'm using this or asking this question because knowing that there are some grants or title dollars that have not been I don't think has been fully optimized or used. Um and so that's what's driving this question here. >> Yeah, it's it it's a great question. So, so just to think about just kind of

143think about our our um grant federal grants like like the one that really pertains to students with disabilities is what's called IDB. >> We spend every penny of that. >> Okay. >> I mean it it is is if if if we had another 5 10 million of that we would spend it like we like we 100% spend that. Um we have moved from a place where where you know years ago we were not we were giving back you know title dollars to a to a spot where where we are spending our title dollars. You know we haven't had to talk about that the dirty word sweeps in in quite in a couple years which which is a huge change and I credit the administration for that. I credit our grants team for that. Um, as

144far as as effectiveness, you know, that is part of what of kind of our our ongoing ROI conversation is is to is to make sure that the spending is effective. And, you know, we continue to work with um with our principles. >> You know, one of the things to remember too about Title One is Title One is really a schoolbased allocation. So, it is >> the intent is that it is driven to the schools and it is spent by the school community. And and the good is, you know, you have a lot of local control, but but it takes a lot of work on our end. I think we're we're we're doing that. We're putting the work in. We're talking to LSDMC's. We updated our title one spending guide we send to the schools um

145to try to educate. You're educating a much larger group. You know, if it was if it was one person who who was in charge of all the title, it would be easier to work with them. But now you're working with, you know, all these school communities. You know, the LSDMC's have a big role in that. and and so it's it's a it's a bigger lift to educate everyone and get them thinking, you know, on the ROI lens to get them to really understand what's what's allowable, what's not, what's effective. So, it it it's a big lift, but I feel like we're we're definitely making progress. >> Okay. Thank you for that. And final question, um, as we're building out the budget and we're talking about choices and, uh, we know that there's the schoolbased choices,

146the, uh, school support choices as well as central office. Um, and I think choices that were made in our previous budget cycle, uh, we we noticed maybe some uh, ramifications in certain departments. how I guess my thoughts are how do we ensure that with these choices we're making um equitable decisions where we're not um certain positions are maybe not available anymore and then we're trying to overcompensate for positions that um may have been very helpful like how do we make those equitable decisions with our budget? That >> that is that is the question. That is the question that I I I I wish I had that answer today. That that is I think the question for the next several months is is how do we how do we look at all of these different factors?

147Um, I think I in in my mind like especially you know the interplay between schools and central office like once you once you get past the basic legal compliance >> that's where that's where the real discussions begin >> and and and and they're difficult discussions and there's a lot of apples to oranges weighing you know you're you're comparing you're comparing functions that are vastly different you know you know you're comparing financial functions to studentf facing functions to you know marketing functions to administrative functions to all these things and so and so it's it's going to be it's a difficult series of conversations >> yeah and the reason why I shared that because obviously there are budget roundt discussions or discussions that you all have administratively that we um obviously wouldn't know necessarily um the full

148scope um so we are receiving you know the choices but we may not from a board lens fully understand the um implication of that decision. And so again, when we're or I'll speak for me at least when we're um in a position to have to make a decision about some of the budget choices or options um wanting to ensure that it is equitable across the district. So just wanted to lend that. >> Other board members, board member Balden. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Uh thanks for all the work. um continuously uh and perpetually at this rate. Um thanks for the reference about all revenue. I appreciate it. I think it's more and more important that our spends are timely, especially as we look to the foundation piece because people are going to be

149contributing and they're going to be expecting that that money is spent for the kids that they are thinking this is who it's about and what year. And I know that some of those all funds on and on and on and it it got a little bit confusing. So that's I appreciate that. Um I still think part the the part of the flaw in the budget process is and I understand why it does and I and it's it's reasonable. It's helped keep us reasonably flat. Uh and that's why we're in a little bit better position than most of the urbans right now financially as rough as we are. they're in worse situations than we. But part of part of the flaw is that it starts with enrollment. And so for me, the first thing that starts

150to be cut or surplused is the absolutely core of our business, which is the people that are standing there teaching or supporting the child. And I still think that's a flaw. I think the other flaw in the process as we've talked about extensively is there's this school budgets and then there's central budgets. That's just not healthy. It there has to be some way and you've worked really hard to try to bring some of that together. And I think that that still uh it still is something we ought to try to do with within the the process. Um, I'm I'm still concerned that we may or may not be funding uh as we plan this budget, funding our middle schools uh as much as we need to just because middle schools get funded differently than elementaryaries

151and they get different they're funded differently than they are um high schools. And I think maybe the suburbs that have middle schools can teach us something about that kind of of funding. Um, I really like the chart on uh I think it's the slide 10. Is that the one you kind of have in uh Cody or somebody invented? It's the um central office and uh central support or what have you. >> Is that what it is? So, yeah, I really like that. And I think it part of a a standard maybe should be that that strictly central shouldn't be more than between 15 and 20%. I think that I think there's some reasoning to that if we look at u uh school finance and district finance. Um, and I'd really like to know a little

152bit more, and this can be this can happen in finance, a little bit more about the support piece and what what that really means. And that would be great. Um, the other uh just a couple of things that concern me, the the good news in federal, does that change the impact at uh 634 at all? or is that uh you're not going to give us a couple million there or we can play with or dang >> they don't they don't cross I will say >> I will I will say it it prevents it should prevent anything from crossing back over >> okay there was definitely a scenario where there were things >> that it could hold >> yeah there there there was scenario where there were things in the federal federal grants that we would

153say we can't live without that would cross back over >> thanks I I'm real supportive, as you know, about the board coming to grips with a couple things. One, I think we should early on, even as early as sometime in February, talk make a decision about what our obligated costs are and take that basically off the table. So, we're not always talking about 634 and instead, let's talk about, well, there's only this much. Uh, so I I hope we can get a majority. I think we will in finance and I'm I believe we'll get a majority in the board that'll want to do that. I know none of us want to do the line item cuts ever again. To in order to avoid that though, and this is the this is the um irony of

154it, you have to be as detailed as you possibly can. You cannot going to be able to avoid the line item cuts unless we have and you and I have talked about that the superintendent too the as great a specificity as you can share with the board the more likely we are to avoid the line item cut situation because you just it's a it's a it's a trust thing as well as an information thing. Um choices that we're going to have to make. I'm still worried that we're trying to fund whatever it is we did this year for next year and we're facing a strategic plan where we want to make some sort of transformative commitment. But all the all these numbers still unless we can invent some way to do it that there's an

155accordion to this or some of these options can be more optional. these choices, an array of choices because it doesn't it won't do us a good to spend the first strategic year uh doing this year >> and and but the problem is to get to that people are going to say this is new. Well, no, it's strategic. Therefore, yeah, we're gonna have to not do this. But we these are big things that you and the superintendent have to work out. I'm almost done. I just wanted to say a couple. Well, not just one more. The reason this is only one more. The reason that we care about what's on that stupid Ohio report card is that that that back page that has the financials. That's what the public is going to see. They are not

156going to see our web page. They're not going to see all this other stuff. They're going to see that. So to the degree that we can always and you've already been working on that as as as of the superintendent and I appreciate that and I know we're getting ready to talk about the the big the big issues ahead of us but thank you. I think this is good. I think this is a great start to budget and I want to thank President Craig for giving us time on the budget because there's been a few retreats that we've sat and ready to talk about the budget and we didn't quite get to it and that was part of the problem. Appreciate it. >> No problem. Uh, board member Armbster. >> Yes. So, this is my first

157budget. Um, very excited. Uh, >> I don't have to just stare at the screen, >> see what you're saying in June >> and yell my thoughts. >> Um, I first want to say we've talked a lot about um, disabilities in this. I listened to that budget meeting and I want you and uh Cody to be kind to yourselves and focus on making everything colorlind friendly and don't worry about color palettes um and making it aesthetically pleasing. Make it so that you guys can read it cuz there are other people out there that also can't read it. I'm a mom of two colorblind boys so very sensitive to this issue. Um but yeah, anyway, back to the real stuff. Um I um love what you've put together. I'm going to focus on you asked what you

158want what you want what we want you to present. And um I um first totally agree with Eve. I think intermediate approval is absolutely please do not come to me with $634 million. I don't have that. Right. That's not what we have to budget. Um give me what we do have to budget. um which is everything that's not obligated. Um and I love slide um 12 where you are categorizing it by function or purpose. >> I think that's really important for us to be able to see what the different things are going toward. So we can say we know this is an instructional cost. We know this is a support service cost. I also um someone mentioned middle schools. I think it would be really interesting to be able to tag things back to what

159student demographic we're hitting. If it's the entire student population, if it's elementary, if it's middle, if it's high school. Um I think that would be really informative as well. um as we're going through um the strategy work concurrently. This is where I think zerobased budgeting is real. I've been through zerobased budgeting. It does not work unless it truly starts at zero. And you have to be willing to cut literally everything down and say we're starting with nothing and taking every single thing and saying is it actually necessary? And that's painful, but it's required. So, every single department has to look at their budget and say, "Okay, is this necessary?" Um, and to do that, we need to be looking back at the data and saying, "Is it driving outcomes?" Um, because I'm going to be

160asking those questions when you come to me and say, "Tell me what this investment has gotten us." Um, and so when we look to the strategy, we need to be able to tie every single thing we pass as far as money to a goal and what outcomes we hope that that money investment is going to drive so that we can look back in a year and say, "This investment is working. This investment is not working." Um, so I'm going to be looking for all of those things for you to be able to tell me exactly what it's tied to, exactly what metrics we're going to be using to say this investment is working and this investment is not. Um, I also would highly encourage whoever is working on the strategic plan to have funding sources

161with those big goals. There's money out there. Um, I would highly encourage any major strategic plan initiative to come with ideas for funding sources. And those are my thoughts. >> All righty. I will be very quick because I want you to get through the levy stuff and I want to keep us on track. Um, we will do intermediate approvals. So, I will just put that on the record now. So, we will come back >> to the board with things periodically and and Treasure Gustin and I will sit down and figure out what that schedule looks like. >> Um, what I would maybe bring to folks thought process now is that for every one item we say we want to see on the in our budget spend, be prepared to say what you will not see.

162because we've often had times had conversations about even going to zero base and doing things like that and trying to do these works and at the end of the day everybody talks about what they want to see >> and no one says you know what we've been doing this but this just ain't working to the level we need or the level it's effective so let's that's something we can give up so I think that's just something we need to be prepared to to to walk back to those discussions with later um I think we will have a very different strategic plan conversation with regard regards to our direction and I think this is going to be a little bit of the conversation we'll have about levies just in a moment. The only large driver of

163revenue is a levy. everything else pays for a service or benefit so that we don't cut it essentially right so there are things that we can certainly do to expand opportunities to get more revenue for things you know again I want to point out this is the one not one this is another flaw in the way this the way that state funds education you used to get a full amount for those uh kids who had needs who had disabilities who had provide IEPs and specific services for and now we get a percentage So like even if we said we're getting the maximum percent maximum amount that we're going to put in for we only get a percentage of it um because the state again took efforts to change how they were going to fund public

164education. So and we also know that majority of public schools have the majority of students who have some of the most high needs high concerns >> um and and it's just that concentration. So, I think we're going to see from a strategic plan perspective, we're going to have to look at also what are the things that are most effective towards where we want to go. And I I say that that's maybe a little bit different in a lot of ways than what our budget will be for this year, right? Because our budget for this year will be what what are we going to do for one year? we we will start to have to think about going forward what is the how do we prepare for year five and year one's budget >> which is

165not exactly how we've done budgets >> uh at least not since I've been on the board and I don't know if they did it before that way but >> the reality is that we have some things and we haven't talked about it but we'll I will make sure it's on our agenda uh cuz Chief Birkhart will love it when I see it but we've got facility needs and we got repair needs that we have just never been able to pay for and we had wonderful presentations that told us about all the amount of dollars it cost then which is probably costing more now. Um but the reality is we have to set budgets up to make sure that we can care for some of those things. Even when we get those additional revenue to do

