001seeing a quorum of voting members, I call the October 6th Cincinnati School Board meeting to order. Um, Treasure August. George Augusta I'll say yes. Well, let's start here. I'm sorry. Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our wonderful students who will be leading us in the pledge of allegiance. >> Yes, ma'am. Today we have the students from Covedale Elementary School where their principal is Mr. Michael McGawan. >> All right. Colale Colts, please stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance. >> I pledge aliance 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. Great job. >> That was good. >> Thank you to our Covedale students. Treasure Augustine, please call the attendance role. >> Mr. Craig >> here. >>
002Mr. Crosset >> here. >> Mr. Lindy >> here. >> Miss M >> here. >> Mrs. Weinberg >> here. >> Vice President Bolton >> present. >> President Moffett >> here. Vice President Bolton, please explain the virtual hearing of the public process. >> Thank you. I certainly will. Members of the public who are online and wish to speak during our hearing of the public this evening may do so by clicking the chat button now. The chat feature will be open for your request for five 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. I need a motion and a second to approve the October 6 business meeting agenda. >> So move. Thank you. >>
003Second. >> Thank you. Treasure Augustine, please call the voting role. >> Mr. Craig, >> yes. >> Mr. Crosset, >> yes. >> Mr. Lindy, >> yep. >> Miss Matt? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Weinberg? >> Yes. >> Vice President Bolton? >> Yes. >> President Moffett? >> Yes. Do tonight's agenda is approved as posted. Do board members have any acknowledgements or announcements? Well, I will say I had an opportunity to attend the SCPA uh Mottown uh back Mottown music event along with my colleague board member map and it was it was groovy and we was jamming. I think uh your little one had a great time. Yeah, we had an enjoyable time uh at the Mottown Review hosted by SCPA uh the SCPA fund and yes, my mom, my my daughter um we all had a phenomenal time.
004So, it was such a fun and great experience. I looked up and your mom was jamming. I was like, "Okay, go ahead, mom." She had a great time. And I do want to apologize to for for us coming out late from exec session. So, I apologize to the public for that. Any other board member? Board member Wyber. >> Yeah, I just wanted to um kind of reiterate or state that I shared with the board members um Oiler School, there was a fifth grade class that they did an energy conservation um little cute video. So, if you all um get a chance, please check your email, check it out. And it was really exciting to see our students doing some great work. >> Thank you board members. You did get that email and I think the
005public can check it out too. We'll make sure it gets on the site. Thanks. >> Anything else? Board member Matt, I also wanted to just highlight the SCPA orchestra because those were our student performers and they did a phenomenal job at the Mottown Review. So, I think we would be remissed if we did not highlight the great work that they did. >> Good job. Well, let's clap it up. Let's clap it up for them. Superintendent Murphy, please present any announcements and retirements that you may have. >> Yes, ma'am. So, no retirements, but I have two uh announcements slashcudos. The first uh on the next slide, I wanted to introduce everybody to our new CPS edge internship program. And EDGE stands for experiences that drive growth and empowerment. This is coming out of the office of
006secondary education. And what this is is something we've talked about for a long time, but we have students engaged with our departments here at the education center in Iowa Street. We currently have five departments engaged in this effort, facilities, IT, student dining, athletics, and marketing and comms. And we have seven students from across the district placed with each of the departments getting an internship and hands-on experience with what they actually do in their departments. So this has started matter of fact I met one young man today who's in the facilities department uh Mr. Henderson who is a senior at Riverview East Academy. But you can see the other schools that are uh getting this started with us and we're super excited about this opportunity to explore careers and the types of skills that are needed
007for right here in our school district. So kudos to those departments, those schools, and those students. >> Let's clap that up. >> Thank you. Oh, born across it. >> I'm sorry. >> Can I ask a question now or about >> about what you just Yeah, go ahead. >> Um, are the internships paid? >> The internships are not paid. >> Yes, that is one of the pieces that we've asked the foundation to work on for us, but at this time they're not paid. >> I do have a second if that's okay. And on the second one, members of the senior leadership team are going to assist me very quickly. Thank you. Um, next week there is a special day on the calendar, but uh, we wanted to use this time because it is the scheduled meeting
008time where we want to demonstrate a little appreciation for all of our schoolboard members. So, members of the senior leadership team have something for each of you. >> A, this is so cool. Thank you. >> Thank you. Open it. >> Well, let's open it now so we can say thank you. A >> Oh, thank you. Thank you. A [Laughter] >> I'm gonna use it right now. >> Okay. So, this is like so much fun. Yes. Thank you. And just just so you know, the public knows what it says. Did anyone open up theirs yet? This is >> Did you not open yours? >> I wonder did you just tell It says what? Boss lady things. That is so cool. And and men, I know you don't have that. So, what does yours say? >> What
009did the boys get? >> Yes. What did the boys get? >> Well, remember Craig is open. >> I got a bag that says boss lady. >> No, I got I got these fabulous pens that say relentless, unstoppable, and courageous. So, thank you very much. >> I like it. Well, thank you so much. That is such a thoughtful gift. >> Thank you. Thank you. Feels like Christmas time. Vice President Bolton, the chair is now yours to conduct our hearing of the public. >> Thank you very much. >> Superintendent Murphy, were you done? Was I Were you done? Did I cut you off? >> Okay. I'm sorry. You're welcome. Go ahead. We are now at the item in on our agenda for hearing the public. Each speaker will have two minutes and will address all comments to
010the presiding officer. If you have any materials or presentations wanting to be distributed to the board, please give them to board administrative assistant Phyllis Davis. If you're online, once a request to speak has been granted, you'll be invited to enter. You should click on the camera icon and go to interactive. provide your name, your affiliation to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information if you'd like a response uh to any of your questions that you might raise. 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 reserve the right to end that person's time. Again, each person will have two minutes to speak. When the timer goes off, your time is up. Please refrain from
011discussing any personnel matters. After speaking, if you're online, you'll briefly see the welcome screen again and as you transition back to the live stream meeting. Finally, we ask that your public commentary be as respectful as possible to all listeners. Thank you very much. Tonight, I know we have at least two inperson uh speakers. And Rob, do we have anybody online? Nobody online. Uh so we will uh start with uh Tana Boyd. >> Welcome. >> Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, President Moffett, members of the board, and Superintendent Murphy. As you know, my name is Terrina Boyd. Okay. >> And I am here as a parent and a me and a representative of We Excel Cincinnati. I stand before you tonight because this meeting where you set the performance goals for Superintendent Murphy is
012the single most important action you will take all year. It is where you turn our community's values into measurable accountability. I have watched the news and seen the genuine wins we all celebrate of our excellent high schools. the high algebra one pass rate and increasing graduation students rates for students of color. We are grateful for that progress. But from my perspective as a parent, your celebrations are premature. The data forces us to confront a crisis of values that directly contradicts your own governing documents. Our district is allowing failure in our lowest performing schools. We cannot uphold the standard of we are here for all kids when we when the data shows that more than 60% of our lowincome students do not pass the third grade reading exam. Just let that sink in. This is a
013clear failure to meet the board's explicit reading proficiency goal outlining your goals and guards. It means we're allowing children to pass from the third to fourth grade without the fundamental skills they need to succeed. The results are alarming. The reading proficiency gap between students in poverty and their more affluent peers have increased to almost 51%. These numbers are insane. This is a slight This is not a slight discrepancy. This is a widened chasm of educational opportunity. The outcome is in direct violation of board policy 2255, equity and excellence, excuse me, in education. I demand that the goals you set tonight prioritize two things above all else. a realist focus on improving third grade reading scores for our most vulnerable students. A clear measurable target to shrink the size of the 51% achievement gap and finally
014serving a link between a child's zip code and their future. I thank you for this time and I also want to say it's time for us to move from celebration to accountability. Our children's future depends on this rigorous equitable goals you set tonight. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. >> Thank you very much. Appreciate it. [Applause] We do have an additional speaker that uh is meeting with Miss Davis at this time. That's it. All right, Kimberly Hughes. >> Good morning. Lord Jesus, I'm know I'm Good evening everyone. I am a parent also an employee for CPS and I'm here today in regards to I have two children that's in elementary 10 midway school and I've been having issues with nursing and it's very hard and frustrating to take my kids to school and
015find out there's no nurse or nothing. I have a child with asthma and I have a child who has type 1 diabetes who has to have insulin and when there's no nurse it pulls me from coming to do my job where it's here I can't do it cuz I have to leave and go get so I am hoping to speak with you guys so it can't never be a surprise hey we never heard about it know about it or what's going on but it's very frustrating as to be an employee for the same people and have children in the school system and I'm not getting all the services that should be for my children as they go to attend school. [Music] >> Thank you. Um, thank you. >> Do you want to share with us
016which school or >> Midway? >> Okay. >> Elementary superintendent, >> appreciate you coming this evening. Our [Applause] our last speaker tonight is the president of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, Julie Sers. Uh, as some of you will as regular viewers would know that uh president of CFT has uh uh not the twominut required limit uh that others have. And uh so Miss Sellers, please uh share what your issues might be tonight and suggestions. Welcome. >> Good evening, members of the board. Um as a Cincinnati educator and as the CFT union president, I want to remind the board that teachers come to school every day committed to preparing every student to the best of their ability. Despite increasingly draconian cuts to the budget that have created larger class sizes, reduced supports for students with disabilities, growing
017numbers of chronically absent students, and housing instabilities that create a churn of mobility within our city. Mr. Lindy's op-ed unfortunately echoes a familiar and misleading narrative, one that blames public schools and educators for systemic failures that stem from broader social, political, and economic neglect. It's not our teachers who have failed. It's our city, our state, and our federal governments that have failed to adequately invest in our students and schools. Teachers want what every parent and community member wants, to see their students grow and thrive. But the solutions proposed by policymakers and administrators often differ greatly than what classroom teachers know their students truly need. Teachers already use multiple data points to understand where students are academically and emotionally. What they don't need is another layer of test prep vendors, standardized assessments, or administrators walking around
018with clipboards. What our students do need is access to rich, engaging curriculum, lessons that build vocabulary, foster critical thinking, and encourage hands-on and project-based learning. That's how students learn. Teachers want to nurture creativity and deep understanding, not train students to take a test. To make that possible, schools need proper staffing and resources to create safe and supportive environments. Every student deserves smaller class sizes, adequate mental health supports, and access to materials that make learning exciting and relevant. Our students in Cincinnati deserve the same level of investment and opportunity that students in wealthier districts like Sycamore, Marrymont, Indian Hill, like they already enjoy. Test prep is not a path to equity. It's a failed experiment designed by vendors to profit off the backs of our students. Real equity will come only when elected politicians stop treating
019education as a competition and start funding it as a foundation of a just and thriving democracy. We in Cincinnati are being harmed financially worse than any other district in the state. But yet teachers are coming to school every single day to have um to have pressure put on them that is not in the best needs of students. I was a teacher for 20 years and before all of this crazy stuff really started and our kids learned through hands-on science, hands-on um reading activities, um social studies. We had debates. We did everything. But we cannot continue to educate our students with a test prep mentality when we already have multiple data sets that teachers have access to on a regular basis. So, thank you very much and I hope that this evening you will start thinking
020about how is it that we are going to move forward as a district. Are we going to teach critical thinking and skills that our students need in the 21st century? Or are we going to go to this reform model of test prep without having real contentrich instruction? Nobody up here went to school under those circumstances. And there's no child in the world who likes going to school in those kind of circumstances either. So we have to as we are thinking about how we are going to move forward another vendor is not the answer. Thank you. >> Thank you President Sers President Muffet. That concludes tonight's hearing of the public. >> Thank you policy committee chair Lindy. Please update the board about the commemoration of school facilities policy 7250. >> Thank you. Uh we have a
021couple different policies coming before the board following our September policy meeting. Um the first one makes I think an important change to the input that we consider in naming schools chiefly that it adds student voice. So this is us keeping the same policy we have. The only thing that we're recommending that we add is that part of what gets taken into consideration in the naming of a new school are recommendations that come from students. So the policies available on boards, you'll see there's just a single change which adds students to the set of inputs. Uh this received um member mapper, member Weinberg can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think pretty unanimous support from everybody on the committee. >> Uh correct. And also, we wanted to make sure that we spelled this out um
022and separated from the consent agenda because I know that this had a lot of discussion from uh board member Bolton in terms of us moving forward with the naming of the school. So, we wanted to make sure that we honored that and gave room and opportunity to have discussion about it. >> Thank you. Did you have anything? >> That's it. Sorry. >> No, my colleague summed it up very well. Um, we just wanted to make sure that we included student voice. >> Well, Vice President Balden, >> yes, I think it's a wonderful addition. Um, I I I feel very strongly about it. As a matter of fact, uh, some weeks ago, I believe it was a a social studies assignment maybe at the school for the creative and performing arts. Uh, they weren't talking about
023changing their name. Uh but a number of students did some research as to some of the unsung heroes of the past uh in Cincinnati public and uh uh doing the research they actually came up with a few but particularly one person uh that they felt had been overlooked for a long period of time and that perhaps we ought to be thinking about it. So the student voice is not just about their own school, but the idea of student voice of how the young people are researching or how the staff begins to uh uh get us ready for our bicesentennial as a district uh and and maybe we can it'll be a a great avenue to open up the doors so to speak to research and I I think that uh sometime in the very near
024future we should be putting some of those thoughts uh together and some suggestions together. I think that'd be great. So, a great addition. >> So, I think maybe we have a couple others. We can vote on them separately. We can vote on a group of them together. Would would you prefer that we keep going or that we take a vote on this first one? >> Let's just keep going and then uh approve the package. >> Great. Um so then the next one um it says, "Vice President Bolton, are you going to share with us an update on the interdist enrollment?" Yes, I have an important uh comment to make. I think it's important uh over any number of these years. Uh we have maintained through your work, we have maintained apparently high schools of choice.
025Correct. High high schools of choice have been maintained. >> I mean there there's no recommended change to any of the current. >> Right. So we've maintained that and that's that's part of that policy. One of the things that occurred during the process of high schools of choice is that some high schools over time, and I've shared this uh with a couple of superintendent uh over the over time, some high schools of choice, and I'm not talking about the ones that have restricted uh entry based upon um you know, testing or based upon audition or whatever, but some high schools of choice within our district start to believe that they are able to say no to people within the district that want to attend that high school. And I think it it often is uh used
026and I see it still in the existing policy where it's a matter of uh referencing in the policy whether or not there is capacity. And I'm thinking that um high schools of choice are not magnets. They are high schools of choice. The word magnet is a specific uh item, if you will, a specific definition. So I I I understand we kept the same policy and I think that's reasonable. But again, it's the interpretation that high schools of choice are not magnets and they are public schools within our district and an intra move among or between the high schools. Uh it's a real question for administrators to be able to say no to someone because of enrollment. And it particularly is different now since in many of the high schools that are our high schools of
027choice uh indeed seventh and eighth grade has been removed. So where we had overcrowding in a number of our high schools and capacity was a big issue. I just want to make sure that it's not to change the policy because the policy is good, but it's really a discussion maybe the board and the administration can eventually have about understanding our role and our responsibility to make our high schools accessible to all of the students who are interested in being in those schools that are our high schools of choice. That's I appreciate the work on the policy. One over Lindy. >> Thank you. I think um the the red lining that comes through on board docs that everybody saw in preparation for tonight. This is the language we reviewed in the policy committee in September. Um
028in addition to Miss Bolton's comments, there's um a range of uh cleanup redlinining that is in here. Um some of the offerings that had been referenced in the policy um we don't offer anymore. We have other ones that we do. to some of this is bringing policy in in line with what our current practice is. Um I don't think there was anything in here that was of particular um controversy that we talked about unless I'm missing something. Mrs. Weinberger, Miss M. No, from my understanding uh as it relates to this policy was really bringing um it up to scope with what our uh portfolio of schools are um and making sure that is aligning with those current um practices for enrollment. >> Thank you. Whatever cross it, >> I'm I'm just curious how does this
029interface with our new corridor um arrangement? >> What was your question? >> Just curious about how this interfaces with our new corridor, east, central, and west corridor arrangement in terms of uh choice. >> Okay. >> School truth. >> I I don't think it um superintendent, you're happy to >> Am I responding to that? >> Yes. I'll leave that to you. >> Yes. So, so the interesting piece is while we are trying to grow towards our corridor model so that there are opportunities in the east, the central and the west, um we do still have according to policy high schools of choice. So, if you are currently a student and you live in uh Madisonville, but you want to learn how to be a plumber apprentice, for example, then you might choose Woodward Career Technical High
030School, and that's still an opportunity for you. >> Okay, thank you. One member Craig, >> I was just going to just add I have I mean I think the the changes are somewhat nominal to just reflect what our district now looks like. I think something for us as a board to a later date once we have probably moved past some other stuff that we have to do. They're a little bit more uh pressing is to decide programmatically and maybe review programmatically again where things are located. Um because I do think one of the concerns we were going to long-term have and this is a conversation we've had probably predating me being on the board but I know I had it when I when we used to have the uh student achievement a separate committee was
031that so much of our programmatic elements were limited to certain parts of the city and what that meant was for some students they were traveling the reason they were traveling the long distance that we were trying to kind of prevent or work with is because of the fact they were trying to get into certain programs that were only offered at one school or only offered in some capacity in one side of the city. And so I think this is uh a policy end of it. I don't think there's anything substantially changes anything that we're doing. I think it's probably just aligning more to the uh programs that are there. But I do think it's helpful for us to revisit or at least think about whether or not uh the programs themselves should be to what
032dictates what's at a school or whether or not something more creative could be done within a school itself. so they could have, you know, multiple paths. I know that was something we also used to do a little bit more in the district uh 15 20 years ago. We've kind of moved a little bit away from uh but that's the only one other thought I wanted to kind of add to the discussion. >> I'm going to let board member Lundy go. >> No, no. I just I think um the one other I'm remembering now part of the policy meeting that I wanted to make sure we we flagged the um in the red line you'll see taking out a requirement that there be a computer lottery and I just wanted to be really clear about what
033this is and what this is not. Um this is a policy that is about high schools. So there was a lot of important work I think that happened with this board before my time to put in place some lotteryies around elementary school admissions to replace this campout phenomenon that had been happening certainly at Fairview. This policy discussion is nothing about that. Um this is about high schools. This is not about elementary schools. I think we had a robust conversation in committee about how do we feel about this process as opposed to a mandated computerized lottery. Uh and the position that the administration took was um although one might not expect it to be the case, the policy requirement to conduct a computerized lottery wound up creating more pain both for the administration and for families
034than what this policy is recommending. I think that sounds plausible. I I we also discussed in in committee how important it's going to be that we check. So part of what we're going to do in the coming weeks, months, years is confirm um that the way this policy is playing out is maintaining equitable access to high schools of choice. Um I do think this is a potential improvement that is worth trying and I think it's important that we go back and check to make sure it has the outcome that we want it to have as would be true really with any policy that we pass. Thanks, >> Vice President Bolton. >> Yes. Uh this is a super conversation u to the point that was raised by member crosset regarding the corridors and then also the
035need to have continued discussion as when we get a little further from all of our kind of emergency situations as we've done these big changes. Uh I think uh chair will remember that we decided in the ad hoc committee that uh eliminating high schools of choice as much as we wanted to was going to be a bridge too far in such a big change because we are so well known for it. But one of the concepts that coming out of the ad hoc and part of the growth phases one and two was the idea that whatever you have in central corridor with with certain exceptions central corridor, east or west corridor, those kinds of programs duplicated themselves within a particular corridor. There are some things that are district-wide. Some things are corridorwide and whatever. But
036the idea is that we shouldn't have to make families decide to go across town to get a program. Plus, I know in ad hoc 2, we were very very interested in making sure that we had authentic programming and not just in name only. So, lots of great things in this transition have occurred, but I really wanted to make sure on the high schools of choice that the public continues to know that we still have that. It's probably maybe an assignment later on about seeing what the administrative guidelines might look like. I think the policy is quite good. Uh and interested in continuing this discussion for our high schools. Thank you very much for putting it on the agenda. >> Absolutely. Board member Lindy. >> And so then if we can we'll keep moving. Is that
037all right? Um I know we got a lot of important things we want to talk about tonight. Um the last item on here does not have any recommended changes. So there's no um there's no recommendation from our committee that we change this policy. We had I think over the course of a couple different meetings some good discussions about hearing of the public. Uh and we have a tradition here as uh vice president Balden mentioned of giving the president of the CTF unlimited time in hearing of the public. Um and we had some good discussions about whether there may be any other audiences that also should have unlimited time. uh a spirit again is not trying to cut off anybody's time um but trying to see if there are additional voices, family voices, others that might
038also warrant that. I think this is complicated. It's hard. I frankly think that of all the different things we have going on, we have bigger fish to fry than this one at the moment. Um but I think some of my colleagues felt and I think it's a very fair point that we at least bring this to the full board to see if there were other perspectives or anything that anybody wanted to share. Uh I know um Dr. Mafet, this was something you wanted to make sure came on here and I think that's great. Uh I wasn't sure if there's anything you wanted to add that I missed. >> No, I I just wanted to add a little context. When I did attend the policy meeting, um it did come up around I think there's a
039misconception that there was an intention to suppress CTF time. That was not the intention and I think that was clearly stated then and has been stated multiple times. Um, but I I did share that the public is confused as to why CTF gets an extended time. Um, and so I had Dan send all of the board members an electronic copy of the bargaining agreement so that we all know what is there and I believe we all got a copy of that. And so we just have to we've said it in the hearing of the public uh statement and um we've say it multiple times and so there was no intention to change or to deviate from that but there has been a question from other entities around hey can there be a parent representative or
040can there be other constituents that have extended period periods of time as well. And so, um, that was, I think, what the impetus, that was my understanding of what the impetus was. And so, I'm I'm happy to, uh, expand on that or or whatever, but, I did want to reassure that the intention wasn't to suppress anyone's time, but it was to provide space for additional constituents to have time that they've requested as well to represent their own groups. So, yeah. Uh just thank you for bringing up the contract itself. I think the the contract language does grant the CTF president the ability to speak at any meeting. Um the contract is silent about length of time speaking. Um and so there I understand that over the course of the board's history there's been a wide
041range of approaches to how to interpret that. Um and I'll just reiterate my point that I think um there there are other from my perspective more pressing issues for us to push on. Uh I think chiefly um what do we think is possible for children? Uh what do we think is our responsibility visav what's possible for children and how do we translate that into some goals and an evaluation for our superintendent. I'm looking forward to that conversation like that. That's I think job one. >> I agree. Board member Craig. >> Yeah. I think the only thing that I would maybe add to the discussion is I do think there's space uh for areas we have like community forums or these type of things that might require us to at some point down the future revisit
042what is considered like hearing of the public versus like a public forum opportunity for folks to share thoughts with I know the superintendent has done these I know the treasur's office has done these um but I don't think the board has generally done the at least not since I've been on the board we've haven't done at least that type of setting. And so I think if that's something we would explore in the future just to make sure that that's added or at least in line with whatever was in the policy to show that we're not creating a a different standard at that type of setting or that type of meeting than what we would have as a um than what we have in our policy. >> So I guess in short, does the policy committee
043think that you need to revisit this or are we done with this? Does it need to go back to you? Are we are we >> I think if other board members want us to do something with it, we will do whatever is the will of the board. I think the policy committee is not coming with a recommended change. Okay. >> The policy committee is happy to move on to other business. Um but if and we will always respect the uh perspective of the majority of the board. >> Vice President Bolton. >> Yes. And I think it's a good discussion to have and I think that there's no recommendation about moving one way or the other is is reasonable. I want to second what uh member Craig has suggested because one of the things that does
