CPS Board Business Meeting September 8, 2025

001seeing a quorum of voting members, I call the September 8th Cincinnati School Board meeting to order. Welcome everybody. Um, roll call. Where we at? I'm so sorry. Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our wonderful students. >> So excited to uh introduce everybody to our Ram fam. Today doing the pledge of allegiance, we have students from Chevy at school where principal Tammy Solomon Gray is their leader. for all. >> Thank you. Thank you to Principal Solomon Gray and the Chevy at Rams. Treasurer Gustin, please call the attendance role. >> Mr. Greg, >> here. >> Mr. Crosset. >> Mr. Lindy >> here, >> Miss Matt >> here, >> Mrs. Weinberg >> here, >> Vice President Bolton, President Moffett >> here. And um welcome to the DS. Uh Treasurer W uh Treasurer August. I did it. I was looking right

002at you and I did it. So, welcome. Welcome. >> Thank you. Board member Weinberg, would you please explain the virtual hearing of the public process on behalf of Vice President Bolton as she is at COSBA's federal advocacy conference in Washington DC? >> Yes, absolutely. So, members of the public who are online and wish to speak during our hearing of the public this evening may do so by clicking the chat button now. The chat feature will be open for your request for 5 minutes. And if you would like a direct response to your questions, please make sure to share your name, affiliation to the district, your school community topic, and also your contact information. >> Thank you. I need a motion and a second to approve the September 8th business meeting agenda. >> So moved. >>

003Second. >> Treasure Augustine, please call the voting role. >> Mr. Craig, >> yes. Mr. Lindy, >> yes. >> Miss Matt, >> yes. >> Mrs. Weinberg, >> yes. >> President Moffett, >> yes. Tonight's agenda is approved as posted. Superintendent Murphy, please update the board about your goals and guard rails. >> Absolutely. Thank you. Uh, at this time, we're going to have Mike Turner, who is the director over goals and guard rails, come forward. This is really an opportunity. We did share presentation uh during the last board meeting um reminding the timeline uh for our goals and guardrails. Some of the goals have been met, some are sunset due to the timing. Others uh the board may have the pleasure of extending and so we're at the end of the day seeking guidance from you on how

004you would like us to move forward uh with the goals and guard rails. So Mike uh Turner is going to share. It ain't everyone. >> You mean >> so Rob there slide deck says historic. >> So while Rob is uh bringing that up um there it is. So, one of the things that was requested was some historical data around the goals and so you have before you a presentation and I would like to I would like to thank um especially thank Amanda Vargo for a lot of her expertise with uh some of the data. Uh so the next slide just gives a brief overview of why uh the information uh was requested. Uh and so what we're providing is a few years worth of data in most cases. I will say that the most recent

005data that will be on the report card is not included because that has not been officially released. Go through this pretty quickly. U some of this you could delve into. take a very long time with it. But the next slide contains that I >> already broke a microphone. Wow. >> Can we turn this off? >> Yeah. >> Can you hear me? Oh boy, you can really hear that. So the next slide gives you a link to lots of historical data. Don't really need to go through that uh tonight, but it does definitely show the progression that has been followed over the years. Keep in mind that some of that data at that link is from the secure data center and is tied directly to the report card for any given year. Some of the data

006uh has a a tag on it that says CRS which is centralized reporting system and that is for all students but the report card we have our accountable students uh on that. So if we could go to the next slide, you can see the trend for third grade ELA. And uh in that you'll notice that for the 23 24 school year uh we do have a percentage of 57% which actually already exceeded the strategic plan goal. The strategic plan goal for this year actually uh that ends is 51% and so that goal was already exceeded last school year. Uh we certainly know that it will be exceeded this school year. So we had made the request to move the goals up for the end of this school year and the end of the next school

007year. So this data definitely shows that when we go to the next slide for sixth grade ELA, this is the one that is is a little if you could go back one slide, Rob. So this is the one if if you will recall for sixth grade ELA, it's looking at subgroups. And without going into all of the bars at the bottom of that, there's a a simplified uh table that uh we can look at now on uh the next slide. One of the things that we you can go Yeah, that slide right there. One of the things that we talked about at a previous meeting is whether to split those uh groups out or keep them uh together. And so what we wanted to do was give you in table format so that you can

008look to see what that looks like. And so for the slide that is up there, you will notice u a trend uh sometimes up sometimes down from 2020 all the way up to the 2023 2024 school year. Now, keep in mind that these have the black, Hispanic, and multi-racial subgroups split out on that. And there there was some concern voiced when we presented about splitting them out. So, we wanted to show the comparison of what it looks like when they're separated. And so if we just go to the 2023 2024 school year, you can see the performance of the white subgroup versus black, Hispanic, and multi-racial. And the far right numbers for black, Hispanic, and multi-racial show the individual gaps for those subgroups. And so one of the things to point out is that for

009black students that gap is 45%, for multi-racial it's 26%. It's pretty big variance between those groups. So the next slide shows that if those are all combined as they have been reported, that is the way that currently things are being reported. We have a com combined proficiency rate for black, Hispanic, and multi-racial of 32.2% 2% which shows a gap of 42.3% compared to white students. But that lumps together all three of those groups. Now, of course, behind the scenes, you know, from the curriculum standpoint, um, from being able to set goals and and all of that, they can be split out behind the scenes. But based on your input, we wanted to put together what would it look like if they were separated versus put together. So Rob, could you go back to the previous

010slide just one more time? So on the previous slide again, you'll see on the far right column how we have the variance from 45% all the way to 26%. And then the next slide shows what happens when those are actually combined. So then moving to goal number three. Goal number three is the algebra 1 trend data. And for 2324 we were uh in that 38 uh% range. But we already do know that based on the strategic plan goal of 40%. Uh we do expect to exceed that. That is why the the push goal was recommended for the end of this school year and the end of uh the 2627 school year to move those goals up. I mean, we do, of course, you know, when you go uh along the way, this is a really

011good example of 2021 school year, there was a particular number and then we dipped. I think we could all attribute that dip to uh all of the things that occurred with the COVID shutdown, but now there's been a pretty steady rebound and it appears that those numbers are continuing to go up. That's why there was the request to make the goals higher than what they originally were in the strategic plan. Goal number four is an interesting uh goal. So current leadership was not part of the methodology that was used to determine the starting point of goal four. So 46 point 47.6% 6% and again that refers to uh minority students who earned either college credit plus or workforce credential as seniors was at a starting point of 47.6%. There's been some problems in interpreting like

012where did that number come from? Also, what were the rules that were used for CCP credit? what were the rules used for workforce credential credit? So, just to give you an example and just stick with the 47.6% 6% as the starting point in the strategic plan. Uh kudos uh to uh Emily uh college manager and also Stephanie uh who is one of the uh data uh people looking at what would good rules be for this one. So for CCP credit, um, we use the number of graduating seniors that earned the CCP credit of a D or higher grade. So if they earned some sort of CCP credit, they passed the course, D or higher grade. Workforce credential, we weren't really sure how the 47.6% related to workforce credential. Was that 1.4 four points, 12 points,

013six points. So what we did is said and this is aligned to the report card. It's also aligned to the new indicator that measures college career workforce readiness military, the number of students that received at least a 12point industry recognized credential package. So using that and then the denominator would be graduating seniors as stated in the goal. So for the 2324 data, so again using last not this past group but the group before these were students who graduated in May of 2024. The next slide shows using those rules and so all the subgroups are shown who graduated in the class of 2024 looking at the or students because that's the way the goal was written. So you you earned either CCP credit with a D or higher or you earned a 12point industry credential package.

014So these are unique students. So based on the way the goal was written for black, Hispanic, and multi-racial students combined, out of a denominator of almost 2,000, there was over a thousand who earned, which is actually great, earned a CCP or a 12point IRC uh package. So that's 55.75%. So actually uh when you look at it that way there there has been growth in that area and in fact the goal four had an annual target for 2025 of 58%. Now this is based on 2024 but we know that our number of students who are earning 12 points or higher has been going up every year. We know the percentage of CCP students uh earning credit has been going up every year. So that gives you all a picture of how we're on target based on

015these rules, which really does align with the goals that were put into the strategic plan. Again, no recommendation to change those goals. And then goal five is graduation. And so there's a line graph for those of you who like who like line graphs. But if you go to the next slide, Rob, there's a table. So the table shows four year from class of 2019 all the way to class of 2023. Keep in mind in that range of years ODW or OD at the time and now ODW have changed the rules several times. Uh but looking at that you can you can see the trend and then fiveyear uh you have that uh as well but always keep in mind that the graduation data that's on the report card is a year behind. So it's a

016year in arars and we did not recommend any change to the uh graduation uh data because still not necessarily hitting that mark that was set in the strategic plan. So hopefully with the with the link that you got which really digs deep into the data and also uh all of these slides that gives a better picture of the trend data. Also keep in mind that as this trickles down for the interim goals for the strategic plan goals they're tied to this information. And so at some point fairly soon, we need to be able to set the X to the Y for the interim um goals for the strategic plan. The guard rails aren't necessarily tied to the report card data uh directly. Um, so hopefully that gave you more information, but certainly willing to answer

017any questions or uh provide any other information that you may need. >> Thank you. Board members, do you have any questions? Board member Craig. >> Um, so thank you for putting together the kind of historical trend on some of these things and a little bit clarifying information. Um, I wanted to just hit a couple things real quick and and give me my kind of thoughts on it and and allow you to kind of take back whatever you need to from it. But, um, I think in regards to I think we already seen trends that the reading number the reading numbers were trending up and that we were seeing some growth in there. And I think resetting what that expectation might look like and maybe even resetting where we want to track going forward, perfectly okay

018with that. I don't see ginormous problem with that. um the sixth grade ELA numbers though of of guard rail too. I think we do need to still keep that goal with regards to having the larger group. I I think actually the one chart you showed where it breaks down each of them so that we have them in front of us um is a great way of communicating the sub goals of like each group trying to improve this group or maybe there's a particular group that's still not quite getting to where we want it to be and how do we affect that growth rather than looking at taking them and disagregating them. And the reason I say that is because while we're seeing some growth in our Hispanic numbers, which is really great to see that

019the the closing of the gap there, if that trend turns around and and falls back, then we may be, you know, we may not see that same growth next year, right? And I think we need to be really recognizing that. I will say we probably also need to have a category of multilingual that is not just Hispanic. Um, but it's not something we thought about as a board. So, that's maybe a question for the board to consider. Um, because we do have many students in some of our schools that are multilingual learners that are not just Hispanic, um, who may affect other numbers in a way. Um, so I don't know if that's something we track in a certain way or if there's a way for us to think about that as well. Um, but

020but I think that's another just general thought is just for the goal too. Um, goal three again I think it's worth looking at but it is also interesting to see that that certain groups have fell off at different times based on the co numbers. So I mean that also could be something else that we examine but I think we kind of set on just tracking the goal but goal for is the one that I wanted to kind of spin the the brunt of what I was going to share with you. And I think in part it's because what we were talking about then was that we were just now moving into the period of time where we were giving where they were doing the um badges, right? The and and that's what we were we

021had just trended into how you would get your different certifications as part of the state guidance on that. And we wanted to make sure everybody met the required things to get to graduation for their workforce credential. So it wasn't so much that we were looking at specifically them going on and getting a job, but it was to complete what was required under the state law to get the different certifications for for the different industry related uh credentials as part of the OD now ODW standard. I think where if you were going to make any changes to that to me it is about are the students employable under what they're getting because I think the ODW standard is so low that many of our students while they may get their credential can't walk into a field

022any higher or any better position than they would if they were just coming out without the credential. And I think that's where we should be focusing a lot of our effort. If we're talking about changing the standard for the goal is that now that we know we can do it, now that we know that we've got processes in place where students are getting into some of these classes, um the workforce credential part may be something we have to look at of how we track it differently or some to that effect as to both getting the OD standard credential but also getting some type of industry lensure, industry recognition, industry certification or something to that effect that may accompany this standard. Um, so we could track both, right? We could track those who complete the required

023credentials and are there students who are meeting some number of, you know, if you're in a medtech program, are you recruiting enough credits to then be an associates degree or in a program or be able to jump in and be a, you know, a LPN or whatever the case may be that that that's at a lower level for your be ability to perform the task. if you're doing cosmetology, right? If we're talking about bringing cosmetology into the program, are you able to be licensed to go perform some some skill within that program somewhere? Um, and so I think that to me, if we're talking about making any adjustments, I think we need to be talking about making adjustments as to what this means now, if we're going to adjust for more numbers going forward, because

024we now have met certain standards and and now know how to do certain things within the expectations of graduating seniors. And so I I worry if we are not adjusting that way on on that uh fourth goal, then we're going to end up just kind of giving how many people can meet the minimum qualifications the state requires. And I don't think that's what we we're trending for or where we were hoping for with that. Um and I do know the CCP thing is also because in order to not have to pay for it as a parent, your child has to pass the class and the minimum requirement for passing the class is a D, >> right? So on some standards why we would want it to be a higher grade for the at the end

025of the day it's really about did they get credit in school. So I respect the uh reason why we have it that standard. >> Yeah. And just two quick points the the reason like for what was done for purposes of this since we did not know how the original numbers were set. very easily could have said a C or higher or you know the 12 points uh maybe we could have said more than 12 points there just or we could have said you know one of the measures that we get from ODW on the career tech planning district report card is four points or higher uh but we didn't know I will just give a note uh and you never know how long it's going to take them to do this but ODW has publicly