166it, right? Like you it takes time to get those things in place. It's there's a need to prepare and if we're not budgeting for that preparation, it's just going to delay the work further, right? >> Um so I want us to make sure as we think about the strategic plan, our strategic plan may also be telling us how to do our budgets going forward so that we're implementing it correctly. And then the last thing I will say is that I agree with what almost everyone has said around presenting information to us. I think it's good for us to put the choices on the table. What I would maybe recommend as we come back for the non like absolutes are the pathways of choices. So instead of simply saying this is the only recommendation to say

167if we are going to go this route >> these are the things that we can do these are the things that I would recommend if we're going to go this route >> these are the things I would recommend these are things I would suggest and and allow us to understand not just the items >> but where that's going because I think that's also a little bit different than how we've done budget discussions in the past uh because all these things connect in a way that if you change one item it changes a whole lot of other stuff in the background of items and so it may not be may not make sense to talk through them each individually like that. Um but uh in an effort to keep us on track I am going to

168turn it back over to Tre Treasure Augustine to roll through this wonderful discussion about the levy. All right let's talk about levy options >> fourletter word. >> Thank you all for the feedback that was really helpful. Um Rob, if you'll pop to the next slide. No, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time. This is what we currently have as as levies. So share this thing a hundred times. If you go to the next slide, this is the change. So property tax reform has dramatically altered our landscape. The biggest the biggest change is we are no longer on the 20 mil floor because because all emergency levies got added to the 20 mil floor. we are now well above and and I can show you kind of the impact of that. Next slide. The other

169thing that we used to get new revenue from was inside millillage. So as as there would be a reappraisal inside millillage would give us a bump. That is now going to be limited as well. U emergency levies are out of out of our toolbox. It's something we can do new. And um just always want to mention this. the budget commission can now reduce in our tax rates at their discretion. And luckily I think luckily I think at least at least Audrey Miranda is is clearly on our side about about not wanting to use that power but it is something that is out there. So if you go to the next slide, Rob, so this is our this is our total property tax revenue over time and and it's kind of a stair step. So there's

170a couple things to note here. where I put in here when the updates were. So, okay. >> So, there's two types of updates the auditor's office does. One is called a reappraisal where they physically look at every single parcel in in the county, you know, and and do a new thing for it. And then there's a then that's every six years. And then in between there's what's called a trienal update. Try update is more of a math problem. So, they look at sales data, comps, and and they do those things. What you'll see is every time we've had a a reappraisal, you see you see a jump in property tax revenue, right? Espec es especially the 24 when that was at the 20 mil floor and we had the that very large increase. What's interesting

171is usually you'll see kind of right after that a little dip in property tax revenue. That is actually the board of revisions. So all the people that get their tax bills and say I'm filing back in >> I'm filing an appeal, you'll see the dip from board of revisions. But but what you can see there is kind it's kind of a clear stairst step upwards. >> Um based on property tax reform my my guess is my feeling at this point and we'll we'll definitely talk about the forecast on the 23rd is this line is going to be very flat going forward. Very fl Oh very flat. And so because of that, >> okay, >> part of it. Yeah. Very fat. Very flat. So, so, so we just need to know that. Um, if you want

172to go to the next slide. So, talking about new money levies. So, our last new money levy was a preschool expansion. And we've talked about the great things that preschool's done already today. Um, we we're we're at 10 years now since that was done. You know, was that's impressive. Um before that the that last levy was was was eight years. That was the $52 million fixed sum levy and before that it was four years and that was that was kind of right after you know the facilities master plan which we should also talk about the facilities master plan is almost done and we've we've done a really great job of not having to go back as you'll see next slide and ask for more money for that. These are all credits to to our to

173our sale on financial leadership. But I I think the new world is not going to be a world where we go 10 years between new money requests. That the legislature has built a system where these requests are going to be far more frequent. So I >> by design >> by it's design. It's not anything that we're doing wrong. It's not anything that we're doing differently. It is that the system has been changed. And when the system's changed, we have to react. So next Rob just to give you some idea in the 10 years that we have not been without for new for new money um our peers you know have have have done so you know Akran and Toledo you know had each had a new one Columbus has done two and Cleveland's done three

174in the same period where we have not asked for new money they've they've passed all these things so so we we should pat ourselves on the back for being able to hold out as long as we can. All right, next please. So, so two approaches I want to talk about today. Again, a lot of some of this is probably review, but one of them is to look at property taxes in a 5-year increment. And so, this is very similar to I think how other tax agencies do it. You know, I worked I've worked in other government places I've worked at is you look at a five-year period. You figure out what your total would need to be. You divide that by five and that's kind of where you set your request. The idea is in

175the first couple years of the levy, you take in more revenue than you need, right? And so part of it is having the financial discipline to not spend that money up front and and and that that can be difficult when there are when there are definitely identified needs out there. Um, but the idea is you break even in the third year and then you actually spend more than you take in in years four and five. But the overall fiveyear period period you're you're you're solid. Um, next slide. In the December budget finance and growth committee, we did some work on this just we and these are just these are mathematical exercises. This is not a recommendation. This is not an idea. This was purely math just to show folks um kind of what their trends

176look like. So, three scenarios there. I'm not going to go through each of these. Um, but but we just need different things. You know, how much would we anticipate salaries and benefits increasing? How much would we anticipate non-personnel increasing? And this is inflationary. How much of, as President Craig said, how much of the deferred maintenance would we try to spend, you know, every year, the deferred maintenance cost. And then we also put in some money for new initiatives to say, hey, if we're going to do something new, we need to set aside money for that. and >> and you can and you can see the next couple slides which Rob if you just want to go quickly you go to the first one we'll just talk about it. So same concept is is we took

177each year put in the amount figured out the total that was needed divided it by five and it's easy enough to calculate the number of mills and the additional amount per $100,000 for $100. So there's some big number. There's some big scary numbers there, right? Scenario one is the big scary number. If you go to scenario three, Rob, it's a little less scary, right? Still a big number, but but it's scary. And obviously, you know, we we have this tool now. We can run any we can run any idea through that and get it and get a pretty pretty big clean thing. One thing it does not talk about is is kind of what we talk about productivity and and so so probably unless we're going for a 12 mil levy. Yeah, I see the

178look see the eyes get big. Uh we're going to have to continue to become more productive as a district as well. So you're going to have we're going to have to do things cheaper, faster, smarter in addition to to new money. All right. So that's one approach. Um, the other approach to talk about is a school district income tax. So, we talked about this a lot too and just wanted to put this information back out there. Um, difference between a school district income tax and what you would pay as like municipal income tax is a school district income tax is only applied to the people who live in the district and it's applied to the residents of the district. Um, it is an automatic withholding. So, all employers in the state of Ohio have to

179withhold it for their employees. Ohio Department of Taxation collects the money for you um and pays you back as a district. So, it's a little different than the county auditor, county treasur, you're getting it from the Ohio Department. You know, the nice two nice things about a school district income tax is you're not adding obviously on to the property tax burden that people already have and that your revenue will increase as individual incomes increase. So, so while your property tax is kind of a zero sum game and and it's you're you're going to get what you're going to get pretty much a flat amount, you know, the income tax will increase. Um, if you click to the next slide, you can see here just an idea of percentage versus mills. So, you can see you

180can kind of see what an in what it is. Uh, there's two sets of figures here. So, I want to talk about that. Um, traditional income tax revenue is based on your state tax return. So, it takes all your state adjusted income and taxes off of that. Um, a lot of districts are doing what's called an earned income tax revenue or an earned income tax. So, the earned income tax only applies to wages. So, so it doesn't apply to to retirement, doesn't apply to investment income. Um and so and and so again, if one of your concerns is is your is your aging population, you know, this is a good thing for them because their retirement's not going to be taxed and you're not adding property taxes to the property. So So a lot of

181our suburban peers are going down that path. I saw this week Fairfield um Fairfield announced they're putting on for May and in and income tax. So all right. So there's the two types of taxation. quickly to kind of land the plane here. Um some ballot considerations. So looking at 2026, there are two other potential levies on the ballot. One of those is the um local children's services which will be a property tax potentially potentially with an increase. Um just heard recently that is going to be on the ballot in November. There was some discussion about when, but I from if what I hear, the county's moving forward to putting it on the November ballot. And then, as I think you know, u the mayor talked about doing an increase to the city's earnings tax. We

182haven't really heard a lot since that. It was announced at the state of the city address. Um, but that is also something that could potentially end up on the November ballot. For the board, you need to vote twice to put any issue on the ballot. um if you're looking at November, you know, early August is kind of like where you need that second vote. But you do one vote kind of to explore and then and then we send some information to the county auditor. County auditor does a calculations, comes back and says these this this is your millage rate and then the second vote is actually to put it on the ballot. Um we always have to remember timing between passage and collections. So, so you can be anywhere from three months to 13 months

183depending on how how the question is worded and and what and what election it goes on. So, so the big thing is this probably isn't going to be instant money and so you have to think about that too. New money is not always instant money. And the final little blurb is the Hamilton County the big reappraisal got pushed back a year. So that was one of the things that they did very recently and quietly, but we will not have the big reappraisal till 2030. It's not as big a deal now because we're not on the floor. So we we do get money every time every we do get money every year >> uh for new construction. There is a little bit of a bump for new construction. >> New construction also includes any expiring CRAAS.

184So So there is a little bump there. Um and it would get it would be part of the reappraisal does give you the bump um for the inside millage and it got pushed back here. So >> yeah sure >> you said that there's two votes. The first vote is to explore any levy type or the specific one that we decide on. >> It's it has it's specific because then we have to send like we have to send that to the auditor's office to calculate. So >> yes um let's see one more slide. Couple other things. So if we put anything in the ballot, there is some there's some changes to the wording. You know, uh one of them is additional information of the district car carryover balance. So we have to put in how much

185our carryover is in the percentage that might actually help us. I think I think some suburban districts that was put in there for there are some districts that have 100% carryover or more, you know, or 90% of of their general fund is have carryover. I think that actually helps. That actually helps us based on our carryover. Um, they've changed the value statement to be the market value, not the appraised value. I think that helps taxpayers kind of see like based on your appraised value, this is how much it'll be. Um, you cannot do a renewal of an increase. So, which I don't think we're ever we haven't looked at that, but that is off the table. >> And then if you were to do an emergency levy, you need an actual emergency. So you either

186need it you need either to declare natural disaster or you need your district to be in fiscal emergency. So final slide for me is I put this up last year. I thought this worked well is is kind of the levy options to see to see what our options are and it's it's pretty open right now. There le there are far less choices under type than there were before. There are less choices under length. Um and obviously amount is still there. But th those are the three pieces that that the board needs to come to comes to consensus on before we can do that first resolution. >> All righty. Thank you, Treasurer Augustine. Are there questions from the board? I see board member Matt. >> Uh just quickly a clarifying question. >> Your hand was raised

187a lot higher this time. >> Yeah. Well, I was I was going to interrupt during the the presentation, but >> for the income tax, would that be if if that was something that we considered, that would be in conjunction with the property taxes we already received, correct? >> Okay. All right. I just wanted to clarify. Um, okay. That was all that I needed to >> I mean there is I think a potential replacement strategy that I think I I I know some communities are kind of I think Kings Local maybe did this. Some community looking at this where they where they would let a property tax expire and and and add an income and and the idea is just to kind of shift. It's it's sort sort of like diversifying your investment portfolio if you

188look at it that way. It's sort of like take money out of stocks and put some in bonds. I mean, obviously it's risky, right? If right, if the one doesn't pass, then then you're really in trouble. So, >> thank you for that. >> Yeah. >> Other board members. >> Go ahead. >> Okay. Thanks. Um this delaying the reappraisal is that uh for sure till 30. >> That is that is for sure. Yeah. It came out from the department. >> Wasn't it going to be what 20 >> 29? >> Yeah, cuz it's because it's this year is the trienal 26. That would have been 29. >> Okay. I think that is important because you're not going to want to put a levy on right the year that they've just experienced the reappraisal. People don't they're not