044confuse the public very frankly and rightfully so that they may or may not understand and maybe we put this in the paragraph when we read about the hearing of the public protocol and practice over many many years says that we do not respond to the issues that are raised and that's a normal process and the 607 school districts in the state of Ohio and sometimes it looks as though we are um being uh obtuse or unaring or what have you. And fortunately we have a receptive administration and always have had uh where they will address what the issue is almost immediately with some pe people that uh express uh concern. So I think the idea of having do what the treasurer and what the superintendent have done over time might not be a bad idea
045uh to talk in terms of more of an open dialogue at not a business meeting where there is certain responsibilities and what have you that have to take place and certain practices. I'd really like to see if we can add that to some of our engagement plans uh that the public affairs folks have been working on and uh I think that's a great idea. I will also again be miss and tell you that um the uh president uh of CTF being able to speak with more time than than others. Uh it's it's a far cry from about uh 18 years ago when I have some pictures to to share with board members where both the uh superintendent and the treasurer sat on either side of the president and the uh board member sat to kind
046of the wings of of the uh of the table. And when we had the facilities master plan, uh the entire facilities master plan folks sat at the table right in front of us uh or alongside of us because they were always the one that had to be up here telling us about each of these buildings. And at that time, and I have to be the president that ended this, at that time, our distinguished uh presidents of uh Cincinnati Federation of Teachers actually sat at the table with the board and with the administration. Uh and uh things changed from that point. And so I think part of as general counsel shared part of that um change has been uh the uh time frame for the uh president of CTF. So things change, things move along and
047we always are trying to find better ways to do everything. But I do like the idea of having more engagement so that we can actually that worked so well when we were trying to figure out what to do about gamble and I mean those were some really great dialogue things. So that second that idea. Thank you. >> Thank you. So we do need to I'm sorry member M. >> Just the final thing to add. Um so in policy it did yield a very robust conversation and really the objective was to ensure that there was that level of uh diversity and inclusive you know experience not just for uh conversation around different um parent organizations but I also know that board member Weineberg brought up several times with having other uh union presidents or reps being
048able to speak as well so that we can um also hear um directly from them. So, I mean, I would be interested in continuing to see if there's room and opportunity, but again, uh to board member um uh Lindy's point, if the board doesn't see an interest in that, then I am totally okay with that. But also, again, it is incumbent upon us to make sure that we are doing that engagement piece and also providing platforms for people to be able to um voice um just concerns or also um positive things. Um and so just to hear from uh an array of um constituents I think is helpful to make. >> So if that's a good transition point um I will make a motion that we adopt the recommended changes for A and B on
049the agenda. That's the commemoration of school facilities. We're adding student perspective and that's all of the work around the high school choice enrollment program that we discussed earlier. So I make the motion to approve those two things. Thank you. Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any further discussion? >> Mr. Gustin. >> Mr. Craig? >> Yes. >> Mr. Crosset? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lindy? >> Yes. >> Miss M? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Weinberg? >> Yes. >> Vice President Bolton? >> Yes. For both? >> President Moffett? >> Yes. >> All right. Thank you board members. Treasure Augustine. uh please introduce our first presentation. >> Excellent. Thank you, President Moffett. So, tonight's first uh presentation will be the budget and three-year forecast. So, I'm asking Mr. Kevin Ashley, our director of financial reporting to come up. Kevin
050does a lot of this forecasting work. Um he does a great job with it. So, for those who might not be as familiar, I know we discussed this in um budget finance and growth and then we did followed up with a memo to the committee as well last week, but the November 5-year forecast is for this year only, the October budget and three-year forecast, and then next year it becomes the August budget and three-year forecast. And the May 5-year forecast will now become the February budget and three-year forecast. So, the latest state budget changed all of our deadlines. Um, and so you'll see some of this as as Kevin goes through the presentation. There are some there's some unintended consequences to that, I think. So, so some of the data that we usually have in
051November, we don't have today. Um, and we can point that out, but I'll let Mr. Ashley get us started. >> Thank you. Good evening. Uh, happy to be here with you. Um, the first slide, the first bullet point talks about the deadlines. Mike just mentioned. Uh so we do have to file this with ODW on by October 15th. Um the board will approve the forecast and the notes to the forecast as part of the treasures report later. Um the forecast period was a change. So what they currently are calling it is budget. So budget for current year and then three additional years of forecast. In the past, when it was referred to as a five-year forecast, it was the current year forecast plus four years. So, it it drops off the need for the last
052year. And there's a little more pressure to make it match your budget. I guess there were districts that it didn't always match their appropriations. Uh we were really pretty much in line with that all along, so it wasn't much of a change for us. um ODW is allowing the traditional 5-year forecast period filing and so in looking at what our other peers have done and talking to them, the ones that have already filed, they're using that approach. Uh so we're going to go ahead and you know at the board's as long as the board agrees to that, uh we will do the five-year approach for filing. they may require the different formatting as we get to February, but um at this time we think that's the most prudent approach. Uh next slide is more specific
053to our revenue projections uh mainly for the current fiscal year. So in September we received our second half settlement for 2024 tax year. Uh and one of the things that was obvious when we saw that is that the class two which is commercial and industrial uh collections were down you know relatively more than ex more than usual. Uh and that also goes for public utilities personal property. So we we reached out to the county um and some of our peers as well and kind of got some information about that. One of the overall things is that uh delinquency rates were noted to be higher for the current collections. Um as well as um board of revision filings. So the property owners be it commercial or residential can dispute their value with the board of revisions
054and there is a process an appeal process. Um, sometimes it changes the value, sometimes it doesn't, but that may be leading to some of the higher delinquency rates, people who are waiting on those border revision changes. So, what we did in terms of our forecast, we did make a slight adjustment. Uh, some of that will probably be recovered in the spring um when maybe some of those issues are resolved. Uh, so we did revise our, you know, our projections a little bit to try to account for that. Uh, next slide is bianial budget issues. Um, so just to kind of give you perspective, seems like we we touch this forecast every couple months because there's always something going on, but we presented the May forecast around July 2nd at a board meeting. There was somewhat
055of a revision based on what we knew about changes in the state budget. So, when we did the May forecast, we were looking at basically the house version, which was a little bit rosier than where we ended up in July. Um, so we're showing, you'll see later, um, comparison between May forecast, where we were at in July, and where we think we are now. Um but some of the key things that really changed was the base cost inputs where the state calculates u based on enrollment what what a regular school expense would be. Um in this past this most recent bianual budget they did not update those cost factors. So they left them at fiscal year 22 levels. Um the result of that is it does not calculate a higher amount for state funding. So
056it's one of the factors that calculates your state funding. So I would say that that is a had a negative effect on the district's uh state funding amounts. local capacity factors which indicate values of all of the property within the district which then is interpreted to say you could raise x amount of dollars through levies. They did update those. So it makes the district look wealthier and have a larger ability to levy taxes. So that would have more of a negative impact on what our state funding calculation is. The one positive was they did continue the phaseins that were um designed as part of the fair school funding. So it goes to 88% uh this year and 100% next year. That only affects categoricals which is a smaller portion of the budget of what we
057receive related to um disadvantaged calculation, English language learners, career tech, those type of things. So while it's positive, it has a lesser impact than the two things above that uh state foundation amounts at this point. So we we continue to get state funding twice a month, but at this point the the calculations are based on last year's enrollment. So that will catch up and and there'll be some changes uh at the end of this month when we get the October number two settlement. it will have our revised enrollment numbers. So the next slide is 26 fiscal year 26 current year. Uh so again I have the three columns the May forecast the July amount and then what we're um presenting today as of as far as the forecasted revenue. You'll notice the top line local
058taxes uh we have a decrease of about 3.8 million. Again, that's taking into account those potential changes in our revenue this year. State aid, um, we have about $3.1 million decrease there. Um, you know, I is probably, um, a reasonable target. Again, it could range from 2 to four million, you know, at this point. Uh so the bottom line is with our budget target the next to last line is 634.7. That's our current year budget target. If revenues don't keep pace, there could be a potential $5 million gap. The the good news is um we do have a cash balance that would cover that gap. Obviously we don't want to do that but keeping in mind while it would be a deficit of current year revenues versus expenditures uh we do have a larger cash
059balance than that. Um the other thing is we have nine months to go within the fiscal year. So there be you know may be some changes either from the state um or other factors. The next slide is fiscal year 27. So we wanted to kind of give um an idea of what we thought the target might need to be next year based on the revenues. Um the the number we have near the bottom there is 634.2 million. So that's for uh FY27 again. And so in comparison, that's um about the same really about keeping our revenues pretty much flat. Um a little bit of changes in terms of taxes when you look at next year. Uh state aid we still anticipate being down. So anyway, that's the takeaway from that slide, the 634.2. The next
060slide is just giving you an overview summary of the forecast like we usually do. Um the yellow highlights is what ODW looks at to look for fiscal distress. Uh and again and I think this is on a later slide, but as we've talked about, the board has committed to try to hold um appropriations and expenditures within the revenue amounts. And so that's imperative to keep our cash balance at the level that it's at. Uh next slide is just kind of a review of where the end of fiscal year 25 the base cost per pupil. The state calculates this 80 8,107 and of that you can see and if you go back over the last few years the local percentage has continued to grow. Uh so at currently 68% versus 32% that comes through state sources.
061Next slide is just showing what we're looking at as far as district educated enrollment. This does not include preschool because we only receive state funding for preschool disability students. Um but you can see that our enrollment has remained relatively flat. Uh and we're projecting it to to kind of hold the line going forward. Next slide is the pie chart for projected revenue for the current year projections. Uh again paints the picture. 58% is local, 29% state and then another 13 through other sources such as tiffs and CRAAS which are also tied to property values as well. Uh and then some other miscellaneous items. Next slide gives you the overview of revenues. Um the main thing here and we talk about is you kind of see the we're showing a slight increase in revenues over a
062four or five year period. Um the orange slices represent the renewal levy that's on for November. And so if that were not to pass that would be the amount of revenue each year that would not be collected. Um so that's required as part of the forecast that you reflect it that way. Next slide is projected expenditures. Again as we were always kind of repeating 75% relates to personnel costs, 56% of the total budget for salaries and 18% for benefits. Uh about 18% for purchase services. Um so kind of just an overview of those totals. Um, and then again, this is the chart. The only bump you see in 24, which we always note is we did the tax anticipation note short-term borrowing, uh, which we haven't had to do. And so that's why there was
063a little bit of a bump in 24. Um, I didn't go through in the ef in the effort to to save a little bit of time. all of the sections, the GR, there are graphs in the notes for taxes, intergovernmental revenue, um, purchase services, all of those things. So, feel free to to look at those, but we we didn't want to take time here in the presentation to go over those. Uh, next slide is the forecast summary. So, again, in this scenario, we're keeping uh, expenditures bound by revenues. uh each year about 51 million in cash, but keeping in mind we have about 18 million in outstanding purchase orders at the end of the year. So our real cash that's unencumbered going forward would be about 33 million per year. Uh next slide. Um we've
064talked about this the last couple of years is about cash on hand. And as we know, our our revenues kind of peak when we have tax settlements. Uh, and we do have lower periods where we we're spending down that balance. But this is traditionally at June 30th of each year, the end of the fiscal year. So like for FY25, this past June, we had roughly 34 days you with those caveats, we had 34 days of cash on hand. Uh, you can see that's projected to to go down a little bit. Ideally, we'd like to get closer to 60 days. So, hopefully soon, uh, we'll find a way to get there. Um, so that's the last slide. Um, and all that I have is part of the PowerPoint. >> Thank you. Do board members have any
065questions? >> Member Craig. >> All righty. Um, thank you again, Kevin, for this wonderful presentation and Mike as well, Treasure Gustin. Um couple things I think would be helpful to clarify for folks so we also kind of understand what this means in the grand scheme of things. Um and the first is really the timing that you raised at the beginning of your presentation. And I think what it will invariably mean is that we will have to make decisions without necessarily knowing what the state has done or what will come from the state in order to build our five-year forecast or well three-year forecast. It will you know deliver however we can. um whether it's three or five but um can you just speak a little bit and whether it's treasure gustin or whether is uh
066director Ashley to just talk a little bit about the the reason why that timing can create some difficulty in in being able to adequately know the number at that date. >> Sure. I'll I'll take a crack at that one. Um you know part of part of the forecasting as you go through it is changing estimates to real numbers this year. you know, at least doing the forecast now, we had the we had the property tax settlement. So, so that gives you real data on how much property taxes were collected. Um, you know, delinquency percentage, as was mentioned, was up. That's not something you're going to know until you get the settlements. Um, the other side is we're still getting state aid based on last year's enrollment. And we won't have we won't start getting our
067our state aid until the second October payment end of the month for this year's students. So any change in students isn't even reflected. So yeah, the the forecast gets more and more of a guess uh the the more they change these timelines. >> And then the second thank you t for guessing. And then the second question I again more of a clarifying moment there. I think one of the things that I we had this conversation in budget and finance several times when we originally put together the new cash on hand policy but I think this is also even more true given our financial restrictions that the state has placed on us uh with their formuling their formula for funding schools. But what's the added concern about not having sufficient cash on hand as we think
068about this and why it is so important for us to pay attention to to something that something like cash on hand because we we put a policy together for a reason that was supposed to drive us closer towards that 60day number. And I think that's just even harder to do now given some of our other budget restrictions. >> Both of those things are true. um having having a good amount of cash on hand allows you to weather these sort of things. You know, if if revenues come in low one year, you know, having that cash policy allows you to to adequately adjust to that. The other thing I think, you know, I think I think especially the finance committee's heard us say it enough, but the public doesn't realize is is we don't get all
069of our revenue at once. And and so part of the cash on hand is having enough cash every single day. you know that we have sufficient bank balances, you know, because we get our property taxes really twice a year and th and those those are big deposits into our accounts, you know, and we kind of live off that money until the next property tax. So, that's important. I I do think and there's some other things I want to mention as a part of this, but the most recent set of changes really does make it harder and harder for us to build cash balances, but you know, school districts having cash balances was one of the targets of the last of the last budget cycle was, you know, people looked and saw school districts carrying over,
070you know, 100% of their collections in a year or more, you know, and thought, "Wow, these schools are stockpiling crash. That is not a CPS problem. It's not been a CPS problem for some time. But but when you pass when you pass a law that affects everyone, you know, it it has these sort of consequences. And then just again final thoughts to that and I appreciate you sharing that because I think one of the things we have to make decisions on as we go forward is also the reason we utilize cash on hand is to cover those costs and that we've done a great job of that through even through the ESR dollars because there was a number of districts who could not manage to pay for the things that they agreed to do because
071of the fact that they did not have the cash on hand to be able to do so. And so because these things don't get repaid the next day after you spend it, they take months and months and sometimes almost years to get repaid on some of these things that we're having to expend out that are our grants and our uh our other things that are beyond just what's the state funding. So I think it's uh something we've had multiple conversations with throughout the budget finance over the last several months to probably like the last year actually around the importance of it. And I think it's just even more important now given that we're not going to have other revenue sources that will be bringing large quantities in to our coffers. >> Thank you. Any other
072board member questions? Vice President Bolton, >> again, thank you so much. This is one of the more difficult tasks uh in the district is making these sorts of projections and then us being so dependent upon u those projections. Uh you mentioned the 634.7 and 634.2. Um are are we talking in terms of this year and next year? Is that what I understood? Are we saying we're going to have basically the same amount of money next for this coming budget as we have for our current budget? >> So, our current budget is this or the target is the 6347. As we mentioned, there potentially be a $5 million gap there, which we may have to deal with as the year goes on. But looking at next year, we're if if we had to say today what's
073our target, it would be 6342 roughly the same amount as what our current target is. So even though we know that inflation is happening and we are going through several phases of growth and what have you uh next year we have the same amount of money with which to work quite probably. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Most likely. Yes. >> Member Matt. Um yes. So my question is to kind of dovetail off of what uh board member Bolson is um kind of referencing. So recognizing that um our revenue is maybe flat um our enrollment is uh flat and there are some restrictions right from the state. I'm curious to know just um in tandem uh Treasure Augustine as well as Superintendent uh Murphy, what is that what does the academic forecast look like? What does
074those conversations? And I know we'll be soon talking about the strategic plan, but just um given this information, how do we then pair that with what are we predicting or pro projecting with our academic landscape? I mean, that's a that is like the $64,000 question. I don't I don't see any way we're gonna we're going to have any significant more amount of money for next year at this point. Um especially especially the way especially the things that are going on at the state level. Um and so and so yeah, it's it's kind of the the work that will start very soon in the budget to to you know figure out how we can do the things we need to do with the resources we have and that unfortunately means you know a lot of discussion
075about our choices about our priorities. I think you know having having strategic discussions is so important because that gives that gives you a guide star to to help make those decisions. If I may add um to Mike's comment, I'm concerned um just you know in the last few years we've cut a hundred million dollars and so there's inflation. There's one thing that uh we were blessed that the unions helped us with for this fiscal year 26 budget is not to have a cola. Um that's a problem because I don't think I can ask them to do that again. And so that means we have to make adjustments um somewhere. We haven't gotten that far yet, board member map, but we know that um this is a problem. So it is my my uh biggest piece
076right now is to work on what's happening this coming November because if we don't have that um is a huge problem for us. So I am hopeful about the conversations the board is having moving forward and that perhaps the following year there'll be new money to be able to do more things. Thank you for that and just really adding that context right because sometimes we are talking about the financial side of things but not necessarily seeing how it maybe connects to or corresponds with the academic piece. So, I thank you both for speaking to that. Um, and also just highlighting that it's also incumbent upon us um as a collective to be intentional with our priorities. >> Member Lindy, >> thank you. I would just echo what um my colleague member M was saying that
077the financial and the academic I think in programmatic go together on all this. And one of the things I know we we've talked about a little bit and I hope we'll talk about more this evening um and other colleagues mentioned this as well, but this just reinforces to me the importance of this year getting in place a strategic plan that stretches over multiple years that is priced out and that takes into account a realistic picture of what our revenue landscape is. And that may very likely involve a request to the public for new dollars, but it's going to be in service of a series of inspiring but achievable academic outcomes for what we can deliver for the city. Um, not we need the help because of inflation. I mean, that's true also. Um, but here's
078what we can do together when we have a strong plan. Um, and I just think a crucial part of that plan working is a cleareyed assessment of future revenue. Um and and when it comes to whether it's local issues or state issues, I just think at every choice point, we need to make the most conservative assumption we can make about what's going to come in the door. Um so that we are planned for um scenarios that are not great um but we can we can do that kind of thinking over a multi-year span rather than having to get through it through painful budget cycle after painful budget cycle. And so I'm looking forward to that and I thank you for the presentation. It was great. >> Thank you. Treasure Augustine, >> if I had three
079quick things. Um so first first um the the um forecast and the notes are part of the treasures report. So as is our tradition, we would ask that you approve that as part of approving the treasures report and the consent agenda. Um and that has to be filed by the state by the 15th. I get three emails a day reminding us, I'm sure Kevin gets them to reminding us of the filing deadline. Um, second point quickly, if you can go back to slide seven, Rob. So, I I think I think Mr. Lindy mentioned it. You know, there there's a there is a renewal levy on the ballot in November. And if if somebody wants to know what not not having that renewal levy would look like, um, look at line 10.01 and that's our cash
080balances. And you can and you can see very quickly we go into the negatives. So, >> board member Lindy, >> um I can't tell if the treasur and I are saying the same thing or different things. I I think it's crucial that that renewal pass. Um uh and thank you for everyone who is working hard to help make sure that that happens. And I think if we look over multiple years, even if this does pass, um this the the fundamental landscape is not going to change. Uh, and so we need some approach for how we're going to deal with that, which would mean, I think, a new money levy. Uh, I just think that for for that to have support, it's got to be in service of a vision and a plan that is inspiring
081and grounded in outcomes. I think we can do all those things. Um, and I just appreciate all the hard work everyone is doing to put into this. Are we saying the same thing or different things? >> Yes. >> Thank you. >> Yes. I just wanted to give a visual representation of of what our finances look like without the without the renewal in November. And then the third thing if I may um so this le this forecast does not take us into account. This is kind of some new information. Um but I think we need to have a conversation about substitute house bill 186. So so this is another one of the property tax reform bills and there are there are probably 30 of them at this point in different stages. This one I believe has
082a really good chance of succeeding. Um it's it's backed by the House leadership. It was also somewhat backed by the property tax reform committee um that that former former former senator and former board member uh Bill Sites was chair of and and there's two versions of this. the original version of House Bill 186, which we've discussed, uh what it does, it looks at school districts at the 20 mil floor, one of and we're one of them, and and when there's a property tax reappraisal, it looks at the increase of property property values in that district as well as the rate of inflation over the same period. So, so and property tax are reappraised every six years and then there's an update done in between. So, so in in kind of practice, every three years you're
083getting updated property values. And so, House Bill 186 looks at those two looks at those two values and would give and would give property owners a credit uh to bring down any increase the school district would get to the rate of inflation over that same period. So, so when we forecasted this out, this is kind of a future loss of revenue. We would still get an increase with the reappraisal be the 20 mil floor, but we wouldn't get as much of an increase. And I think I think at one point we talked about 10 million a year potential lost revenue. The substitute bill, and this is this is the important part, the substitute bill currently written applies that retroactively. So now instead of looking at the next reappraisal, it's going retroactively back two years, which
084which is a big problem for us because we got we got a nice increase in revenue based on the last reappraisal and being on the floor. So going back two years and I think uh President Sers was mentioning this in her comments. um going back two years and looking, you know, we could lose up to $14 million in our current year of private tax revenues and then 28 million in fiscal year 27 and fiscal year 28. And each each these are huge numbers. Uh we would lose the most of any district in the state. And some of that's because we're one of the larger districts on the floor. Um but but by by numbers, we would lose the most any district state. But it's not just a CPS problem. Some other districts in the top
08515 of loss around here. West Claremont would be number two. Oak Hills would be the number seven district to lose money based on the state simulations. Hamilton City would be number 13. Uh and Little Miami would be number 15. So this is not just an urban problem. This is not just a Cincinnati problem. Um but this this will have an impact across our across our region. And so just want to make the board members aware. I think we'll probably talk about a little more at the retreat on Saturday, but but wanted to use this platform to give everyone a heads up. That's what's coming. And we probably need probably need to start an advocacy campaign to try to get the at least the substitute bill that retroactive piece taken out. >> Thank you. Well, I
086was just going to add um thank you, M. Director Ashley, and thank you, Treasure Augustine. I think that I would also like to invite our communications people into this conversation because this I think is unprecedented times and we need to do some things differently around advocacy and engagement to the community. Unfortunately, school funding and finance is really not very, you know, it's not like the most sexy topic, but we need to figure out a way to to ensure that the public is our partner in this and that they understand the detriment that we're facing. Uh we can no longer do what we've always done the same way. We're going to have to be more creative. We're going to have to be more innovative. And I think that involves telling the community where we are in
087honest conversations, telling our staff where we are in honest conversations. when you share that we can't give them a we can't go back and ask them for another cut to their cola um they need to understand exactly where we are and maybe they have some other ideas as well but um I just think we need to be more we need to be uh more engaging and so I want to definitely invite that as well. Do board members have any other and you do have money matters with Mike uh conversations about this? And I believe we can put some of this information on the on the front of the website especially around House Bill 186 and how that would impact us as well. Um because I think we are going to talk about this on Saturday.