026said that They want to move away from a point system for credentials. Evidently, Ohio is the only state that uses points for credentials and they want to move to a tiered level. So like tier one credentials, tier 2, tier three. Part of the questions that they're not able to answer yet is what does that do to graduation? um you know what goes into tier three versus tier one. We have been told that probably by the end of this school year they will be ready to roll out some initial information about that which then would even change this calculation because if 12 points no longer exist then we have to figure out how to adapt in a number of ways to that change. >> Thank you. Are you done? Just the again the purpose of the

027workforce credential was so that they were eligible for graduation. So whatever the standard we were looking at at the time was what was minimum required to meet that element of a gra of having a diploma. I think we are now at a point where we can say we can do more than that. And so if that's what we're talking about trying to expand upon I think we still do that minimum standard but we may be able to do more. >> Yeah. >> Great points. >> Thank you board member Craig board member Matt. Um, so I just want to thank board member Craig for raising that uh point about the uh goal for I know that was something that was brought up uh uh meetings back um as an assignment and so I know that super

028assistant superintendent um uh has already begun some conversation and work around that. So maybe that is um something that we can look further into because I do agree with you. We don't want to just look at okay how many are enrolled or how many are able to be credential but um moving the needle forward and leaning into how many students are you know actually able to walk into apprenticeships um and continue that work. So thank you for elevating that concern again board member Craig. Um as it relates to the other goals um it is I am happy to see that we are moving forward and we're trending upward with the data. Um so my concern isn't so much around what target we set. Um my concern is around really looking at where we are and

029then again I know that co happened. I know that we have to start somewhere in terms of making progress, but it it really does dishearten me to see where our students are trending um academically, especially when we look at, you know, our subgroups, our black, our Hispanic, and multi-racial students. And so my question is really around what comprehensive plan and I asked this before. Uh what comprehensive plan are we looking to put into place to make sure that um all of our students are receiving an equitable education? Because when I look at this data, I see a concern with equity, right? And so how are we having those difficult conversations to drive our instruction? Um, in addition to how are we making sure that all of our students as much as we possibly can are

030on grade level or above grade level because again the data that is reflecting back to us suggests differently. And so how are we putting in a comprehensive plan to not only set the goals but attain obtain those goals? Um and then my last question is around how have we um have we taken the time to look into what interventions or what um you know strategies we've put into place before that are successful and how can we scale those to really be more aggressive with how we are again working to uh acquire the goals that we set for our strategic plan. Superintendent Murphy. >> So, uh, board member Matt, uh, I believe it's the next board meeting where we have our presentation on our instructional model and professional development plan for this coming for this current

031school year. U, in addition to that, one example around your thoughts, uh, what strategies are in place that seem to be working. Um, we're taking a deep dive into that tutoring aspect for the schools that have seemed to be successful. um with their standards. So we are um currently coordinating what that can look like across our school district and not just be in one or two schools. Um so that work is in progress as well. Thank you for that. So I recognize um and just having spent time in the classroom, I recognize that tutoring is important, but what are we doing with that tier one instruction that we're expecting all of our students to get? What are we doing with that tier 2 instruction? How are we able to capture our students while they are

032in school? I know that it's not our job to do everything. So, I'm not saying that, but what are we able to do? Um because the tutoring would be additional, right? What are we doing as it relates to um again that tier one instruction to ensure that our students, we're not just doing remediation, but we're doing acceleration with the work. So, how are we showing them on grade level above grade level work while also helping to catch them up? And then another question that I forgot to ask around this again just in looking at the data, what's what blar out to me is it's really devastating to see where our subgroups are. And again, I this is not um just your administration is years of administration, right? But looking at where our students are, I'm

033also concerned about what does representation look like to help support our students get to where they need to be academically. >> Thank you. Any other qu any other questions? Board member Lindy. Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Um, so the first part in terms of even tier one looking at that, that is the piece that's the information you'll get during the next board meeting. Um, and I only use that tutoring as an example. I understand that that's not I know that's um in addition and extra. That was just an example where we've seen uh a process that seems to be working with young people. Only reason I shared that in terms of representation, you're talking about our staff. What does our staff look like? >> Yes. So, we know that. So, when I see this data, I'm

034seeing that our black, our Hispanic, and multi-racial students are Yes. They're making progress >> and maybe I want that progress to move a lot swiffer, right? But this is concerning to me and I know that this is concerning to our community. And so um I do wonder what does representation look like in all of our school and I support all of our teachers, all of our staff, all of our um administrators, but I do know and and research also shows that representation matters. And so I know that uh previously we had a push for uh black male educators in the classroom. So what does that representation look like to ensure that we are supporting all of our students as best as possible? >> I can uh we can definitely get you the data specific but

035two pieces I do want to share. one uh in our HRT department, we do have uh personnel specifically working on the recruitment of um people who look like our students. Definitely the other program that we do have going out of our early childhood department. Uh I was worried we may lose that because of funding, but we do still have the leading men fellows piece where they're working with our youngest our preschoolers on train to work with them on literacy skills. So um those are two examples I can give you right now. Um but we understand what your question is and we'll get the data. >> Do you have the microphone >> working? If I could also say there we go for the uh tier one uh tier 2 etc. One of the things that is

036also taking place in addition to what Superintendent Murphy said to tie that together across the district, previously for the last couple years, we've had a pilot group of schools participate in multi-tered systems of support training. Uh so we have an aggressive uh roll out of that where we have now increased from the original 14 we've added 18. So there's teams of people from each of those schools participating in professional development on MTSS uh next week and then we have a roll out to bring in an additional 20 to 30 schools in January and the remainder of the schools will get training by the end of the year for next year. And so we do recognize that some people look at MTSS and and TEI as well. I'm not in the pilot. So, we're we're doing

037away with the pilot and we are bringing everybody on board, which then ties in directly with uh what Superintendent Murphy referenced will occur, I think, at the next board meeting. >> Thank you, Bo Lindy. >> Is it on? Rob, our mics are doing they're >> I'm sure that was user error. I'm sure that was my fault. Um, no, this is great. Thank you. I think this is a great discussion. Um, and I really appreciate all the data. Uh, I echo I think board member maps um effort to be clearsighted about the stakes that are involved with us getting this right and us getting this right quickly. Um I have a just somewhat radical suggestion um because I think it's important to pull back a little bit and look at across multiple years what are the

038different things that are going to be happening in CPS and for my part because the current goals and guard rails are going to sunset or would sunset at the end of the 26 27th school year this next school year. We're not that far away from needing to write new ones anyway. And there's been an enormous amount of change in leadership in CPS and the idea of goals and guard rails are based on a governance coaching model that we are no longer using. I think it's fine to let go. Uh and my my uh recommendation would be uh let's focus on just this school year for a moment. And I think that this is naturally going to be important because by the first meeting in October, we're going to be setting performance objective targets for our

039superintendent for the superintendent's evaluation for this school year. So, let's just focus on this school year while perhaps in parallel we work on writing a new multi-year strategic plan rather than I'm basically saying like what if we were to just like write a new work on writing a new strategic plan this school year so that we could start it next school year. Uh I think that would have a couple of advantages. Um, in in addition to the ones that I mentioned a moment ago, so much of what we're going to be able to do turns on what our financial resources are. Uh, and I think it I think there are so many big question marks about what our financial resources are going to be over the next couple of years. I think some of that's

040going to turn on what the state of Ohio does. Some of that's going to turn on what this district decides to do in terms of asking for any kind of new money levy. And so I think rather than those two decisions operating separately, I I really think we should bring them together so that whatever we're proposing in terms of a new money levy is tied to what we think we can accomplish when it comes to student outcomes. And doing that really well takes a while. Like I think that is a year-long project minimum. So, why not take the time to do that well and then relax and let go some of the some of the current goals and guardrail pieces? Um, I think that would that would both let us answer the long-term questions well

041while still holding the administration accountable for meeting improvements in this school year. So, that that's my radical suggestion. Um, and I just I wanted to just say that I really agree with what Mr. Craig said around a high bar for what is valuable in the workplace for students in terms of what we're measuring what we're tracking against. Uh I I fully uh support that direction. I'm so sorry I had one last thing. Um I think whatever we do in this front at the end of the day I would like to come from a recommendation from the superintendent. Not tonight obviously but I think you're asking us to get our input so that you can make a recommendation to us. Um there there's I have shared in this meeting everything that I'm thinking. So you know

042everything that I know. Um, but at the end of the day, I would love to vote on a on a recommendation that comes from the administration on what they think the right answer is. Thanks. >> Thank you. Board member Weinberger. >> Yes. So, I will be really quick. Um, Superintendent Murphy, in regards to I know that board member map had asked for some follow-up information regarding especially with goals one and two. And I know for myself what I would uh I guess what I'm wanting to hear or be able to see um when you do come back with some information just a more detailed transparent what is the actual plan in terms of how are we going to increase the goal numbers that we have set for the ELA and for our particular subgroups. So,

043I know that there's a plan in place, but I'd like us to know that plan. Whether it's giving us the steps of by month or by week, I don't know what you're going to give, but I feel like that will also help not only board members, but also community members, parents as well, just kind of having that confidence in knowing we are doing our best, which I know we are, but what are the steps that we're trying to do to help to improve that? So, I would look forward to seeing that in the coming weeks and I know that you're going to come very prepared for it, too. So, thank you. >> Thank you. I I just will add um I I echo the sentiments of my colleagues, but it is just really disheartening to

044read the data from a subset the subgroups. And I I am I'm on fire. So I don't exactly understand why there's not more of a sense of urgency and it makes me and I believe that there is I believe there is on all fronts but we just we have a emergent problem here and I believe wholeheartedly high achievement takes place in the framework of high expectations and we need to have those high expectations. Um, I'm I'm looking at the trends around the other groups and the black students, which our district is predominantly is lagging. So, there has to be a reason why that is. And I just I I think you all are the experts and you know why. You know, some ideas, some things that we can try. And I'd like to hear some

045dreams. I'd like to hear some things that maybe you are thinking about working that might work. Is it possible to explore some partnerships or some creative ideas? Um maybe maybe maybe we need to do some things different. But I think it is it is an emergency that we close those gaps more significantly and more specifically we're talking about proficiency less than 40%. For algebra 1. That is that is amazing to me. Um and it's very very very disheartening around career tech. Um I you and I have had this conversation, Mr. Turner, and I've had this conversation um with other people across the state. There is there appears to be career tech dollars and a priority from the governor and the state of Ohio around career tech, which we are now calling career tech, but people

046in the community know it is vocational. So I don't understand why. I don't know how we got to 47.6, six, but 55.75 is not much better to me. And so I am no longer interested in students being exposed to a class. I'm interested in not if they are working in the field. But I understand we can't track that. But are they graduating with the ability to do so? Not just exposed to classes with a D, but are they graduating walking across our stages with enough credentials to work if they choose to? And that's what we need to be tracking. I know that question has been asked multiple times, multiple ways. And I have gotten an answer a couple years ago. It wasn't where we needed it to be. So, I don't exactly know if that's

047not why we're presenting it, but that's the number that I'm very interested in. Can our students graduate with the ability to g be gainfully employed? Now, whether they choose to or not is is one thing and and I'm interested in that number and I'd like that number. That's been an assignment that's been open and I'd like it by the next meeting. Um, I I do share my sentiment with board member Matt, but I know from a from a color perspective, I know white teachers who are awesome teachers to our students, and I know black teachers who are awesome teachers to our students. So, representation absolutely matters, but I want to understand what's going on with this particular demographic that we can't get that number up. And so, is it something that we need to do?

048Is it something that we need to explore? What is it? And the trend has been going on for the past few years that you all should have some idea as to what it is. Um, I'm not interested in a number that looks good. I'm interested in the truth so that we can get better because I think you all have the answers. I know you do. You're experts. You have the answers. But just tell it to us like it is because the numbers we're the community is wanting results. 37% proficiency is heartbreaking and we can do better. we need to figure out what it is and if it's t if it's tutoring as a supplement then you know let's look at that and and come with some solutions as to how we're going to get it

049better because because we need to so any other board member questions or board member Matt >> um not a question I just wanted just around um the conversation about how many students are able to you know that's graduating that's able to um be licensed in some type of workforce program. And so, uh, uh, Mr. Turner, I know that we have the partnership with IBW, right? And so, I know that that's a great, uh, program maybe to begin to look at because I know that not only are the students are um, not only are they acquiring a pre-apprenticeship, there are several that I know specifically have been able to go on, graduate, and now they are in the apprenticeship program and actively working. So those are the things that we're trying at least for me I

050believe my other colleagues are maybe looking for the same information and data. What num what numbers are we seeing with those students that are able to have that level of metriculation in the professional world off two points. Uh, one, IBEDW. We have had a pretty good amount of success with that in the last couple years uh, in growing that. It started with a couple schools. Now we've got five or six. Just heard the other day from a counselor at a school uh, that said, "Hey, so and so wants to be part of this." And that is not a school that has necessarily been a focus. And so we're working that out. One of the stumbling blocks that we've had which has seemed to reverse itself is to complete that program they have to pass an

051essential skills test which is really reading and math and that has been a problem. Uh so we do see the pattern. I completely agree with you. One of the things that happened last year is after instruction with those students, they they turned it around, took the test a second time and actually uh passed it. One of the things I'll just say about credentials, and I agree with everything you all have said, part of the push and pull that we have and and we have 200 plus partners just through career tech. So, some partners do want a very technical credential. So, IBEDW, for example, students who complete that get a 12-point credential, call the electrical interim alliance credential, but training alliance interim credential, but nonetheless, they can go into the IBEW program and there you go.