189going to vote for it. It's a simple as that because they just looked at their tax bills. So the interest there there is that we would want to be want to be careful whatever we're asking for uh at any time of whichever reappraisal it is. Um, politically, uh, down the road, the the the November election in the state of Ohio, by all accounts, is going to be huge, huge turnout, huge um, interest. And I can remember the first year that I was on the board, the one of the big decisions for the new people coming in. And Susan Cranley was great to but delay the vote about a levy because the new people were coming on and she thought they ought to participate in it. Um but the important thing was that the decide to

190go the primary year, the primary month when Obama and Clinton were on the Democratic ballot >> and that was going to be the opportune time. So, I think we have to look at what we know about politically what's going to be happening on that same ballot. U and so the November 26 looks like a of something of of great interest and we don't know going down. Of course, 28's the a presidential and that would be big, too. But it's just something to keep in mind while we do this. Um, I'm I'm interested and very worried less about this coming year than I am about the following years before we get to the FMP >> uh removal or mortgage burning or whatever we're going to call it. Um, operationally we need money and we need capital

191money as well in the next 5 years and that means that we have to go it would I would think if you're telling us we don't have operational money and all your charts from here on in are going to make it very clear especially the forecast it would seem that we have to we have to make a kind of a short decision perhaps for uh a lesser amount until maybe our narrative improves whether it's the stupid report card or whether it's uh we get our narrative out there more aggressively uh and positively. Um to me the big biggest opportunity to do anything is just what you said. I lived through that in little mount healthy where you put something on but you take something off. Voters like that. >> They like that a lot and

192they should. But I think we all know looking at what this is going to be like based upon what the state has done to us and for us or against us or with us, whatever you want to say, um income tax makes the most sense moving forward. Uh, I I know that, but I know that that's not it does. I was I was here for the first one in the state of Ohio. Good old Wyoming. I I believe in it, but not what we You got to be ready to ask for that. You got to be ready because I Nobody's going to say, "Yeah, go to it." Business community is not say, "Wow, that's a great idea." Uh nonprofits are not going to say, "Oh, wow, that's a great idea." or the city's certainly not

193going to say it. So, you have to be ready to to do it big if you're going to do it, but you have to take something away because property tax can't we can't keep doing this to and for the to the to the payers and the for the kids. So, I think my concern is the next several years to get us to the FMP. And when we can say to the voters that we paid the FMP off and we're riding high and our narrative is positive and school districts all around us are uh closing, frankly, um that's when I would be thinking about an income tax. But now, how do you get an income thing, not an income thing, but a how do you get a operations levy to the voters at the same time

194getting capital money? H how do you There's ways to do that, isn't there? Without saying going for two things because they'll vote yes for one and no for the other. How how do you get capital money and still also get operational money enough to get us through a few years or several years that isn't too big of a a ask like you know double digit is always the do not do double digit. >> How do you how do how does that work? >> So it's a great question. Um the the the one thing to remember is you can always move operational money to pay for capital things. >> Okay. It's it's a one-way flow. So So we have we have operational money. You can buy capital stuff with it. If you have capital money, you

195have to stay with capital. >> Okay. >> Um and and there's a there's a couple ways that usually usually the struggle of that I think is is that a lot of the capital stuff is a very big upfront cost, right? And so and so you can very quickly use up all of your new operational money on capital things. Um, but one of one of the strategies we use is is kind of what we call unvoted debt or what we call cops, right? Certificates of participation. So that would allow us to take would allow us if we had projects that we had identified, you know, we we could basically borrow against against the buildings in the district and and say we need this money now. you know, we need a chunk now for capital stuff that

196then when we would pay off over a 5, 10, 15 year period at a smaller rate. So, >> and and we've used cops before successfully. >> Yes, we have we have lots of cops. >> What's the parameters for cop for cops? >> The cops, not not the t not the TV show. Yes, not the we try to avoid being on a TV show. Um, the thank you so much. >> The best the the best way I can describe it, I think, to the public is it's sort of like a second mortgage if you think about that. >> That's that's the best way or home equity loan might be might be a better way. So So you have properties that have value that you kind of use as collateral, right? Um, you define projects and you

197you can borrow against that collateral. Now, you can only you have we've done cops on a lot of buildings, so you can't you can't double up on that. So, you have to see which buildings are available, which buildings aren't. There's there are some things about it, but it works very much like like kind of like a medium-term borrowing, if I said again, it's like I said, like a home equity line or maybe like a second mortgage uh in the in the consumer side, but it it is a way to say for a for a small payment, we can get a big chunk of money today to do something or some things. Thank you, >> Vice President Muffet. >> So, I'm um I'm a little conflicted because I'm listening to you as a board member and

198I fully understand where we are and what we need to do, but I'm receiving what you say as a taxpayer and as and as a person who's you >> and everybody here is all board members are. >> I I'm sure, but I'm I'm I'm answering this question myself right now. So I you know you you said it's not quite as bad on slide 26 $213 going up and I'm like oo okay and then you know that that define your definition of not quite as bad. So >> um I I want to share a couple things because four of us but three of us are here just came off the campaign trail. I think it's very prudent that you hear some of what taxpayers have shared with us that just recently engaged with them >> around

199um levies and what they think of the district and um I I can speak for myself. I was um asked significantly about levies. Oh, we passed this levy. People do not understand that there are multiple levies. M >> they don't they think I just passed your levy you don't need any more money so this whole piece is around educating the public um they don't understand that and I kind of offered hey we are thinking more creatively um and we are talking about the income tax levy I did not know about the earned income versus the income but I did say that and that seemed to be very wellreceived by every single person because they were very adamant on through their misunders the miseducation around they were they were adamant about their opinion of levies again

200through their knowledge set um so I I say all that to say more education to the public needs to happen I'm not saying that you haven't done it it's not an issue of good or bad it's there is a lot of misinformation as a taxpayer I Kareem would like to see something innovative, creative, and different in order for me to feel the most comfortable um funding it. So, I'm going to invite you, Superintendent Murphy, your team to while you are talking to us about a strategic plan and hopefully putting in the pathways that have been suggested, multiple options, a variety of options uh and scenarios um while you tie in the revenues as one of our board members shared of stream the revenue in the options that you're presenting. Um, I'm going to invite you

201to put in a an ROI, like a return on investment. What do we see? What do we anticipate academically? Um, to board member Bolton's point, she talked about the middle schools may not be funded the way as that the board had intended them. And so, I I think we need to have a really big initiative that involves the community around what we will do differently. um we're asking for monies at the same time that the city is and and possibly the county. So, I think the messaging could be the timing could be great um because they're already talking about their needs and so we can kind of piggy back on that. But I just want to say publicly that some of the things people are looking for, I don't think we're doing enough to get

202that messaging out. And it is around innovation. We say, you know, we're here for kids, but what are we going to do to to truly prepare our students for a different um a different world? And I think we talk about that internally. I want to invite us to really really publicly tie that to the strategic plan, tie that to this budget, and then tie that to any requests that uh that that we're talking about because there there is the same narrative on the opposite end around getting rid of property taxes. And so we we have a bigger battle than I think we everybody understands. I think the battle is is really significant. the the up the the journey is up uphill. Having said all that in my saliloquy, I will say I think that um

203income income tax uh would probably be my my first go-to just because we just talked about that uh last year through campaigning and I do believe it was more wellreceived than a levy. I'm not I understand what cops are. We talked about that a couple years ago with regard to ad hoc and all of that. Um, I'm a little a little reserved on that one because I would want to know the buildings that are eligible for that and what that amount would be. And I think I know we have one new board member, but I think that would um require more education to our board around um more than has been presented around the impact of that. I don't necessarily think it's a negative. I just think we need to also explore all options. But

204when we when we get this presentation for the strategic plan and the budget, I'm just really going to invite that I want more information. I don't want it piece. I want to understand um scenarios, revenues, and return on investment academically and uh financially. So, I'm just saying that right now. This is exactly what I'm looking for so that we don't have to do a line item budget because that was very painful. I don't want to do that. But those are the very questions that I'm going to be asking. So, thank you. >> All right. Def definitely appreciate that. Um, just yeah, just this is like I said, this I said this is a mathematical exercise. Um, any any request you need a story, you need a narrative. I think one of the and I like

205what you said about what's innovative, what's what's exciting because you need you need something to capture people's imagination because a lot of the needs we have quite frankly aren't very sexy, right? you know, the deferred maintenance on facilities is critical. >> People aren't people aren't jumping up and down. Maybe Mr. Burkhart back there is. He may be jumping up and down around it, but but it but it's hard to get people excited about that. >> You know, it's hard to get people excited about inflation. You know, the money we need to deal with inflationary increases. Again, not getting people excited. So I 100% agree with you is is that is that as we go forward like these are mathematical exercises that show us a range of possibilities but really like those details that we can

206that people can get around and and think around and get excited about you know are are going to be the key as we move forward. All right, board member Armbster. >> Um, my my first question is when would we need to make a decision on putting somebody on the ballot for November as board member Bolton? Like when would that be? >> You have to do the final vote. It's more it's like 90 days before the election. So So traditionally we would we would do that in August like kind of right. Yeah, >> as a board there there is nothing wrong with doing it sooner. In fact, there's some benefit. I mean, honestly, >> no, I'm just trying to figure out like I don't feel comfortable doing it right now. >> Yeah. >> But I wanted

207to know like what would the timeline look like because a lot of it's going to depend on the strategic plan and all this other work. So, I'm trying to get my head wrapped around it. I just need to know what that looks like. >> There's definitely some benefit for doing it sooner to make everyone else react to you who might want to put stuff on the ballot. >> Totally understood. Just just to give a little clarific April May is generally when we have done the first vote. >> Yeah. >> Um and again it's for that reason so that we can get it out earlier. Yes. >> So as a goal we if we were going to put something on we would probably shoot for that April May again. >> Helpful. Thank you. Um and then

208I I agree. I think these sizing scenarios I saw them in December when you did them in the budget and finance committee. Incredibly helpful. Thank you so much. It is super number heavy, but it's like incredibly useful to see what exactly the different things look like. And it helps because then when we do get some of the strategic plan stuff done, you can put stories to those numbers, right? So when you say we have what does it say like $5 million set aside for new initiatives, it doesn't become a new initiative anymore. It's X, Y, and Z that we've already planned out, right? So, super helpful. And then from a facilities perspective, um it is not sexy, but it's also incredibly powerful when you think about telling a story about what our students are experiencing

209every day and what they need. Um we put the brand new people to our district from the from the lab school in a building that doesn't fully function. They have an entire portion of their building that is unusable and it's their cafeteria. So these people came to our district and now are in a building that they can't use part of. And so it's like I get it. I get it. But it's not the best impression that we're giving these people that entered into our district for the first time. >> So it's a million dollar expense. We don't have that money. What are we going to do to fix it? We need to do this sooner rather than later. And while it's not necessarily sexy, it is compelling to talk about we have desperate needs in

210these buildings that are historic and beautiful and dilapidated. >> Um, I am going to both give my comments and then also invite the superintendent to invite whoever up if they're going to be part of the next presentation. um as I do so uh because I'm going to try and get us back uh on my track. Um but I I just want to really say three things. One, I think whatever we're going to do, we should we need to make that decision sooner than later. And I say that because regardless of who else goes on the ballot, if we're out there first, we have a better chance of putting our message out on what we are asking for money for in a way that may compel people to actually give us the dollars >> versus us

211coming out after and being the third one to the pool. >> Um, so I I I would say we may not have time to wait for the strategic plan or anything else to connect with it. We may need to just do it. We're going to do it. Got to do it early. The second thing is I do think this is an opportunity where we need to have a communications message before we roll out our vote. And the reason I say that is I don't think we're going to sell the thing that has sold things like preschool promise was preschool. The thing that sells levies to folks often is if there's something they can see that they think is of value to them, right? And I think when we talk about the number of schools around

212us and the in the private schools and other schools that have had to close because their buildings were not housable for kids to ensure that our kids are not like that might be something that is giving your kid a safe place to learn and grow may be something that really touches to someone's soul and that might be something they attach those dollars to and feel comfortable with. the method of how we do a levy like whether it's a income tax, whether it's a property tax, I don't I don't I mean I think there's some value in it, but I also don't necessarily know that if you have the right message, you don't it doesn't matter, >> right? Like so we can we can figure out as a board what we feel comfortable as a strategy