088So wake up board members. Uh we will visit this again. Vice President Bolton, did you have a question? I I just again wanted to emphasize the fact that we will not have any more money next year. We will have at least the same and probably looking at feds and looking at the state government um less money actually with which to work. And um I do know and I want to report this as finance chair I've very encouraged um in part with Edward Craig's emphasis on the budget and budget planning and what have you. Um I've heard the treasurer talk about making choices not cuts. I've heard the treasurer talk about building a budget uh and instead of necessarily cutting back to whatever uh amount I mean it's just a a real change of reference and
089frame of mind that I and and in this very difficult time I think it's probably a a frame of reference that we do need to change to uh figure out a way to creatively uh face what what we have ahead of us this coming year. >> Member Craig, >> I wanted to just uh give one quick thought onto the issue that you raised with regards to House Bill 186 because I do think this goes back to a little bit of the problem that we were seeing, which is that the value of property across our state, but most importantly in urban areas, has increased tremendously. um and and and in some ways that is actually the driver of folks's taxes going up. So it is not in fact the fact that we have more things that
090are pulling taxes per se. Uh because our effective mill rate actually for almost every one of our levies is microscopic compared to what was originally passed um way back when when some of these levies were passed originally. It is the fact that the property values have increased and then therefore for some folks that's increased theirs while others have not always had to carry that same burden. And I think that is the one thing that I did not see any discussion about coming out of the um the property tax commission or whatever they want to call it um is the fact that we we don't have a increased shared base of folks who are paying the taxes. We have a base that's actually smaller but the group that is causing the increase in pay are some
091of the same folks that are not a part of the base. So when you see a house that sits there worth $3 million in a neighborhood where nothing else is worth $3 million and all they're paying is on $1 million of that or $500,000 of that value, that means the rest of the folks are covering those costs around them. And so I think that is the one issue I think we really do need to be able to express in a way that communicates out why that makes a difference in a district like us because we also do carry value carry certain properties that a rural district doesn't carry. We also carry some properties in some values of properties that a suburban district does not carry in their community that again artificially increased values in some
092ways around them. But that also has a detrimental effect on those folks who are most vulnerable including our folks who are seniors and other things that we are compassionate about. But it's it just always feels like the conversation is about how do you take money away from the folks who we voted 20 years ago to give them money and 40 years ago to give them money rather than looking at what is actually driving some of these increases for those folks in those same communities. So I think 186 is another example of trying to take away from folks as opposed to trying to reform the actual system so that it's fairer for those folks who have lived in and had a house and not made the changes that have warranted a house increasing in value three
093times over or three times the amount it was originally at in a five or 10 year span. If I could if I could add one thing um just to get a little perspective we sometimes have presented this in the past um just we recognize there there was an increase obviously in property taxes based on values um it's not dollar for dollar it's you know inside millillage it's a rate levy so we do get additional money for that uh and some of the current levies we get additional money totally recognize that one of the unfortunate things is the state with the values is then taking into account that we're getting that money and the formula reduces our state funding. So if we got that and our state partners were contributing equally, it would be it would
094be much better for the district. So just kind of wanted to point that out. Um, but that's kind of a nuance within within the funding formula. >> Vice President Bolton, >> and maybe it's maybe it's wrong now, but I still think that we're we're figured out by the state to be a wealthy district based upon our property. So, in it we're in the same category instead of being in a category like uh Columbus or Cleveland or you know with a um uh what's our for cities of 300,000 or more we're the fourth uh we have number four of the highest child poverty in the United States of America but in in Columbus were viewed as being uh the equivalent of Wyoming Ohio as is a wealthy district. It just it it's it's hard to your
095point, Madam President, it's hard to make these things clear to the public because it's so nonsensical. It really is, let alone the uh lethal nature of the attitudes uh in Columbus towards urban districts and urban children. Um, I just the financial piece is really quite a puzzle as we decided recently. >> Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our next presentation. >> Yes, ma'am. So, this presentation uh is our uh update on our instructional plan for the school year. And what you'll see uh is a team effort by the deputy and the assistant superintendent as they come forward. Um we take took a look at and reviewed um our report card data and some practices that we saw in the classrooms last year. We pulled out some
096best practices that we learned about last year and previous years quite frankly um to create this plan. We took a look at what the professional development needs might be and how we were planning to address them. And then we looked at what improvement strategies uh we thought were best practices. And then we also want to share with you some key action steps that we have moving forward. So uh our team will begin with the deputy uh but you'll hear from all of the uh instructional side of the house tonight. Well, I would just like for you guys to know how much we appreciate letting you letting us go after the budget conversation. Um, so let us move forward as we may here for kids. Um, today we're going to share some great information with you
097about the work we're doing with our young people. We're very excited about what we're doing. We know we have work to do. We are set to do this work. We have looked at the data. We have reviewed where we need to go. And today we're going to talk about alignment. We're going to talk about our systemic work. We're going to look at the data and where we go from here. What we are asking from you today, board, is that you um look at our tears of support for our educators around our curriculum and instruction, our datadriven decisions, our programs that we have in Cincinnati public schools. What we want you to endorse today is our roadmap for teaching and learning, ensuring that every child receives a rigorous education, that they get what they need every
098day, all day, as we are here for kids. Now I'm going to pass along to assistant Sup Klein and she's going to share with you the data. >> Good evening. Uh good to be here with you tonight. Um so as we started down this journey of looking at our instructional plan, we really wanted to look at our data um and have the data drive that plan. So, of course, one of the things that we looked at was um the state report card, and this is a review. Amanda Vargo gave you this information um couple meetings ago. Um and really what you saw was a lot of the information being the same from year to year, okay? Kind of stagnant. We had a slight decrease in early literacy. uh within those areas that you see um
099on this slide, we did have celebrations. There were some highlights. We had progress, but overall um kind of stagnant in those areas. On the next slide, um is also the progress and the gap closing from our state report card. And again, uh couple of um areas that were to be celebrated under those at the school level, um both elementary and high school. So um we took that data and then of course dug a little deeper into the data and what we looked at was uh this chart here which you have also seen before and we spent some time in the last meeting discussing this um and we had some highlights looking at the content and looking at grade levels across our district. A lot of highlights especially in the area of math. So, math, algebra
1001, geometry, ELA, we had some highlights, science, American history, but we also saw that we had some areas of focus in the areas of reading and math. And you see those grade levels that are um highlighted there uh looking at this um data point here. With that, we looked a little bit further on the next slide at our third grade. So third grade being one of our focus areas and part of our uh strategic plan, we dug into this and we looked at some past data for third grade OST. Um last fall of 24, so a year ago this time we were at 39% as a district on the fall and in the spring we went up to 55. Looking a little bit further, you will see that schools were able to increase from fall
101to spring in both the 24-2 school year as well as the 23 to 24 school year. So, it was a trend. We were seeing, you know, we perform a certain way in the fall, we do better in the spring. You know, this testing happens every October for us. So, what are we going to do in this data? We were able to dig into this and you see a screenshot of that. there's a link to it as well um where we really went in and looked at the trend data for all of our schools individually over the last several years looking at um the OST data benchmark and came up with a goal a realistic goal for them this year for the third grade OST. Um this is an area we knew we could improve upon
102and really dig into um at the school level. Another data point that we looked at and dive into are the uh benchmark testing. Um in 4K8 we use uh I ready for the upper grades they use map and others. So the benchmarks really give uh the school the student the teacher um some data that they can have in the fall the winter and in the spring. Uh they can get information about student placement. So how students are doing um in certain domains and you can see that there on the screenshot. The stoplight report um can give some information about how students are doing in certain areas like geometry or number operations. Uh we also get data around uh projected proficiency and then also student growth. So how are students growing um in the different areas.
103So again, looking at this benchmark data um that is available year over year after year um and really digging into it at the school level. Once we have the um benchmark data for grades K to 8, uh students are able to participate in personalized learning or my path. And that is another data point that we're able to look at as we think about our instructional plan. Um this data point um is weekly and it is at the student level. Uh we are asking students to participate in the my path program 30 to 49 minutes a week in both ELA and math and then pass two lessons at 70% or higher um in each of those areas each week. uh we do have past data that shares and states that our students that are doing this
104are outperforming their peers. So this is a data point that we follow weekly. Now that we have the benchmark complete, we'll have this weekly report um that we'll be able to share out with the schools and with the teachers as well. And then much like our K8 schools again 712 they are using map data. Um and you can see through the screenshot at the bottom again looks similar to the one for I Ready. Um they kind of get that stoplight report where they have new data reports um for the schools to determine what their next steps are um and then again using that data to project overall achievement going forward. So this is something that is closely monitored um in the schoolhouse at each of the benchmark periods fall, winter and spring. And then finally
105one other data piece that we look at um throughout the years around instructional uh rounds. Uh this is where educators collaboratively go into the school houses and into classrooms um and really look at strengths and areas of improvement with regards to instruction. Um we have started rounds earlier this year um and the schools that are participating will have two rounds um and again collaboratively develop an action plan going forward. what is it that we can do as a school based on what we saw in the classrooms to improve student outcomes. Um so and again the district then uh deploys student or deploys support to the school buildings for the students and the teachers during this protocol. So again, looking at all of those data points over the years, trend data, and then the current data
106that continues to come in throughout the year, we looked and developed our instructional plan moving forward. And so I'm going to turn that over to Dr. Smith, who will share the instructional plan. So, after we looked at our data, um, went through looking at our state data, now we have our fall assessment that the students just finished taking. Then, now we're looking at our instructional plan. We're looking at what our tier one data looks like. We're looking at our interventions, um, making sure that we have high quality resources, evidence-based. We're um looking at when we go into the um classrooms and we go into the buildings, what is intended, is it being taught, and how are we assessing it? We're looking at the culture of the classroom. We're looking to see that students are having
107discourse. Are they talking about their learning? Are they is there academic ownership? Are the are the kids able to own their work? And we have data conversations. So, after reviewing the data, now we're looking at the curriculum and how it aligns to what we need to do in order to impact student outcomes. So, uh, Rob, if you open that up for us. So, this is a a spreadsheet that we've created that has everything at our fingertips. Everything that uh we do here in CPS for our young people is on this sheet. Um, it has the tier one expectations, what standards are being taught, when those standards should be taught, how we're going to assess those standards. Um, it even breaks it down to weekly. Now, do we expect for teachers to be on page one,
108page five when we walk into a building? We do not. We expect for teachers to teach and sometimes life happens and you are behind. We just expect for you to keep moving forward. We have our instructional framework which breaks down like what a 90minute um instruction would looks like, what a 70minute instruction would look like. We have our toolbox that's there and that work is there for teachers to have at their hands when they need to do additional work for their young people. This has everything on it. Science um they should have weekly labs where kids are doing handson and amplified. Cincinnati public schools has done so well at that the amplified would like to use us in some of their marketing because some of our teachers are really using amplified and doing that hands-on
109work. Everything you need is in here. when assessments were happening, when the tier 2 and tier three expectation, the decision tree from the state, our measurable outcomes, um when our assessments, right? We cannot we cannot not teach kids and then know what they if they've not mastered it or not. So in math, we have our common form of we have our comprehension checks. After they teach the skills, then they have a comprehension checks which is about four or five questions. We have check for understanding and our reading. So as they do those standards, we can do a check for understanding. This is so that teachers can adjust their instruction based on what the kids need. We put a real focus this year on enrichment. We have lots of bright students that are sitting in our
110buildings. We wanted to give the teachers a tool that could be turnkey. So if you have students in your classroom that come in that are above grade level, then we have work that they can just tap into and they can do for those young people. You cannot intervene your way out of a tier one problem. So interventions are good for closing the gap, but we also have bright students that we need to enrich. So all of that work is there for you to see. So um I kind of just talked you through this. Um these are the tools that we have, the when, the why, and the how. These are tier one. These are a year at a glance. These are curriculum maps. And these are other tools. We try to give the teachers everything
111that they need so that they can get the work done. Our goal is to be supportive but also have accountability. So right here on the teaching and learning page, when you click on those, you'll see all of the tools that are present, everything that we need in order for our teachers to have what they need in order to get the work done. So after reviewing our data, we saw that we had some gaps that we needed to fill. We learned from my algebra one collaborative that worked really well. So we are doing collaborives with additional grades and in those collaboratives the teachers will be here all day. They will be led by a manager and uh the content manager and the coaches. They will dig into the data, look at the needs of the kids.
112They will also look at the curriculum. They will map out assessments. They will walk away with an instructional calendar so that they can we can keep the work moving. So, if you look up there, you'll see all of those um collaboratives that we have set based on our data. We knew we needed to do something with third grade, with fifth grade, with sixth grade. We also wanted to make sure we took care of our new middle schools so that they are they meet with success. So, you will see all of those pieces of the work. You see the monastery work in there. We are bringing the teachers down. It worked for algebra 1. So, we are looking at the data and we're going to do it with more than just those uh the algebra one.
113So once we get to coaching and we're in the building, we have a few things that we do with teachers. So you can we they visit classrooms. We we can put them in a coaching cycle where we work closely with them. We could do coach moves where we can go in the building and it may be explicit instruction that that coach needs. She may need someone to co-e with her. She may need to plan with them. So once we assess what a teacher needs, these are the types of things that we can do with them. and it is in a coaching coaching cycle instructional coaching handbook and it's present with lots of videos things that we can do to support our our teachers. We really put a focus this year on MLL. We have in
114the past, but we really want to be intentional with everything that we do this year. We want to make sure that we have alignment across everything. So, we have a monthly ML instructional strategy that we are doing in our buildings. Um, the first one is building background knowledge with explicit vocabulary instruction. And so we're excited about that. And what that means is that we have our vocabulary word. We allow the kids to put it in a sentence that is relevant to them so that they can connect with the word and they have to say the word multiple times. These strategies are good for all kids, but we wanted to be intentional with these SCAB strategies so that they happen every month. We have a video explaining what those are um to our teaching staff and
115we have people that are out and supporting our students in our MLL communities. We've partnered with I Ready to add for our for our leaders. We've been talking a lot about teachers. Now we want to talk a little bit about principles. So um we're doing a leadership consultancy with I Ready. So in addition to what they get monthly with us and with the assistant soups and myself being in their buildings coaching them, they will be working with an I Ready leader, working on leadership sessions, looking at data, doing a deep dive into I Ready, reflecting on their current data culture, sharing the information that we have, and we're really excited. This just started and so we will um we will be meeting with the principles to see how this is working. So sharpening the saw
116with high impact supports, professional development. So I'm going to go over professional development as well. So we have our tier one. We have had um three professional developments and we first one is culture, community and systems of high expectations. the schools are in cohorts and so there are three three or more schools together um that look alike and they work together and there and the teachers come to that area. On the 18th we did the power of tier one. We went back through tier one instruction with them. And then on the 22nd we went over all of our new interventions. How are we going to meet the needs and our enrichment? How are we going to meet the needs of all kids? What does that look like, sound like, and feel like? In January, what
117we're going to do is what we're going to call a reset. We will have our winter data. They will be in their school buildings. They will work and create action plans based on the data. They will go through and look at the curriculum, what books we're using. They'll lay out a map to get us to um to the testing in May to make sure we cover the standards that the students need to know in order to be successful on the test. And then in March, we want them to show up and give us their personal best. Um, that's all we can ask each day, every day, do what we can to get them prepared. And so our goal is, we know we are not trying to um overassess our kids or have them drained out
118on assessments, but I don't know any other way to know if a child knows unless they tell me, unless they maybe write it. They could do thumbs up, but at some point I have to know if they mastered that skill. And we do that with just a couple of questions each time. But we teach those standards because that's what the state is testing them on. and we want them to be ready and prepared for the assessment. All right. Everything that we do is aligned to the goals and guard rails. So all of our work is aligned to the goals and guard rails and meeting the needs of the kids according to the work that you have set before our superintendent. And that is our goal. We're working on third grade proficiency. We're working on decreasing
119the gap. And the way we're working on decreasing the gap is ensuring that there is a cad a cadence of how we do the work in the building. which means I teach the curriculum. I assess to see what the kids know. Once I assess what they know, then I adjust my instruction to give them what they need and then I do that. Again, it's a cycle, right? And in the midst of that, we also celebrate. We want to make sure we know the kids know that we appreciate them showing up and doing what they're supposed to do. Uh increase the percentage of firsttime algebra 1. Uh we did great this year and we'll do better even even better next year. We did great with African-American, Hispanic kids on the workforce um and our graduation and
120the focus is on the whole child. So that means we want to tap into the gifts that the kids have as well. So with the principles we are doing the book leadership uh leverage leadership we started it last year and leader leverage leadership just looks at how you run a building what is the culture of the building what how do you use data how do you give teachers feedback um how do you build a culture for learning so we're working through that with the principles we're also doing action plans with them uh we're doing a district report card simulator so that everyone can put in their scores and figure out what I need to do in in order to move kids to the next level. Um, we have cohort support with all of us, uh,
121superintendent and we're doing building walkthroughs. Next, I will be passing over to assistant superintendent Randolph and she will talk about improvement strategies. Good evening. So, I have an opportunity to talk about some of the areas that we know that we need some improvement. Um and then also some of the areas that we've looked at and seen success and so some strategies that we put in place um to you know ensure that we expand some of those areas. So um the first piece that I want to talk about is our college career workforce military readiness component which is a whole lot of words. Um but we do know um specifically that overall that was a pretty positive impact for most of our high schools. Um, but we did have two of our normally higher performing high
122schools that did see a little bit um of an impact negatively due to this component. So, we've worked to put some short-term strategies in place um with those two schools specifically around increasing um the opportunities for the 12point credential for the graduating class coming up. Um, we also are working with all of our high schools on school specific audits and then also reviewing data entry and protocol. Um, because EMIS can only report what's in the system correctly and if it's not in the system correctly, then we don't get credit for it. So, we want to make sure that those protocols are in place. Um, also looking at some long-term strategies, um, especially at one of our high schools, really increasing the opportunity of college credit plus um, and then also access to an honors diploma.