052But there are as many who say, "Yes, we'd like a technical credential who say we will worry about the technical credential. We need students who have leadership skills, students who will come to work, who will be good employees, who can collaborate. So we do have a a a good amount of students who complete a package that includes leadership excellence, two lean six sigas, which is pretty sought after out in the business world, the yellow belt and the green belt. And those add up to 12 points. And so I think part of it is the semantics of what a credential actually is. And some of us when we hear credential we think welding, we think LPN, we think this. But then there's another set of people who say we'll worry about that. We need people who

053are going to come in with these leadership. And we do a lot with the lean six sigma yellow and green. Now, black belt, we haven't touched that yet. That's pretty intensive even for adults uh who've already left school. So, definitely taking in everything that you're saying, but just one of the points is there are a lot of business people who do want leadership credentials and many of them also don't have like a particular credential like IBW. Uh so but we have risen I mean we've doubled the amount of students in the last three years who are walking out with a 12point package but I do agree the minimum is definitely what is that minimum? I definitely agree with that. What is it? And ODW has set the bar pretty easy to hit with some of

054the credentials and we've actually moved away from some of those packages because they're meaningless. >> Well, thank you Mr. Turner. I know it was pretty ar arduous. Do you have to add >> just really quickly because I'll do a assignment later with regard to this. I do think while I think it's important for us to talk about leadership credentials and I think that's a great skill set piece. I I what I worry about is that we have folks who are graduating with minimum standards from the state who are told they are now credentialed to do work that they are not actually credentialed to do. And that's I think also part of our point is that if we're telling a student, you know what, you're ready to go into construction and then the truth is they're

055not even at a base level or anything above a base level, >> right? >> That's not, you know, necessarily a credential. Now, there are other areas, you know, again, for instance, in uh putting together like I know in in the theater programs, there are credentials within there that are not necessarily going to be a certificate or a license to do stage craft or to do stage work, right? But but you have skill sets that you could use and go and be employable and we can think of creative ways to track that. But I just want to make sure we're not telling our students you're credential to do X work and in reality you're not. You're not licensed to do it. You're at the same starting point that everybody else would be. You may have great

056leadership skills and we make may say we've increased your employability, but we're not you're not licensed to do or you're not certified to do. And that's the only thing I was I wanted to add to that part. Okay, thank you. >> Okay, I think that we've probably beat you up enough right about now and um we'll move on. Thank you so much. >> Okay, go. I'm sorry. Board member London. >> Um I don't have any further questions for Mr. Turner. I just wanted to check for with are we clear on what the next steps are or superintendent, do you have any questions about what the next steps are with because there's been feedback coming in a lot of different directions. Yes. I'm not sure all of it consistent with >> Yes. Uh Mr. Lenny, I

057heard you say you'd like us to come back with what the exact recommendation will be. Uh, I think the board may be having a conversation on the idea, the radical idea to sunset the whole thing and focus on this year, but you will tell me what we're doing in that area. Um, and so then I have a slew of questions to bring back specific data um, based on what was shared today. So, the next step should be on the superintendent to provide us some additional information based off of what she's heard. I think that was what the intention was. Yes. >> I I that sounds great. And I I would just say that um superintendent where where you said that um you would wait from the board on whether to sunset the golden guard golden

058guard rails and change the timing. I I um I would be interested in what the superintendent whether she thinks that's a good idea or not. as you're putting this recommendation together. I think um I would only want to do that if you thought it was a good idea. Uh and if you don't, I think we can do something different. >> Can you say that now or do you want to wait until >> I'm I'm in no rush either. Like we can >> Okay. Do you want to wait? >> If it's the board's pleasure to allow us to work on focusing on this school year, that would be great because I do think um we mentioned in the last meeting to me January 2026, we should begin to work on what the next plan is. So,

059um, uh, many of those are in a very good place for a lot of different reasons. And I do think, um, with things coming down the pike that are a little bit different or the priorities of the board are maybe a little different than what is necessarily on this paper, what I would love to do is bring you back five um, recommendations and see if we can move along from there for the 2526 school year. >> Okay. We also would have some additional information at the Cal which is all academics as well. So, >> so goals and guardrails that is on the agenda for Cal uh unless you president mafeta decide to do something different and we were prepared planning to be prepared to come back with XY values around all of these goals. Well,

060and and if I could just quickly add, if taking into account this conversation, I would still see the cow meetings as October, for example, there are some guard rails on there. There's no reason why that information cannot be presented as here's where we are at this point in time. And then when you get to goal one, which I think is probably November, I'd have to have the schedule in front of me. Again, there's no reason why it cannot turn into this is where we are at this point in time. Even the steps being taken to impact this data, which was already part of the process that we were going to ask people who own that work to do. So, I don't I don't see if there's this change it impacting in a negative way at

061all what's presented at Cal. It just focuses that without necessarily having the why part. It's more this is where we are. This is why we're here. Um I think which gets to the heart of many of the concerns that I share that you all have mentioned is why is it this way? Sure. >> And what can be done to impact moving the needle forward. >> Got it. I think we've got a plan. Got a plan. Thank you. Okay. Thank you so much. You're very welcome. Superintendent Murphy, please update us about Did I miss something? Oh, okay. Superintendent Murphy, please update us about the first week of school. >> Yes, ma'am. We have had a very uh busy and productive uh first several days of school. So Rob, if you go to the next slide, what

062we have been working on leading up to the school year was deep preparation, as you know, around closing a $51 million budget gap. A lot of our time, effort, and energy and collaboration was done in that area. We have also provided the professional development for all of our faculty and staff leading up to the start of the school year. Um, super kudos to our facilities team for moving all of the new schools, uh, changing high schools back to 912 buildings, uh, creating our middle and junior high schools. And all that was done, all those moves were completed by August 1st, which just gives us more time to lean into allowing teachers to go into their classroom and being prepared for our children. also super proud about the fact that all of the buses were routed

063uh by August 1st and thankfully um that we have received grace around um late registrations where it might take a little bit longer to get that bus routed but uh I Mr. Birkhard would tell you he's uh pleased with our on-time performance although there are of course some things that we need to continue to work on and to iron out. Then in terms of the present right now as of uh well this was last Wednesday 34,613 students uh you see the number of employees we've uh are working with this school year. I think it's really interesting to think about the number of meals we're serving. Um we have three vacancies for resource coordinators at Aken Canes and Hyde Park that the school community partnership team is working to uh take care of. Uh we did

064launch phase two of the growth plan uh including the corridor model. Uh we mentioned the middle new middle schools and junior highs. The monastery lab school is growing. We just had a call even today uh for a couple more students to be enrolled there. We've increased the number of welcome centers. Uh and you can see the list. Um it goes on and on providing additional seats for in demand areas such as entrepreneurship is started at Woodward. The zoo academy is now districtwide. We did have a hiccup with the zoo academy of both schools taking attendance um for the children, but we've gotten that uh ironed out. Increase the number of seats available uh for gifted students at Spencer and Walnut Hills seats increase. I think they're up about 125 children. Uh and we did start

065the ninth grade at uh Sailor Park. So then on the last slide, uh there is a bit about what's the plan, where are we going next, and that really kind of lends to what you just talked about. Um one, getting ready for our November activities. Uh two, uh the treasurer and I have talked about conducting budget engagement sessions virtually and in person. We've got those scheduled uh well, they were scheduled what, Thursday or so. And so you'll start to hear more about time and place for those. Um, we are following through with our opportunities to engage our MLL community, which at one point was a board assignment. Our deputy uh did take the lead on getting feedback from community members around our MLL students and what they would like to see happen. And so our

066next step is to work on the next step from the list of uh ideas that were shared with us. uh we will begin to build out what phase three of the growth plan will look like in preparation. Uh we've talked about the kids wanting the automotive and the cosmetology coursework and credentiing uh to be able to graduate with those in hand. We are revisiting our facilities master plan understanding and have not forgotten that there are portions of our buildings that need to be repaired uh corrected taken care of. Um, so that is not off of the list. We are um completing our curriculum implementation plan. I think you know that we did an RFP for someone to come in and help us. We finished scoring those RFPs last week. We did run into a technical

067glitch with uploading um some data, but uh that team is meeting and we're continuing to move forward. I am hoping by the next business meeting there will be a name to present to you for your support and approval. And we have our teacher allocation committee starting this week, which is the committee that looks at the number of students in our classrooms with the uh teacher ratio to make sure that we are in balance. We hope that there won't be very much movement because we did a lot of this work in the spring and the summer, but um there may be a need to make a few different adjustments. So, I am super proud of the team. Um I'm super proud of every staff member. um and especially our partners who stood with us at the

068opening day of the school year um showing support and being a village for our children. >> Thank you. Board members, do you have any questions? Board member Weinberg, >> I have a statement first, then a question. Just wanted to thank you and your staff. It looks like we're doing some great things for our students. Um I just have one question. So, we are down a little bit in terms of enrollment. Can you maybe talk a little bit about maybe some of the reasons why or what might be a plan for us to help to increase that? >> Yes. So, a couple of things. Our customer care center is working really really hard. Um, and the volume that we've had these first couple of few weeks is great. >> It's great, but it there it has

069come with some challenges. And with this new centralized enrollment piece, we have been able to identify that we probably need to provide a little bit more support leading into the school year. Um, and so because instead of going to the schools, they're coming here. And so we will and have made a few adjustments there, but they're still enrolling. Uh, they are still coming here every single day. Um there are some enrollments that are not complete because we're missing some type of documentation that we have to have and that is uh students prek through 12. The prek students where we may have some flexibility k on up prek we don't and we have to have the appropriate documentation um to be able to provide to move forward. So, there are quite a few preschoolers still out

070there waiting and uh our team is working really, really hard to get them going >> and to avoid as many delays as possible. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Great. Thank you. Well, member Matt, uh my question um was around enrollment as well. And so some of the feedback that I've been hearing in terms of the decline is a result of transportation um as well as the new centralized enrollment. Whereas, you know, families were able to um go to the school maybe because they don't have access to transportation, but it was easy for them to maybe walk to their neighborhood school to enroll them. Um, so I I'm just curious to know if that those are the same concerns that you're receiving and around a decline. Um, and also are you seeing

071a trend um, and certain maybe grade bands around the decline with enrollment? um and if there's a a plan in place because like you said, yes, putting more support in the centralized uh enrollment process, but we have families and students that have not been able to get enrolled and and I've heard from certain individuals that they've been trying for weeks. Um and so we don't want our students to miss critical school time and as a result of that they're just choosing to send their child or children elsewhere. So yes, we are hoping that enrollment increases, but I do want us to have those hard conversations about what's actually occurring and how we can put systems in place to support that. >> Absolutely. I can share with you uh board a document Jeremy prepared for me

072Friday um that shows uh the specific numbers by schools and you'll see that there isn't really a um theme uh behind the changes and where kids are going maybe with the exception of uh one particular uh option I'll share with you. Um, but in terms of the centralized enrollment, while this while we're in the infancy stages of this and ironing things out, I believe that over the course of time, it'll be better to do it this way. In terms of our EMIS reporting that goes to the state, um, this is our the first time out and I don't want to make any excuse about it. There are some things we have to iron out and that we have to do better. Um, I do know that we have the support of our principles and their

073staff making calls, which is what we would do any other year, especially around this time of year, uh, with teacher allocation coming up. >> So, definitely there is work that has to be done. Uh, but I think people are on board to to assist in getting it done. >> Okay. And when um I know that you said that there are um students that are still needing to be enrolled. When do you think um the customer care uh support team will have those finalized numbers for you all to present that back to us? I mean granted I know students will still enroll throughout the year but where we are able to have a more accurate count um that's different from this. >> Yes. Um I can get you uh the most update count on a day-to-day

074basis quite frankly. But if um if Friday is your pleasure to give you here is where we are. I'm happy to do that. Um, for sure. >> It's it's really based off of you. From your, you know, lens, I know we're past that like Labor Day. People say, "Okay, after Labor Day, the students will show up." But from your lens, what do you think would be a good um place to say this is our best effort or our best thinking around where we are in terms of enrollment? Again, we know that there was conversation around the levy renewal. We know that also uh increased enrollment is revenue. Um and again we want to retain our students and our our families. So you know just wanting to make sure that we have an accurate um you

075know count of where we are with our enrollment. Um we know that there's been a lot of changes that have occurred. Um and so wanting to make sure that we are um knowledgeable and informed about how we're moving strategies forward. >> Absolutely. I will get that to you on Friday. And I'm saying Friday because that teacher allocation committee work is happening this week and then we land on where are the children? What is the number of teachers that we have? So it should be solid by that point. >> Great. Thank you. Any other questions? All right, we are moving along. Do board members have any acknowledgements or announcements? I just have one. Um, I know that I've come in here a couple times since the start of school and it has been jam-packed in that

076front. So, I want to make sure that I acknowledge formally and thank our customer care team and everybody that just everybody, principles, teachers, support staff, everybody has pitched in and I know you all are stretched really thin. I just appreciate all that you're doing because it has been busy and you all have been dealing with all kinds of parents and all kinds of students and doing it with a smile. Every time I come past, people are like, "Hey, Dr. Moffet." Sometimes it's wavering, but it is definitely appreciated and I want to say thank you to everybody, the entire 6,000 plus staff. Um, we see you and we appreciate I appreciate you and I think we do too. Yes. Let's clap them up. >> Superintendent Murphy, please present any announcements and retirements that you may have.