213into that. But I think the first part of that really has to start with if I'm giving you more dollars, >> what are you gonna do with them that benefits these kids so that you don't come back to me? And and I say that also because we are watching other districts around us struggle to pass levies. >> That the reason they're struggling to pass levies is because their community says, "I don't see the benefit >> to giving you this extra dollar." >> Right? Like if if if we look at some of the the districts around us that you know in a few years may be struggling to even exist, they've been attached to scandals, they've been attached to a lot of other things that the voters then said, well, why am I giving you this

214extra dollar if you couldn't do X with this dollar? >> And so I think we need the message of what we're doing and what we will do before we go and say we're going to ask for. Um so that would be the only thing I would charge out is to say I think there's a a space in the world to figure out what that thing is. Um there's the other thing I will say really quickly is just that this is a the decision to put something on the ballot is a board decision. It's actually not a treasur decision. It's not an administration decision. The amount that we said we want is a board decision. So while they can inform our decision at the end of the day we need to make a decision as to

215what is that dollar amount that we think is necessary to ask voters for to achieve the things that we want to achieve um in conjunction with yes what we're doing from a budget standpoint for next year. be quite honest, none of these dollars will touch >> unless we write it out a certain way, most of these dollars will not touch the majority of next year's budget. >> So like um so the the reality is this is stuff for future years going forward. >> Um with that, I will turn it over to superintendent for our next presentation. >> So speaking of future years going forward, uh uh Mr. Galahu has uh pulled together a few slides pulling data from our current system to talk to you share with you about anticipated enrollment. >> Yeah. And enrollment

216really is kind of a foundational step to a lot of what we've talked about today. So this really on the slides and what I'm going to kind of run through as the overview is the highlevel impacts and what we're looking at for the way we develop enrollment, what we've seen trendwise and all that kind of stuff and really try to move us into the question part as quickly as I can because this could get pretty dense if we really go into the details, right? Um but to start with looking at what anticipated enrollment looks like really starts with looking at what our trend and history looks like. So the first table up here really just starts at October of 2018 and looks at our traditional projection models over the years and what our real enrollment

217was. So you can see going from each year what the delta was. Note the big one in Octo October of 2020 is where we had the uh significant dip from CO and then in October of 21 we saw a pretty good rebound of that. And then that goes into what we've talked about throughout last year somewhat where we've seen that trend since of a steady decline. Uh you can see we had a little bit of an uh a steep increase for October of 23, but year-over-year we have been seeing a pretty standard decline. Um and you can capture there in the red section. I added a delta for the four years. So, if we go back to October of 2021 and look at see where we were at after that little rebound, net over those

218four years, we have decreased by 1,628 students. So, we've seen that downward trend continue, which brings us to what I would call our first projection. And traditionally, this would be the only projection we've done for a number of years prior to last year. We would look at that October ADM snapshot year-over-year that we turn into the state. We factor in all the trend data, the external factors that we can account for and that would be our projection that we start with. That would be our projection for the entire year. Starting last year, we started splitting that up if you recall into three projections. So we have the first one which is the traditional starts right now off that snapshot. Then once we finish the school selection process in the next week to two weeks, we'll

219start working on our second projection which will count for what the school the students selections were. So we can narrow down a little closer as to where those students are planning to go and adjust the numbers for the number of students we see electing what pathways. And then at the end of the year, we'll have once we process our rollup, which is really the metriculation of students from the current grade to the next grade and we look at how many students we're placing that didn't go through the school selection will give us even a firmer number. So we'll have our third projection. So this really is our starter, our first projection which only calculates like I said that trend data including some of the external factors we have like the birth rate as uh Miss

220Brooks referred to earlier had been down considerably from CO for a while after CO we saw a period uh in 22 23 24 where it stabilized it did not rebound it didn't increase but it stabilized so we can see that from that stabilization our P3, P4, and kindergarten cohorts hopefully will remain a little more stable this year than they had been in in prior years. Also, we do have to factor in that right now the external factors that we've talked about today, both financial um from those birth rates, from various other factors we've seen, the change in kindergarten, those aren't real necessarily reflected in that first projection. So the first projection I'm going to use that o I'm overly using that that word today is 34,140 which really represents a stable enrollment. It's a slight

221increase of about 147 but you know that's kind of in the margin of error that we would expect that it's really just going to be about stable based on all the information we have for that October snapshot. I do suspect as we go through the revisions that will decrease. I mean, I think that looking at the trend, it is fair to say that that the positive aspect of that will probably begin to dwindle down to be a still within stable, but probably not as an increase. But we're really paying a lot of attention right now because it's a critical time for enrollment. If you recall last year, we talked about, you know, for 10 years really, we've had a trend where we start at a high and then throughout the year, we see some normal

222ups and downs through enrollment, but then it begins to steadily decline. So, the second table or the second chart is looking at enrollment for this current year by a month-by-month basis. We see what we would expect to see. First was our projection. On September 1st, we were off from projection around 700 students. Uh again recall we've talked a little bit about that but about 500 of those were in preschool. So that was really where the bulk of that came from which we expected to have some challenges with and we expect as again director Brooks mentioned the enrollment throughout the year slowly eats away at that gap. So we can account for it to be I think right now we're still probably around 200 off projection but we're getting closer every day. Um, but then we

223see in October and November kind of a steady state until we get to the no-show part where we start doing no-shows for students, withdrawing those students have not either been there for the first day or consecutive days since then. So, we see that dip and then what we've seen here's where it kind of diverges. For most of our history, we have seen starting there at that December through the end of the year. Really, the numbers are pretty stable with maybe a 20 25 student per month decrease and we'll drop a couple hundred students by the end of the year. That was the traditional we've seen over the past 10 years or so minus the the edge case years where like co last year we saw a second path that was that was new for the

224first time in the 10 years that we actually started seeing an increase in enrollment beginning from December and then through the end of the year that second semester it wasn't enough to completely offset what we would normally lose but it netted up about 200 additional students that we would not expect to see in the previous years. So, we saw a change in that trend. This year, we're hoping to see a similar one. Um, but as you can see, moving from December to January, we actually took a much steeper decline than what we would have seen as an early indicator if that trend was going to hold this year. So, and then in the following two weeks, we dropped another 103 students. So, actually, the decrease this year was steeper even than what we'd seen in

225the past. started to have a little bit of red flags, a little bit of, you know, uh but then on the January 27th, a week later, we did see a pretty significant rebound of that the 100 back up about 83, which puts us on average probably closer to what we've seen in a traditional year where we're going to continue to see a decrease throughout the year. That would be the early indicators. So, we'll have to continue watching that really close to see how the rest of that plays out this year. And obviously, that'll influence the second and third projections as we move through and make those a little more accurate. Okay, next slide. I mean, I guess the overall message there is we are likely to continue to see a decline in enrollment. I don't

226think that's a surprise. We've mentioned it several times throughout the meeting today. But really the next question comes in terms of what are we doing about it and where can we start targeting and identifying opportunities. So that's where we've put together the first part of this which has been shared by the board um a while now but it's the first time we've went through it. So I'll take a real quick run through if you don't care Rob to pull up that first link. This is very dense and so I will try to give us just a quick run through to what we're looking at and how to read this overall. Um and there's a lot of hidden columns. So if you come back to it, there may be a lot more information here that breaks

227down age groups, um, uh, grade bands, etc. But for the root of this, what this really is showing us is a breakdown of our quote unquote market share by zip code. Zip codes don't necessarily overline nicely and cleanly with our neighborhoods, but we have tried to identify, you know, what the most appropriately aligned neighborhood is to that zip code or at least the majority component of that zip code. And this is really around census data, which is where it limits us more to the zip code specifically. In the blue section, you'll see students that are noted as known students through to CPS. So, what that means is any student that receives services from CPS is a known student. That doesn't necessarily mean they're enrolled at CPS. They could be at a private or a nonpub

228and we get service to them. So, we have all the we have data around that student to know where they're at. >> The green column represents the portion of those known students that are enrolled at CPS. That is pretty standard for what we have looked at historically when we talk about market shares comparing how much of the CPS enrollment is a portion of those known students. What's new and what we've added is to look at what the census total looks like. So that is the census most recent census data by zip code that includes all school age children from 0 to 19. Unfortunately, the census doesn't align nice and cleanly to remove one, two, and 19. So, it does it skews slightly. Um, but the amount that it includes in those students is pretty proportional.

229So, it's not skewed significantly percentage-wise. But when we begin to look at those census totals, the next column there in R shows what percentage of the census total uh children we know about. So for example there in north side we know about 80% of those students that were captured in the census and again looking at those extra students that's probably pretty good pretty close and then of course the final column there shows the number of students that difference represents or potential students I should say and as you scroll down through here uh if you want to scroll down a little bit rum you'll notice that this really starts to build an opportunities uh for marketing that we look at we can see there are zip zip codes. Of course, there are some that are at

230the edge of the city that we're just partially including of and we would expect our um known percentages to be relatively small, but there are some that if you look through there where there are thousands and in fact if you try to roughly eliminate, you know, the 0123 or 012 and the 19 year olds and start looking at the percentage roughly of to what that zip code represents within CPS's boundaries, there are tens of thousands of students that are different between the census data and what we know about today. So that represents a strong population that we know and we can use this to really map out where that population is even down to what potential grade grade level and age levels they are to target for our marketing and recruitment um and appealing to

231that population to bring them in as enrollment. The last two columns there really just represent that those two methodologies of the market share. The red column or mostly red column in W is the traditional way which is just the number of students that are enrolled at CPS versus the number of students we know about. The second column in X is looking at it from the percentage of students that are enrolled at CPS versus the total number from the census. And the difference between those are, you know, looking at we know about 60% 65% to from a census basis, we have about 30%. I think it's 32ish%. >> That could potentially be CPS students. Now, one you want to go to that last link capturing all that. Like I said, it's a very dense data set

232when you're looking at it in that way, right? So to try and make that a slightly easier and more digestible, this is a heat map that represents that same data set. It does operate on a basically from clear, blue, uh, green, yellow, red. The more towards the red end, the more of the market share we have based on that census data. And of course, so you would see the expected ones like Norwood, those around the edges of the city are closer to the clear area that we would have smaller market shares of kind of expected. But the blue areas moving to the green and the yellow are are break down in terms of where we have a lower market share based on the number of students that are available. And you can click on any

233of them and it'll give you the specific market share percentage that we have. So I will that that's the quick run through and I will open to any questions or any other direction we want to go within any of this. And I just want to give a little bit of background around why we were talking about this is because this is a conversation I I asked to be put on for this meeting in part because a lot of what we will decide around what our numbers will look like from the state are built on enrollment and what we have traditionally looked at from enrollment was the students who we knew about >> and in a lot of ways the students we don't know about are the students who never interact with the district in some

234form or fashion and those are there are opportunities to get them to interact >> if not you know come to the district. >> Um and so this is another part of what we may look at from a strategic direction when we think about future years and our strategic plan. So, I wanted to give a little bit of that background is is a little bit of a project that I that really taps into some of the other things that we're able to do with technology now that we're utilizing to know where our students are, know where our potential students are, and know how we can uh drive more from a communications and marketing stance. So, I will open up to any comments from board members. >> Vice President Muffet. So I do agree that this is

235this is helpful for the strategic player but this is also helpful um um director Golhu around what you said around marketing. So my question to you can you go back to the last slide to the original slide um the the trend you said that and I want to be clear you said that we were we we were trending down but then we regained some of that those students in December. Yeah. On the month over months for this year. >> Correct. >> Okay. So, do we have zip code data of the students who are returning? And my question is aligning with kind of figuring out why they're returning like of those students where they coming from. Do we know we know why they're returning to us? We're not capturing all of them, but I have theory