123um one of our smaller high schools did not have enough courses. Um they felt that students weren't able to access that honors diploma. So some of our long-term work is really focusing on ensuring that they have more courses to provide those opportunities for the students. Um and then also we're looking at the ACT and SAT indicator and how to ensure that students um are performing at a level that colleges would say are remediation free. So those are two of our um or that's one of our areas that we're really really focusing on um for our SC for our schools that saw some impacts from this. Um the next piece is u we know that gap closing was an area across the board um that we saw a decrease um in our in our um in
124our stars. So as we think about some areas to work on there, we've looked at our principles meeting coming up on Thursday. So Amanda Vargo will be in um to do a deep dive on this specific component with all of our principles. Uh we've also worked to align our one plan goals to subgroup specific targets for ELA math and graduation. Um so in that gap closing, we did earn more points in ELA math and graduation than prior years. Um but we still did not hit that component. So that's an area that we really want to focus on earning more points. Um also increasing our focus around chronic absenteeism goals. And as Dr. Smith has shared um the MLL strategy of the month to support our all of our learners. Progress um is another area that
125we have seen some of our normally higher performing schools um look at they they felt that they have not grown enough in this area. Um so one component um that the curriculum instruction team in collaboration with the department of student services has put in place is they've developed an acceleration plan um for some of our higher achieving students so that we can grow some of our um advanced students even more um also specific development professional development from EMIS um to develop tools that track this measure. This is probably one of the more complicated pieces to actually project as our school district. Um, and I trust Amanda Vargo when she says that because she is one of the smartest people that I know. Um, we've also been working on strengthening our focus on stretch growth and
126I Ready. Um, and also utilizing our MAP linking study. Um, and then also working with the ODW assessment authoring to provide um, opportunities um, and plan for tiered instruction for our students. So, those are some areas that we're working on. Um, in our third grade, uh, we saw great success, um, and growth at Hayes. Um, so, one of the conversations has been how to replicate some of that work. So, this year we have, um, just as of last week finalized all three of our tutor coordinators for the district. Um, so we have one per corridor. Um, so the the goal of this program will be to strengthen the reading skills and comprehension for third grade. So these tutors will specifically focus on third grade and then also um as we move towards um streamlining this
127work, all of the volunteers we hope in the district that are um actually tutoring third grade will receive specific um development in alignment with our curriculum and instruction department. So all three of the tutor coordinators have had that and then that is how we want to move forward to streamline um the way that our students are being tutored. Um, also I know you've heard about the algebra pilot. Um, so we've done this in collaboration. You can go to the next slide. Uh, with CTF in our negotiations. Um, so we've we've definitely implemented that at three of our high schools. We have four classes total. Um, so far we've been pretty successful in all of the components that we need around the 25 student class limit. We were a little worried that what would happen as
128students started enrolling more, but we've been able to maintain that. Um we have all of the educational specialists in place and um our math manager has been doing P week by weekly PD with them um which has been really helpful and the teachers have have talked about just that work and aligning um and really making sure that they have access to stations and personalized learning for students has been impactful. Um we also have made sure that they have common planning time. Um that it is u required that the school has a licensed algebra one teacher. So no long-term subs um doing this pilot. And then also um we're working around a quality improvement um project specifically to the work of the educational specialist impact. Uh we also are working on alignment of our district resources.
129So on October 24th, uh we will have a retreat uh with our leadership team, many other um district leaders, our district-wide mentors, our instructional coaches, and our CTF leadership. Um so we'll do that um in a few weeks really to streamline and align the work of all of the people that are supporting our students and our teachers. Uh we also I know Dr. Smith shared that we are doing a report card component deep dive through the report card simulator and another November November principal meeting. The hope would be that we will have a workshop on all of the other components um that we didn't just hit in October to make sure that principles have a full understanding. We're also doing this with our assistant principles so that we can ensure that they have the same
130um professional development that our principles have. Uh we also have all of our schools by the end of this year will be fully trained on our MTSS um support and implementation. And then any school with grade three um are they've already are currently working on the third grade push and had that training um earlier in the school year. Um in the past all schools didn't participate but this year um all of our third grade teachers uh were expected to participate in this training. And then um lastly we have um our implementation exchange um which will be a professional learning community for our schools. Um it will be in partnership um with leadership school staff to work alongside other schools. Uh we also did work with our principles to ensure that their instructional leadership teams were
131interested in doing this collaborative effort. Um and then we really um are currently in the place of finalizing our RFP. Um so in July the RFP was posted. Uh we had several responses um which I think is really exciting but it took a long time to score. And then um we've narrowed it down to four vendors. Um and in that we actually did a request for more information specifically around um cost analysis now that we were able to look a little bit deeper at what we needed for our district. Um and then we also sent out the information to schools that were interested in participating. And then um actually on this Friday we have a meeting with um CFT prior to our actual uh retreat on the 24th and some other district leaders. And there
132we will have two presentations um from the vendors. So hoping to be fully implementing um starting at the beginning of second quarter. Um and in that we will have a rubric um that everyone will have access to on Friday and we will you know want to know about the school or the um their current experience with our curriculum um what actually have they worked with prior are there curriculum pieces that we've adopted that they do not have um any familiarity with and how um they would support that if so um so at this time I will now turn it over to Assistant Superintendent Badget. Good evening everyone. I get the honor to present our action steps for our instructional plan. Uh many of my colleagues talk tonight about being in the classroom. We truly believe
133that everything happens in our classroom. That's why we're here to educate our students. And with that being said, we must have high quality instruction for our students. So with that being said comes classroom visits. Um our principles are in the classrooms every day giving feedback to our teachers. They do have um classroom walkthroughs where they can give feedback immediately and that's coaching. It's not a I gotcha. It's here to talk about glows, what we're seeing and and grows, how we can grow as a district. Um and also that's aligned with our instructional rounds. I know our colleagues talked a little bit about it earlier. Our instructional rounds, they happen um on six week cycles um twice a year and again glows and grows. What are we doing well and then what are the areas of
134reinfinement that we can grow on um and then the assistant soups we are in buildings daily and giving feedback to our principles as well. Next slide please. Okay, we also have our here for kids principal data meetings. Um again colleagues talked a little bit about it. Um it is a collaborative process where we meet the assistant soups meet in clusters with their assigned principles and we come together after the fall and winter benchmarks and we talk about what's working action plan for um and also hear from other principles in our cluster of what's working in their school and then we can implement those strategies within our building as well. Next slide please. And then you can see the alignment. So everything that we're doing in our instructional plan is aligned with at the end of
135the day with the board goals and guard rails um to move our district. Next slide please. We we are super excited to bring back a little friendly competition amongst our buildings with the I Ready with earn your stripes. So the buildings have to meet the usage and passage each week. And if they do that, they if they do it for three weeks out of the month, you have four weeks, of course, um you will earn a stripe. I Ready, our one of our partners in ED that we're using has donated school swag, so it'll bring back some friendly competition amongst our buildings. So, we're super excited to bring that back. Next slide, please. So, um Assistant Superintendent Klein came up a few minutes ago and talked about data. Data is very important. We're super excited
136to launch uh a scorecard that will house a lot of our key initiatives around the district. It will be a spot for board members or all stakeholders across our district to go to and get data really quick. Um so we're going to launch that in the middle of November and again it'll have enrollment data, it'll have discipline data, it'll have a lot of key information for you and you'll be able to access it and it'll be very user friendly. Okay. And that is our instructional plan this evening. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you all so much. That was that was quite a bit. 30 some odd slides was a lot, but you all did it. So, thank you. H we did ask for a plan. We did not specify brevity though, but we did ask
137for a plan and you guys did it. So, we need to be careful what we ask for. No, I'm just kidding. Board me. Thank you each of you. Board members questions. Board member Weinberg, start us off. >> No, I have a couple of questions here. I have a question for the superintendent, but I'm going to start with you all first. Um, one, I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation. It was a lot of slides, but it was, you know, very good and very informative. So, my first question that I want to ask, and I had to write this all out just so that I could stay on task. Um I want to talk first about um you discussed about data talks and I know for me data talks are very important and
138I know as a former teacher I know what I should be looking for and especially as a parent and what should be discussed. Can you kind of um talk a little bit more about what your plan is or what is being done to ensure that parents of all different levels of our students that they actually understand those data talks because you give them you do it with the students. I want to make sure and ensure that there's transparency for parents so that we don't have parents saying well I didn't know that my child was on this level or I didn't know that this is where they were. We just want them to to be able to understand. And so what are you doing to ensure that that is being discussed or being brought down to
139the different levels for all of our parents and that could be for anybody whoever wants to or should I call someone out? >> Oh, go ahead. Go ahead. >> Oh, so the one thing that for sure that we are really pushing um board member Weinberg is that all data talks are happening, right? that the kids know what their data is and then how they can improve. So our hopes is our hope is that when the principles have their um conferences that they are actually having conversations um with parents they usually have a meeting before they break out into um into the different classrooms and then they share what the data is, what I Ready is, what MAP is, um what our reading program is, how your what Lexile your student is reading on so you
140know what type of books to get for them. So the hope is that they're breaking it down that way. Another thing that we're um pushing, all of it hasn't went out yet, but we're asking principles and schools to send letters to parents about where their kids are, like your child did this, this is where your child is. Um and so we're working through how we get parents that information. Um but the goal is that it's broken down and each school kind of and the teachers are kind of creating what their do um data sheet looks like, right? And so that gives them some autonomy and they sit down. It's not cookie cutter. This is where we are at our school. this is what we this is what we would your child has accomplished this is
141what they need to um keep improving so we kind of are working that through our conferences um when parents meet with kids when um when teachers meet with kids I've seen it even in dojo where the the teacher has said hey this is the data this is what your child needs to work on if you have any questions this is what this means and not in terms that parents cannot understand >> and actually was just getting ready to say that making sure that we are utilizing terms that our parents um can understand. Um then my next question would be >> I know that you provided a lot of data points and I think data is very important especially as you're looking at it towards academic success. So for me after looking at the data especially
142for our third grade and I think it was I don't remember what slide exactly it was on but it kind of showed the different points that we either missed or that we got. um what did you find would be some of the reasons um why we decreased in our stars and I think I'd asked this question before at a previous meeting um just wanting to know what are some of the reasons I know attendance was mentioned there were some other factors but um I don't know if you were able to do a deeper dive to get some more information on that >> I think we just shared briefly that what we learned in looking at what other schools did that were successful and students who were successful some of the time on task with the
143materials. Uh for example, we talked a little bit earlier about uh the percentage of time we're hoping to be able to meet a 70% at a minimum threshold for kids uh on a weekly basis before they're asked uh to move on to their next lesson and then assessment. Um the other thing for me which is probably my biggest deal is this real deep dive into what the data and the components mean and I think is can be so complex and so starting with our retreat with the adults in the district who focus on instruction including the principles in this work and then the teachers having that feeling a little bit stronger about the support in order to make sure that the kids are mastering what they need to master. >> So from finding in the
144data, did you find out the actual reasons though for the decrease? So that was my original question, finding the decrease, the reasons in terms of was it the implementation of the curriculum? Was it that the kids weren't all hitting the exact points for their I Ready or whatever. Yeah, I think one of the biggest things is not the same level of time on task with the materials that we saw with young people who were successful because what we saw with uh the benchmark assessment is very much aligned with the outcomes for the state test. So we want to make sure that all of the kids and maybe it is an attendance factor and we believe that's part of it but it's also our responsibility to figure out how to catch them up when they are
145absent. >> Okay. And then my very last question this is for the superintendent. Um if you could put up slide 34 please Rob. So I know that we referenced and it's showcasing here key action steps. So my question would be um in terms of accountability. So as we're moving forward, you've provided us with these key action steps, how we want to strengthen instructional practice, how we want to make sure that we are increasing our student outcomes. So what would be the plan that you will have in place to hold not only district staff but our super our assistant superintendent accountable for the progress of our schools and the data that we're being that we're getting. year what we started that is new is we the five of us have instructional conversations every two weeks. So
146what we've done to this date is looking at the data together as the instructional team dug into best practices uh created and tried to revamp revise and grow some of those best practices. Dr. Smith mentioned the things that we learned with the algebra work that was done last year. Same is true with the third grade reading where we've seen uh schools classrooms be successful. How can we duplicate that? Some of it is having conversations with one another and on our end we can set up the opportunities for cohorts of teachers to be able to talk to each other. I'm struggling with this particular concept or standard. Well, this is how I was able to master it with my students. So I think creating a much more collaborative environment starting with the senior leadership team working
147together on a regular basis. Having this retreat October 24th, I'm super excited because it will not only involve the senior leadership team, CFT, our district-wide mentors, our instructional coaches, our math reading specialists, anybody who says they teach, lead, work through helping us with instruction, they'll be a part of this retreat. Thank you. >> I think I'm done. I may have an additional one later. >> Okay, we'll have a Craig. >> Uh so again, thank you for all the hard work and and as uh President Maf said, all the the lovely uh slides that we had here today. Um I wanted to just kind of tackle through three things real quick and I I'll try to make these as brief as possible so others have more time. um the concept with regards to the English uh
148scores and it's specifically school by school. I think as you look at the and I appreciate you all providing the chart but the the spreadsheet tells me also that some schools have kind of maintained a level or if not gone up while other schools have fluctuated kind of dramatically each year and I and I think maybe to uh board member Weineberg's question I think can we think of how we're going to individ or I should say maybe can you tell me how we were thinking about individualizing some aspects of some of the challenges that are faced by schools that have either been perennially lower, you know, or or or have been inconsistent in how their year-to-year movements are. Because I think some of that, yes, is the time on task and all these other things,
149but some of that also might be the things that we thought about as a board when we talked about the third grade reading element, which is that when you come in at kindergarten, are you coming in at the same level? When you come in in first and second grade, are you progressing or are you more stagnant? because I think it is somewhat alarming when we see like a really low fall number and then a substantially higher um you know spring number right when they're when they're reach reaching that OSD uh assessment. So, I guess have we thought about some of those spaces where we're seeing some opportunities for more of an individualized assessment of what other factors might be lost between first and second grade or second and third grade as they go up those
150levels. >> I would like to share one and then I'll ask um the superintendent to chime in. Not too long ago, a board member asked about the preschool data and the impact on kindergarten readiness. What does that look at third grade? Uh, and we saw very clearly that the CPS preschoolers really did better than if you weren't a preschool child. So, it's really interesting that we're in this season talking about uh the November activities and knowing that it's critically important that those three and four year olds get in front of and into a classroom where there is structure, where literacy is a rich component of the environment so that they can be ready for kindergarten and do well in future grades. That's one thing just even recently paying attention to I noticed. So, um, board
151member Craig, we are doing what we call, um, tiers of support. So, we're looking at the schools based on their stars or if they're 2.5 or lower, they're on our list. They receive the two instructional rounds. Um, that at the end of those rounds are actionable steps about what they need to do with their school. They also get additional support with the coaches. So as we go in a classroom or we walk or we meet with the principal, hey, this teacher is brand new. We need we deploy the coaches, they go and sit and plan with them. We also are are looking at their data on a more regular basis, right? When we go into their buildings, we're looking at how often they're in classrooms and what feedback they're giving to teachers. We're also looking
152at what can we do schoolwide. How do we help kids fall in love with reading? Can we do a schoolwide reading plan? Can we do something around how we learn our foundational um facts and everything? We're also looking at when they are two or more grade levels below, how do we double up, right? So, they get the I ready my path, right? They get the core instruction for their teacher and some small group interventions, but then they also have a reading specialist and an intervention specialist. So, we're looking at that. How do we do that and progress monitor that to ensure that those kids are growing? So, we are right where you guys are talking about where we have seen and we know, you know, from K to 2, we're teaching kids to read and
153then once they get to third grade, we're teaching them they're reading to learn. So if a child gets to third grade and has not missed has missed those skills, then we have to break those skills down and make sure what are we doing to ensure that those gaps get closed. And so we are looking at that very closely. We meet with the coaches with the managers um with the directors of um MLL special ed and uh Emily executive director and our team we meet every two weeks. We go through each one of those schools. We look at what we've done, what the coaches have done, what needs they have, and how we support them. And if their data is going a different way, our job as the soups is to sit down with our principles
154and talk through what what we need to do in order to support them. >> Thank you for that. Um, just two other quick thoughts. I think one of the things that we did see growth at is actually at our higher grades, which is in some ways a a mark that we we've got folks up to a certain speed once they get there. It's just a question of like where we where are they at when they first start. Um and so I think there's some room to kind of build on that. I know when we first started with the goals and guardrails, algebra one was a number that you know quite frankly was a lot lower than where we are now and that we've made a lot of progress on and I think learning from those
155lessons. I appreciated hearing you all talk about that. Um the third thing I would say though is I do think as we move into areas we may want to be also thinking about what are the ways we prepare the path for a student more so than prepare subjects. Right? So like if a if we're if we're looking at how we're doing programming within a within a district, if we're expanding opportunities within middle schools and those type of things, are the kids prepared when they go from third grade to sixth grade to be able to do the stuff in their middle school that they might be going to that would prepare them to be able to do the stuff in high school, right? Like that kind of thought process. And I think that would move us
156also a little bit out of the like while we still want to think about the corridor model and think about some of those things I think it moves us a little bit closer to that idea of a student may say I actually want to go to this school because I'm familiar with how they are teaching a subject more so and can we get programs to me right as opposed to I need to go to this school because it's the only one that offers this particular thing of learning right or this particular I heard this this teacher at this school is amazing Amazing. So that's where I want to go. And I think that would get us a little bit also into that idea of moving beyond just learning concepts into that idea of you're learning
157to be able to move and think critically and think in a more educated fashion on some of these subjects because I think that's the one thing I I'm I'm still a little uh I don't want to say hesitant, but I'm curious with regards to the instructional plan is that I think a lot of it is addressing the things where we are, which is what we have to do. I think the next step to that is how do we take a student who is yes struggling in second third grade and make that student into the super success that we celebrate in sixth and then the student who's the model for that we we that everybody wants by the time they get to 12 right and I think that's the path that I would love to see
158us start talking more about is not just because I think that's what sells to the public the public likes to hear about Yes, we improved the third grade reading, but they want to hear about we improved third grade reading. So that kid who when they get to high school is the best reader who's a writer now who has this passion for, you know, they writing a screenplay or a script or writing poetry or whatever. How does that go from third grade to 12th grade? And I can think that's the only thing I'm I would love to see some like connectivity to within the the instructional plan because I think that's where we can start telling kids that's your goal. Like I I and I I say this also because I remember back to talking to
159some student I don't have the same experience of teaching that others on this board have. Uh but I remember talking to a student who really wanted to be a sports columnist. And what we focus on is just getting him to write really strong and and creative sentences that made you think. You didn't have to use fancy words. He didn't have to use big words. He just had to give you a story and and really color it up, right? That's not a skill set this person, you know, specifically taught, but that was how you taught him to learn vocabulary because he wanted to use the nicer, funnier words and he wanted to use the more fun language in this statements. And that's that's something that absolutely happens in the classroom. But I think when we make
160those goals for teachers and we make those goals for principles and then we make those goals for you all, then we'll see that path build up a little bit better. All right. Thank you. One member questions. One move across it. >> Yeah, I just had a couple of questions. Um, and this I'm curious. You have a tool, giant spreadsheet tool. Um, I I would imagine that tool is only going to be as effective as people put data into that tool. And so I'm curious about what the how to incentivize that. And I think one of the components of that tool, if I'm not correct, it shows how uh usage of the curriculum. And so I'm just curious about how to make how you what your plan is to make that tool as useful as possible.