077>> Yes, ma'am. We have one retirement um to celebrate today, and that is Deborah L. Ransen, who is a secretary, an administrative secretary in our department of student services. Congratulations. Well, >> Madam President, I do have a kudos if that's okay. >> Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. >> Okay, awesome. I'll be quick. Uh, so board member Weinberg mentioned this the last meeting, but I wanted to share this lovely picture. Uh, and this is from her coordinating the legislators lunchon um several weeks ago. At this point, I thought it was a very impressive picture, so I wanted to share with the public. And then this next slide, this is a picture. I I don't think the video got in, but our um Aken students were a part of the color guard presentation of the fl of the

078flag during a Cincinnati uh Reds game. Was that last week, I think? >> So, no video. >> A >> if not, >> well, congratulations. >> Well, I was super They looked really good. I was super proud of them. So, All right, board member Weinberg, the chair is now yours to please conduct the hearing of the public. We are now at the item on our agenda for hearing the public. Each each speaker will have two minutes and will address all comments to the presiding officer. If you are online, once the request to speak has been granted, you will be invited to enter. You should click on the camera icon to go interactive. You will provide your name, affiliation to the district, school, community, topic, and your contact information. If you would like a response to any

079questions you might have, this request is consistent with board protocol and we appreciate your help. In the unusual event that someone is not willing to follow this protocol, we do reserve the right to end that person's time. Again, each person will have two minutes to speak, when the timer goes off, your time is up. Please refrain from discussing any personnel items. And finally, we ask that your public commentary be respectful of all listeners. What I'm going to do is I'm going to call a group down. And when I call your name, um, you're just going to come down to the seats below here. and then one by one you'll come up to the microphone. But before I call the names, do we have anyone online? We have three. Okay, we'll go with the three online

080and then I'll go with the first group of names. Thank you. Our first speaker today is going to be Ann Skoolie. Ann, you have three minutes. I'm going to unmute your camera. >> Just two minutes. >> Two minutes. I'm sorry. You have two minutes and you may go now. Thank you members of the board. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you and was encouraged listening to uh the comments about the new enrollment process that's as you've acknowledged created some challenges uh challenges for families without transportation. Um and as a result, you know, you're still trying to enroll students at this point. Um so some families also don't have transportation. and it is day 13 of school and we've still received little to no communication whatsoever about transportation for my child uh who goes to

081Westwood um and is entitled to door-todoor service. Um so we've gotten zero communication there and I'm curious and concerned about the teacher allocation uh committee meeting this week when you don't even have firm numbers of children enrolled. So, you're going to be basing those decisions on staffing based on inaccurate class sizes. Uh, that's going to disproportionately affect certain schools where the children are not yet enrolled and where the children do not yet have transportation and have not come to school as a result of the lack of transportation. So, by doing that, you're going to result in pulling staff from neighborhood schools, uh, make things harder, only to have those schools then have to deal with additional enrollments going forward. And when this centralized process is in its infancy and brand new, to be making teacher

082allocation uh, committee decisions now, which is a couple of weeks earlier than it has been done in the past, uh, seems very very problematic to me. And I would really strongly encourage you to consider um changing that timing for the teacher allocation committee so that you do not end up with schools who lose teachers only to find out several weeks from now that in fact they have far more students than they anticipated. Um you talked a lot about proficiency and trying to make sure that kids are ready and job ready. um kids that have missed 13 days of school and maybe more are already going to be behind which impacts >> and that is your time. >> Thank you. Our next speaker will be Gabrielle. Gabrielle, you can unmute your camera and microphone. >> Um

083good evening. Um my name is Gabrielle Boyd. I'm looking at Okay, this is my first um board meeting. This is my first I'm a first-time mom of multiples. Um and I entered the um CPS lottery um uh hoping to um have my kids go to um an immersion program. They have some of the best um academic outcomes um in the long haul in the long haul. Um, and I'm I'm distracted and I'm a little bit distraught because I've listened to the entire meeting and I'm I'm so nervous about those numbers about literacy. Um, and I think that preschool moms that are new to the district um and maybe new moms um are a missed opportunity for um getting those literacy numbers up. Um and um yeah, that that process of enrollment and and getting into

084the lottery was a very clumsy process. Um I felt very um like a fish climbing a tree, so to speak. Um but my biggest concern um that brought me to this meeting today was that I looked all over the CPS website um and I I picked this school. I picked Ami, sorry, Gabrielle Boyd. Um my my stu my girls go to AMI um and this is their first year um and this is my first time sending them off into the world. Um and so I I'm I'm very nervous about that whole process. Um but I was most concerned to find out that they would not be in an immersion program. They would be receiving the regular traditional Ohio um early childhood curriculum. And while I was told that that that curriculum was a really good

085curriculum, it just wasn't the curriculum that I I I bought into or that I thought I was signing my my girls up to um up for. And so, um it was kind of heartbreaking to find out on the first day that among the many things that kind of fell through the cracks. Um >> Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. >> Thank you. And our last online speaker is going to be Jodie Freeman. Jody, you can unmute your camera and microphone. >> Okay. Thank you. Um I'm a parent at the school of create uh for creative and performing arts and SCPA implemented a new policy. >> You have to turn it off. >> Um this year regarding tardies to remedy what they shared were excessive last year. My student is in the seventh grade and did not

086contribute to those tardies uh from previous years. But under the new policy, students with more than six tardies in an entire school year are not eligible for audition to audition for musicals or to participate in any of the extracurricular activities. So, as you know, participation in activities promotes higher academic achievement, personal and social development advantages with college and job applications, mental and emotional growth. So if all of the extracurricular activities or opportunities are stripped away, I can imagine some of those very artistic students um um that are social and expressive um having nowhere or no way to express themselves and attendance may even fall off as well as academic achievement. So many parents feel the t the tardy rule is excessive and feel that the school is not supporting the students or promoting success in

087this area. Now, I say that because simultaneously the school has implemented policies for phones and security checks that have been that have made entering the building um just very challenging. So, every day there's a long line down the sidewalk where students are waiting to enter the building. This creates stress at the start of the day, even before they've stepped inside. The the current environment is not conducive to learning and some students are skipping breakfast because of the delays at the door. We all know that proper nutrition is essential for learning as well. So, I reached out to the principal directly regarding my student receiving multiple tardies since school started, probably more than she had the entire year last year. And this has happened despite being dropped off well before the start time. I was advised

088to bring her as early as 8:00 a.m. due to ongoing staffing challenges, which are reportedly beyond the school's control. Well, expecting students to arrive nearly an hour early is not a reasonable long-term solution, especially when the real issue lies in the school's inability to effectively manage the daily entry. >> That is time, friend. The last speaker, board member Weinberg. >> Okay. Thank you so much. I'm going to call down um these particular individuals, and if I do mispronounce your name, please accept my apologies, but it's Kelly Morris. I think it's Kashara Brown. Did I say that correctly? Kishra Brown, Marilyn N. And Andrea Higgins, and then uh Stefan Prior. So, as you make your way down, uh you can go in the order that I called or as you come down and you have a

089seat. We will allow for the There's seats down here for you. There's seats down here. Whoever's name that I did call, please just come down to the front to the seats here and then you can go ahead and go first. You can go first. Yeah. And then we'll just go. Yep. You can go next. >> Oh, okay. I'm sorry. >> Is it Is the mic on for you? I'm going to try to Can you hear me? Yep. I can hear you. Ready to go. >> Okay. Dear the board of educa, Dear Board of Education, >> I'm writing to formally address a serious and unacceptable incident involving my son, a 7-year-old autistic non-verbal student at Covedale Elementary. On August 27th, 2025, my son rode the school bus to Covedale Elementary in the morning. However, that afternoon,

090he was denied transportation home. He remained at the school for nearly 2 hours until I was finally able to retrieve him myself. When I contacted UTS, I was told that my son was never on a route this school year and there was nothing they could do. The representative I spoke with was dismissive and unprofessional. I was further informed that the board of education instructed them not to provide service for my son. When I attempted to reach the board of education directly, I was placed on a standing hold. After requesting a supervisor, I was promised a call back, but no one contacted me. On August 28th, I began calling again. No one could explain why my son, who has had consistent transportation services since the first day of school, was suddenly denied. Because of this failure,

091my tire was disrupted and my child's safety and well-being was jeopardized. To date, I have not received a single call back or explanation. After raising my concerns publicly, I learned that my family is not alone. More than 50 families with special education children are experienced similar transportation failures, including buses not arriving at all, children being dropped off at incorrect locations, students being denied services despite eligibility, stu uh safety concerns that put vulnerable children at risk. This is an issue and represent a complete breakdown at account in accountability. On August 27th and 29th, I sent letters to multiple officials. To date, I have received no response from the board of education. I want to be clear. I am not only advocating for my child, but for all children in this district. Families deserve safe, reliable transportation.

092The lack of accountability, communication, and oversight is unacceptable. If this issue is not addressed immediately, I will be forced to remove my child from Cincinnati public schools and pursue further steps to assure my child rights and safety are protected. This is unacceptable. >> Thank you so much. the next person and then you can just say your name into the mic when you >> Hello, my name is Keshra Brown. Um, and this is my grandmother. >> Hi. >> Um, my son attends Bon Hill Academy. Um, he is autistic. Um, we have been problem we have been having problems with the school bus. Um but he got picked up one day and in his IEP um he's supposed to be accommodated for transportation, door todoor services. Um they do not have transportation at all. They denied him.

093They last week he was left at the school for an hour and a half and all they could tell me was they didn't call. Um I don't currently have transportation. So, I'm using Uber and I'm using all type of ways to um for transportation to get him back and forth to school, but some days he late, but this is due to transportation. They have not said anything about it. Um and then also extracurricular activities or programs within school. They don't really advocate for autistic children. They tell us that they can't that he needs a pair, a one-on-one or anything for extra programs. I cannot work. Um, and if he has to if I have to transport him to school, then I'm not able to work cuz I have to pick him up from school. And

094those are my main concerns. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Our next speaker, >> Andrea Higgins. On August 29th, I was made aware that Tiara Higgins, my special needs child, had an incident on the bus. Um, a little boy had her by both her ponytails. Um, I was not notified until after school. It happened early in the morning. I was only notified because the bus driver told my sister, who gets here off the bus every day, that the little boy had her by her hair. Um, this bus does not have a bus monitor on it. I don't know why. for the past five years here as I always had a bus driver and a bus monitor. I called UTS. The supervisor was, "Oh yes, I would be very upset." He had her by

095her hair. I said, "No, I'm not upset because I know this bus driver needs a bus monitor. She picks up six special needs kids. She has to park the bus, get off the bus, put the kid on the bus, strap them in, get back on the bus." And it was we have to put in a request for a bus moni monitor. Nonsense. She has had one since she was three. No reason. My child hair should have been pulled. She's nonverbal. She couldn't even call for me or anything. And my biggest thing was no one notified me. This happened at like 8:00 in the morning. I didn't find out till I got off of work at 5. Why did no one call me? Why am I driving home talking to a bus supervisor about this incident?

096I didn't get offered to see the tape, which I don't want to see it, but I was not offered any awareness of this situation. To this day, she still is on this bus without no bus monitor because I can't take her to school. This child who pulled her hair, he is still on this bus. He's special needs, but he's also violent. It comes with the territory. I get it. the bus driver. She's doing the best that she can, but her on this van by herself is unacceptable. She has six kids, it's just too much for her. So, I hope we can get this situation addressed soon. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. >> Our next speaker, >> you ask them do they have their contact. >> My name is Stefan Prior. I'm running for

097city council. Hold on. You all right? My name is Stefon Prior. I'm running for city council. I'm here to advocate for the people up at W Hills High School. The traffic is is a mess. Y'all need police officer up there to direct this traffic. It's a mess up there and I need y'all to do y'all job. School board members, get on them. Superintendent Miss Murphy, get on them. I was looking at the news in Channel 9 news and the autistic student denied a bus ride home. That's a damn shame. Y'all need to do your job. Y'all need to get on this bus service, UTS, Universal Transportation System. They need to be on probation. They need to be fired. Whoever these bus drivers are, they need to be checked for drugs, alcohol, or something. You don't

098wait. If you don't leave no baby at a bus stop or you don't even take that long to bring your baby home, 31 minutes and 30 seconds a drop off, you got to be on some type of drugs. So, y'all need to check their system. Check this bus route system or the bus service system. What's going on with these drivers? It's ridiculous. It's a shame. When I seen this, his name was Lavell. Lavell, right? and and see the mother on TV. It was It's sad. This system need to get fixed. It's broken. We hear that talk about different things, but the system is broken, Miss Murphy. They brought you aboard to do your job. You got to do that job thoroughly cuz it's it's sad. These babies shouldn't have to go through this at all.