236and I'm wondering if um we could intentionally, you said it's um an opportunity for marketing, but I I'm wondering if we could capture if you have that data around the ones that are coming back, where they're coming from, what zip codes they're coming from, and or what schools they're coming from. Um to look at what schools are sending them back. >> Yeah. >> And why and what grades. And I'm also I have another question around grades. Go ahead. >> So to kind of a two-part question in the first part in terms of do we have data for where they're coming from, which zip codes, which schools. Yes. Like we can disagregate all of that. Would you click on the link at the bottom of that? I think that one you can click on directly. So

237ah all right, never mind. So I will fix that. But then you'll be able to click on that link and it it actually does it doesn't have it broke down to zip code or school yet, but that the breakdown that you can link there does have the grade level. So you can at least see where the grade level changes are um for all of the years that were included there and then we can disagregate it further from a the data standpoint. The second question in terms of do we know why they're coming back I think largely is no. I don't believe that there's a mechanism that we currently have at least from a data standpoint to where we gather any kind of a survey or a direct response as oppo as a student enrolls like

238why are you enrolling with us today? Sure. >> So I don't think there's any way that we capture that currently that would be reportable. >> Well, I think that that that part of of the why is really a conversation or when they're coming back in, you know, do we ask that question? If we don't ask that question, it's very simple to solve in my mind. But I am look interested in the schools that they're coming from which we should be able to capture because they're coming from somewhere and they're being reenrolled into CPA. Well, are they being reenrolled into CPS or are they just enrolling? >> No, these are net changes. So it it could be a student out and a unique student coming in that offsets that count or increases. These are not necessarily

239returning students from anywhere and like it's not like they were at CPS left and then came back. >> Well, do do we know that or >> we can Yeah, we do have we do have aggregate that shows those number of students as well which >> largely is not going to be the population that makes this up. >> So in fairness that like that's a smaller number that's going to be relevant to these counts. This is really going to be the number of students leaving versus the unique students coming in and that transition the offset or which side is gaining ground faster. Right. >> Sure. >> And then you said that um we would be able to see grades once that link is is fixed because I'm interested in um what where they're coming to. So

240are they coming to the central corridor? Are they coming to the west corridor, the east corridor? Are they coming to a monastery? And and again it in my mind it's looking at where they're coming from um to as we can figure out the why, but even if we don't have the why, where are they coming to within our district and what grade? Um so that would be great. >> Yeah, I can certainly add that. >> Other board members, board member Matt. Um, so I just want to say I appreciate you for owning that we are we have declined and the reason why I say that is because for several meetings I've spoken about our enrollment is declining and we presented as though it has not been an issue. So for you to directly state, I'm

241saying this because we are seeing a steadily decline. >> So I appreciate now that level of transparency that I don't think was there previously. So thank you for that. Um my questions are kind of opposite. Um because we're seeing a steadily decline. Yes, some of it may be attributed to birth rate, but for for the things that's not connected to the birth rate, why are we seeing students maybe uh unenrolling or not enrolling in our district? That's what I would like for us to target. When students are leaving us, in order to go to another school, we have to release their records. There has to be some communication. So, is there a method where we're collecting that information? Is there an exit survey so that we can then begin to target um how we market

242um and retain our students? And I'm glad that there I know we'll get to it in the strategic plan conversation, but there is more conversation around the marketing piece that I've also asked for us to make sure that we're facilitating with um the collaboration of our Miss uh Sheiley Green. So, I just wanted to own that because in order for us to really make change in this area, we have to call out what is and we were not doing that before. So, I don't know what has changed uh or or if there's more that we need to be concerned about with the numbers that's declining as you shared. Um but thank you for at least being transparent today. >> Certainly. And and I think you know um and continue the transparency. I apologize if there

243was any impression of that not in the past. I think we get into some um challenges when we talk about enrollment which will help answer your other question somewhat in perspectives of how we're talking about enrollment really can change those terminologies. So when we look at it like from our projections we're down 700. We take out the 500 for preschool and we're only looking at if we're 0.5 off we're only down 200 from here. And that sounds much better than when we finally take this kind of look at it where we can aggregate all of that together to say our total delta of what's actually happened and not just within a smaller scope. And that I believe is what changed in terms of this analysis versus what I've probably talked about in the past at

244least for my interaction. >> Okay. >> That plays a little bit into the second part of your question in terms of I don't think it's as clean as we would like. We do have the mechanisms in place that there is when a student leaves for whatever reason the question is is like where are you going why are you leaving right >> the the challenges with that are they are not required to tell us >> and most students while we do have a number of withdrawals that will provide information that is not typically the pathway most students take >> most students don't show up we may get told we're not coming back to school but they don't tell you where they're going why they're leaving that's just not information that we can require ire them to

245give us and typically is not again should we could we have an opportunity to tighten our processes around trying to get that absolutely >> but it is certainly a challenge that is not something we can require them to do >> but where we have that information and this also gets a little for lack of a better term squirly when we're talking enrollment because enrollment is a living thing >> when we talk about it in these terms even today these are really snapshot data and it's presenting it kind of as a it's almost I don't want to say misleading, but lack of a better term. It's almost a you know, not really what the state is basing it on and not really what we look at for all of the different enrollment impacts that we have.

246This is talking about the raw number of students that we have on the books that are supposed to be reporting to school. >> And that's what the Yeah. Yeah. And that's generally what we always look at and talk about during school years at the end of that. And really, it's an ongoing negotiation with the state on a weekly basis in terms of okay, how many of those students actually count to CPS versus somewhere else. When a student's with us, once they hit an accountable level, it doesn't matter if they stop coming to school, that student is still accountable to CPS until we can either provide the ad documentation for withdrawal uh or show that they're going somewhere else or the state recognizes another school reporting or this student is now here. And even when that

247happens, typically that's a case where both school districts are reporting it until the reconciliation happens at the end and the state comes back and says, "Oh, wait. It can't be at two places." So, one of these is wrong. Who's right and who's wrong? And then we have to go back and forth. And sometimes it's even involves working with another district to figure out where that student then actually belongs. And then in that time frame, those students while they're still enrolled are counting against attendance and chronic absenteeism, which further complicates all of that together. So it's it's really an ongoing negotiation with the state >> and that that also can muddy the waters a little bit with enrollment. >> Absolutely. Thank you. I think just one thing that you called out though was like you stating

248real enrollment numbers. So when we are communicating our narrative out and we're saying that we're 36,000 or 35,000 that muddies the waters obviously because we're going to people are going to assume we even assume that this is what our enrollment count is when it's very different right so it can it can be misleading in how we're even communicating out our enrollment and then just the question that I have um as you pulled up the heat map um I'm just curious to know how much I the the city will play a part in our enrollment in terms of if we're thinking about like development and things of that sort. Are we able to do we know of certain areas that we are seeing a decline in in the enrollment maybe because of just the change in

249dynamics in the the community. Um, and if there's anything as we're talking about marketing and talking about um, where we are able to increase our market share, if we're able to work collaboratively, I guess, with the city to help build that enrollment. >> Again, always an opportunity for improvement, but we do have some interaction with them in terms of knowing, like you say, some major developments, but mostly very major kind of things. Smaller ones, not so much. the smaller level stuff we typically find out about or we our schools and the community members that are in that community provide the feedback through our schools us and we do try to include that in like projections and the work that we do around all of this. Um but most of that information comes directly from either

250the community or the schools. The city is mostly on the major side. Um so again definitely an opportunity for improvement. Um but we do work with them somewhat. um point of privilege just for because in transparency right the thing that we're talking about I do think to that point as we continue to talk around the finances and our our strategic plan to recognize the difference between what we saying in terms of real enrollment right when we say the 34,000ish um students we are talking about that raw count when we talk about the funded number of students from the state of course that only includes preschool disability not preschool gened But so we take that off the top. The remaining difference between that in the normal payments we receive from the state twice a month. Um

251so we're saying our enrollment is 33,700. What the funded enrollment is is closer to 31,500. >> Thank you very much. >> So there is a significant difference >> between our real our raw enrollment of students on our books versus what we get paid for. And again that is a negotiation that's always ongoing with the state. So, just wanted to offer that because I do think that's important information. >> Other board members, board member Balden, >> thank you. Uh, appreciate the numbers as always and I like the zip code approach. I I am going to correct you. You have listed here North College Hill as well as College Hill >> on this. >> Yeah, I'll look and see. >> Darn that. A >> College Hill. >> I'll blame it on wishful thinking. >> Uh, what can

252I say? Uh but no um I'm I'm not I don't I didn't quite follow the whole transparency thing. Um I I do think that the numbers are important. I like that really simple graph that shows actual market share that says okay this is how many of the market are going to charter. This is how many are going to pro private and here's us. I mean so what is that by you top of your or somewhere on one of these links what's the market share among the what has now create been created a >> three school systems >> so that is difficult to answer in in terms of what we're looking at now because really the way that we had done that traditionally was like I said was based on what we know the students we

253know about >> and so if we look at it I don't have the division equally um but based on if we look at that same methodology, just the number of students we know about because we can say where they're enrolled at. We're around 65%. And so without the split, that would leave everyone else with the remaining 35. >> Okay. I think part of the narrative must continue to be that this school district as an urban district is not in decline enrollment wise the way other urban districts are both in our state and really around the country. So we are at least let's say let's have a compromise and say it's stable. The reason I say that is because in 2008 with the facilities master plan it was envisioned by this time no not by this

254time but by 2thirds of the way through the facilities master plan we would be at 28,500 students now. And that's how many buildings they were willing to fund us. That's why we had to add six buildings. Hook or crook. We That's what we did. We added schools. So, we are not in enrollment decline. We are in stable and that's almost a victory. But what I would say is that we are in danger of decline if we don't have a progressive transformative strategic plan or we might not ever be in full decline as the rest of the school districts even that are surrounding us are going to be closing. We have to keep that in mind as part of our enrollment as well. and some of them are actually contiguous to us that are in greatest

255uh concern and we have to be worrying about that situation. So then the enrollment piece I keep in my mind the 285 but the other piece is is the market share because part of this market share issue for me is that when the let's say the facilities master plan they hadn't even anticipated with the facilities master plan a complete charter system being in place in the in the last 20 years or less. We've seen a complete charter system come out of nowhere basically at our cost because they're not leaving the Catholic schools to go to charter schools. And then the other reality is now most recently besides the besides the um uh epidemic and the COVID and all that kind of stuff, the the other piece is that we've now are watching universal vouchers. And

256the universal vouchers are are are now taking some folks away. And the ones that they're taking away are not the economically disadvantaged children. the ones they're taking away are the families that can afford it anyway. And that's what's happening in the state of Ohio. So, all things considered, I'm I worry greatly about the stabilization of the enrollment and I I believe very firmly that part of that is Cincinnati City's development plan was not to have families move back. It's that's not their plan. They wanted singles. They wanted young professionals. They have eliminated the city and the federal government have eliminated any number of public housing projects where there were families and children to be taught and we're about ready to get rid of another one. Okay. We have not necessarily the the the thing I

257would point to to to Kendra's point of view on on the the enrollment piece. Thank goodness for expanding preschool from an enrollment standpoint. It doesn't count with the state, but it counts with us. But also thank God for the involvement and the increase in our immigrant and refugee pol uh uh uh students and population because that's where we've seen the greatest growth and we've also seen the greatest growth too in those number of children that we get and now it's a percentage of children regarding ones that need learning help. So that the expensive you know you have to financially you want to be able to have enough students that are that not that expensive to educate. I mean it becomes a financial decision. So all those things have entered into it. So I I'm not

258into that that we've um not had growth because we're certainly I don't know 5,000 more than the state said we would be and it probably would have been less than that five that was only 2/3 into the into it. But we've also seen this increase both of vouchers, seen the arrival of a charter system, and now the state, and I you've heard me say it before, the state of Ohio and taxpayers in Ohio cannot afford three school systems being publicly funded. Period. So that's the end of my tirade. But >> you're still >> 20. But I'm telling you, think about that, folks. Because 20 years ago and 15 years ago, school board sat not in this room, but in the big room, and we kept being told by the state, you're going to have no