161>> So there's a couple of tools. I was debating on which one you were referring to. So the instructional >> it's a tool that uh >> that yeah that >> the instructional round >> Yeah. >> or the instructional plan. Yeah. >> Yeah. That's this one. >> Yeah. So so I think this one here is it's really a road map. Um, and I'm if you look at the different links, it is really a resource for folks to use, the teachers, the principles. Um, it's got again your curriculum guides are here. Um, your subjects at a glance. So, what the pacing for that quarter, what we would be looking at, uh, the instructional framework, which is, uh, what's happening during an instructional bell. So, this is more of the road map. Not so sure that it's collecting
162anything. is more of the road map. Does that help? >> That's good to know. Thank you. I had a just a couple more questions. >> Um what um what's a school audit and what does it how does it work to make things better? >> You talking about for the when I talked about the um like auditing the data for the college and career component that was >> they did somebody said they did school. So um for our college and career readiness component um what we noticed was for example one of the high schools could have a little more effectively put in there they could have checked the honors diploma box so we didn't get credit for those for the 2024 um graduating class. So one of the things that we've done is in collaboration with
163EMIS gone through so our high school counselors are collecting an abundant amount of data. So we've created um some internal data tracking sheets. We already do cohort audits which is when we go through student by student for every school. Um so right now they just are wrapping up um the final data for 25 getting ready to start 26. So what the principal, the counselors, and the school team do is go through and they check every student. Were they marked the graduate? Did they have a credential? Did they have the 12 CCP credits? Whi which of these components did they have? And then do we have the actual evidence um in our system? And is it showing? So when we report to the state of Ohio, they are actually giving us credit for that. So, it's
164really a basically a group like almost like a student success team, but it's it's the adults between district and school level really cross referencing what the students have done. >> Right. Got it. That's a great great information. Last question. Specifically, what and are you doing or how are you doing it to minimize um absenteeism? >> The audits. So that work is housed with our um PSC. So last month was um attendance awareness month. They have some initiatives each month that they're driving for to address chronic tact chronic aptism. Um they have strategies. Um we have they have a full PowerPoint. We can bring them um to one of our meetings to show you the strategy behind um getting students to school. >> We're also Mr. proed. I'm putting together a task force to help us
165monitor this and dig into the best practice strategies. Um Monisha House just did a presentation to senior leadership team uh last week and highlighted uh the idea that in January our district has seen some struggle. And so what can we do now to get ahead of that January problem that we know exists whether it's because of the weather or political things that happened last January. Um and so we're looking at working on those pieces now. >> Great. Thank you. Thank thank you for the presentation and the depth and uh breadth of what you presented. Thank you. Okay, you got some more questions coming because I got some too. So, let's start. So, get ready. War member map, we'll go to you. I I won't be long, but thank you for the presentation. Um, this I
166know for myself has been something that I've been asking for. So I really do appreciate the depth um and the comprehensive scope uh that you all have brought forth with this presentation and also making sure that it is systemic work because we do know that that is how um change will occur within our students outcomes. Um, as we're talking about uh the systemic work, I am curious to know how does this instructional plan uh really uh elevate the interdisciplinary or uh crosscurricular work? What does does it account for that in this plan? Or is there uh areas of focus that you all are considering to make sure that we're not just focusing on students getting the material in one content area, but they are able to have that uh those conversations, right? Uh or have
167that vocabulary and that language in other courses that they're taking to help strengthen and build their uh academic uh uh excellence. We think that contextual teaching is the key. And so we think that yes, we want to teach them those literacy skills, but then we want to make sure that they apply them to things that are important to them and that speak to them. And so back to that uh instructional plan with the link, we did include all kinds of disciplines if you get a chance to drill down into those um a little bit more. So it's not just the reading, math, science, social studies, it's across the board. And so we're hoping uh that if we get a strong foundation with the literacy skills that will deepen and we'll see even better results across
168the curriculum and in other disciplines. >> Okay, thank you for that. And then also it too as we talk about systemic work um what does this look like in terms of communicating um our instructional plan to our families and our community. Uh again it takes a whole collaborative approach. Uh I've heard about how this work is um you know supporting our teachers, supporting our administrators and even supporting our students and having that data talk. Um, but we also have to include our parents and our uh our community um in the conversation. And so how do we bring them in the folds and how do we get them excited about this plan? >> So um I know many of the schools have curriculum nights or instructional nights where parents will come in um and they actually
169will have the curriculum materials out for parents to look at. They'll have make it and take it type of nights as well uh for mass and other areas. And really it's you know it starts here with us. We're sharing with the principles. The principles are leading with their teachers. Teachers are taking it all the way down to the family and to the students. So it is a group effort I think. Um and it looks different in each of the school houses. Um but that is something that they want to certainly get out to the families. Um, you know, with the Whiten wisdom curriculum, when you talked about the interdisciplinary, uh, it made me think about the books that are used in the text and Whitten wisdom, they are very much interdisciplinary. Um, the social studies,
170the science topics um, so those are all included. Um so through the curriculum nights um I think parents are really becoming familiar with uh that instructional plan the data talks so how their students are are performing how students are being assessed um on the different assessments throughout the years as well. >> Thank you for that. I appreciate that. Um two more questions. Uh can you just speak uh to the one plan? I know we reference it a lot. Um, but how does that work in relation to the overall instructional plan and also to help us meet our uh target uh goals that we set for the year? >> So the the one plan really is aligned to our strategic plan goals specifically. Um so um most of the work though is in ELA and math.
171Um and then also high schools have a graduation goal as well. So really we take our district goals and then schools need to work with their ILT and their LSDMC to get um their school goals into their one plan. So every school has their own um and then we work on the like systems that they're going to work on throughout the year. They should be reviewing those through their ILTS TBT minutes um and really looking at what strategies are working, what isn't working. Um and so right now they are in it just actually last week in the principal's newsletter um is right now where they're working on getting all of their information into the one plan. >> Okay. Thank you. And so the last question is for the superintendent. Um so based off of the
172instructional plan that was shared um which seems to be more streamlined. this seems to be more uh maybe cohesion amongst what the uh expectations are for the assistant soups all the way down to the students. Um one of the things that we've been talking about is kind of uh identifying our goals obviously for the strategic plan um and also taken on maybe a more aggressive approach. Do you think that what has been presented or what you all have developed with this instructional plan will allow us to be more aggressive um and and stretch ourselves? Again, not where it's not realistic, but something that is a bold statement to say this is what we are um able to commit to based off of this plan that's been in place. Again, you've been able to identify best
173practices. Um, I don't know if there's been any evaluation of these or some things that have that were not in place previously, but we know that this will help drive the instruction and really uh reach our targets. Board member Bab, I'm super excited about the plan and I'm excited about the team working on the plan and I'm excited about expanding it to other instructional leaders in our school district. Uh I think we this year are going to uh do better at being on the same page and articulating the same message and focusing on the right things in terms of our instructional goals. And so to answer your question briefly, yes. Uh, and we look forward, we're excited too about the instructional dashboard we're building out and the scorecards because we believe the purpose of the
174scorecards will be not only to keep you informed of where we are on all these pieces, but we will then be able to know what's working, what's not working. Dr. Smith mentioned uh the reset uh that we're going to do in January. This will give us an opportunity before we get into the spring testing to make sure that we are really on track to hit the goals that we're setting. >> Thank you for that. >> Or any other board member Lindy, >> thank you so much and thanks for the presentation. Uh I know there was a lot of content in it and I've got a lot of questions. Thanks for your patience. Um thanks for everybody's patience. Um there's so much that's in there. I really just want to ask questions about one piece of
175it. Um which is about how are we helping teachers implement the great curriculum that we've purchased. Um I see that that was absolutely a part of the plan. Um and so I I do not want to send the signal that I think it's not in there. I see it and appreciate it. I think the thing I'm trying to understand is how is what we're doing this year different from last year and in what ways is that difference reflective of the repurposing of the district-wide mentors, the lead teachers, and the instructional coaches. Um, when we were approving the budget, uh, I really appreciated the allocation of additional supports. I think doing this well is hard. I think being a teacher is the most important and hardest job we have in America. I think we should help.
176And so I'm excited to learn more about how we're doing that. But I also just want to get um I think it would be I I'd like I'd like to make sure we can explain what's different this year about that strategy as opposed to last year. So, it's been a long time um since we all of the instructional leaders and helpers have had a conversation about who's on first, who is doing what, where, and how. And we wonder how much duplication we've had, and how much um we've been off track in terms of what the expectations are. This year we are coming together and we're talking about who's working with whom, to what extent, at what dosage, and we're also making sure that we know the instructional people who are coming into the buildings what
177they're doing, how often they're doing it, and making sure it's the right thing. To your point, Mr. Lindy, about is this helping teachers or not. We're also including the principles in this PD because they're the instructional leaders in their building and we're making sure that they use and see this as a priority uh in terms of the work and the outcomes that we're expecting. So I think this is extremely different because it's a been a long time since we've had these conversations. Um it's different because in creating this work we are using best practices. We're using what we've seen happen in the past, but we're also being creative in terms of making this for Cincinnati public schools. And we have um CTF at the table with us. We've had multiple meetings getting up to this
178point, which is partly why I feel really good uh moving forward. I um we've done a lot of work on board member lending on tier one, ensuring that the teachers um have as much access to it. um digging deep into it, making sure they understand all the components of it. Um what works well for kids that need enrichment, what works for kids that need intervention. I think the big piece for us along with what the superintendent said is there will be this alignment and a systemic way that we're looking at the work with the data. So as we go into the buildings with the districtwide mentors and the instructional coaches, we have been deploying them based on our tiers of support, the instructional coaches. Now, we'll be meeting with the district-wide mentors together and making
179sure that those resources are aligned, that there is a level of accountability of what that resource looks like. How are we evaluating to make sure that that resource works? This will be different than what we've done before. we've had this resources but the alignment of the resources and making sure that the needs are met in a systemic way so that once the data says this we're moving in that direction based on the data and then giving everyone the support that they need to ensure that that works happened. It's going to be different just because we are sitting down and aligning that work looking at the data looking at what support teachers need and then giving them that support based on the data and and some of what they're asking from. We have people that request
180support and then there are principles that request support. So I think it's the alignment of what'll be different with that work this year versus last year. >> Thank you. Um you all are closer to this than I am. Um and I hear you all describe things like there's going to be better alignment across district-wide mentors, instructional coaches, lead teachers. Um, I'm not a 100% sure I followed all of the pieces about what is also what's going to be different this year other than better alignment. It may be the case that that's enough. Uh, I I think the real the the another way to maybe get at the get at this question would be um as we go through the year um how are you going to know whether or not the effort to support teachers
181on effective implementation of the curriculum is working or not working. It could be as simple as that same spreadsheet that's incorporated here. And so we will see in those numbers whether or not they are improving or not improving. Is that you're you're nodding your head, Dr. Yes, because that's the tool that we're using to ensure. So, we we provide the support, >> then we go back to the building again. As um my colleagues have said, we're in those buildings every day. We're walking those classrooms. We give the principles actionable steps. Yeah. >> To so that when we go back then I should see something different than what I seen before. If I don't then we have another conversation of what what's happening. There could be lots of things that have happened, but how do we
182support that work to ensure? So it will be that sheet. It will be the whether the uses of the curriculum is happening or not in those classrooms. That's what it will be. The numbers will show up and we'll make adjustments. We will monitor and adjust that as we go into those buildings. And Mr. Ly, I just want to add to that. I think your assessment of our response today is dead on. Uh we will know more uh after Friday when we hear from our RFP responses. We we're down to the two. In addition to that, the 24th retreat where we're all in the room together creating this plan. >> That makes great sense. That makes great sense. And I think um you know, I think that this this commitment to offering support on how to
183bring curriculum to life, I think is unfortunately sometimes mischaracterized as teacher bashing or tracking people with a clipboard to see whether or not they're on the right page of the curriculum. I think everybody in this conversation knows that's not what this is. I think it would be great if I love the fact that you're taking so much care around selecting the vendor. I think that's going to be really important. Is the union at the table and making that final call about which >> will be there Friday. >> That's great. >> Yeah, Julie's nodding. I was going to pause because they've been invited. So, she's nodding. So, that will be at the >> That's great because I think for this to work, people have to believe in it, you know, and I think that the spirit
184of this is this is where the rubber meets the road. People need help. Let's provide help. Um, I think that's great. And I just want to confirm there's been some back and forth too about what like when when the when the proposal came forward in the budget season about repurposing these roles. I think the question I raised was is everybody including the union on board because it's only going to work if everybody supports it and I think we've had mixed evidence since then. And so I just wanted to ask do you feel confident that we have everybody including the union supporting the strategy? I feel confident um the union the federation has been meeting with us. I think we've had at least three or four meetings that we have um where uh President Sers has
185been able to invite her membership to the table who she deems is important. We've been at the table as the instructional leaders of the district. We're going to get there. This is new. It takes a little bit of time. It's not finished. It's not finished. and our hope is that this will be ready to roll out second quarter. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh you can go and then I'll go. I've got a quite a few of questions for you all. >> Thank you. Thanks for the presentation. I'll try to follow up on some of the stuff that my colleagues have said uh to Mr. Crosset's point about absenteeism. Uh obviously that's that's a critical part, but I know that some uh meetings ago we asked the administration to actually do a deep dive into
186who's absent and who isn't and for what reason. Uh and I think that was an assignment because it's not about just getting more kids to show up. We have to figure out what the problem is and we have to then message that to the community what the problem is because the community is not helping us right now on this very critical issue and many members of the community do want to but I hope I just want to remind about the assignment of actually knowing about absenteeism and then explaining absenteeism chronic absenteeism uh to to the public. I also um want to follow up on something that member Craig mentioned where talking in terms of the the individual kid that in in fourth grade they might be doing this or writing or doing something but okay
187where are they going to be in sixth and seventh grade and and it goes back to something that former uh board member Moroski used to talk about which is instead of the IEP it would have something like an IGP or an individual ual growth plan for each child that we need a little bit more democratization of this plan. Um and for teachers I I know why this looks in so hierarchial right now because we we can only hold her responsible for this. So, at the top of the the the food chain, there's the superintendent, but but really, we need more of a focus on the individual children because we keep saying like subgroups and whatever, just the individual child. And for teachers, just something that you've pointed out that I think is good about the
188support that they're going to have. The best support for a teacher usually is lateral support. It's usually colleial support uh instead of necessarily hierarchial. We need the hierarchal because we've got two and a half stars and the community like Miss Boyd today wants her the schools to do better or what have you, but we also know parents don't want the kids to be tested anymore than they already are either. So, it's you're walking a a rough line, but um also bringing the curriculum alive as I think Ben mentioned um teachers do that, you know, a thousand times an hour if they if they know what they're doing. And however, we can help them uh do that. I have only a couple mis uh concerns. Um I don't want and know this happened in our last
189strategic plan. There was a third party very much involved with our strategic plan and I just want to make sure this is really a very sensified Cincinnati uh instructional plan. It's an impressive plan. Um for Hayes doing so well. I thought we've been determined that one of the things about Hayes Porter was the the extensive tutoring. I know Mr. Cross that always talks about that that that seems to be a strategy from them. I don't know how much more research we need to do about it on the leverage leadership book. Is is that part of the culture? You mentioned the culture of a of a building and that's part of like our will that influence our one plans or is it the state that influences one plans? And by the way, I want to compliment
190you and the superintendent for dressing alike tonight. I I felt so good. I felt I felt >> This is the second time this has happened. I'm feeling like I'm going have to start texting her. I don't know. >> Third time. >> Oh, no. I'm sorry. >> The black and white. That's the second time. >> Oh, we had the red. Okay. But that was for the Reds that we won the playoffs. >> It was supposed to be. I'm sorry. the leverage leadership um um vice president Bolton is just um >> we're using the book as a resource and in that book it talks about how to create a culture of learning um how to build that culture with your teachers your staff how to do collaboration how to get buy in and so that's just one
191of the chapters it also talks about datadriven decisions it talks about feedback to teachers it's our way of helping our principles guide their work >> and and when um I think Mr. Mr. Crosset mentioned a school audit and I think you went into great effort on the school audit, but I remember when the school audit with Melody Dy's group would do a school audit and they >> that was serious. >> Oh yeah, it was serious. I was part of one of those audits >> and it really often was really about culture and I remember the reports back >> to the board were like we got some issues here and actually ship and curriculum and what have you. So we still do those kind of school audits as well as curricular or uh instructional. >> Yes,
192those are our instructional rounds. And so we do absolutely look at culture and climate. When we go into those rounds, we actually look at academic ownership, how student discourse, um how the teachers, the environment in the classroom, right? What's the culture? How does it feel when you go in there? And the positive school culture also comes with us on there and make sure that they have the um what rewards would kids get, what are the consequences for our behavior, what are expectations. So all those people are part of that. It's not as deep. I remember Miss Dy and I was a part of one of those audits. It doesn't go as deep as that audit, but we are in there for probably about two hours, hour and a half, and we walk that building pretty
193heavy. I just remember those. At least for a person like me on the board, they seem to be pretty u influential and I'm glad that's these being picked up through the the rounds. Uh and then um state standards are at the core of everything we're doing, right? Curricularly. >> Yes, absolutely. So when that instructional planning that you pulled up, all of that is state standard driven. It's all of the standards that the students have to have for every content. >> Excellent. And then my I think my last issue uh we dealt with the individual growth plans for every kid more lateral support for for teachers. Um I think this retreat that you all are having it would be good. I I like that because now I'm not predisposed to think in terms of principles as
194instructional leaders. I think of them as running a small business. I mean, I just so but it's great to have that that impact there and I I appreciate them being in the same on as we used to say in the recorder's office on the same book and page. I appreciate it and thank you for your work and look forward to seeing how this impacts what happens for our kids. Thank you. So, a lot of my colleagues have asked some of the questions that I want and I know you all are tired. So, I'm going to for the most part um make my comments and then allow you the opportunity to get back in touch with me around u some of my specific questions because it's late and I understand um I am very much concerned
195about first of all thank you for the presentation it was a lot of slides a lot of information great information great plan I'm still stuck on the accountability piece and how the significant number of our schools went down um It doesn't answer the question to me about time on task is is a concern. How are we measuring time on task? How did we get here is the question. And if we don't adequately answer how we got here and we just come up with a plan at the end of first quarter that's applicable to start for second quarter, but one plans are really due at the end of April. Like like logistically speaking, we're not talking about a very long window of time to implement such a robust and engaging plan. That sounds great, but the
196reality is that we don't have the luxury of time. The state is coming for our students. They're coming for money. And it sounds really great to have a nice plan that we can we're going to do all this great stuff, but we're already in second quarter. So, I want to understand how we got here so that a I can under I can feel confident that you all have digested that and we're we know where we are and we're not going to get there again. And then this is this plan is done with fidelity because you recognize that we're here because of something. So I I want to understand how do we measure time on task? If time on task and I wrote that down that part of the reason that the superintendent shared was why
197we're here, why schools went down involved time on task and there was not enough time on task. How is that measured? That's a question you can get back in touch with me on. Um, do all schools have I Ready? We made a nice robust presentation around I Ready. If that's not applicable for all the schools, how are some of those other schools going to get the benefit of what you've planned for I Ready? I'm just a little confused around the t the contest for I Ready and how great that sounds, but if all schools don't have that, especially the schools that went down, explain to me how that's beneficial in improving the scores of the schools that don't have that are not going to benefit from that. Again, you can get back in touch with
198me on that. Do we have any data from principles or teachers? I like the road map idea. How do we measure if that is actually being followed? How do we measure if there's something wrong with the road map? How are we measuring that? Are we collecting any data from them? Maybe there was a in it and that's how we got here. But I don't I love the idea. It sounds great in theory, but the reality is we got here for some reason. And I don't understand I I don't I want to understand that you all know that that this is a problem that this is something we can um we can fix. I think we need to this is a great instructional plan. I'm concerned that uh parents aren't going to really understand all of
199this. I'm concerned that the report card doesn't actually reflect accurately that my son or daughter can't read on grade level. All of that needs to be explained. I'm also concerned that the parents don't quite understand that their school went down. Again, if you can't explain to me how we got here, how do we project that we're going to be better? Do we in include like a skills assessment for students? We're talking about robust programming. We're talking about career tech options. Do we even know what students want to do? Have we given them in addition to the mandatory testing, have we given have we made school a place that they can see themselves doing something? I don't hear any of that. I hear the the great stuff that you all have planned, but it doesn't I
200don't see where it shows that the student is part of that that they're talking about career options. They're talking about, hey, I like putting things together. I'm a kesthetic learner. I might like building. I might what? That's what gets kids to come to school is when they see the value in it. When parents see the value in it as well. My son or daughter is talking all the time. Well, that might make a good ortor. Are they are they getting any instruction around possible options for them? Again, I I I just didn't see that. Um again, my question was around what's the timeline for this pivot? Um, quarter 1 is now over. It's in the books. We're talking about starting this in quarter two. One, plans that deal with student improvement dollars and all of
201that have a due date of April the 29th. I don't know if all the board members know that, but that's a very small window that we're talking about for improvement. How are you going to measure all of this? The buyin is great, but the bottom line is it needs to be move. The buildings need to move this year. So, this sounds great and I applaud you create. I I invite creativity and innovation. This is awesome. But it has to be grounded in fidelity and realism and we don't have a lot of time. So, I'm going to invite you back to come and share with me and the board about what you found as to how we got here because I'm still confused how a significant number of our schools went down across the entire gamut.