099At all. So, my name is Stefon Prior. I approve that message. I love you. Nothing you can do about it. Thank you so much. Did we have anyone of this group left? I think everyone spoke. Correct. Okay. Thank you so much. The next group of individuals that I will call down will be all of the marching band individuals. So, come on down and I'll start calling your name. Willie Stevens, Louise Ramirez, Jonathan Stallings, Raymond Brown, uh, Armani Hill, Amir Williams, Terrell Phoenix, Samaria Williams, Myel Manor, and Christian Reynoso. And it doesn't have to be in that order. Whoever would like to go first can go ahead. And there's some there's more seats over here on this side if you'd like to sit. There's a couple more seats. Make sure. Okay. Am I good? I'm good.

100All right. Hello CPS. My name is Willie Stevens. I came to this meeting today to address a situation happening in the band world. There's an issue going on about us and Aken. An administrator said that Aken's drum line can no longer perform with us due to us going to a band performance we've been on in the past. We got permission from the parents and use drums from Wward and from the drum instructor that was working with us. I'm not sure what caused them to do something now when they could have spoken up about it when we got back from the trip and we could have talked it through. I feel like this is going to limit the exposure that CPS bands already don't get. This will affect some of Aken seniors who use band to

101see scholarships to go to college and without the exposure they are less likely to get these scholarships. Recently there have been students who gotten scholarships due to band. This would greatly affect not only them but us as well and any student who will seek band to get scholarships in the future. At Woodward we struggled to get students to join band and to have a percussion section. And those students at Akin came and helped us out. We also help out Akin when they need horn players. And that same administrator is telling those students they cannot perform with the all city band. We are supposed to perform a halftime a half halftime show for the Cincinnati Bengals and now we do not have a percussion for that major performance. That is my time. >> Thank you so

102much. Our next speaker, you can just continue down the line and then just say your uh your full name as well. >> Um hi, my name is Luis Ramirez Castanon. Good afternoon. And I would like to talk about what is going what is going on right now. Um I've been recently informed that uh the Aken drum line cannot continue to be part of World War Marin band. This upsets me and others and this is not good. Many students put in effort into keeping to keep on playing music. They have also dedicated their own time and used it on the things they love especially on band. Believe it or not, band is not just about music. It's also it's also a community a group a group of a group or even better as a family. And

103also this is a heartbreaking news for families. and and my parents and I was talking last night about this and and they were talking about this was just a shame of how we all have to go through this process. Thank you. >> Thank you very much. >> Hello everyone. My name is John. I'm a senior at Aken High School and there's a problem regarding the band. I feel if it wasn't for the drum line, many of us would have been on the streets. But instead, we found a safe place where discipline, teamwork, and music gave us a real future. Now, we're told not to have contact with the people that helped us build this. We created a section that not only competed, but dominated other sections, but also built the family across the entire district,

104not just one school. We brought the community together and around something that's positive, something us kids could be proud of. And now it feels like that's being taken away from us because of this program. Students who may never seen anything outside the neighborhood has been able to travel and collaborate with their peers and connecting ways that aspires hope. Some of us upcoming senior seers has been recruited soon receiving scholarships and building futures throughout opportunities that make the band and only the band and drum line made possible. Now we're being told we can no longer do all city or even play together. It will miss events like the Migos game a once in a lifetime chance that motivates kids to stay engaged. At the same time, every program is already struggling with numbers. So taking away

105opport so taking away these opportunities only makes things worse. We thought the district was supposed to be for the kids, but the action be taken feel like the opposite. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you so much. Our next speaker Hello. Um, hello and hello everyone and good afternoon. My name is Raymond Brown and I am a junior attending Wilbert Career Technical High School. I'm not going to try to rush this because I want this to be heard. As a band student, I am here to discuss the current situation about the drum line by showing and trying to tell everyone that this drum line is not only an opportunity for children, teenagers, and many people alike who have an interest and love for band to connect and share experiences among all kids who are

106included inside of this community and have a passion for people and playing instruments for themselves. This drum line has helped us produce a sound and show love for what we do. The fact that we have went around so many different places and played our music to share our love and positivity is showing all of you that we have given to everyone that we have displayed our music towards with us as a band something to have faith, interest, and a future to look forward in. Music and my very own instrument is something that I have found a passion and love for. And to me, without this drum line, our band is missing a piece. The moment we have had this drum line collaborate with our band has felt like we have filled that piece. and it's

107really made a true connection with a bunch of people and different students that we have had inside this band and the drum line, especially with the people inside of CPS, even for the children who have a love for sound. Thank you for my time and thank you for your time and having my speech. >> Thank you so much. >> Good afternoon. I'm here to speak up for Wilward Marcher Band. Recently, we have been told by an administrator that Aken High School drum line can no longer perform with us. This has took a toll on our band. I have been a part of W March band for three and a half years. So, I got saw it go from 30 members to five and back up. With that being said, we have been through many drum

108lines, but what I what I have to say is Akin has stuck out the most with their hard work and dedication. They have shown me what a real band feel like. If I could go back to the bus ride on the way to Atlanta, Georgia, I would. It was full of love and laughter. But instead, you you all are telling me that I may not ever get that opportunity again. It's almost like you're taking away my family. We have been through trials and tribulations, wins and losses, but we always come back as a team. You always, you all always say y'all here for the kids, but not taking in consideration of how we feel. We respected y'all decision about them wearing the all city uniform to Atlanta, Georgia, but we feel like we have been

109receiving disrespect and negativity. So, if you're about the kids, show it. Thank you. >> And can you actually can you actually go back and say your name? Can you go back and say your name, please, or thank you? And then just make sure when you come up to the mic as well so we just have a record of it. >> My name is Amir Williams. I am a senior at Aken High School and I feel that multiple chances are being taken away from us all because of a so-called rival that Aken and Wolver have at schools across from Cincinnati. But that shouldn't stop us from doing things that we love and that are fun such as out of state trips and band battles and also being helpful to another band that goes out and does

110everything and that is without a drum line. I am very glad and blessed that we play with Woo because we got to do things that Aken did not. I feel that opportunity should not be taken away from us such as playing out of state and playing for big stages such as NFL games. Our administrators tried to put a bad name on Wart and also put a bad name on our drum on our drum line director who made everyone in drum line love it and cherish it way more than we did at first and he gave us a safe area within the drum line. And that is the end of my speech. Thank you all for your time and patience. Have a great rest of your night. >> Thank you so much. Our next speaker. >>

111Hi, my name is Mario Williams. I'm here on the behalf of war and I'm speaking about we about band we giving we we are giving opportunities like going to HB.CU going out of town to battle other bands also spending a weekend in Georgia. We are providing these kids with opportunities that Aken never gave. Being in this drum line with these with them has been a blessing. They they teach me they teach me with passion and patience. I'm so proud to be a part of this drum line. So me so me finding out they can no longer perform with us hurts my feelings. I have saw our program grow and fall. But what I can say is when we have those students I feel at home and I feel like feel like y'all are taking my

112brothers away from me. Please reconsider decision. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Our next speaker Hey y'all. I'm um Terrell Phoenix. I'm a senior at um Aken High School. And um I feel like coming into high school, we all come with somewhat of a decision and with a plan to do something like for example play basketball, any type of sports. But me, I chose band and I looked at band as activity, a little fun activity to do. But I met this drum line instructor and he became my drum line instructor for 3 years and he made this opportunity a passion. And um um last week our principal has um seen our principal at Aken High School has seen um us at a what we're football game and says we can no longer interact or

113perform with our drum line instructor. Um and um I want to come to understanding like what's their like what do they have against Aken Drumline with us connecting with uh different bands around um not only just the district but with every school and um Okay. We um ever since this has happened um our drum line instructor has taken all his drums cuz we use all his equipment um when we play and um he's taken he's taken all his drums away from that school. So we have no longer we no longer have access to those drums. We are now using the Aken drums that we have been using for 5 years now. And they're broken down. They have broken drum heads and um we've been putting in orders, our drum line instructor has put in orders

114for those drum heads. We still have not received for the year 20 2023, but um yeah, I'm just hoping um we can figure this thing out and not have to deal with all this drama stuff. our next speaker. >> Sorry y'all. >> Hello, my name is Maya Manor. I am a student at Wilbur High School and I'm in my third year in the band program. I would like to hit a few points in my speech about my program and the treatment that the band community receives as a whole. Recently, there's been a lot of mistreatment when it comes to not only our band program, but others as well. Ward and Akens band program decided to combine because we were lacking percussion players and they happened to be lacking horn players. We've won multiple awards since

115then and these kids who have came to our program have been looked at by college directors and receive scholarships. This combination has opened so many doors for these kids and everything was going great. This small adjustment has made everyone closer and given us a place to call home and people to call family and friends. I play both a horn and percussion instrument and I can say that learning from both directors has been a great experience and change for me personally. Things were balanced out. Both directors had a connection with not only the kids but as well as each other and it made all of us care for another when we needed the most. But unfortunately, this is all being put on hold because an administrator decided to force the Aken students to stop combining with

116our band at Woolwart. Claims to get them new equipment they've been asking for for years and tries to convince them to stay with Akin programs only. and the person has as well threatened to shut the whole program down if they don't comply. Bands statistically speaking earn way more scholarships and money than any other sport and extracurricular activity. And you all want to take that from kids who've been doing this for years. Kids who deserve to get into college and experience it. What kind of district is that? This district is supposed to be for the kids and y'all don't show that. When it comes to funding, the district has cut a lot of money out of the budget yet the band program still get treated like we aren't nothing, like we don't matter. You kids are

117making you all are making kids feel as if they don't matter, but you claim to be for the kids. This is backwards and unfair and we will not tolerate it. >> Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Any other speaker? Do we only have one more or two? One more. Okay, great. Hello everybody. How y'all doing? Uh my name is Christian Reoso and I'm here to talk about the ban programs in C in uh CPS and the situation we are going through. First off, our administrators banned us from going to play with the Woodward marching band and also stopped us from speaking with our drum line instructor because he's a quote bad influence. The reason we don't play at our home school is because it has been inactive since I've started participating back in

118my eighth grade year. The only big competition we have gone to as Aken Band was Detroit, Michigan back in 2022. And over the past year, we have gone to Columbus, Louisville, Dayton, and even Atlanta. In total, we have won over four drum line trophies and around three band trophies with the Wward Band. We were the number one section out of various schools in every competition. That was something I never got to experience back in my home school. And we couldn't have done it without a great mentor and instructor. But now y'all trying to But now the school is trying to take that away from us. not just current band members, but any other students that would join in the future. The principal also banned us from participating in the all city band, and now we

119have to miss out on performing for the Bengals halftime show. That is something that can really change our life and the history of Cincinnati. We have met many college directors with the Wward Band and even Dayton and colleges from Dayton, Tennessee, and Alabama have all been talking to us about scholarships to play in the band for those schools. This is a huge opportunity for every one of us and many of us can't afford college tuition. But if you could help the band programs in these schools, kids would be off the streets and will have a good future ahead of them. I love music. It has been a passion of mine since I was four years old and I hate to have it taken away from me. Please help our future generations. Thank you. >> Thank

120you all so much. Before I go to the next group, um, our president wanted to say something really quick. >> So, we normally don't do this during hearing of the public. We don't stop the process and we don't respond, but I just wanted to be noted that we are paying attention. You I heard you students came here without an adult. >> You came here on a bus to say what you needed to say. And I just I just cannot let that go without making sure that you get recognized from Aken and Woodward, right? So we are here for kids. I heard you and I guarantee you my colleagues heard you too. We will be looking into it for sure. I'm not exactly sure what the issue is, but we don't normally do that. But I

121am so proud of you. So, make sure that you leave your names with Miss Phyllis right behind you right here because I would like to make sure that we acknowledge that you did that. You came here on your own to advocate for what you wanted is super important and that's exactly what you're supposed to do. You have a voice and you used it today. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you all so much. Our next group of speakers will be Amamira Thompson, McKenzie Metcl, hopefully I said that correctly. I'm sorry, Nathan Meyers, and then Nick, what's your last name? >> Fiorelli. Thank you so much. Come on down. So, make your way on down to the to the to the wonderful seats. I was going to say the hot seats, but I don't want

122them to be known as the hot seats. They're the welcoming seats. So, come on down and then who will be the first speaker? >> They asked you to go first. Amira didn't want to go first. Okay. >> Thank you so much. >> Hi, my name is Nick Fierelli. I'm uh this is my fifth year being an ESL teacher at Wro High School. Uh I just wanted to come in and share with the board how it has been a wonderful start to the year. Uh the students are in uniform. Uh being an ESL teacher, I tend to just interact with the ESL students and I have a relationship with them. And then with the general ed kids, I don't teach them, but I will interact with them and, you know, tell them to move along to

123class or just ask them how their day is going. And this year, I am getting a lot more eye contact. I'm getting my handshake. I'm I'm getting how are you doing today? Uh so that's just something that I wanted to share with the board. Uh another some other tidbits that I hear from teachers uh one my colleague shared that uh in his nine years at WRO that this has been the smoothest start ever that our meetings at the beginning of the year have been focused on the weaknesses that our school needs to address. I hear frequently from the students that it's a lot calmer in the hallways and that's just not due to the seventh and eighth graders not being there. that's just through the 9 through 12 wings uh as well. So I just