259more than 28,000. So, no, we're not going to give you enough money for what you really need because you are going to be in decline. Well, we didn't. And we haven't. and we have made an effort to be a growing urban district and I think against all kinds of odds and I think it's something to be proud of. But I appreciate the the um excuse me the transparency and the real numbers to deal with. But but I I won't say we're in decline and very frankly if that becomes part of our narrative you're not going to pass a levy anyway. >> All righty. Um I'll make some quick comments to and again my effort to get us back on track on timewise. But uh I want to first thank uh Dr. Gahu for bringing this

260to bringing this presentation in part this is a conversation that he and I had had before. Um and it really is also to alert us of the fact that there are folks who never touch our district. We really do need to figure out what's the best ways to draw those folks back into the district. >> I think there is a conversation around how do we keep people here? How do we um attract new students in and how do we attract really the parents of students who because the student who's in the third grade doesn't decide what school they want to go to and the parent says you can this is what you can go to this is what you can't right um so I do think there's an there's there's a need to do that

261right like we need to have that conversation and I think that's something superintendent's been on on board with trying to figure out how do we market and how do we reach out and t and talk to those students and talk to those parents Um, this also aligns with stuff that we're going to have to do for our strategic plan, which is going to be our next conversation. Um, so I'm trying to do a little transition also, but the reality is that whatever we do long term has to be thinking about where do we gather new folks in, where do we gather new resources in, where do we do something different than what we're doing now. And that's part of it is bringing in new students, bringing in touching the homes of people that we don't

262normally touch in new ways that we haven't done before. Um, so I I think it's a great opportunity if we're and and part of this also stems from my my thought process is around where we see city population changes and this is definitely a conversation as board Brewster is our new liaison with the city to have that real conversation with them about where do we finding homes for families. >> Thank you. that keep them in the district >> that also keep them on bus routes that keep them on >> spread them out throughout the city instead of having concentrations of poverty and concentrations of families in one part of the city not others. Um but it's all a part of a growing conversation that we will have as we keep moving towards the strategic plan

263>> really quick. >> So I feel a little bit like I'm in the the the I didn't see what I just saw type era. We are numerically declining from 30 from from from that that data. The numbers are not increasing. I understand projections, but I but I want to I I just don't I don't want to be made to feel like I didn't see what I just saw cuz I know I saw what I saw. However, I want to invite the administration to align a plan and as we talk about strategic plan to get the data that we're talking about and where we're declining, where we have declined and and we need a marketing plan to go with that that talks about capturing those students in those zip codes or from those schools. I I

264really want to make sure that we are very clear that this is an opportunity for us to educate. I'm I'm not I'm not as worried about the city, but the community around what we are offering that um that's a marketing issue and that's also um an engagement issue. So we can if we have the data which you said that you have then we can find out where to target. But I think as we talk about strategic plan and as we move into um what we're going to do moving forward that should also be a part of what we are expecting the the consulting company and the administration to do which is look at where we can capture to actually grow. That is that that was what I signed up for was a growth plan. So

265I I'm going to invite everybody to use this data so that we can grow. But I know what I saw when I saw it. I feel like I'm my eyes is lying and they're not. So, thank you for that extra time. >> And again, as as I'm trying to tee up here, the conversation with our strategic plan has to be a global message. It can't be one item here and there. So, what we really are going to push for an idea around is what are all of those things? And this is going to be something we do in each of our board me board meetings coming up over the next few uh months. What are those things that will drive the district to success and what does that success look like? >> So, as I

266transition that point, I'm going to take a little personal privilege um >> from the superintendent for a moment here with the strategic plan deal. >> So, we did meet with the four four companies that were going to uh work with uh Rice. Um and we interviewed all of them. We we've got some discussion still to do to to select someone that is going to be provided uh as services from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. So, it's a donation of services, not cash, which makes means we don't have to uh do another RFP or anything to that process. They just provide the services and we accept it. Uh so um but the the hope and the goal of the conversations that we were able to have with them and and information we were able to gather from

267them really was splintered around what is the district going to look like in the future and how does how do we get someone in who understands how to think through those strategic plan ideas to think through those methodologies and the ways to get the information both through engagement and through development ideas, things that we're doing, things that we're successful in, things that we have opportunities to improve upon. All of those things are things that we're going to need the strategic plan to build on. And so, um, I wanted to put it on the agenda today to offer out some of the things. I think where we originally thought was this would be is not exactly where we are right now with it because I think we still have to decide kind of what's the format

268to whoever we select and how they would um how we would begin the engagement process. And so there were some strategies that were offered in those discussions around things like having an internal steering committee that would be focused around what are the processes and procedures and the things that the district does that would steer that part of it. There was conversations around having an advisory committee that was focused around the families, outside members, church groups, all these folks who are connected to the district may not necessarily be on an LSDMC, may not necessarily be a parent this year of a child, may not necessarily be uh a teacher or whatever in the district. So like there were opportunities to have folks from both internal and external to be part of some type of advisory through

269the process as well as through other engagement methods. And so I think where we initially thought we would be at before we had our meeting on Friday is a little bit different than where we are now. Um, but I do think it's helpful for us to kind of talk through what might be as we as as superintendent and and uh and I and and and treasure Augustine uh go back to the uh members of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation as well as the uh business committee just to discuss what might be potentially those goals that we want to set forth in whatever we say we want to build a strategic plan to fix or to to head towards. So I wanted to just give some space today to see if there are some themes or some

270goals or some loftier expectations, some more general things that we as a board might want to say this is what we want to give directive towards so that when we build the agreements with the two groups that those are things that we can incorporate in and bring a plan back from them to bring to you all that's more concrete. Um, and I say that in part because we're going to do that in the next week or two. like it's not gonna be like by February 9th in theory we should have something that comes back to the full board >> that says this is what they proposed they can do this is how we would go about it these are the steps and all that I think we thought we would be able to presuppose a

271little bit of that and then people came with their own suggestions in those conversations that were not a part of our racial thought process and or maybe weren't thought of in the same way I should say I shouldn't say weren't a part of it but and is that a fair kind of >> agree 100% very great conversations but um this what we submitted for your review will look completely different um as we finish the process from yesterday. >> And again, the hopes would be that we would get all of this like I kind of gave us a deadline to get it all done so we could have it for the F February 9th board meeting to be approved and so that we can start reaching out to the public to get them involved early. Um

272because I do think what our hope is that um we would have both engagement in the beginning, right? engagement to find out like what people need, what value, that type of deal. And engagement along the way that would be focused on as ideas come up, as suggestions come up, as concepts come up, they' be a part of that process. Uh, but I wanted to give space here for board members to give their thoughts on kind of where those goals might be. So, board member, she put her eye all the way up. I appreciate the class. >> You know, when I want to talk, there's no question. Uh so just to clarify right now for this portion of the meeting we are going to set this stuff to the side and just focus on providing feedback

273on what we would like to see as highle goals to provide direction as you guys go into the conversations. Is that correct? >> Yes. And and part of it is because we had a application that we will not >> that we may still use. I'm not saying we're not going to use it but we may reformat and rethink of how it be used to collect different people along the way in the process. I just wanted to clarify what our our goal was for this portion of the meeting. Um, super helpful and thank you both for or all of you. I'm sure it's more than just the two of you. Everyone that's putting in the work for that um that goal. Um, it's a it's a big ask. It's a big lift, especially here in the

274beginning to get it kicked off. So, thank you so much. Um um as far as goals go, I mean I I think the ultimate goal is what everyone's going to say, which is improve student outcomes, which is very um true, but also kind of vague. And so, um, in my background with strategy, I think the most important thing you can do is have a inspiring vision that you're working towards with that strategy. Um, cuz without that, it it doesn't really make sense. So I think as a board, as a leadership team, as a district, we need to decide who we want to be for our students in 10 years and five like in the long term to say this is what we want to look like for our students. This is what we want our

275students to leave our our schools with. Um and then your strategy builds into that, right? So, if we say we want to be the greatest career tech district, I mean, that's an example. I don't know that that's what we want, but let's say we want every student that leaves our building to be prepared to enter the workforce or enter college. Um, and we want to be the the top district in the country for that. Um, that's great. That's the vision. And then your strategy, it all plays into it, right? everything you do from your strategy goes up to that vision. I think until you know what that is, you don't you can't really build the strategy cuz it's just going to be putting pieces together towards something that you don't know. It's an unknown. Um,

276so I know we're working on a very fine timeline here. I think this is the the time to to make those decisions even if it's quick. Um, that's just my personal perspective. I think it helps everything kind of coales. I think it helps people to buy in. I think it helps the community to buy in. Um, we we need to decide where we want to go for these kids. >> Thank you, board member Bolton. >> Just a point of clarification. Are we trying to do the goals that would be achieved by the strategic plan or are we talking about the goals as to how the strategic plan is going to be conducted? >> I think what I what I'm asking for are like the like our pillars of what we would want them to build

277whatever their recommendation of a plan. So that when we ask a vendor to build us a their pathway to creating a plan, right? Right. So like there's steps in the process like do we expect engagement in this process? Do we expect community? Okay. Like these things that are the things that we want to have as part of a >> we're not talking about our vision for the district. >> Not fully yet >> and I hope not because you haven't heard from the folks. So um but but uh but I want I want from this strategic uh planning. First of all, I'm concerned that somehow what we thought of is been changed based upon the dialogue. But that's that's what dialogue's about. Uh and I don't know who's driving what, but I I would like based

278upon our re very recent conversation regarding levy, I would like to see that at the end of the strategic plan, there is some third party, there is some expert uh uh effort to be able to not only help us build that parallel financial thing which is required in the in both the superintendent and the treasurers work. Um um not just that financial plan with the strategic plan, but I would like some outside for source or force to kind of give us a be able to say that they looked at all of our books and looked at the financial plan. So I would like that to be built in. Maybe not community, but an expert >> or a group of experts. I think that was incredibly important for the preschool and I think that that has

279to be repeated in some way as we look to the future. >> Awesome. >> Other members >> or member Matt? >> Uh just a thought. I'm just thinking back to um the superintendent search and I really liked how ALMA was um that consulting group that spearheaded and and at least from my end I don't know so you all can correct me. you are on the board at that time but really facilitated a lot of the work um and I think it wasn't done in a very objective manner where that they were able to get you know um uh community input uh student input teacher input just you all's input and be able to synthesize that information to help drive the work so I would be interested in seeing something along those lines where we know

280that it will be very objective and how we're driving um the strategic plan. Um and obviously I'm always going to as we talked about making sure we're advocating for um with the strategic plan that is connected to academic results. Um and then as we've talked about what that marketing strategy will look like as well to make sure that not only we're retaining our students but actually growing our district and um discussing what those offerings are that we have. That's great. That's great. And and again, I think just to give a little caveat of information that was shared with us is that like again some of those each one of the groups talked about doing things like observations of the classrooms, observations of the schools to also understand the culture, >> right, as part of that

281definition. So I think there's a space to have some of that conversation around what that looks like towards building a growth plan as well as a marketing plan. Um, do you have anything? I kind of do. I I I was just sitting here reflecting on what has been shared and and I I know it's hasn't when uh remember Matt brought up the superintendent search, we still have data from that around what the community wanted and I I'm very interested although I know it is a couple years out, some of that data is very significant around aligning with what we we can probably pull some themes out as as far as aligning with what the community wanted to see. What I would like to see is the consulting company utilize that data to as a foundation

282to build upon where are there gaps, where are there some things that may need to be updated. At that time, several years ago, we had extra money. So, people felt like we had more money to spend that than we do. But I think that it is prudent to um use that as a place to start. I'm concerned with the timeline being so short that their thinking is that they have to kind of come in and recreate a wheel and I don't know if that wheel recreation will be as relevant and aligned to where we've already already been. So I my suggestion is that they receive data from the previous search. I'm talking about community data. I'm not talking about person data and um and utilize that and I know the board had received several reports

283so we have some of that as well. >> Um I do think it is also it's significant to me that the board is involved. I understand to the need to have this be administrative driven because it is tied to administrative goals. But I am very concerned that the the board is taking a second position and it needs to be more aligned with a first position because the board is responsible to the community and um the administration is responsible to get this done. I think that there is a potential for the insertion of bias >> and that needs to not happen. So, um my my pill I think we can prevent that from the beginning by utilizing data that's already been available. We need to see it as well because some of us weren't here when