202So, that's just me. We are going to do better cuz we got the perfect team in place. You guys have everything that you need for our students. So, I thank you. Those are those are just my questions. I don't want to leave you on a down note. I believe in you and I believe that you believe in our students, too. So, thank you for everything that you've offered. We're going to do it. Any other questions? >> Thank you. That That was heavy. All right. Um, let's see. Superintendent Murphy, I believe we are still on you around the professional development plan. >> So that was included in this plan. >> Okay. I think all of these pieces for our Yes. Yes. >> That's a that's a BL. Okay. Well, then you guys really get the kudos
203because you did like two presentations all in that. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Our team rocks. Okay. So, we are now down to the superintendent evaluation. Uh let me get a second. So we need to approve the final evaluation score for the superintendent 2425 evaluation. It has been posted on board docs. And we also need to in the same conversation talk about um performance objectives, targets and a scoring methodology for the school year 2526 evaluation. Board member Lindy, you've done a significant amount of work. I don't want to take away from that. This was your um sheet that you put together and I basically utilized it. Not didn't steal it, utilized it. Uh this shows what the policy states. Uh the policy is 1240 and it it is a clickable link there and the description
204is there as well. Down below in part B there is an approved structure that the performance objectives will be 60% of the total score. The objectives are there listed. Four out of the five were actually exceeded and um we did a survey based off of the Ohio superintendent standards that was 30% of the evaluation score and then a midpoint check-in was 10%. I do want to give kudos to board member Lindy and board member Crosset. They worked on the spreadsheet. They worked on the scoring sheet and u reduced the amount of work that the board collectively had to do. So, thank you both for all of your hard work. The score that the superintendent did earn in part C, Rob, if you go down just a little bit, was a 4.6 out of five. And
205uh are there any questions? from board member board member Lindy >> not a question just I wanted to say some uh thank yous and I think a little historical context on this for folks who are watching or later on I think um truly appreciate last year's policy committee that was member map and member crosset for building a new polic C1240 and how we evaluate the superintendent really want to appreciate our current superintendent for meeting with us multiple times to get these goals right it was a weird year because she started in the middle we figured it out Anyway, I think this is a positive evaluation. Exceeding four out of five performance targets should be a positive evaluation if it's if what we care about is really what we're putting on here. Um, and so I
206think, um, I think this is rather uncontroversial, uh, which is a sign that we've done the process well because it was clear ahead of time and we followed through on it. um the the the historical context when I joined the board, we would evaluate the superintendent in March of the year that was currently in progress. Um which is a little wacky because we don't have final student outcomes data on how that school year has gone. And so I think just moving this to a time of year where we can use state released public data um but still get targets in place early enough in the school year to give the superintendent some runway. Um it's just a big change and so a lot of gratitude. Uh I think what's in here is great. Um I
207think the this was an odd year again because it was a shortened year. I think the really really important question is going to be where do we set these targets for this school year which I know where is where we're going next. But I'm happy to make a motion that we we approve the evaluation as it's posted on board docs. And again this is in line with what we approved at the March 3rd meeting. Uh again, there's not a lot in here that's new, but happy to make that motion. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> Any discussion further for Vice President Bolton? >> Yes. I think just mathematically since I'm an old social studies teacher, a retired one, tell me what 4.6 kind of would would translate into out of five. Is that
208or is that even relevant? Is it concentrating on the 4.6 in your mind? >> If you scroll, I'm so sorry, please. >> Is that good? Is that uh wonderful? Is that what What would it be? >> It's unicorn, I think, is the is the technical answer. If you look at the bottom of the page, you'll see five is excellent and one is failing. >> So, a 4.6 is between good and excellent. And again, I just would would call people's attention to um in the new policy, the the board is required to pass measurable performance objectives for the superintendent. >> And we do this in public meeting, which we did last year, and the policy requires that the majority of the of what counts for points in the evaluation come from those measurable outcomes. So this
209really should be what should drive the final score is whether or not outcomes improved. There are other other pieces to it that also matter but but the the lion share of it is whether or not the goals were met. >> Thank you. >> Any other discussion? Superintendent Murphy. >> President Muffet, am I allowed to say something about this? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. So, um I really want to say thank you to the board uh because you did challenge me for sure um to uh Mr. Lindy and Mr. Crosset. Thank you for your brains and walking me through each of these components. I am grateful um for this score. I have to say though that the bulk of this around uh those measurable outcomes uh third grade reading the algebra one career and technical and college
210uh information etc. I didn't teach one algebra class so I'm grateful to the teachers. I didn't tutor in third grade reading so I'm grateful for the tutors and the partners. I uh did not provide one credential to a student. So, I'm grateful that um the staff and the students worked really really hard for us to get where we are and I look forward to the B portion of today's conversation um determining what the next goal set of goals and measures will be and um look forward to continued partnership with our staff, our students and our families and community. Great. Thank you. Any other discussion? >> All right. So, there is a motion on the floor and a second. Um, discussion is closed. Can we take a vote now? Oh, wait. I'm sorry. We'll remember just
211>> so you know I am um definitely um happy to approve or move forward with approving the uh evaluation score but also noting the other aspects of the evaluation. So yes, there was the uh performance objectives that we were able to evaluate, but also the superintendent standards where there's the survey of um tracking uh areas of growth or and also providing qual qualitative as well as excuse me quant yeah qualitative feedback on uh the progress for the uh superintendent. And so I think there were several things that provided um pretty much a uh holistic framework to uh assess the progress and the growth and also an opportunity to uh lean into constructive feedback to move forward uh with the next evaluation. >> Thank you. And just so that the public is aware, this uh particular
212sheet which is on board docs does have clickable links. So the spreadsheet that is is referenced in part C and part A is uh available along with the comments as well. So we were attempting to be fully transparent in this particular evaluation process. We're ready to vote. Oh, board member Craig. >> I just wanted to note as we we were talking about the process we follow and again a very transparent process and a very new process we're doing. We're one of the few districts around us who actually follows a process andor even gives a grade for the for the quality of work that their superintendent does. And so I think that's our commitment to the public to hold ourselves and the old administration accountable. And and I think that's something that should be better paid
213attention to is the fact that we have consistently done a uh evaluation or or some type of assessment of the superintendent even in times when we've maybe not always thought it was the best method that we've used. But we've had a method. We've done something and I think it's uh it's actually something we're tasked to do or supposed to do as a responsibility of a as the board. Um, so I just wanted to know that like we have been consistently in doing that and I think the hope is going forward we now have a process that we can consistently keep doing it in a manner that uh gives the superintendent full knowledge and full information uh about what she's being evaluated on and what she uh what the process will look like. All right, board
214members. Keep looking back and forth. I should turning my head. Are we all ready to vote now? >> All right. What? Uh, Mr. Dustin. >> Mr. Craig? >> Yes. >> Mr. Crosset? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lindy? >> Yes. >> Miss M? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Weinberg? >> Yes. >> Vice President Bolton? >> Yes. And congratulations. >> President Moffett. >> Yes. All right, we are now um we're at the point we've approved the evaluation. So now we are ready to talk about some targets, some objectives, and a scoring methodology for the 2526 evaluation. On the screen are the superintendent's stated goals for 2526. Superintendent Murphy, do you want to briefly talk about Do you want to talk about each one? You don't have to, but um would you like to kind of go through your goals?
215>> Yes, ma'am. >> All right. So, uh the first suggestion that I have for board consideration is around third grade reading. Um we are, as we mentioned in the presentation, really excited about some of the strategies that we're putting in place. uh some new that we're learning about and some that we are expanding uh because of great work we've seen in other schools within our district and classrooms. Uh we know that literacy is the key to being successful in all of our curricular areas. Um being able to read and understand comprehend what you're reading is super important. So I would like your consideration around continuing uh to focus on third grade reading. and you see the measure um listed there. Uh we did take a step back this school year. So considering trend data and
216considering that we do have some more catching up to do uh is the basis of where I'm placing those measures. Dr. Mafford, do you want me to do one at a time or >> No. Yeah. Well, however you're most comfortable. There aren't that many. >> I I'll go through the rest and then Okay. Uh and so then algebra 1 uh we saw tremendous success there um this year by uh having some pilot programs in some of the classrooms and in our schoolh houses. I'm excited about the partnership we're having uh through the federation with uh as Amy Rand, Superintendent Randolph mentioned, uh having licensed teachers in algebra 1 classrooms, having that smaller class size, all the things that you have mentioned are important to our school district. Uh we've been able to stand by that
217and get that in place. We do have quite a few new teachers and so there is uh because of that and because of the amount of growth that we had uh this past year we are a little conservative maybe um on uh this measure going from 47.1 to 50.1. You saw in the presentation the work that is being done around making sure we close our gap uh reading gap for our economically disadvantaged students in particular. And so that is what we've selected around sixth grade reading. We did not hit the sixth grade reading goal uh this past year. So we have dug in to that to make sure we've identified what we need to do to get better. And so you see um a gap close closing measure from 50.7 this is compared to non
218disadvantaged students to 47.7. Uh we are I am very fond of all of the college and career work. So, in the realm of career and technical education, focusing on our graduating concentrators, uh, we're looking at the number of industry recognized credentials that are at 12 points that our students are earning, and we want to take that from 53% to 56%. A few weeks ago, we mentioned that our current strategic plan, we have met many of those goals. Some we have not hit yet. many of those goals. This year is the sunset year for those goals. And so we recognize a need to begin to work on a new strategic plan for our school district. So seeking support around that work and working with our treasurer to make sure as you talked about earlier that we
219have a supporting financial plan. So those are the five that I'm proposing uh that would make up the 60% of the goal measures for my work. uh in 2025 2026. >> Well Lindy, thank you Lindy. >> Thank you and thank you superintendent for uh sharing the proposal. This feels like exactly the right process where we're getting clarity early on uh start with with ideas from the superintendent. Um I think two of these off the bat uh at least two feel great on my end. Um my colleagues may disagree uh but I wanted to share the two that I think seem great. Um I think that on the third one closing sixth grade reading gap between economically disadvantaged and non-economically disadvantaged. If you if we look back over the last several years this gap has been
220growing. And so when you look here at changing that direction and shrinking it, that feels like a big deal and ambitious and a great thing for our district to strive to do has my full support. Um, and I think that on this fifth one, that fifth one, I was trying to mention this in the context of the the uh three and fiveyear forecast presentation. Uh, this is just really important and I I've seen it several different strategic planning efforts in the past. And I think the thing that makes this so important is it says supporting financial plan. Um so that we've thought through over a multi-year time period um what will it cost to do what we want to do with kids? What's the expected revenue and cost structure? What what kind of what kind
221of new money do we need to ask for? And this would this would put that uh in the context of us having a really good reason. So I just think this is great. I I know that you'll need to work closely with the treasurer on that one. It's it's not really one either of you could do on your own. Um I imagine we'll have something comparable for a treasurer. Um but I think on three and five uh I think these seem truly great. Um I have um an idea on um um would you prefer I share? Well, yeah, I'll try to do this as quick as I can. I think if if we can go to four for a second on the um industry credentials. Um I have an alternative proposal to this. It's just
222a different way of thinking about it. Um my my experience, limited experience has been there's a real difference between earning a series of one or twopoint credentials that add up to 12 and having a credential that will really get you a job that will create a pathway to the middle class. I would like us focused on the second of those two things and less on the first of those two things. I was trying to think about what would be a way that we could start on that this year. And so I was interested in um how many programs do we offer here in CPS that lead students to a credential that has that kind of value in the job market. um seemed to me that you've got 12 point scale um from the state of
223Ohio. Uh how many workforce credentials do we offer that are a sevenpoint credential or an eight or a nine, but something that that's that's a high point value. Um I really appreciate the data I received from the administration. I think by my account we offer eight of those programs today. Um most of those are at Woodward. Um and a handful in some other schools. Um what if the goal for this year was just to expand the number of programs we offer that that lead to a higher value workforce credential. So if we have eight today that are seven points or higher, what if we tried to add blank number more by this time next year? A blank could be you could tell me that an ambitious but feasible version of that is three or an
224ambitious but feasible is 25. I actually have no idea. Um but like let let's focus on the thing that's really going to make a difference for kids. And I think that's access to these programs that lead to higher wage earning in the job market. So that that was that was my thought on four. Um I I'll pause and I have some other thoughts on one and two, but I can come back to this. would would be very interested in the superintendent's reactions. >> My my immediate reaction uh would be for adding programs. Um my my challenge would be to do that this year because I don't have the teacher or the program or the approval from the state. But if you said by next school year, >> this is the beauty of an evaluation that's
225in October. Uh so you'd have a full year And what would be the reasonable number of ads? >> You from my perspective, you tell us. I mean, I think like I I think I think creeping up from um where are we? This is the Can you scroll down just a little bit? Creeping up from 53 to 56. um the number who are summing up to 12 when those might be a series of things that don't have as much value in the job market versus offering more that has higher value even if it takes us a year to do it. That just seems like a a more intentional way of making a difference for for children. I do welcome dis certainly this is one person's perspective and welcome others but that that was going to be
226my recommendation. Okay. So, give that some thought. Um, Vice President Bolton. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, I'm I'm comfortable with the the first one regarding the uh third grade reading and I'm comfortable with the emphasis on algebra 1. on uh the third one. Uh I would like a even though it's that's the term we use in the policy if I recall correctly. I I need to have a better term than economically disadvantaged largely because 92% of our kids are called economically disadvantaged and aren't. I'd really like to see the actual category. It would have to it would have to deal with uh um uh low income perhaps or whatever. There has to be a way of identifying those those students. The reason we have it in the 90some percentile is that we agreed that back
227about eight years ago to partake of the plan where we would be feeding all of the students uh breakfast and lunch and that was a financially good thing to do and it was a a wholesome nutritional thing to do for the grade. So, but that that's economically disadvantage. There has to be I really feel strongly about the this third one because it is where we scored the lowest on this on the state report card at least by how they categorize it. You know, uh we we met state standards regarding the readiness piece and the other couple we were uh you know need some help from the state. The state actually in their commentary kind of uh highlighted the gap. So, but I would like to have an actual subgroup that is identified as being uh
228uh lower income or however we can do that to uh to figure that out, especially considering that we're fourth in the nation uh regarding child poverty. Um uh this is something that I think I just need a different way of measuring the two uh against each other to see the to see the gap for the fourth one. Um I I think that that um I'm trying to remember our dialogue about that. First of all, that is the area that we met state standards. We got a three in that category because we so accelerated whatever in the world we were doing. Uh and I think that was great. Uh because I think that's the ultimate expectation of the community is that our when the children leave here they are ready whether whatever it may be. So,
229um I I think that that goal could be higher, but I'd like to keep it at exposing the greatest number of kids to doing it because I think that's that's our responsibility. I I totally understand wanting to up the the type of programming, but I also know that's dependent upon the state. is dependent upon finding a a staff member and finding staff members that have the credentials to do career tech is very very difficult. So I I would I really like to be able to expose the greatest number of kids even if it's just that first step. I think that would be beneficial. And then on the final one, um I I I don't know how the time frame works uh with the strategic plan and and having a financial plan as well. Um I
230think I agree with this number five for sure. I just think that there might be parallel uh time uh timelines there. And I would like to add to that the improvement of the financial data that appears on the state report card uh as much as having a budget because that that last page of the state report card doesn't read that well for us. And I think it's a matter of how we've been categorizing stuff or what counts as what. It's not that we but we don't look that good on that as as good as I think we are. it. Uh I'm totally supportive of one and two and certainly supportive of of five and need to have um a a way of actually comparing two very different groups uh for number three. And I think
231the fourth one can be more aggressive if we have it be about the greater number of kids taking those first steps in multiple programs that we already have and we're going to add to that's fine. But that's where I am on these five. Thank you. >> Thank you Craig. Um so to address one thing that uh vice president Balden raised technically the state does offer out guidance that says basically households that are at or below 185% of the federal poverty federal poverty guidelines. So I mean I think we can find a way to find some way to measure that information out to define what economically disadvantage technically equal equates out to. Um, it also sets it as qualifying for for your reduced lunch, but that again goes back to not necessarily who gets it, but
232who qualifies for. So, I think there's an easy way to kind of figure that one out. Um, as to uh the goal recommendations that you you provided, again, I think one and two fairly reasonable to me. I think there may be some potential for one that might be a uh I think there are some schools that may provide a bigger bounce back than we expect. But again, I also understand why we would do uh some level of of caution as well because I think we can say that now, but then we could be looking here two months from now and see some other craziness come down the line that would cause our students to feel some kind of way. And I also I still have a very distinct concern around the entry of our uh
233multilingual learners and especially at those early ages because I think we are seeing some of the schools that have the largest collection of multilingual learners are also the student schools that have the lowest percentage of students on third grade reading level. Um and so like to me that I I know from experience with some folks who teach in those schools. You have schools, students who come in in the third grade who don't speak the English of don't or don't speak their native language well enough, let alone speak English. Um, but because they come in at a certain age, that's where they get put sometimes. And so I have some reasons to think that we may not see it, but I also have reasons to believe we could far exceed that number. Um, I wanted to
234to tap into something that board me board member Lindy raised with regards to the workforce credentials and and again I probably have been on the biggest soap box about this. Um, so I know that I am probably uh repeating myself over and over again, but I I just find the standards that the state offer doesn't actually prepare our students to go out into the world. And I and it bothers me that when we have industry partners and we have folks through like our businesses and stuff who say the test that they give at the state doesn't mean anything to us. You start at the very beginning and you you know you start over really is a you know doesn't really prepare them for anything. I also recognize it is a process to get things approved
235as a career tech and whether it's the instructor whether it is programs I think there might be a way to kind of compromise some of the ideas there which is one to expand the opportunities to offer some of the higher higher number or higher credentialed courses that we already offer and that idea of expanding the numbers that we'd offer um could be that goal four and I know the exact wording I would want to use on it, but I do like the idea of expanding both or expanding the the potential for schools that offer seven or higher uh credentials. So, that might require you to expand the number by one or two, like to get new ones in, but it also really talks about getting some of these that are higher level, at least an
236opportunity for a student to to have that course or to find a way to take that. Um, and the reason I say that also is because I I I again know that we have so many partners within our community who've been begging for ways to connect in and like even something like entrepreneurship is an is an area where we've had a lot of folks begging to be a part of the conversation. Um, medical administration, IT, some of these others that are really about technology that we could use ways of maybe thinking more creatively. But I say all that to say that's for offering that so that you build that for the next school year, not this school year. And and and I think that is reasonable to say because I think again this school year
237it would be weird to come in mid- semester and say this is what we're now offering um at a school that nobody signed up for yet. Uh but it also may be harder to do as a second semester of this school year. So, I mean, I can see a potential of saying expanding the offerings as well as the opportunities at schools for credentials that are seven credential or higher. Um, the other part of that is the reason I I think that's also kind of a good thing to do is there are a lot of credentials that are potentials out there, but to your point that requires you to go through a process within the state. So even if you were just able to expand of the I think board member Lindy said there were eight.
238I think if even if you expanded three or four to to other schools right or two to other schools that may be the goal right like we want to get two more schools that offer you know whether it's medical administration or IT or something or even what some one of the ones that are are higher level that we offer. I think that gives students more access to stuff. I think then we can start to build in that strategic plan. What are we talking about when we say credentials? What are we talking about when we say you're going to graduate with some skill to go into an industry? And then maybe who are those strategic partners as part of your strategic plan that can also start to offset some of the potential cost and potential things
239that go along with those programs because I think that's one of the other hard parts is as you look at the list of the ones that are like 12 credentials, there are things like getting, you know, your black belt and six sigma and lean six sigma, right? That's a really hard like there are adults who don't do that in six years. Like so like I'm not sure that there are that many schools who offer that. But other things in there are ones like the medical administration and it that are maybe something that we could potentially start to offer in some way or not and connect up to some of our you know like uh college mate UC Xavier NKU uh yeah NKU um but I think those are all things I would want to see
240a the strategic goal uh for your year would be to build that and maybe Then what we would then be looking at is that next year is the implementation, right? And I think that's gets us a little bit more into thinking about how do we go from creating one year goals for you that like every year we just kind of build a okay now go to three now go to four right now go to five people doing this but to think about what prepares the next year's goals to be successful also. And so those were my little two cents on uh on the five there. >> Thank you. I'm gonna let board member map go. >> Okay. Um so thank you for uh sharing your uh potential goals for 2526 school year. Um as we
241talk about the goals and we talk about the evaluation process. Obviously this is a critical um piece of work that we would do in collaboration so that there can be that level of accountability um and that direction moving forward. Um, as I'm looking at the goals and just knowing based off of the feedback that was provided from this evaluation that we just approved, um, I'm interested in seeing us stretch a little bit more. I know that this is just for next year. Um, but I think that in seeing where we are um, again, we are possibly playing it safe um, in terms of what the expectations are for our goal targets. And so the question that I asked uh during the instructional plan presentation was now that we have this plan in place, are there
242areas that we are able to stretch our targets um and be more robust with our um with your goals? Um board member uh or president Moffett spoke about um why are we here, right? Or that question of how do we get here? And I I don't necessarily know that that question is for the assistant soups or the deputy, but I think it's more directed to the superintendent. And so, um, being able to identify why we are where we are in terms of whether we've seen progress or whether we've seen a regression and then how are we going to put things in place? And so, I know that it was mentioned around the report card simulator. Can you speak to that a little bit because um does that help to generate maybe the targets or the
243trends? Um can you just speak to that? Yes, ma'am. So, so far with the report card simulator, we've mostly done that at the high school level where uh you have a target that you think you're aiming for and you look at where your students are and you plug them into a process to see where is the gap and what things need to be put in place to bring the kids up to whatever that gap is or whatever that target is. >> Okay. Uh thank you for sharing that because you know again just thinking about the targets uh from this past evaluation to now I really do want to stretch ourselves um and again it not where it's not realistic but I am more interested in seeing um more intentional effort around our growth and so
244um there's an instructional plan that has been supported or that you have presented and championed. I want to see that same alignment uh from that instructional plan uh um reflective in the goals. And so we're talking about the 55.7% um to the 58.7%. So we're kind of most of the goals are at the a 3 percentage point or a little above a 3 percentage point um uh target. And so if we are able to see a little bit more of a stretch there um is what I would be interested in seeing especially for our uh third grade uh as well as with our um algebra 1. And then if we go to the um goal four is the uh CCP um and ACT uh free free remediation scores is that incorporated in the process of
245being able to earn an industry recognized seal? >> No ma'am the industry recognized seal is for a career and technical education attainment. >> Okay. Okay. So, um, as it relates to this, I would be more interested in, um, moving beyond just the exposure, right? Um, but really being able to lean into, uh, as my colleagues talked about, um, making sure that there's that actual, um, you know, preparation and attainment to, um, being able to step into employment. Um and so I think as this is uh reading down is just earning the industry uh recognized seal but to yes to be be able to strengthen um what that target is um since we've since we've done so well as board member Bolton talked about um I think we can expand that just a little bit more
246too. Okay, board member Weinberg. >> Um, since we are talking about uh percentage points and just to go a little bit off of uh my colleague here, what would be the rationale, superintendent, in terms of how you were able to get to your numbers that you are suggesting for this? What would you say your rationale is? >> So, one component of my rationale is when you look at setting targets in general, a standard is a 3% increase over time. pretty that's pretty standard when you're setting goals and setting targets. Um, as I mentioned with third grade reading, we did take a bit of a step back with algebra 1. We made a big jump and so for me going more than the 3%. I'm a little cautious because we did have a big jump. Um
247the sixth grade reading gap uh with the economically disadvantaged uh uh versus the non-economically disadvantaged we over the period of time the last several years four years or so have not done well in that area. the the gap is widening and so that is going to be my stretch goal quite frankly u just because of where we have been as a district historically um the uh percentage of concentrators earning 12 um point industry recognized credentials these these credentials are not easy they are very uh hard and they are um credentials that even adults aspire to attain um and so that's why I feel like this three percentage points there is reasonable. Most of our 12 points as mentioned earlier are um right now at Woodward Career Technical High School. Expanding that um would mean a
248financial piece uh to to get additional teachers to get additional equipment. The 12point credentials are generally speaking around uh some of the uh construction pieces and that that those construction materials and to build out those labs can be expensive. Um welding can be finding a welder to be an instructor can be very very challenging uh or find any professional in these areas because they do have to have x amount of work experience. So that's why uh partly my rationale around the 53 to 56% there. >> Thank you. >> So I'm going to go because I have to go to the bathroom. So I'm going to take a point of privilege here just a little bit. But I I do want to direct board members to um some of the data that was presented to us.