124I think the current uh admin team that we have in its current structure is really paying dividends. Uh I think board member Craig and Matt, I heard you talking about the data and our students being prepared for the workforce and I'll never forget the study about how each year a student is exposed to somebody who's incredibly disruptive, how it takes away a lot of their lifetime earnings. And with our admin team now, the kids know that if they are disruptive or misbehaved that there are consequences and I think those dividends are already paying off and the culture and climate of the classroom. Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you so much. Our next speaker, >> my name is Amamira Thompson and I this will be my seventh year at WTH from 7th

125grade to 12th grade and this is officially our last year. I want to just say starting off the atmosphere at Woodthro has been great. We have went from virtual to just a group and B group to being finally officially in high school and the it has been amazing as far as the environment, the kids, the teachers, everything. It has been a definition of Tiger Pride and a definition of structure and we just wanted to bring our thoughts about our current principal. We absolutely think that this is a definition of some pick to pick somebody that is fit to be a principal. Not just based on race or color in any situation. It's based on who should be fitted and who should not be fitted and who could keep structure and business and like a agenda

126between any types of kids and being able to handle every different types of kids from any different age race anything just ever. And we just wanted to bring that attention to maybe listen to us as kids inside the school and not just alumni or just teacher. I guess I should say you guys should bring your attention to us as students actually being in the school throughout every year and especially some of us that's been there since junior high. Thank you for having me. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. our next speaker and then just say your name, too. >> Mackenzie Metaf. Good evening, members of the board and superintendent Murphy. My name is Mackenzie Metaf and this is my 14th year at Witthrow University High School. And in that time, I have

127seen many leaders come and go. I'm here today to strongly support keeping our current interim principal, not just as an interim, but permanently. Our principal has brought a sense of consistency, structure, and a calm that our school truly needs. Wthro has faced ongoing challenges, especially with student behavior. He's addressed those issues headon with fairness, empathy, and a steady hand. His leadership is already making a notice noticeable, excuse me, impact on our school climate. He's present, engaged, respected. He supports both students and staff and holds everybody to a high expectation. I've seen the difference firsthand and I truly believe that he is the right person to continue leading us forward. We don't need to search elsewhere. We already have the leader in our current school as our principal. I said that wrong. I apologize. Thanks. >>

128Thank you so much. And our last speaker. >> Hello. My name is uh Nathan Meyers. I'm a teacher at Withro. This is my 13th year. Uh I'm the 10th grade team leader. Um I'm also the longest tenur active athletic coach at Withro and a PD facilitator on the district level. Uh I rise in strong support of our current interim principal to be hired as a longer tenure principal of our school community. As a teacher in the building for over 12 years now, I consider myself very connected with the sense of the building both with staff and students and with our current interim principal enjoying strong support from both groups. Whether those groups are being vocal or not, my colleagues as staff at WRO that are gathered behind me are also a clear reminder of the

129support for our interim principal as well. As evidence of that, I present two key points. Consistent with your earlier discussion on goals and guard rails and the emphasis on a standard of growth in the context of higher expectations, we have had an overwhelming sense of a positive and consistent start to this school year. Teachers experienced our interim principal professionalism, clear communication, followth through, and culture building as an assistant admin last year. There was a sustained period of applause in the opening staff meeting on his behalf because of what we know about him and his work. Number two, the students deeply appreciate him. You have heard from one and we have a representative group of them gathered here as well. After an initial push back against him because he'd be doing too much when he first

130came, they quickly found he was just following up to do what he said he would do. After a period of years with lack of simple follow-through on admin enforcing what they said the expectations were, the adjustment period was initially rough. But they found that he combined those expectations with significant compassion. So I ask that you hear this word in support of our interim principal, not only as a statement from a staff member, but a seasoned staff member serving in various leadership roles who has seen with across multiple administrative agencies. So thank you for your time. Thank you all and I'm going to call down our next speaker. I do appreciate you all for coming. The next speaker speaker is Brad Smith and then we will definitely end with um Julie Sers as they come down.

131Thank you students for coming to share your voice. We're listening and you are appreciated. You can go ahead and start. >> Good evening, Board of Education. My name is Brad Smith. I am a resident taxpayer and I am a uh work for the Sensei Federation of Teachers as a field representative. Teaching is complex. It is a well-ressearched fact that teachers make more than500 meaningful decisions per day. Teachers make these consequential decisions based on substantial breadth and depth of skills and knowledge. Teachers are degreed professionals. Our practice is grounded in the science of learning content knowledge and diverse pedagogical skills that ensure each lesson is based on a variety of teaching methods, learning activities and assignments. Teachers tap into their intelligence, creativity, empathy, and deep caring every minute of every day as they craft respectful, responsive

132learning opportunities for every student. The community should expect no less. According to the US Department of Education, teachers are the backbone of our democracy, fostering uh curiosity and creativity, building skillful individuals, and strengthening informed citizens. A great teacher in every classroom is one of the most re important resources we can provide students. So why would some on the Cincinnati public school board want to limit teaching to a one-sizefitsall approach? Who benefits from their efforts to limit the tools teachers use to meet the needs of diverse learners? Are they considering the students needs when they insist that teachers merely use one of the curriculum resources that the district decides to purchase? Unfortunately, we're already seeing the results of this that the curriculum police is coming to the schools and they're telling teachers, you have to be

133on page five. It's resulting in tears. It's resulting in people not trusting the administration because they're not there to support them. and ultimately is going to leave re lead to teachers leaving the profession. Teachers are professionals. Treat them as such. >> Thank you so much. >> Good evening um members of the board. Um, I wholeheartedly approve of coming up with a new strategic plan and hopefully some of the things that I speak about this evening might be able to um influence that. The employees of this district, but I want to start with something else. The employees of this district have not heard anything about reinstating the pony back to twice a week. We feel like this has been handled by way of a stall tactic and will cause irreparable harm to the district. We are

134not currently a paperless system and teachers and office workers are worried about students cumulative records and they are afraid that they will end up um in incorrect locations and records will be lost. Schools do not have the manpower or woman power to scan documents and focus does not have the capacity to house all of these documents from every of every student. Is the board holding this up through the budget cuts and how can we get this reinstated? I know I have come up with several solutions on how to help fund it, but that has been um that's fallen on deaf ears. So again this year we are in a mandatory test prep mode. There are some board members who are working hard to revive an old tired myth that teachers do not know how to

135teach. There is a false narrative that teachers are not using the curriculum 100%. And not staying on the correct page of the curriculum. Like Brad said, it's almost as if it's the curriculum pe uh police who were making their ways around the buildings. We saw this play out last year with false data and an incorrect denominator. Some of our board members claim to be Dems, but are using educator bashing, disrespectful comments, falsehoods, and shouldn't be trusted to use um and teachers shouldn't be trusted to use professional discretion. Many of these claims practically copied and pasted from a teacher bashing report published by the new teacher project called the opportunity myth. I can go into more details about this report if necessary, but this report is nothing more than union busting behaviors against teachers that we

136would expect from Republicans out of Columbus. this school. The schools must do 10 walkthroughs per week. Include reading specialists, math specialists, team leaders, and how much instructional time is actually being lost during these walkthroughs that are meaningless. um instead of chasing scores for the past 17 years and not teaching a full contentrich curriculum with hands-on engaging lessons in all content areas. After all, because the vocabulary that our students must know in order to answer the science and the social studies is within the science and social studies. And it's all used that vocabulary is used within the ELA reading test. We must end the knowledge gap. To improve scores, we must improve attendance. There are too many students who are still chronically absent. If students are not in school, then students are not learning. And I'm

137going to share a document with you this evening um from the Sheckley Research Group that shows images of schools and the philosophical beliefs of how to design a system to support culturally responsive pedigogy to instruction. What we are currently doing with the test prep agenda does not reflect these ideals. I hope that you have heard what the teachers from Wro are telling you about what a difference their interim principal is making with their overall cultural and environment they are experiencing this school year. This is what a good leader can and should do. After all, the teachers are the ones in the building all day every day and they can recognize good learning conditions for students. After all, a teacher's working conditions are the students learning conditions. And lastly, I would really need to address the

138August 29th policy meeting in minutes. The chair of the committee brought up concern how is it determined how long CTF president can speak at public meetings. He requested that the general counsel reach out to the other districts to learn about their hearings of the public. In our contract section 132.8, the federation president or designate shall have a seat at the table and the right to speak at all public meetings of the board of ed and its subcommittees. The past four CFT presidents all sat at the table during each and every meeting. They sat right next to the treasurer. Yes, that is correct. They were able to speak at any time during the meeting and it was not limited to the hearing of the public. CTF is not the public. We represent over 3,000 members and

139we have a better understanding of the inner workings of the district more than almost anyone else within the district. I don't care what other districts do because you don't know what they have negotiated in their collective bargaining agreement. To me, this is an anti-UN attack towards the teachers within this district. And personally, I'm not going to stand for being made to feel bad that I have unlimited time um speaking to the board on a regular basis. Other boards in the past have said to me, Julie, come and speak more. We want to hear what you what the teachers are saying. But now we have this idea that somehow the union is the problem and the board doesn't want to hear about it. I have a copy of the Shckley um report and it will tell

140you images of schools and if you look at it right now when you look at this we are using our core business is containment monitoring corrective action and punishment. That's how teachers are feeling and it is not a way to improve overall conditions um for learning. If we want to improve, we have to get back to hands-on learning and engagement for our students. Thank you. Again, this is not customary, but board member Lindy, you have two minutes. I I won't take two minutes. I appreciate it. Um I have a question for the superintendent, but I'll wait here for just a second. >> You can always just give it to Phyllis. She'll give it to us, too. No. Superintendent, I think would appreciate your perspective on the curriculum piece for a second because I do think

141we have a challenge um when we were in the budget process and I had requested that the superintendent put together a recommendation for how we could invest an amount of money to make sure this is not about being on page one or page two or page whatever. It's about getting help to make difficult and rigorous curriculum come to life in the classroom. And the suggestion that came from the administration involved using some positions that as I understand them are created by the collective bargaining agreement. That's specifically the districtwide mentors and that's the lead teachers. And I've noticed that most of the criticism that we receive about trying to support our staff to teach the curriculum has come from representatives of CTF. And what I asked in that meeting was, can you guarantee that we have

142the support of CTF for this plan? And you said yes. I think that's excellent. I'm concerned because tonight we had one field representative and the president of the teachers union call into question that strategy. And so I'm concerned that we actually don't have the support of the people we really need to make this work. And I want was hoping you could respond to that for a moment. >> So my response is uh we have launched work around what exactly do district-wide mentors do? What do our instructional coaches do? what do our reading specialists do? What do our math specialists do? And we're making sure that we're aligning that work so that we a don't have duplication of services, b we have a broad span of what those services look like for all of our children

143across the school district. Uh we've probably had four sessions discussing this where Cincinnati Federation of Teachers was at the table. if they're in disagreement, I will talk with Julie about that and find out if there's a need to pivot and bring you back a different response. But my experience um has been supportive. >> That that's great and that's what I hope is true. Um I think I remember mentioning this in that meeting that this will be a testable hypothesis if we continue to have representatives from CTF come to hearing of the public and and describe the strategy in such a way that we just can't do this because we can only do this if we're doing this together. Then I I I I'm concerned we really don't have the support that you're hearing about. If

144we can help, please let us know. But I think this is really about offering help and support for teachers. Uh and it's only going to work if we have the buyin of everybody involved. And I I I think um either we'll see that in the presentations that we hear or we won't. Um but I look forward I hope to this uh moving forward in a positive and productive way. >> Okay. Thank you. We will now have an internal audit update by Chief Audit Executive Lauren Roberts. Good evening everyone. Good evening, President Moffett, Board of Education, Superintendent Murphy, and for the first time, uh, Treasure Gustin. So, thank you all for having me this evening. Uh, by means of introduction to the public, my name is Lauren Roberts and I'm the district's chief audit executive and

145I have the uh, pleasure and honor of leading our internal audit department. So, I will first begin by framing today's conversation by sharing the couple of points I'd like to uh, the takeaways for this evening. So as a reminder, the role of internal audit is to help the board of education as well as administration to promote accountability, manage risk, and strengthen internal controls. So through today's conversation, I'd like to share with you a unique look into the world of internal audit. And I promise to keep as exciting and and uh you know, edge of your seats as possible. But uh we'll talk a little bit about how the plan is developed as well as what projects were selected for this fiscal year 2026. And as a reminder um from a timeline perspective, we shared this

146audit plan with the audit committee at the July 16th meeting and received their feedback and ultimately their approval. So this may be a document you uh saw in your packets back in July. So to briefly cover the process, uh it's a four-phaseed four-pronged approach as we develop each year's audit plan. So we first begin by developing an audit universe. Essentially, a list of what could be audited. We then move into identifying the risks and seeking inputs for how do we determine which of those areas is a highest priority. And then we take all of that information, that's the information gathering and collaborative stage. We take all of that and then we make it quantifiable and give everything a rating and a score because of course we're accountants. We like to see the numbers and then

147it helps guide us to things that are the highest priority from either a risk standpoint, uh management leadership standpoint, a board standpoint, community, and it's kind of this art of putting this plan together that hits the highest areas. So again in the fourth step there that's when those things come together and we propose a plan to the audit committee of the projects we will cover for the year. So I'll take a brief moment to dive into the four phases. I will cover them at a high level but encourage you all in the public to uh review our audit plan which talks a bit more about the technical methodologies. So this slide shows the eight categories in which we have looked at the district. This is a very simplistic view of very complex organization and essentially

148within these eight major categories we have 84 functional areas that we could select from and mind you those 84 are what we are just considering key auditable processes. So essentially we create this menu if you will of what where could we look and where should we start. So once we've this have this area developed and we vetted across management agreed with each of these leaders that yes we have the most important things covered in our uh audit universe we move on to the next phase. So as we develop the audit plan we have to gather information because our assessment is only as strong and as robust as the information that we have uh as an input. So you can see on the slide in front of you all of the areas that we have sought

149that feedback in collaboration throughout the district. One notable area that we perform each year is a risk assessment survey. So that was shared with each member of the board of education, our audit committee, and then a wide array of leadership throughout the district. And we received over 60 responses. and we sincerely appreciate the time that everyone puts into that because we take that information and apply it um very thoroughly to our understanding. So together all of these inputs give us a clear understanding of our picture as it relates to financial student information and district priorities. So here comes the fun part, the numbers. Well, maybe that's just me, but the impact and the likelihood are the two factors that we use to provide a quantifiable number for our next slide, which I won't jump to

150just yet, but it's the risk ranking. So, essentially, you can see on this slide that impact is the severity if there was not a control in an area. So, kind of what could happen, what could go wrong. So auditors always like to think in that how do we prevent things from happening that we don't want to happen and promote the good things to happen and then likelihood of course is how likely is that to actually take place. So I share all of that to provide a little context now for this risk heat map. So this is something that we did a little differently this year. uh we received feedback from the audit committee over the years to say truly how are we connecting all of this risk assessment work with the projects that are selected.