284we did those engagement sessions. Um, I do believe that the board should be invited to participate in and involved directly with the engagement of whatever the consulting company does. I don't think it should be a one-off. I don't think it should just be we hire a consultant and then they go out and do it. It needs to be aligned with a board um member attending and engaging as well. Um, I I'm going to bring it up again. I was sitting on the um the step committee which is what it was called back back then and we had those pillars and a board member and a staff member were kind of partnered together. If we don't do that >> then I believe the engagement piece that's done to the community could have the same type of

285um engagement where staff is there, the consultant is there and a board member is there. we at a very minimum need to be invited um because we are responsible to the community. That's that's just that that's that's just it. And so um I those are some of my cursory thoughts around um what should happen. I appreciate the work that you all are doing with engaging the business community and engaging the greater science foundation, but I do also want to um maintain that we were elected to represent the community and so we need to make sure that we are aligned with and can support um support those goals. And I do think that what one other thing I want to say um as we progress on there needs to be constant contact with the community around

286our progression. I am I constantly hear the the rushed timeline, but this is another opportunity. Maybe we need to create a page off the uh website that talks about where we are in the strategic plan. Just because people don't engage directly as far as being filling out an application and sitting at the table with us doesn't mean that they will not be able to give us some robust commentary around where we should be. So, I'm going to again invite the administration to be very creative around utilizing the consultant, making sure that the board is involved and keeping the community uh engaged in real time around where we are in the process. >> Um go to you one second here. I'm just going to give quick thought to provide a little bit of also clarity on

287what some of the expectations that we were hearing from them and things that they were stating. I don't think any consultant wants to come in and reinvent the wheel. >> And in fact, one of the things when we talked about them working with Rice, we talked about the fact that Rice had already a pre-existing relationship with the district and past work, pre-existing relationship with the community, >> and that that almost every vendor that met with us said, "So you mean that's we don't have to hire somebody now?" So like they were like, "You got somebody on the ground already? Oh, that's great." Like that. So I think that in that aspect of it, >> the idea is that they're not going to come in and reinvent, but they want to the first steps would be

288to do a a an assessment of what exists. >> So I think to everyone's points of things that were important and those things, there'll be a time to also do those conversations. I just want to also reiterate the I think there is a al there's a a vast need to understand where we are going as a >> state towards education um that unfortunately we don't shape right >> and the best way we position ourselves is by the work that we're about to do in the strategic plan so I do think if it becomes an issue where it's a time issue that may be something the board has to look at and say whether or not our timeline that we set for it is the appropriate timeline. >> Mhm. >> I'm not saying we do that

289today. I'm just saying that's something that we as a board would need to think about because I do think that also gets into the level of engagement, the level of communication you have is if you're doing this over three months, it's a lot different field to folks when they have more time to be able to to uh participate. But I'm going to go to board member map as she's uh taking a drink there. My my great timing. >> Just a question. I know the previous strategic plan was uh in conjunction with the uh goals and guard rails um or it kind of framed a lot of that work >> and I'm just inquiring about is from the board level is it still an appetite for that level of I guess that that framework as we're

290moving forward with the next strategic plan? >> It's a good question. I mean, I I will say the last time we did a comprehensive strategic plan um was many years ago. So, like the ones we've done the last few times have really just been like how do we get from point A to point B? This would be a lot more comprehensive. Um and so when I know when when Vice President Moffett refers to like her work on the strategic plan, that was a much more comprehensive strategic plan than what we've done the last few times. Um we've also kind of let go of some of the goals and guardrails framework. So in that sense, you know, what of what we still do, well, how will that fit in? I think is a valid question to

291ask to uh the board members um to see what their thoughts are. >> Are you asking? >> Yeah. >> Yes. >> Armbster. >> Uh a couple of things. one, I totally agree with board with vice chair um Moffett in that I have been concerned that in none of the engagement proposals I have seen, there has been mention of the board. Um I don't know if that's been just an error or what. Um but absolutely the board should be present in this conversation. We are in charge of making sure that this district is on track. Um, and if we don't have a say in the direction it's going, I don't think it's fair for us to be in charge of making sure it's on the way. Um, um, and two, when I say vision, I was

292not implying that we should do that work today, but you asked me what the goals should be, and I think one of the goals should be setting a vision. Um, so just clarifying that. And then, um, on your question, I I was not here for the goals and guard rails or whatever they're called. I would never suggest framing any strategy in the negative the way that those are. It's very confusing. So I I please get rid of them. >> You would have been you that would have you would have been part of the unanimous vote to get rid of the >> unanimous uh part of a vote. Um and again like that it's a framework that we are not actually operating under anyway right now. So like we've stepped away from the SOFG model. Um

293that was a decision the board made to do. So um does it not have to be >> but I I welcome any other members who may have thoughts on on that particular question that was asked vice president. >> So I'll I'll share um while we walked away from the model formally because of budget I think primarily and because of how they were kind of we were framing it. I still think that the teeth of what we all wanted was there around high student outcomes goals. I don't know about the guard rules piece, but um I think that data we all aligned with like you know you're going to not I hate to say it the way they did but don't let the discipline data number fall below this but so so those themes are absolutely

294there and I think we could we could as a group reframe them so that we're more comfortable but cuz I think the bulk of what we what we intended and I would say I think the majority of people intended the the the seem to be uh consistent and it's there um to to answer your question. So that model the as far as formally being s SOFG. No, but yeah, we did that work and it's significant and it's a lot. So I would welcome us to take that kind of reframe it and don't necessarily call it goals guardrails, but there's so much data there that we wanted to preserve. And I think looking at the strategic plan moving forward, maybe we do come up with some board goals, maybe um you know some things that some

295parameters. >> Yeah. Yeah. and maybe we just don't call them that because I think I think that part we could build upon because we're already really there I think and this would be a great time to do it. I'm not opposed to that. >> Okay. >> Uh board member Bolton. >> Yeah. I two two or three things to touch on. I think um I I I was terribly impressed with the Alma people in their engagement process and I think regardless of what ultimately happened, I do think that they found one of the most talented people in education to be our superintendent at that time. It just wasn't the appropriate fit for us or them or whatever. But their engagement process was quite good. It was heavy student, heavy staff, heavy community. lots of stakeholders, board

296involvement, uh some partnering up there and and what have you. The one thing that I would argue against that they did that I don't want to see another group do is that as it got closer and closer to the end, they imposed some arbitrary limits on who was going to be on the the list. Do you remember this? It was like, oh, you have to have this person. And we did in the end turn away some very highly qualified people that on a longer list or if a space hadn't already been taken care of. So their frontload was outstanding and but there there was some arbitrary things happening and you started to think well they were kind of guiding us a little too much in a particular direction but they're they're very good. I will

297just conclude since I as asked about the goals and guard rails as I I don't think my mic was on. I do think for the strategic plan to work as any plan right that's comprehensive there has to be some targeted specific you know uh goal that we're working on in terms of the the guard rails. I know that there's a lot of people that didn't like it because obviously the you know the language or the semantics around it. Um, but I do think uh to uh uh vice chair uh Mafit's point, we do have to have um the perspective of the community and what they value. And so I do appreciate that piece and that lens that the guard rails uh brought to make sure that hey we are honoring this and we will make

298sure that we are doing our due diligence to not only ensure the outcome of these goals but also protect these values that our community have as well. >> And so what I do invite uh board members to do so one I invite board members to go grab some chips and cookies and and donuts because we still got a bunch left. Um but What I do invite board members to do is over the next few days into uh mid next week to just share any additional things that you think are the more thematic things that we want to make sure that whatever group is going to help build the strategic plan understands that's the expectation and responsibility is part of that process. I think there will be a separate conversation once someone's selected as to what

299are those goals that we set for the three to five the four year whatever length of time we decide and that's probably another thing we decide on what length of time we want the goal the strategic plan to cover but >> I I think there's an expectation to >> huh >> we had we originally had started with four years but there's a you know we can always change that so that's what I mean like >> what's best based on what we now have opportunities and resources for >> um and based on what we may be doing from a a levy perspective and other things like all these other things that might be a factor in that. So I think there'll be plenty of time as we go forward to >> have both board input, community

300input, but also to do it in a way that manages a set of goals that then we can build a strategic plan around >> Yes. really quickly. Um, can we have sent out to all board members again because two of them were not here. Um, the reports from ALMA around engagement because they did that that work. But >> I'm sure >> I think I think that might be Miss Phyllis. I don't know >> it is >> I think if we had the information we can share that and I think maybe better way of sharing it is to just make it a sharable document that we can have everybody have access to. Um, that way you know we we just folks can access it and view it. Um, and then we kind of have it there

301for in the future. Um, all right. I'm going to move us along to our next topic. And then just reminding folks, I ain't providing y'all lunch today. So, >> I'm sorry. I just have one quick question before we move along. So, I know we received the uh committee application. So for people that are interested in doing work on the we're holding off on >> we're holding off on that until we've officially received uh to officially selected >> okay >> the vendor >> vendor >> um because and ultimately just again more information on that Rice will likely be principally doing a lot of the engagement with the community and so we want to also allow them to if they want to set a website up if they want to do whatever to figure out the best

302method of communicating that out to folks. Um, so, >> yep. All righty. So, our last uh our uh our only board matter topic that was brought forth during uh before the meeting was sold out um was around uh our middle school categories and now we're defining those two. I see uh assistant superintendent uh Badget coming up to the front here. So, he's already uh ready, but I will pass the baton to uh Vice President Moffet to kind of introduce this the discussion and then open it up for response. >> So, thank you. I I um wanted us to we we really has as a board have not defined whether our middle schools should be our new schools, I should say, should be middle schools or junior high schools. and we we when we talked about

303the growth plan and and the ad hoc and all that, we just kind of kind of just brushed over it. And so I think that there's space for us to truly help the administration um from the board level define what a middle school is, define what a junior high is. Um quite honestly, we've got one school that's got little people and then, you know, four through eight. And so it's I I I don't know if we've really done our due diligence around what is a middle school, what does that mean? Um I I've got the one book. Um but I know our some of our principles have been trained on that. But I think that the board should kind of drive that while we're talking about names. I know board member Bolton says the board

304decides names. And as we do that, we need to understand if if we're calling something something something junior high, what does that really mean? if we're calling something something something middle school, what does that really mean? And I just don't think we've given enough time as a board to those conversations. So, I wanted to ask um I asked Superintendent Murphy if we could have a conversation, and this probably will be a continual conversation, not just for today, around what is a middle school and then what is a junior high, and then we as a board come together and give some direction to the administration around alignment of what we currently have in our growth plan. So, I guess I'm turning it over to Assistant Superintendent Badget. >> Thank you, Dr. Moffett. >> Yes, sir. Um,

305good afternoon everyone. >> Good afternoon. >> Can you next slide please? >> So like Dr. Maf said, we do have different models, different grade bands across our six middle school/junior highs. Um, when I presented in December, I know I gave you guys a big packet. Um, with that inside the packet, um, we are following the middle school model across all of those six campuses. Um, and you can see up there, again, this is not new to you. You've seen this before, so I won't read it word for word, but we are following the middle school model for those campuses. Those principles and staff have been trained um and we're continuing the um middle school model. Next slide. And one more one more. Thank you. And you can see um what we we put everything in

306buckets. So across those six campuses, instructional focus, teacher collaboration, culture and climate, and scheduling was our priority in year one. That'll be going into year two as well. So, making sure we put our emphasis and resources on those items um in our across our six campuses >> and we're still doing the engagement piece um far as I won't say recommendation for school names, but just getting input from our students and our staff on campuses regarding school name. >> Okay. Um I think there was a a overarching question that might be attached to this. So I want to give you just a little bit more chance to expound upon the like how which schools if they're using different models or one's using middle school versus junior high or if they're all using the same model kind