249Um Superintendent Murphy if and I think you may have it as well. I personally think that the numbers that you presented are rather low. I I say that because they feel very safe and considering that we just uh praised you for 4.6, I think you can do it. So, I would like to look at some of the data that says the state average and then it talks about the average change per year of other comparable districts. And I board member Lindy and I look we we differ on some of the comps of districts. When I look at the state change, it's higher the rate of change is more um a it's higher than what you've pres presented, but it's also more in alignment with um a larger number. So for me, I'm um I think
250this I I just went up on average of five percentage points on one, two, and three. And and I and I'm also going to remind my colleagues and the public that we're talking about 50%. We're talking about low numbers and we're to me playing it safe. We're talking about proficiency. Rob, if you can go up just a little bit on one. We're talking about the percentage of third graders safely rising from 55.7 to 58. I would feel better if we pushed that to at least 60.7, which is just the five percentage points, because it gets it gets us out of the 50s. that bothers me when we're talking about numbers, but all of these numbers are attached to proficiency of students. And I think that um I I I think if just looking at your
251trend data, you were able to move it higher. I understand that there may be some challenges, but I'm proposing 60.7% for one. Um I went up to 52.1% again getting us out of the 40s not just a little bit but some significant movement I understand that um there may be some challenges there but realistically I think that it is possible particularly looking at the rate of change that we demonstrated previously looking at number three the sixth grade reading gap um going down from 50.7. I thought 46 seemed a little bit more reasonable based upon the rate of change that we previously demonstrated. With regard to number four, part of my constrnation with career tech is that I think that we are not as efficient with career tech as we could be. I think that we've
252got robust opportunities in apprenticeships with our unions. We've got robust opportunities in um partnerships that have asked and begged to be at the table to provide those opportunities for our students. We've got staff that can provide some of the like cosmetology. We've got staff who are cosmetologists. We've got >> It doesn't count though. >> No, no, I understand that. >> Okay. >> Thank you. Um, I I just think that we can be more creative and I want to invite that challenge to you to be more creative. I do know we've left um significant money on the table and when you say that the that there's a financial challenge um we we've left money on the table. Um, and I I think that we need to encourage exploration of uh broadening opportunity so that we can
253uh truly meet the goal. And so for me, I I increase that a little bit. The last one is um you know, I really I didn't have enough information at the moment to make that um that determination, so I'm fine with yours. But I just think that we're talking about proficiency of students and with all of the great things that we've seen as far as curriculum and programming and we're partnering with our uh teachers at the table to make some significant changes and they're buying in and we're able to really make some movement. I think that we can we can make this happen with a little bit more significant change and aligning with some of the average changes that we've seen and also that are aligned with the state. So I'm proposing 60.7 52.1 46
254for the first top three. Thank you, >> board member Lindy. >> Mr. Problem, I think um I know you have to uh hit the facility. I've been out twice myself, so it's a long meeting. Um I was going to say uh um we can get you when you come back, but um one process suggestion is that we vote one goal at a time. Uh it just might be a way of like getting some clarity and moving things forward. We don't have to do that. Just one way we might do it. Um I think I I I um lots of lots of great thoughts and I could probably get on board with any number of things people have suggested. Um I didn't talk about goal one or two when I went before and I just wanted
255to come back to that for a second and I wanted to tie in I think some of the comments that President Sers made during hearing the public also some of the suggestions from Dr. Moffett. Um I I really do think this is the most important conversation we're going to have in a long time. um because it gets to what do we believe is possible for the students who go to Cincinnati public schools and what do we think our job is and my colleagues here know this because we've been talking about it um in some of our executive sessions and and and um uh I wrote about it in the in the in the op-eds. None of this is is is uh um new. I think it's really important to look at growth, not just what
256percent of kids are passing the tests. If you look across Ohio, even if you just look at the districts that serve almost all economically disadvantaged kids, like Cincinnati public schools, you can see over the last three years, not how many kids pass, but how much improvement has there been in the in the share of kids that pass. And you can take those districts, you can rank them, and you can ask yourself, gosh, you know, what what is the fastest improving district in Ohio? What is the slowest improving district in Ohio? What's the middle? And so for me, um, for me to vote in support of something, it has to be the case that we're growing above average. I can't think of a single reason why the students who go here can't improve as quickly as
257any other student in Ohio. I know that we have homelessness challenges. I know that we educate students growing up in poverty. I know we have crime issues in our community. I also know we have enormous assets in our community. And every single parent of a student in CPS believes in their kids and wants what's best for them. And so for us, where we set these targets, I think really matters. And so what I keep coming back to is let's look at what the top cortile of growth is across the state of Ohio. wherever we're starting, surely we can aspire together to improve at a rate that is in the top cortile. And so I I pulled a bunch of these numbers. I shared them with my colleagues. Um I we'll make sure we get a
258copy that's posted on board docs, too. Um and uh you know, I think frankly the third grade reading target is really close. It's close enough that I'm happy to support it. You know, it says we're going to go from 55.7 to 58.7. That would be the 72nd percentile for improvement. That's great. Would I would I be happier if it were 75th? Yes. Am I going to vote against it because of the difference between 72 and 75? No. That seems petty, you know. So, I I I think that's great. But if you if you go to the algebra one figure, um three points is really different. If you look at growth across Ohio districts, even if we're just looking at districts that serve almost all low-income students, three points of improvement would put us in the
25935th percentile, the bottom 35th percentile. You know, that's very that's well below average, you know, and I I cannot in good conscience vote to support a target that says what we expect of our kids and our staff is to be in the bottom third for improvement in the state of Ohio. I just can't vote for that. Um, so I I just think that the numbers in the context really matter because I think it speaks to what we believe is possible for children and what we think our job actually is. And so I'm happy to support the first one. I'm happy to support the third one. I'm happy to support the fifth one. That's already three out of five. Um, at least from my perspective. There are really good arguments about number four on all sides.
260I think wherever the majority of the board lands, happy to support it. I think I think two has to be higher. Um what what I would recommend uh is that we try to be in that top 25th percentile. Um and for us to do that, the target would need to be 53.9. Um and again, we know that's possible because a quarter of districts in Ohio are already showing that kind of improvement, even districts that serve almost all low-income kids like we do. Um, and again, just as that process point, um, one way we could move this forward is to vote one goal at a time, um, and see if we get some wins on the board. Thanks, >> Vice President. Vice President Bolton. >> Yeah, I have a a question about the, um, credentials. Um,
261what role does the credentials, as we've been, uh, discussing, have on the graduation rate? Earning these industry recognized credentials can help you with graduation for sure. So while you have um of course your credits to graduate in the state of Ohio, your state testing, you also have the opportunity to graduate with um credentials whether they are stackable or the individual 12 points. >> Thank you. So that's another reason why I think it's important to make it wide open and and I would suggest doing both adding some courses of with a higher level and also having it be as uh the number of kids participating. U again I don't want to depend upon the state or find depend upon trying to find a certified licensed career tech person u as part of the job. But I
262would say maybe do both. And obviously the one would have to be for the following year because that's how long it takes even to get it uh done. I know we've gone through 18 months of of trying to get certain courses uh added. Um, so back to the the idea of the I think it was 206 districts that uh member Lindy pulled out um regarding third grade reading if I'm if I'm reading it right. when I looked at those 206 and it is economically disadvantaged and we already said why that is not really the true cohort of actual recom income uh issues and challenges when I but that list that you did give us and I think it's important when I looked at Akran and Canton Cleveland Toledo Cincinnati Dayton I didn't find Youngstown for
263some reason over the three-year span And for third grade reading, Akran showed 7.9 improvement. Canton showed 9.9. Cleveland showed four. Toledo showed 7.3. Dayton lost a point over those those years. And Cincinnati public went up 11. So I mean, we have been on a good trajectory on that third grade reading. And I but I I I don't want to make aspirational goals that have uh don't show the trend line. There is some trend line that shows it for the reading. But um I'm I'm the the algebra piece and I'm uh I'm I'm I'm happy with at least we have some agreement along the way on the five that this superintendent has chosen. Um, but I also believe it is a mutual agreement and it always has been when we select goals and when we talk
264about how to hold the superintendent accountable. It is not a unilateral effort by the board. It is this kind which is why I think we have this conversation in public. So I want this to be a mutual agreement. Um, and I don't know if uh I know we want to vote on things, but I also uh wouldn't mind to be able to um have some reassessment or find some consensus uh between the board and the superintendent. Uh after all, they actually are the professionals. Can you can you just read those numbers again that you just said because I believe that if I heard you correctly even the data that you just shared shows a higher CPS trend than the three points here. So >> that's the point that's the point I'm making >> that it
265should be higher >> that that one could be higher and I think that's what I said that I you can read that and understand that I don't know that the algebra one where we've made the great stretch already needs to be yes but I also am trying to point out that this is these are actual cohort schools for us because the reality is it is not about poverty that is separating whether or not the kids necessarily are doing well on achievement or growing or showing value added. The real issue is we have a higher percentage sure of poverty than the state and our other districts but we also have a higher percentage of kids that are on IEPs. We have a higher percentage than the state average of kids that who is second language is
266English. Those are things that impact greatly and we have a significantly higher number of of kids that are experiencing mobility. Those three things have a lot more to do about achievement uh uh on these tests that the state sends out than whether or not some kids in poverty. >> Oh, I agree with that. >> But I think it's also significant to point out >> I wasn't comparing us to those other districts. I was comparing us to our own trend data which is significantly higher than what is here. So I wasn't even looking at the the poverty rate and those other things. I was looking at we've trended higher than what is here proposed. So I I wasn't taking that's that's just significant. >> I was just responding to that 206 district. >> Yes ma'am. Superintendent.
267>> Yes ma'am. Um, so I'm wondering if the board would consider um for third grade reading 55.7 to 59.7, which would be four, not quite the five, but higher than the three. I'm wondering if the board would consider for the credentiing piece if our team if we were able to add two more credentials that were at least seven points or higher for the start of the school year which means this year we have to work really hard to get there. Okay. And then I think there may be agreement about the strategic plan. I don't know the algebra one. I would really love to keep the 47.1 to 50.1 >> board member Craig. >> Um so on the on what you just shared with us um I was actually going to probably come somewhere near where
268you were at with the reading number as well as with the with number four. I think that's actually a reasonable thing and and to be quite honest I I do think it's a challenge but I also think we've got folks who at least my conversations I've been having out there are a lot of folks who've been begging to help and they have this puts an honest on on your team though whose responsibilities and especially some of the principles and as well to be able to work with the partners that are around them right like even one of my concerns as well is that as we leave this next year we will also be losing using at least one of these 12 credential programs that's offered at Riverview. >> We'll just move it. >> And that's
269what I'm but no. What I'm saying though is that we have a we we have a program now that we know that at some point in the next year essentially we'll not be at that particular location. I may be at somewhere else. Um but we also know that like for instance as we're building the programs at Sailor Park, those are great opportunities to partner with Cincinnati or with um College of MO who have a number of resources that could potentially build some of those things that we need that may not be a 12 credential, but maybe it's a six. Maybe it's a nine. Um I know the way that they structure those out is also really weird because it's like very few. It's like nine and 12 basically. >> I know. I don't know where
270to say. >> What happened to the seven eights? I don't know. lesson of mind learn, you know, you count it up certain levels. But um but I think the idea though really is that we for all of the goals, some of these are going to feel like they need to be stretched but may not be because of particular reasons. Some of them may not feel as much of a stretch. Um like the strategic uh plan is something we're already working on, something's going to be there. I think it's something you'll achieve, but it's like a necessary thing that we will measure against, right? Um, so I don't have a problem with with what what you've proposed in those numbers. The only thing I might say with regards to the algebra one test takers idea. I
271appreciate and understand and again I will say we were in the 20s 3 years ago y'all. >> And so like I also note that that is a is a far leap from where we were three years ago when we started the previous gold guard rails number. um the the economically disadvantaged one for me and here's where I will maybe I think there's opportunities to do this. I am very cautious until we see something that shows that we are actually heading in a positive path on that one to start expanding it. number the number three and again part of that is for me is that we we saw a trend in the last year that some of those numbers went actually up and even in if even if we used based on demographics we saw those
272numbers expand in the gap and I think that's one of those areas where I I am I understand we want to push and I think we should push but I think pushing means that should not be your goal should not be the goals the district leaves ourselves at right like your goal should be where we can do and then what we need to do is exceed those goals. And I think that maybe come into part of the conversation we'll have about >> what happens when we exceed the goals you said what does that mean in our evaluation method because I think if we leave no space for that >> right >> then like you know it's the idea of like if you if you make it only great is what you can achieve then what
273does good look like and if good doesn't look good anymore if good looks poor have we really set great is a is we really set the expectation of achieving great now it's still also important to have loftier goals sometimes than what we what we think about, but I think it just has to have that space for us to exceed them. And so I'm happy to to support the 4% uh for the 4% increase for third grades. Um I again I'm I'm also understanding of why we would stay at 3% for algebra one. I could even see us saying, you know, 50.6. So it's like a 3.5. It's not much higher. Um, and I can see us staying where we kind of are with the closing the gap just because we are actually not heading in
274a positive direction right now. Um, know that that would mean that next year that would need to go a different direction. Um, but I like your idea of expanding out to and and I would even maybe think about it in ways of looking at maybe the corridor, right? So to ensure that we would by next year we would have at least one higher than six% higher than seven um in each quarter. So in theory that would expand those opportunities around the district >> and provide a little bit more equitable look to the district. >> Um and then the third one then the fifth one is fine with me. >> Make a little motion. >> We'll move across. >> Yes. Thank you. Um, I'm good with u the 4% on the third grade reading. I I
275understand uh I think that the 3% increase on algebra and one makes sense to me. I think that this the big increase we had this last year might be tough to repeat. So I I'm I'm fine with that. I think on the um sixth grade reading gap uh whatever we determine whatever number we determine the e low income economically wherever we are in that measure I would like to keep it at you you've got a 6.2% reduction. So wherever we are I just say let's keep that 6.2% reduction. I think that's really aggressive and you know let's go for it but still it's going to be tough on the um uh credentials. I think if you just leave your goal for this year to go from 53 to 56% is fine but with the idea
276that in year two you're going to you're going to start to add some programs. I I I think it's difficult for you to do that now. The budget set it's hard there's so many things in that that you cannot control. So, I think you need a year to to get there. Um, and then of course the strategic plan is is great. I do think that maybe we would be interesting to me to add a deadline date for that to be completed. Maybe uh I don't know if we can do that tonight, but uh u but I I think that would be useful >> for which one? >> A deadline to have the strategic plan finished. >> Strategic the last one. >> Okay. >> I think she's got that one. So, not Mr. Cross says September
27726, 2026. Not that's how that's how it's written right now as a um >> Oh. Oh, I see. Okay. You got that in there. I don't know. Is that realistic? I mean, should we have it done sooner before the school year starts? I think we we need it maybe in August to to set new goals. I'm not Well, let's see. We evaluate you in October >> and it may be right. >> Okay. Well, I don't know. Okay. Yeah. Sorry about that. >> Can I respond to that for a second? >> Sure. Board member Lindy. I >> I think um I want to echo member Cross's suggestion about a date. I I and thank you superintendent for including one. I do think the date should be earlier and here's why. If it's going to include a
278financial component, it's got to be part of the budget we approve for next year. So I think at the latest like June 30th, you know, like because because otherwise we're we're repeating the same problem of voting for financial plan that is disconnected from our strategy. That's nuts. Um, so but I love the I love the date idea. Um, I I I hear board member Bolton's thought on consensus. I do think that would be better if we can get there. Um, but we might not be able to get there. Uh, I cannot in good conscience support an algebra goal that says our stated aspiration is to be in the bottom third, not for performance, but for growth. That's just just for for me, for this board member, I cannot in good conscience vote to say that's
279our expectation for ourselves. I think it has to be in the top half. My preference would be that it be in the top quarter. Um, and I I I think when you look at the data, I think we know where that is. So, the the number the number for me would be somewhere north of 53%. on that algebra 1 target. Um what what that's saying is that we're going to improve basically in line with what our trajectory has been. Uh I think it sends a bad signal if we say we're going to we're on a stated trend line and our expectation a year from now is that trend line is going to be worse. Like that just doesn't make any sense to me. >> Um okay, >> last thing. Uh I we're going to need
280to ask the public for more money like at some point probably within a year. We need to be able to say look at the high expectations we have for what we can do here. Um I think this is where we demonstrate that and and I think that there's a clear path forward there. >> Okay. Well, I'm going to go I I appreciate the 59%. I would just really push us to get out of the 50s. if we could just go to 60 that would make me feel better but to stay in the 50s just makes me very uncomfortable for the third grade one and it's our trend is higher than that um for the algebra I had 52.1 that was at the five percentage points up um board member Lindy said 53 I said five
281percentage points again we're trending much higher than that um ourselves. So I think it should be more aggressive. Um what did you propose for the third one? >> I whatever we come up with as a determin uh economically disadvantage just reduce by 6.2%. That's what the proposal is now. Just have that percentage apply to wherever we decide what the percentage is of the district. Brandon, >> hold on. Hold on. Hold on. >> Hold on. >> That was pretty. >> I was talking to the superintendent. >> That's okay. >> I I didn't suggest a change for the third one. So to close the gap from 50.7 to 47.7. >> So you're maintaining that number. >> Yes. >> Okay. Well, let's Does anyone else have anything else? because I think we can go through these one by
282one just to see if we have any alignment. Um >> on career tech again the the suggestion is not to make it uh besides adding a higher level course uh which I think is a great idea. Have we dropped the idea of exposing more and more kids to uh whatever uh opportunities? Well, the way I worded it was adding two more uh credentials that were at least seven points or higher, which in my mind would expose more children. We're exposing more children to higher stuff, but we're not counting, we're not trying to grow the number of kids that are coming into the entrance level. We're already going to go down in graduation for a couple at least one reason that I won't discuss. >> But >> well, the entrance level is a different conversation than
283earning credentials. >> Yeah. >> So we But so we're dropping that or >> Yeah. >> Did you want to answer that question? Are we are we dropping that? That's what question. >> I hadn't thought about the entrance level. Um and then thought about the entrance level. >> Okay. Well, remember member Craig >> I mean so technically the credential requirement was to have at least 12 industry related credential points. I think if the superintendent is able to expand access to some of the ones that are higher level that means more students would actually reach the 12. Um so in theory you would have that number increase from 50 like would increase by the exposure. I think what we are asking about this year which might be a little bit different is to prepare something for the
284next year recognizing that this year we still yeah she's still going to be working towards getting a higher number of students who are exposed but it's how do we prepare for next year's group so that we have more opportunities to offer programming at least my suggestion add on to what she had offered was to make it around the equity end of it of trying to expand handed at least one one of each at least one in each corridor that would be offered out. >> So I I need clarification. I'm sorry. Maybe I if you could just explain it like I'm two. Are we talking about is this particular goal talking about exposure or attainment of the credential? >> So originally this goal is about attainment of the credential. >> Okay. originally, but based on the
285conversation, my um thought is now adding it adding two more credentials that are at least seven points, which they'll probably be higher than that, but are at least seven points. I do like what Mr. Craig is saying is looking at the corridors to make sure kids have opportunity. >> Okay. I I think that that's changed it. >> It changes it. that changes it, which is a different conversation. I agree with what you're saying, but to me, then that changes the entire intention of the goal to me because it's not well because that's not that's exposing more people to it, but they're not earning it. >> But they're they're going to ear yeah, we expect them to earn it. >> Attain attain it. >> Remember Lindy, >> I just think it's great. Like it's an example
286of a hard choice. like we are saying that we'd rather spend the energy creating a pathway to something that's going to be more valuable in the long run >> than running up the number of students who are getting credentials that are okay but that actually don't help that much. You know, this is a strategic choice. I think it's a great idea. Uh probably because I said it about 30 minutes ago. Um but I I got all my good ideas from Mr. Craig. I credit him with this. Um but anyway, I think it's great. Thanks. >> I think we're all tired. We'll remember Weinberg. >> Yes. So I did not go. I didn't know that we were all going to go around and share and so I'm just going to be very quick. Um just kind