151So this year we can see very clearly very visually where each area falls in terms of the impact and the likelihood of that area. So you'll see this slide as just the eight top areas, those highlevel categories. But in the audit plan in front of you and for those online, the one that is linked, you will find in the appendix there is a heat map or a risk map for each of these areas in greater detail. Essentially showing all 84 of those functional areas mapped out. So why does this matter? So for us as internal auditors, this is really helpful because we say, okay, what from the top in that red should we maybe perform an audit, lend a hand, partner with management, but also it's helpful from our leadership's perspective in in working with

152Treasure Wagner, now Treasure Gustin, and Superintendent Murphy. I think we've seen a lot of potential for this work to say as management, maybe there isn't an audit that's needed, but maybe there's a resource that this area needs to bring that level of control in a little bit and to bring that out of the red. And then further from the board standpoint, I think the board is always looking for insight into where things lie. Are we are we green? Are we yellow? Are we red? And I think this type of methodology can really share that insight. I will say this type of work only gets stronger and better the more that we all feed into it. So I think there's really an opportunity to kind of leverage this uh thought process if you will. So in

153conclusion, I'm kind of headed towards the home stretch here. Uh we have developed the internal audit plan. I won't spend uh time unless you all have specific questions on the projects. However, they all are all detailed within the audit plan itself. Um, as a brief reminder, advisory projects are more consultive in nature. Assurance is like a true audit will produce a report. That's the audit reports you're more accustomed to. And then risk analysis is continuing this work. This was actually a project last year to kind of adapt this. So each year we hope to get better, stronger, and more impactful with this work. And then furthering the work of the internal audit department is always a key uh pillar of our our plan. So, I do believe this year's plan pulls together uh the key

154priorities of the district and really adapts the role of internal audit. Um I think a uh weakness of those who maybe aren't as familiar with internal audit is that it's all historical looking. We're looking at things that have already happened. And I think our take and really our our initiative this year is to be forward focused, leaning with the the the leadership and to say with all of these changes, the redesigns, are we proactive in filling our control uh gaps and process changes as we go into this year. So I um welcome any questions you all have. This was uh during audit committee probably a 35 minute presentation that I tried to consolidate but um really appreciate the opportunity to share this with you. >> Thank you. She definitely understood the assignment. Brevity is the

155word. Did you what member Craig? >> Uh so I will start off by saying as the only member of the board uh membership of the audit committee that was there, it was still a very informative presentation. was very concise because just as every board meeting uh we struggle with finishing on time. Um, so I I just wanted to highlight a couple things and I think it's really important for us to understand with regards to the role that internal audit plays and I think this is part of where the evolution of internal audit has come to because what we were struggling with two years ago was the amount of things we were auditing and getting in that situation where you'd be stuck in the mud of the audit because there wasn't clear direction as to how

156work was being done like consistency in how work was being done year after year. And now we're at a point where we're we're dividing out the work that is advising to get folks ready to be folks into regular processes to identify those potential red areas within area within some of those departments. And also now moving into that assurance level where we're actually able to do audits of processes because they've moved into a place where the the red parts are just things that we want to make sure are being done correctly and are being done consistently as opposed to things that we feel the risk is so elevated because of the lack of process. And so uh I appreciate uh that that was also one of the key differences is we did go through all of

157those lovely areas and which parts were the red and which were parts were not and reasons. Um, but I appreciate you kind of bringing this back forward to us because I think it also helps the board understand the role of internal audit and how we're kind of growing that role, especially as we come into this time where we're going to be doing asking the public to renew our levy as we're going to be uh making substantial changes within the district this year with schools work. But we want to be able to show that there are things that are necessary still to be reviewed and processes are being grown. So appreciate our work. >> Thank you. Great. Thank you. Any other board member questions? Board member Lindy, >> not a question. Just thank you. >> Thank

158you. >> Great job. >> Oh, well, I'm sorry. Board member Matt, don't don't leave yet. U just a quick question. Um, so as we've been talking about just the restructuring of the district, a lot of changes and the focus to be forward thinking. Um, can you speak to, and you may have already stated it, but can you speak to maybe more specifically some of the things that the audit committee has been doing to make sure um that we're um not only have that assurance piece, but the compliance piece and that operational operational efficiency because I know that's again something that we've been trying to work towards as a district. So, can you speak to that um from the perspective of the audit committee and the work that you're doing? >> Absolutely. So there's one project

159specifically that focuses on the budget impacts. So essentially the takeaway and and the goal of that work is to take the work that the leadership teams have done uh in summarizing the reductions in their areas and their level of understanding of their impact and then working with each of the teams to say okay I the way I've envisioned all of this is there's all these nice chains linked throughout the district and with these reductions unfortunately some of those chains have been severed or broken potentially and I think of the chain being linked back up as a really good internal control or a redesign of a process. So I think the management teams have their arms around that. They're leading that work. That's work that they own. However, internal audit can bring a unique perspective and

160lend a hand in saying, "Okay, do we have enough internal controls?" And then ultimately, we can test them and give feedback to the management teams um in a more informal way to say, "Okay, you think X control should produce positive results. Well, let's test that theory. Let's test it out and give feedback." So our our thought and approach this year is to provide support to the work that they're doing um and never to be a burden when the teams are already um you know stretched rather thin this year. >> Thank you for that. I really appreciated that um perspective. So >> Oh, thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you. All right, Jessica Shelley Green, the director of marketing and communications, will now update us about the district's engagement plan. >> Good

161evening, board. My name is Jessica Sheiley Green. >> My apologies. >> That's quite all right. Um, and as a high >> Got it. Um, as a mom of a high need student, I've learned that clarity is access. If a message is hard to find or hard to follow, it's not just inconvenient. It can be exclusionary. The plan that we'll walk through this evening is a student first plain language mechanism that level sets what engagement means at Cincinnati Public Schools. Adhering to the feedback from board member Lindy from our last board meeting, um we are providing a short list of what we're asking for from the board. That is to approve our definition of engagement, provide feedback, and to endorse the gold standard as our service bar for district communications. So, what is engagement? At my

162short time serving in this role, I've heard the word engagement used many, many times. However, I've realized that in every one of those scenarios, it has a different definition. So, the Office of Marketing and Communications has taken some time to think about what engagement means at CPS. This is our definition. It is the intentional two-way exchange between the district and its students, families, staff, partners, and community. It goes beyond providing information to creating opportunities for voice, building trust, and fostering collaboration that strengthens our schools. While that's a beautiful definition, I'd like to take a brief moment to dig deeper into what does the term look like at CPS. Our outcomes for engagement should look like a place where students thrive, where families feel connected, where our staff is aligned and our community participates. We've defined

163three levels of engagement. One is to inform, which is one-way communication. Two is to involve, two-way communication. And three to co-create, which usually comes through our community partnerships. why this matters as it relates to board goals and guard rails. Um, it provides transparent, inclusive, responsive communication. Um, specifically for guardrail five and six, it speaks to attendance and partnerships, making next steps easy and a way to amplify our partners. And as it relates to academic goals of reading algebra 1 and graduation, we are able to turn clear communication into strategy that leads to family action. Why the context matters? In a postcoavid society, expectations are different. Uh communities are looking for faster updates, clearer guidance. Um in a digital first world, mobile is the way to go. So, everyone is on their phones um looking at

164QR codes and short recap videos. We are in a society where we're doing more with less. So, in this plan, we will talk about templates and ideas that we have to better equip our principles and our staff as well as administration. Um as well as providing consistency in our channel mix and how we communicate with our audience. I wanted to take a moment to talk about the multi-gener uh generational lens that we are speaking with in our audience. So we have our students who represent Gen Z and generation alpha and what they look for as far as content and being engaged with our parents and caregivers, millennials, generation X. Typically, we found our email text messages on Facebook and they want step-by-step clear direction. Our grandparents and community may look like boomers. Um, so it's

165important to have plain language um large print and easy easy access to the information. Our staff and our partners as well as across all um we want to ensure that we are being inclusive. So that may look like multiple language, avoiding jargon and just making sure that our messaging is consistent across the board. This engagement plan serves as an umbrella, a plan of plans. So within the marketing and communications department, I would say that our marketing plan, our marketing guide, as well as our crisis communication plans um have been pretty standard. However, with the introduction of the engagement plan, we'd like to see those provide an umbrella for those two plans. So, while engagement is the system, our marketing and our communications plan sit under that umbrella for speed and consistency. Want to take a

166moment to talk about our channel mix. So these are the various ways that we engage with our audience in person through school visits. Um LSDMC's meeting, we have our Sundays with Shauna and new from Just Ask Jen, we'll have our money matters with Mike. We have a pretty robust newsletter system here at CPS as well as other channels of digital which include our website, social media sites, our um feedback loops that include surveys, office hours, focus groups that we'd like to implement, our media sharing our good news story. So, not only just um media that we receive externally, but our internal protocols of how we share the good news that's happening at CPS and school and districtbased, which looks like middle, junior high school community sessions and the local school decision-making committee. So the next

167three slides really focus in on the matrix of our audience and the purpose and it helps us to clarify our top channels and the feedback mechanism by group. I'm not going to spend time going through each slide but it just drills down again um based upon the audience if it's families, students, staff, principles um the channels that we're using to engage with them and the feedback that we are seeking. Moving on to the engagement events at a glance slide. Um these are just some of the things that have taken place or will continue to take place as we engage with our communities. Um I will be attending some of these events as many as I can. Um especially with the middle school and junior high engagement as we look to solidify names for those particular

168schools. um as well as LSDMC meetings, parent organization leader meetings. Um we have an upcoming neighborhood community council breakfast that's um in the works this week. And then we also have our district-wide culture calendar. So this provides a snapshot of ways to keep in touch with things that are going on in our organization. I tal spoke a little bit about the newsletter system. Um this just provides more clarity on the various newsletters and I believe that there may be more especially at the school level with principles and the newsletters that they send out. Um, I would say our work is to really bring about consistency when it comes to sharing best practices for newsletters and how information is shared as well as providing templated information and documenting processes to assist schools who may not be

169distributing newsletters at the moment. Um, our deputy superintendent sends out here for kids which is on Fridays. Superintendent Murphy distributes the Sunday scoop, which is a monthly newsletter. And then from the treasures or finance office, we do have a CPS financial facts that's distributed on about a quarterly basis. When we look at digital and social channels, we have our website that also houses our individual school sites, our social media at IMCPS on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. And then other communications include our email, text message, and robocall. Um, as far as listening and followup, we would like to implement a micro survey through Google forms. Um, that will be districtwide. So, it's one survey asking about five or so questions that is sent out within 48 hours after major events. And really, it can be

170for any event. The idea is to have a central place where the audience can pro provide feedback and we can get a better understanding if the message was clear, if they understand what to do as far as next steps after that particular event and so forth. Um, we also like to start doing a public recap. So implementing what we've heard and what we'll do in a timely fashion to acknowledge um our audience and that we are actually listening to and hearing them. Um and then as far as media inquiries, um we also get messages through our website quite often, social media DMs and comments. We just have implemented a standard as far as our followup and follow through for those methods. When it comes to accessibility, these are some simple things that we have committed

171to do every time we communicate and engage. So that would include plain language, avoiding acronyms and jargon. Um I talked about larger text in instances where it would be applicable translations for our priority languages. So we've learned that our top four languages here at CPS are English, Spanish, French, and Arabic. Um and so making sure that that information is con is communicated so that it is accessible for all. um when it talk when we're talking about metrics that matters. So we're really focusing on three top metrics that include our reach, response, and reputation. Our reach speaks to who saw the information. Our response is how quickly, how effective we are um with the information and our reputation. So how did it land? How did it land with our audience? That may look like likes, shares,