307of what's the understanding and expectation around that? I think that was part of the question that was being asked. >> We're following the middle school model >> for all of them. >> Yes ma'am. Now, >> yeah. Now, Hartwell, they have different grade B, but we are following that overarching middle school model. >> Okay. >> Um, >> so, so that's helpful because now I know I I kind of thought we were mixing this up. So, let me um just provide a little bit of information around what I thought the differentiation was. And um I I from just the again the cursory research that I done there is there is from the ad hoc intention to what is actually being done here and board member Bolton can can interject because you were part of some of those

308conversations with the um community around there was the desire for junior highs. there was the desire for um taking the seventh and eighth graders out of the high schools because they had specific needs that needed to be addressed that could be but may not have been addressed in a 7 through 12 model. And I thought that the academic focus junior high schools are often designed to mimic high schools with departmentalized specialized subjects. Middle schools often use interdisciplinary teams and exploratory broader and flexible classes. Those are two completely different things. So if we're treating those seventh and eighth graders under interdisciplinary teams and exploratory broader focus and the intention of the ad hoc and the growth plan as we thought about it was to have them kind of mimic the high school and that's where they

309were and we're bringing them down. Again, that was kind of the need for my wanting to have some clarity because I don't know if that was the intention cuz we never came back to it for the entire board to say we all want we want them to all be middle schools. I thought we were having some of them be junior highs, some of them be middle schools. And so for me, I looked up the the schedule and the structure. Junior highs typically follow a six to 8 period day while middle schools may use a block scheduling. Those are just these are just some of the the broader things and it sounds to me like we have everybody on the same type. Um developmentally middle schools focus heavily on the developmental social and emotional needs of

310young adolescence. Junior highs focus on subject driven cognitive and rigorous academic preparation. Again, I think from our engagement of over that 18 months, what we intended may not be what we're seeing just the middle just giving it a blanket middle school focus. So, and and I'll tell you my thinking was is this part of do we need to kind of reframe how we're doing some things to help with discipline to help with some of the some of the challenges but also support some of the things that are going on there too. So, that was what the the the purpose is is that those are two completely different models. They weren't supposed to be treated like um I'm going to say this more of a elementary extension of elementary. They were supposed to be removed in

311in my mind removed from the high schools so that they could get the needs that met that they needed socio socio emotionally um academically support but in preparation for high schools but not be an extension of elementaryaries. So I wanted my colleagues to kind of talk about what we wanted what what we wanted so that we could help drive that focus for you all. So that that was I didn't know we were treating them all the same. So um that's new. That's new. >> Um I'll go to board member Bolton first because uh she also was referenced. So >> um I think there's several parts of the dialogue involved with what the vice president has said. Um we knew that every one of our high schools was overcrowded. So initially the discussion was we have

312to remove kids from the high schools. forget it, forget uh whatever uh instructional purpose you have there. When we were really looking at capacity, that was the easiest way to resolve the overcrowding in all of our high schools was to remove the seventh and eighth grade because we in and returned to a more traditional 912 senior high kind of experience. But I do recall and we voted on this and I know we talked about it and I know it was in the recommendations that we and the community um you know we talked about junior highs. We also talked about the fact that many we had to close junior highs because they became kind of difficult uh to deal with. Plus the state was only giving us a certain amount of money and so we we

313adopted the PK8 or K8. Uh and and um so there's there's a lot of history in all of that. Uh, I I think that um the interest at the time was to create middle schools and I think it was uh it was um uh Carolyn Jones that was the one that was the most um influential and spoke the most often about middle schools. Uh, I know I poo pooed seventh and eighth grade just because I know we had lived through that and virtually all of them have been closed uh um in in recent years. But uh I think it's they I think the middle school model regardless of what the grade band is. I think the middle school model that speaks to social emotional and crosscultural crosscurricular um and and more um whole child approach

314speaks to what our children need, be they boys or girls. Um, and so I I think it I think it makes sense to have them all be middle schools, even though initially I talked about some middle and some junior high, but I think the model is is looking at where we are on discipline, looking at where we are on social emotional uh, at the middle schools and whatever. I think the middle schools method probably is the best to to meet the criteria for the kids. I do think that there's you can make some argument that Schroeder should remain a junior high because that building is so small you can't put very many more grades in there and that's already been branded and that's part of it. You could make a case that Evston I don't

315know what the enrollment is but if disproportionately it's coming from kids that would normally be going to Wow, you might be able to say something there. But I like the middle school model for this. I'm a big fan of it left over from the suburban experience. Um, and kids uh kind of having that six, seven, eight before they get to freshman year, I think is is very important. But I don't want I'm totally with vice president on this. I don't think that either staffing or budget or instructional plan should reflect anything that has anything to do with the continuation of elementary. Middle school function is is separate from both high school and u also um elementary. >> Other board member thoughts >> I'll just echo really the same thing. I do think that the um

316middle schools need a tremendous reset. >> Um I cannot uh I cannot speak to what the plan was in terms of the support um the support that would have been given to the middle schools. I do know that there was conversation and planning around being able to get the students into the schools. But in terms of what the actual framework would entail to encompass a middle school focus, there was not much I don't think there was much conversation around it. And also just not in theory but in application. So I think that's the piece that's missing. Um, and also I think from what I have observed and when we're talking about discipline, when we're talking about the academic um, piece, just things that constituents have shared with us or with myself is that they've been

317taken out of the high school setting but still being treated as though they are in high school. And so that is a huge issue. If we're talking about developing the whole child and they need specific attention, we have to make sure that we're providing that support for the students. Um making sure that our teachers are creating environments that honor that and making sure that our parents are being provided with the opportunity to engage in a middle school framework. Um so that's just the piece that I will add. again, not what it's supposed to be just in theory. How do we model that in application and principle? >> Vice President B. >> Well, I do I went back and looked at the ad hoc notes and it does say middle schools. And I think part of

318my um part of my confusion is I think that they're not I I I don't think that there's consistency in how they're running. And and I think part of that lack of consistency is that we're just not clear. all we said is establish a system continuum across all quarters that allow for creation of middle schools um six through and it says specifically grades six through eight yet we have Hartwell in there and we have Evston in there so again I think consistency is probably part of the problem and that we we established this but we didn't really go back to to vi revisit it and I'm not sure if the public and parents understand what middle schools are supposed to be I think our staff got very expensive and great training on um our our

319middle school staff got that. But how is that being trickled down? What does that mean? What does that mean for parents that are at middle schools? We've got the 6 through 8 here that the board approved with regard to the recommendations, but our system looks a little different. So, um, again, I am concerned that we have, uh, middle schools that may need they do need a reset. And I, in the, in the effort to reset them, I want us to have community involvement, community engagement. I want us to have community understanding and parental understanding around what the expectations are for those schools that they're sending their students to. We didn't do anything pre-opening, pre- first day. We didn't engage them in a summer bridge. We didn't engage them in um anything for the for for

320the summer around getting there. I don't think we did anything in Christmas break around a reset. And maybe maybe we did, but um and I'm welcome to be wrong, but uh >> so schools did have a reset when we came back. >> Okay. >> With expectation, behavior, the whole nine yards. >> Yeah. >> And in the beginning of the year, they did have orientation nights. Great. Meet teacher N. They they did have those. Yes. >> Yeah. Okay, that sounds great. That sounds great. >> Board member Amber Brewster. >> So, I wasn't going to say anything because I wasn't here for the establishment of all of these and because of the snow, my trip to one of them got cancelled, so I haven't even seen one of them. >> Um, but you were talking about confusion

321and as a parent with a lot of parent friends that are in sixth grade currently at an elementary school, I do want to talk about like this whole system has always been confusing. So you have the option right now when you leave my school to go to a 7 to 12 and at Walnut or Clark. You can go to Mount Washington Elementary. That's our neighborhood school cuz now it goes through 8th. You can go to Bramble Monastery that now goes through 8th. You can go to Spencer that's 3 through 12. You can go to SCPA that's K through 12. The whole system is complex and confusing, right? Like that's kind of the beast that is CPS. So we just have to overcommunicate cuz these parents do not know what the options even are. And the

322centralized enrollment is new and it's got kinks in it and we need to work on those because it it was rough for these sixth grade parents. um as a personal experience with just one school, let alone all the many parents that I haven't experienced those conversations with. So, I don't know everything about the middle school situation I'm learning. Um but just from a hands-on parent experience, I can tell you overcommunication is not the problem here. Let's keep doing it. Um, so I think we had some information there. I think there's some opportunities to bring some information back to the table. I think I I will say this to kind of give my little thought on this is that I think this is a board decision. This is a board vote that the board made that

323we decided this is how we wanted to do it in the time frame we wanted to do it. And when we make those decisions, we live with the repercussions of those decisions in some ways. And we need to come back and adjust and change and be nimble to do so. But this was a poor decision. And at the end of the day, when we make decisions, we own what came about as a result. And so I don't say that to sit there and say that that no one that everything else did perfectly or no one else is to to be a part of that. But I say that to say as we look at what our strategic plan will look like, as we look at where our district goes, as we look like look at

324what other changes we might make to how we adjust and and address some of the concerns that come through middle schools, we need to recognize we own a part of that and a large part of it. because that was not a decision that each individual school came and said we want to create a middle school today. That's a decision the board made and said we're going to do it in this time frame. So when we make those decisions, we own them and we must work to improve them as we go forward. Um but the truth is we must start with a sentence that says we made a decision to do X. Now how you implemented X, how you work through X may not be what we wanted done, may not be goal but we made

325a decision to do X. So, I think as we do this going forward, as we talk about more things in our strategic plan and everything else that we're going to do for these lovely next few months, really remember that we own the things that we voted on that came out as a board decision and that we have to go forward managing and and being responsible for those things in a great in a better way. Yes. and we can talk about how the ways we can communicate better and do and fix things and make things more concrete and establish different procedures and adjust as we see people make different decisions and all those other parts to it. But I really do want us to start from a framing of we made a decision because I think

326that in a lot lot of ways we're asking everyone else to own their parts and conversations about things that absolutely they they have to own a part of it. They have to own their parts in it but we have to own our part as well as a board. Um, so I am going to hopefully move us through our consent agenda so that we can get into an executive session so that everybody get out here. Um, so a consent agenda has been uh proposed consent agenda has been distributed. Are there folks who have any exceptions and or uh uh things that they have to step out of their vote for? I want to raise my hand. >> Yeah, remember >> I don't have an exception. I just do want to like make a quick comment and

327I've already talked to Treasure August about this for the treasures report. I do want to make a request that we start putting dates on the donation and grant information because there was one in there that I was like, I know this didn't happen in the last month. Um, and it actually happened last spring. So, I don't know why it's being reported on this treasures report and not last spring. Um, but just for our information, I think it's better practice for us to know when these donations are actually occurring just from practice. >> No, great great suggestion. That will be that will be on the next treasures report. So, >> awesome. See, making progress. >> Nice to have fresh eyes sometimes. >> Uh, board member Matt. >> Yes, I do have several exceptions. So, Treasure Augustine,

328would it would it be easier just to abstain from your full report or go through? >> We should probably just go through them. >> Okay. All right. You ready? I'll I'll speak loudly and clearly. Page six. Uh, page nine, line item number two. Page 10, line item number six. Page 11, line item number five. Um, page 12, I believe, line item number four and five. And then page 14. >> That wasn't so bad. >> That wasn't nothing. >> She was trying to scare us. Should I just abstain from everything you put down? All right. Uh, do I have a motion? >> So, move. >> A second. >> Second. >> Treasure. >> Miss Armed Person. >> Yes. >> Miss Bolton? >> Yes. >> Miss Matt? >> Yes. >> Vice President Moffett? >> Yes. >> President Craig?

329>> Yes. All righty. Um the chair will entertain a wait yes a um motion to go into executive session um uh say the reasons >> for the purposes of employment of public official and >> uh preparation for negotiations. >> So moved >> second >> Miss Arberster. >> Yes. >> Miss Bolton. >> Hi. >> Miss Mav. Yes. >> Vice President Moffett. >> Yes. >> President Craig. >> Yes. >> You should say. >> Okay. So, we are going to adjourn to uh or we're going to go into executive session and adjourn from there afterwards. We will not come back. So, everything will turn off. >> Yes. Uh we ask that everyone in attend