287of looking at the proposed performance objectives. I do definitely think that all of them that are listed are great. Um I do like um some of the numbers that the superintendent has proposed and I do think that as we are thinking in terms of pushing our students um really making sure that we are stretching them. So definitely I see here in this algebra the algebra one making sure that we are not falling too low that when we compare to the state average that it's very low and I know it's going to involve a lot of hard work >> and I think that we can do it. Um I'm thinking optimistically here and um in terms of all of the other ones that you suggested superintendent I do agree with those numbers. Um the one in
288question would be the algebra. So just kind of wanted to share that. >> So let's Is there any opposition to just going one by one? >> Okay. So that we can I know we're all super tired. >> What? >> Where are we? I'm sorry. Where are we with the third grade reading? >> Well, I was going to have the superintendent read each what what her new number is and then we'll vote on it. Each one. What was your first what was your new proposed number? It was 59. >> Okay. I'm following my notes. Right. So for third grade reading, my thought is from 55.7 to 59.7. >> I move that we accept that recommendation. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right. Any further discussion? >> No. All right. I'm sorry. >> I
289do um and I'm sorry about it. Um but just I I do want to see us move to that 60 um uh 60.7 as well. I mean, we've talked about that there's been a decrease in this area, but we have not received any significant um explanation as to why there's the regression. And so, um, again, I don't want us to play it safe with any of our targets. And so, I do want to make sure that we are stretching, um, uh, ourselves as a district to work towards um, moving beyond uh, or or extending our uh, proficiency levels with our students. And so I would be more interested in the 60.7 versus the 59.7. >> Yes, that's but again I recognize that we'll vote on it and I can vote based off of what I
290think is more appropriate. But again, um we've talked about the third grade push. We've talked about the intentionality around the instructional plan. And so um that would suggest to me that we are able to have supports in place to really move that data forward a little bit more. >> Well, member Wber >> and what would be the um the points the difference? >> What would be what >> what would be the >> the 60.7? >> Yeah. Well, given the fact that we were seeing progress with the data um previously and then we saw the regression again, we've never had any clear direction as to why there was a decline in that area and what we were going to do to um really strengthen that target. Um we've we've seen significant growth with algebra 1 and
291I believe we can see significant growth with the third grade reading. >> So it's about a fivepoint increase. So, you're thinking that we should stick with the five point instead of lower. >> Okay. >> Superintendent said 59.7. She's proposing 60.7. >> Okay. >> Are you offering a an amendment? >> Yes, please. >> For me to decide if it's a friendly amendment or not, I really would like to hear from the superintendent. Um, so originally I came in with a 3%age increase and um the president said uh five to get to 60 makes sense to her. I think I was um my thought is the four. I I feel um that's more than reasonable and I'm not saying those that's the lid to I think the point was made earlier but um I have to make
292sure things are attainable. >> Okay. >> I think I'm sorry. >> It just is a a procedural thing. I think the the motion on the floor there's amendment. I think um I respect everything about wanting to raise the bar. To increase that much would put us in the top 20th percentile, like like better than 80% of the districts in Ohio. I'm I'm receptive to the idea of wanting to keep it feasible. And so I I I do really appreciate the where it comes from, but I think I'm from unless other people want to vote against it, like I would keep the um I would keep the recommendation at where it currently is, >> which is the 59.7. I'm just reminding people of that the superintendent's recommendation is 59.7. Vice President Bon. >> Yeah. The two
293things to to mention are this has to be a mutual agreement between and among us uh with the superintendent and also the idea of having that bonus space also to to um try to achieve as well. So I think I'm I'm accepting the change that the superintendent has agreed to as which is what is on the floor to vote on. >> Okay. So it's 59.7 on the floor. Any further discussion? >> All right. Let's vote. >> All right. Just so we just so it's clear, the the goal is we will increase the percentage of third graders proficient in reading on the Ohio State test from 55.7% to 59.7% by September 2026. >> That is correct. >> Okay. Mr. Craig, >> yes. >> Mr. Crosset, >> yes. >> Mr. Lindy, >> yes. >> Miss M. >>
294No. >> Mrs. Weinberg, >> yes. Vice President Bolton. >> Yes. >> President Moffett, >> no. Number two, we will increase the percentage of firsttime algebra 1 test takers proficient on the Ohio end of course exam from 47.1 to what are you proposing, Superintendent Murphy? >> 50.1 50.1 >> 50.1 Okay. By September 2026. Need a motion. So >> is there a second? >> Second >> discussion. Well member Lendy. >> Yeah. >> This just sets the improvement target in the bottom third of growth for Ohio. I cannot in good conscience accept that. I'd like to propose an amendment that would bring this up to 53.1. Um that is lower than what I originally had. Um but sorry let's just make it 53.9 which is what I originally had. The reason the 53.9 is there is that that
295would say we aspire to have growth. No we commit to having growth that will put us in the top quartortile for improvement. Not for achievement but for improvement. So would ask the motion maker if that's a friendly motion or not. But I think I think we got to strive higher. um is the discussion first. >> Oh, okay. Any further discussion board for Wanda? >> Yeah, I just wanted to check in with the superintendent in terms of with that um number that you are proposing, would you be open to moving that up a little bit? And if you are open, what would you suggest? And you can say no, you don't want to. >> We we we um we had a big gain this year and so I am concerned about keeping up that level of
296gain and um with all due respect, Mr. Liz, your proposal was 12. I mean that I don't know I don't know who I've never heard of people setting right from 47.1 to 53.9 >> it's six that's 6.8 six. I don't know people who go much higher than five. I don't know. >> So, superintendent, back to with the question. >> Yes. What would you propose if >> Is there any other I would ask the board, is there any other number that's acceptable? >> Um, >> what would be a number that you would propose? >> If you could give a number besides the one that you just gave us of the 50.1. >> Yeah, I think the Would you propose 52.0? Would you propose 52.5? >> What if what if that one is a 4 point as
297well? 51.1. >> So you would propose 51 >> one. >> And don't if you don't want to crane. So, I I do want to point out for some some clarity as I'm looking at our originally past goals from good old 2023 where we said we would increase from 30% in June of 2023 to 50% by June of 2027. Um you know again and those were 5% increases which we yes to a certain extent have reached in some years but it's in part between different times we did not meet that goal and other times we did and so I think the 4% is a reasonable compromise into reaching that space even because at that time we only said 5% increases every year as the goal. So I mean I guess I I'm I'm in a little
298ways wondering how do we go from 5% to more than 5% as the expectation given that even we were at 5% we were barely if not we were we were not necessarily because up until this year we were not close to reaching that goal. Um so I mean I I think I could see us saying something like a 4% which still put us above where we said we would be when we originally set these goals in 2023. because this year would be that June of 2027 number which again is only at 50%. According to what we said then and I'm not saying that to say that that has to be the perfect number but I just think I think we also have to recognize that yes we're a little ahead of where we expected to
299be but we're not that substantially ahead. Um and so again I think if if the superintendent is open to adding another percentage point to make it what is it 51.1% I don't think that's an unreasonable number. I think it is a stretch goal and I think we also have to be mindful of that and and now we evaluate and and give feedback throughout the process. Um, and then I think this also goes a little bit into again if we leave no room for that idea of having a bonus, what's the point of having a bonus, right? >> Um, so I would throw that out there. Um, as a just a thought again, I'm open to other uh proposals for with regards to a friendly amendments. >> So I'm I just want to comment because your
300question was how did we get above the four? I'm looking at the trend data of CPS 20 uh school year 21 22 we were at 27. We have averaged a change of 6.7% every year. So to stay at four is significantly under what our own average has been. And so that's what I what I meant when I said that I'm not looking at other districts. I'm looking at what our average trend has been. So our average trend 23 24 was was 38.3. Last year it went up to 47.1. Previously to that it was 29.9. The average change is 6.7. So I thought a compromise I said 52.1 but 53 is still well below what the a what the average trend has been for CPS. And so, um, and and and also I I want to
301just share this. For us to go so low makes me question the confidence that we have in the things that we're putting in place because I believe that the things that we're putting in place are going to really really benefit us and help us. And so I trust that and I and I and I trust the team. So I think that we can we can depend on that average change to be consistent. So the average change was 6.7 and I I think to go up above 50 is is fair. Um because that's based off of what we've been doing. So that just answers your question. But the number that was proposed well member Lindy said 53.90. So I I said 53.9 and I I just want to just this is exactly the point you're making
302Dr. Moffett. I just I couldn't agree more with everything you just said. Um so the the number was 53.9 for exactly the reason you said >> there's a question on the the trend on 6.7 >> over how many years >> it was the average. So what's on this paper is school uh 2122 we were 27.1 22 23 we were 29.9 23 24 we were 38.3 24 25 we were 47.1 so that average change is 6.7 >> I'm just I just worry that this last achievement is more of an anomaly than it is necessarily continuation of a trend >> I would agree but even the years before so I I have a problem kind of working the trend backward uh with that anomaly being the the top part and I think the four is uh the
303reasonable. >> Okay. So what we have on the table is that superintendent Murphy what did you >> point of order real quick this who made the motion >> say it again. >> Who made the motion? Okay. So I had offered an amendment. I still don't think we know if it's a friendly amendment or not a friendly amendment. >> I would just I and again I understand everything you all are saying. I think for me that to go to a level in which it was not we haven't seen a consistent six each year. We've seen one or two years of substantial and other years we saw two or three. Um and so for me that is a it's just it's too high to set as the goal to say that this is what she has to
304achieve. I am happily willing to entertain numbers below that point that are more in line with what we even said when we did this goal three years ago, four years ago because again to me that is more in line with us being consistent with the expectations we set on the superintendent then expectations we set on the district then the things that we said we were putting together in programs and systems to get these numbers up then that I think have been successful. Yes. Um, but I I just don't think going to that level for me would be considered a friendly amendment at this time. >> So that's not a friendly amendment. Still on the table, which was your number of what? What was the >> I think the superintendent offered out that she would >>
30550.1. >> Uh, yeah, right now it's at 50.1. I think superintendent offered out that she would uh feel comfortable with 51.1 as a >> Okay. friendly amendment which I would happily take that as a friendly amendment. >> Okay. So, is there any further discussion? >> Well, member cross, do you have your mic off for on >> does it need a second? >> Oh, this um won't belabor this. I'm gonna vote no because this sets our expectation that we're going to be in the bottom half for improvement >> of districts in Ohio that serve low-income students. I think we can do better than that. >> Shame. >> All right. >> Vote. >> Let's vote. And it's I will read it. It says we will increase the percentage >> please >> the percentage of firsttime algebra 1
306test takers proficient on the Ohio end of course exam from 47.1 to 51.1 by September 2026 Mr. C. >> Mr. Craig >> yes Mr. Crosset Mr. Lindy >> no >> Miss M >> no >> Mrs. Weineberg. >> Yes. >> Vice President Bolton. >> Yes. >> President Moffett. >> No. Number three. We will close the sixth grade reading gap of economically disadvantaged students and non-economically disadvantaged students from 50.7 to 47.7 by September 2026. Is that the number that you're desiring to keep? >> Yes, ma'am. I need a motion. >> So moved. >> Second. All right. Any further discussion? >> Vice President Bolton. >> Just with an asterisk regard regarding economically disadvantaged. Just needing a definition for that. Not tonight, but something that classifies it. >> I'm sorry. >> State definition. I guess >> I'm I'm just
307not I want to make sure I'm following. Are you Are you suggesting, Member Bolton, that we explain to the public what this means? Are you explaining we use a different category? A little bit of both, but most particularly, I want it to be a true category regarding income rather than economically disadvantaged as to accepting the lunch and breakfast. I I want it to be an actual group where it is about income. an economically disadvantaged encompasses too many folks. But there is a there is a state definition of what the income piece would be. So that's >> I think that the the definition that ODW uses is this. I'm I'm confused about what the alternative would be >> low lower income. I mean, >> I just >> economically disadvantaged is that 90% stuff that everybody it's
308who's accepting lunch and breakfast. That's not necessarily determined by income. >> I'm not 100% sure that's true. >> It is. >> Well, we're not going to fix that part tonight. >> Just put an asterismber. Well, so the definition is offered on the uh Ohio department's website is that the students who are up to 185% of the federal poverty line or that they qualify for free or reduced lunch. So not necessarily they receive because people can receive it who don't actually qualify for it. >> I can live with that. >> So if you're cool with that one, which is the definition they have on their site, then I think that's still fair thing that the superintendent can work with. >> Cool. All right. There's any further discussion? Well, member Weinberg, do you have your mic up?
309>> Okay. I didn't know if you I didn't know if you were going to say something. All right. Mr. Gustin. >> All right. >> Mr. Craig? >> Yes. >> Mr. Cross? >> Yes. >> Mr. Lendy? >> Yes. >> Miss M? >> Yes. >> Mrs. Weinberg? >> Yes. >> Vice President Bolton? >> Yep. >> President Moffett? Yes. Number four, we will increase the percentage graduating concentrators who earn at least 12 industry recognized credential points from 53 to what was your number? Oh, wait. >> So, we changed that one, right? Did we change that one? >> Yeah, we did. >> I think we changed that one. Let me get this together. Um, we will add two additional industry recognized credentials of at least seven points. The asterric is considering the corridors. >> Okay. So, I'm going to
310let you read that. >> Yes. One more time. >> The whole thing. >> We will add two industry recognized credentials of at least seven points by September 2026. >> All right. Does everyone understand that one? Does anyone Oh, >> so moved. >> Second. >> Thank you. Discussion. Uh >> this was already mentioned but I just want to make sure that I'm tracking. Um so does this in any way impact what our current goal is under our uh strate strategic plan with the goals and guards. >> So there's currently a goal in the strategic plan that combines college and CTE. I don't know about heart. I apologize. Um, but because they're two different measures is why I wanted to break it out and because we've had so much discussion about workforce is why I selected CTE.
311>> Okay. So ultimately from my understanding um that goal will remain but you're just aggregating out like this will be your focus to really uh lean into strengthening this area. >> Yes. Okay, thank you. >> Any further discussion? >> Uhhuh. Number four. >> Oh, she you wanted to read it. Okay. Can you read it one more time? This is board member Wineber. We all heard you, but board member Wine. We will add two seven Seven point or higher. That's not what I said before. Industry. We will add two industry recognized credentials that are seven points or higher by September 2026. Any further discussion board member M. >> One more thing. So um as it relates to this, is there um I guess language or a way that you can connect this to graduation? I can
312say four graduating concentrators, but I don't think that's what you really want me to do. Um, because I'm thinking of listening to the whole conversation. >> I'm just thinking about our graduation uh goal. >> Yeah. Um, I'd have to think that through a little bit. >> I don't I think that's a different um vantage point. >> Okay. So, >> most of the kids who are earning credentials for the most part are seniors >> for the most part, >> especially if they're at 12 points because to be a concentrator, you're going through a series of courses in a particular pathway. So for example, I am in health technologies and I want to do STNA. There's a certain number of courses that you have to take in order to sit for that credential. For phabbotomy, there's a
313certain there are certain courses you have to take to be able to sit for that credential. So >> this whole concentrator thing, graduating concentrator, I don't know. I think got to wrap that wrap that in there. But keep in mind, so I'd have to I need to also before I answer you reasonably, look a little deeper at what is seven points because some of the smaller ones, three are things like first aid that anybody could get. >> Stop the bleed. Um there's a few. >> Um so >> okay, >> sorry it's not the best answer. >> It's okay. late. Anything else? >> Yeah. So, again, um still just thinking about what those overall uh you know, those main goals are. Um but I do I do like the fact that you've uh decided to lean
314into those uh concentrator pathways and strengthening those because that to your point, we have had um significant discussion around that. Um, so I appreciate you for really trying to work to honor the discussions that the board has had and shared with you. >> And so let me not um I don't want to mislead you. Um, you can also do something like welding and get a 12point credential and not uh been in a pathway. So, for example, um I know students who have been in manufacturing who can take the welding and earn that 12point credential, but you can also be in construction, take the welding and earn that credential. So, I don't want to mix the two. Right now, I think we're talking about adding opportunity and earning the credentials at the same time. >> You
315good? Okay, board member Craig, >> I was just going to raise I think >> I think we should be careful about not also completing graduation rates with any of these numbers because graduation is a lagging number that we track. >> Yeah. >> And so what we really would be measuring when we talk about graduation rate is the kids that already graduated, >> not the kids who are graduating the next this year. Um, so that's the other part to it is that we may have some numbers that don't materially connect when we create when we combine those two. But I do think the idea is that students would graduate students are more likely to graduate with the necessary credentials if higher level credentials are offered in a more equitable way in the district. And potentially as
316we expand the idea of having more of those, we're then offering them more experiences that actually relate to them being able to take a skill out of there from here. I think right now the concern is really we've done a lot of work with and there's a chart that's been provided I think superintendent provided and we all were uh sent it. Uh but a lot of our workforce credentials are in the ones and threes which is not uncommon but it potentially you know again learning stop to bleed is not necessarily going to expand your opportunities to a job anywhere else outside of maybe being a lifeguard um as it's a requirement for that but like that's I think one of the things we were kind of trying to discuss now. >> Okay. All right. Um
317discussions over Mr. August >> Mr. Greg, >> yes. >> Mr. Crosset, >> yes. >> Mr. Lindy, >> yes. >> Miss Math, >> yes. >> Mrs. Weinberg, >> yes. >> Vice President Bolton, >> yes. >> President Mau, >> yes. The last one, we will create a three-year strategic plan and supporting financial plan by September 2026. Is that date still applicable? >> I think you >> I believe you asked me to change it to June. I believe that was June 2026, Mr. Lindy. >> Okay. >> June 30th or something. >> So moved. But by whatever date we approved the budget that that June 30th. >> June 30th. >> Um I had a motion accepted. Was there a second? >> Second. >> Somebody. Okay. >> All right. Hold on. Who motioned? I'm sorry. >> All right. And who
318seconded? >> Second. >> Thank you. Sorry. >> Any discussion? Are we all awake? Wake up. All right, let's go. >> Mr. Gustin, >> Mr. Craig, >> yes. >> Mr. Crosset, >> yes. >> Mr. Lindy, >> yes. >> Miss M. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Weinberg? >> Yes. >> Vice President Bolton? >> Yes. >> President Moffett? >> Yes. >> Great job, guys. >> All right. So, now as we >> last thing before this is 30 seconds or less. The new policy requires the board by this meeting to do three things. We've done those. I just want to name this so that we're not confused about it later. We needed to approve last year's evaluation. It's done. We needed to approve performance targets for this year. It's done. The third is approve and public the scoring methodology. So
319the way this is going to sum up to a final score next year so that it's not a surprise to anybody. We're not changing anything. So we look we looked at this in executive session as we were allowed to do but I wanted to say this in the public meeting also the only thing that is different is last year any goal that was exceeded got a six on this fivepoint scale. You can look at the spreadsheet if anybody's really interested. The only change we're making is we're not doing that this year. The highest you can get is a five, but we're very interested in exploring the idea of a bonus for goals that are exceeded. Um and I just want to check with my colleagues. Is there anything that I'm missing? But that would be
320the last part of what we have to do tonight. >> Any >> Thank you. >> I think we're all good. Um I lost my train of thought, Ben. All right. Do board uh Here we go. We've got a prop proposed consent agenda has been distributed. Are there any exceptions? Do the board members, the superintendent, or the treasurer have any exception items to the consent agenda? Whatever member Weinberg. >> Okay. So, section E, page 8, um, line 2 through 5, 11 through 15. I may have to look at this one again because it looks like Oh, 27 through 30. Well, Let me get back to you on this one really quick because I see here that I typed something wrong. >> Okay, one member Matt. >> Oh, no. I'm still going. I'm still going. Um, let
321me say them and then I'm going to come back and correct page eight. Sorry about that. So, I'll start with page nine. Page 9, lines 7 through 12, 18- 19, 22 31. Page 10, line 2, 5, 7, 10- 15, 17, 20, 24- 26, 28, and 31-34. Page 11, line 8- 10, 14- 19, 20, 22, 33- 36. Page 12, line 3, 5, 10, and 21. Page 15, lines 7 through 10, 16 and 17, and page 17, line 14. In the treasure report, page five, line two, page 8, line 1- 5, and page 10, line one. Thank you. We are really going to talk about board member Weinberg as soon as the camera goes off. Board member Matt, I am going to go on record by saying board member Weinberg has me beat. >> Gosh, finally today
322I have uh uh I just would like to abstain from the treasurer's report page 10 line items five and six and page 11 line item four. Does anyone else have a book to abstain from? Mr. Gustin, >> do we have a motion? I'm sorry. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Is there a motion? >> Is there a second? Thank you. >> Any further discussion? Oh, yes. Board member. >> Yes. I did have a quick um question about the treasurer's report on page I think it was 13. >> Can we just um get an a a quick explanation Dan and that's my only one. >> Sorry guys. Yeah. Say it again. I'm pulling it up now. I think it's page uh just page 13. I just wanted to have a a little bit more context or understanding. >>
323Yeah. Um so we had a construction project at Pleasant Ridge Monasuri. Uh there was an aesthetic difference in what was uh constructed versus what the plans were. just an aesthetic difference, but uh we negotiated a essentially a u allowance so that uh reducing the cost of the project by $100. >> That's what I wanted to make sure. Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Treasure Guster. >> Mr. Craig. >> Yes. >> Mr. Crosset. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lindy. >> Yes. >> Miss M. >> Yes. >> Mrs. Weinberg. Yes, >> Vice President Balden. >> Yes, >> President Moffett. >> Yes. All right. So, um, is there any are there any assignments that board members have? I do have one to review very briefly. Superintendent, a few months back, we talked about having a board meeting
324in the community at one of the schools. Can we revisit that and get a um an update of when that would be a good day, even if it's early next year, but like preferably this year. And then a reminder that the board retreat is on Saturday, October the 11th at 8:30 a.m. to all board members and the public. It will be streamed and you can watch it or come in. Any vice president Bolton? >> Yes. uh like to assign to the administration if it pleases the rest of the board as a followup to our conversation regarding the intra um enrollment at high schools just for the administration to share in memo form or whatever form uh the guide the administrative guidelines for that policy. Thank you. Anything else? It's been a very long meeting. Thank
325you all very much for sticking with us and have a great night. Oh, I'll entertain I'm sorry. I'm about to get out of here. I will entertain a motion. >> So, move >> is it for adjournment? Second.