172comments on Facebook, for example. Um we are trying to implement an engagement index that is similar to the green yellow red method um as well as a reporting cadence. So we have each of our team members working on a dashboard with applicable metrics for their role where we will then report out in our weekly um team meetings as well as an SLT and as well to the board as needed. I've included a sample metrics dashboard. This is not actual numbers here, but more so to give you an an idea of the types of metrics we will be looking at and tracking. Um, so through our Google Analytics on our website, we're able to see things like number of pages that have been viewed, unique visitors to our site. um through our various software that we

173use for newsletters, we're able to see how many have been opened, um what type of device they're opening from, etc. Media mentions, social media, again, including likes, shares, and comments. And then internally, our um on-time delivery, what we've committed to. Here's a quick breakdown of our um operating model for marketing and communications to flow like a small but mighty newsroom where we intake information, we verify, we're able to craft messaging around it, publish, monitor, and update it as needed. Um, in addition to our weekly marketing meetings, we will implement two times a week a 15 minute standup just to ensure that our team is on one accord as well as the development and implementation of school starter kits. So, this consists of ready to send templated messages for our schools um as well as other

174assets to help communication go out faster so that there's not so much reliance on our department to turn that information around. The next slide talks about the gold standard. So it really is highlighting the office of marketing and communications team and how this work is accomplished. Um we have the sensational six that I call them. Um starting with Miss Sheila who had is our most tenured um employee and um Michila is really the glue that holds our department together. she's able to provide a bridge for us of um institutional knowledge that a lot of our newer team members just don't have. So she provides a great perspective to us of what things have been done in the past, maybe what worked and what didn't work. Um and also what you'll see on each slide forthcoming,

175we did a um team building exercise where we talked about characteristics that we value um in a team. And so this is really helping us to work better and smarter and faster. Next you'll see um Kim. She is our digital content associate and Kim Kim is really a team player. she's all in. Um she's committed to ensuring that the information on our website is up todate and we are also working to do a website audit where we find the pages that are missing that may be outdated so that again we have fresh content, relevant content and also that the information can be easily accessed online. Next we have Katherine who is our communications associate and Katherine is really our lead writer. She keeps us all on point with reliable and knowledgeable information. Um, so she's

176really that brand voice and the ambassador for the CPS brand as far as how we communicate and what our brand looks like. The gold standard for our communication specialist, Mary. Um, Mary is also can be considered uh, I would say a visual brand ambassador. So you'll always see Mary with a camera as well as assisting with videography to really capture the authentic moments of our district and um she is really the backbone of our student influencer program. So being able to see um the videos of our students leading the way um Mary is the one who coordinates that and makes that come to life. Um she's also the thought leader behind making um it a more structured program working with our teachers and students where they may have the opportunity to gain credit for the

177things that they're doing as influencers um as well as learning more about how to communicate in a strategic way. We have Joe, our media relations associate. Um Joe brings a lot of passion to his role and um is superb at relationship building. Joe is the kind of person who never meets a stranger and so his deep media connections and being able to relate um really shine through especially in a new wave that we're introducing as far as being at the forefront and the leaders of sharing the CPS story. So, not just relying on external media outlets to share our story, but being at the forefront of doing so. Joe values communication, cooperation, and compassion. New to our team, um he's about a week, a little over a week in is Nick. He is our graphic

178designer, and um he is stepping in to really show visually how we represent the district. So all of the opportunities and projects that come in from other departments or from schools that need our support, um Nick is going to take us to the next level with regards to our brand standards and making sure that those are maintained throughout. Um last but not least, I have the esteemed pleasure of leading this group um and really thinking about what excellence from an educational district communications and marketing standpoint looks like. So casting that vision and continuously building up my team to make sure we are equipped um and knowledgeable in what we're doing. Um, so again, I will put up um the slide that talks about what we're asking for, but as far as what to expect next,

179um, our office is planning to send a district-wide email uh, reintroducing the office of marketing and communications as well as providing clear direction on how to best work with us. So, that will include an updated project uh, request form link as well as an updated good news story link. We are asking that all requests needing support from our office go through that central project request form link. This helps us to document and track the intake requests as well as making sure that we are efficient in execution of the work. Um in addition as I mentioned the second thing will be to um engage with our middle school and junior high schools for the naming sessions. So upcoming are teacher, excuse me, parent teacher conferences that I'll be in attendance with um other members of our

180team as well to really engage with those parents specifically on those names. And then um the third point that I want to highlight is implementing our engagement survey. So adding it to marketing and communications through flyers, um just a simple QR code and it doesn't matter what the event is. Um it will all link to that same form. That way again we can begin to ask our audience um what resonated with them if they need followup etc. And that's all I have. Happy to take any questions. >> Thank you member Lindy. I just want to say thank you so much for the what we are asking for intro uh is exactly what I was talking about and from my perspective uh feel great to approve on just one board member. Um I think uh on

181providing feedback I think the clarity you all have about what you're trying to do sounds great I have only positive feedback uh and the endorsement of gold standard as our service bar for district communications sounds excellent to me and I really appreciate the whole presentation. Thanks. Thank you. >> Thank you. I don't know which one was first. >> Oh, I didn't see you. I just wanted to say thank you so much. Um, as a parent also um in this district, it is very important to be transparent with the messaging and I know in the past we've had some issues there and I am so excited to see where this is going because the messaging is great. Everything is aligning. You all have done a great great job. Couple of things that I just wanted to

182kind of point out. I absolutely love the inform, the involve, and the co-create because I think that's what the community is asking for. They want to know how can they become involved. Parents want to know how can they get involved. Students want to know how can they get involved. And I also love how you're incorporating our MLL and our EL students as well in their families. um giving that option that they're able to see different things in different languages as well. And I think for me the one thing that I just really like is the same messaging. You're having that same message on all of the outlets of social media. So if it's an Instagram post, if it's a Facebook post, if it's a LinkedIn post, it's not different things, it's the same. So thank

183you so much to you and your team. You are doing a great job and I look forward to seeing more from you all. Great job. Thank you. >> Well, member Matt, >> I just want to commend you on an impressive presentation. I love that it was thorough. It was clear, concise, and engaging and inclusive. Um, so I just want to just highlight that this was uh this is great work that you presented, and I look forward to further experiencing the gold standard. I also like that you uh spoke about each of your team members roles and what we can expect from for you know for the work that they're going to be presenting not just for us but for the community to know as well. Um and I also equally appreciate that you have tied

184this to metrics right and not just metrics for your own uh purposes but metrics that's aligned to our already standing goals and guardrail. So thank you for uh the hard work that you and your team are doing. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, >> board member Craig. >> So, I will first start by saying I'd be remiss if I did not say that one of the first people I met when I worked in the district was the wonderful Sheila Hess, who is like a bonus mom to every person she meets and is wonderful. I have not yet met a person who does not love Sheila. So, I will start by saying that. Um, and she's also been in the district for in a I think it's 40 plus years. So, crazy amount of time spent here with

185all of the craziness that is the district. But, um, I think I I love the definition of enga the definition has been proposed for engagement. I think it's it captures some of the discussions that we've had as a board in the past as well as what truly defines engagement and what do we mean when we're asking folks to be a part of some level of engagement in a process. Um the one well so the the two areas I would want us to explore a little bit more within the overall planning because I think a lot of it is is is really good um the use of students to do the to do a lot of our marketing and I think one of the struggles I've had is that some of the best things we've done

186as a district and the things that most people have like responded to loved thought it was really informative is when the students do it. So like the example to me has always been the metro video that was just done with a student going on and talking about how to catch the metro and that kind of thing. Like all of us felt like man that was like really cool. It was really informative but it was done in a way that only a student can deliver. Like an adult can't say that same message and it be received the same way. Um, and I say that's true for other things that we do as far as even going back to school as we talk about the day in the life of a student or any of these type

187of things that really allows students to kind of understand what they're stepping into. Um, and I and I just I think there are ways we can probably do it and there's ways to I look at like at UC we do we have the athletics takes over has the student teams take over their social media sometimes and just talk about what they're doing or the student ambassadors do it where they talk about where you go to how to get to this place on campus that type of stuff or all those things that the students think about all the time that we don't think about in the same way. Um, so it's great to have them more incorporated. And then the other thing is if we learn nothing from the lessons um from what some of the

188parents shared today, I do think there's a way that we can as we go into next school year, think about communicating earlier about how to get your child enrolled. Now it's time to get your child enrolled and maybe utilizing some of the parents as part of that u process or or incorporating them and their ch children into that process. I know we've used them for other marketing purposes. Um, I think we've had uh Avery on pictures for like four years now, but uh but other folks who were able to talk about like they're registering their kid or it's time to get my kid back to school or something to that effect and even thinking about that from a individual school perspective on like what do we offer because that's the other part that I think

189we've missed in a little bit of a way and that's not a communications or marketing issue per se. that's I think a more of a district marketing thing is that schools don't often market what they offer. >> So I remember one of the first things that I came to when running for school board um where we had like a big group thing was the back to school event they did at Woodward and they had career tech out there and parents who were just walking around the neighborhood were like well they do career tech and CPS when did that start and like the fact that it's been there and it's they just don't have the knowledge right and I think that's a hard thing for us to ingrain into them. So, I I would love that

190idea of how do we plan out a lot of that part of the back to school marketing, find out what your school offers, quick link ways to do that. Even if you even if every school had a QR code that talked about their programming, that kind of stuff be really quick stuff. But I like where we are because I think one of the things that you were talking about is trying to bring that stuff back in house so each school isn't trying to do their own little thing separately that there's some type of internal connectivity to that by bringing back you know somewhat more centralizing it. So I think that those are the kind of things the the two areas that I think I would love to see us expand upon is the use of

191students and how we market and and then also just a plan of addressing times that we market certain things because I think we do a very good job of communicating like surveys communicating information but we don't always market the district so people know what the district has to offer in the same way. So thank you. >> Thank you. So, I'm just going to I don't want to repeat what my colleagues have already said. I am so excited to read your definition of engagement. I think it it is very succinct and it is an alignment with me. It's like mono emano. We're we're there. Um so, and I appreciate you sharing that with the board so that hopefully we can all get on the same page as well with that and hopefully the district um we

192can we can move towards that direction. I appreciate that you shared that communication should be um two-way and intentional because I don't think that we have always been viewed as being intentional with our communication um within the community. I want to since you are such a forward thinker, I want to invite you to continue to dream and um give you this space to also look at how we this is all forward facing to the community, but how do we bring them how do we meet them where they are? I think one piece of engagement that you you've definitely captured, but um I I always tell people we need to be in the way of people. they need to trip over us because we are there where they are. And unfortunately, our district has not been

193the most engaging as as we could have been around phase two. And um we've we've we've suffered from that. But I think there is a way for us, particularly with your plan, to be able to rectify some of that as far as getting information out. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on how do we um how are we in the way of the community so that they can almost anticipate what we're what we're thinking and what we're doing because they're so intricately involved and they're not an afterthought. So we do have to do some messaging reme messaging around um letting them know that they are part of this and this is not happening to them but this can be that co-artnership that you described because um they don't feel that way. Those are some

194of the complaints that that I get and um so I want I'm kind of excited to hear some of your thoughts around that particularly around our ELELLL families and around our students with disabilities. this particular meeting, we had a lot of families come and talk about their feeling disenfranchised with services that quite frankly we have contracted out, but we are the face of and we need to get messaging out better to the families around what our role is, but how we can help them advocate. And so, um, there's a couple of areas that I think we need immediate assistance. we need your team to do to work immediately with. Um, and I and I'm kind of excited about hearing some of your thoughts and your ideas. And you called them the fabulous six or what

195did you call them? >> Sensational six. So, I know you're you're doing a lot with a small little team and I I want to say that we appreciate you all for sure. Um, I want to also ask the board also needs assistance with marketing and communication. So, there's a piece there that is for the district, but there's also a piece that's significant for the board in um kind of helping to define with clarity what our role is to the community and where it is that we could be of assistance. So, I also again would um welcome your thoughts around your your and your department's thoughts around that because um again there's just so much to do and a lot of it is forward facing but a lot of it is gathering information but being in

196the way of the community so that they understand where we are and what we do and then we can maybe just build on that. So again, thank you so much for all that you do. I know that it's kind of daunting to get up here and talk to us and so you did it style and grace and I appreciate that. Do board members have any other questions? >> Thank you so much. My pleasure, >> Kelly Green. I got it right. >> Thank you. >> All right, board members. Um, I'm just going to say the words tick tock because everybody knows what that means now. So, um, policy committee chair Lindy, please begin the update about or your summation around House Bill 42 and Senate Bill 72 with the assistance of general counseling. >> I was

197going to say I'm excited to hear from our incredibly competent and patient general counsel, Mr. Roy. >> I was reading my script. I'm sorry. >> All good. Uh, good evening. Uh we had a brief discussion at the August policy committee meeting about two bills pending in the Ohio General Assembly uh which if passed would negatively impact immigrant and refugee families at CPS. Uh I was asked to give a brief update um or summation of those bills. Uh House Bill 42 uh would require schools to collect information and report to the state on the number of students we are educating that fall into one of three categories. One is US citizens. two would be non- US citizens lawfully in the country and three would be non- US citizens not lawfully residing in the country. Bill does

198not specify how districts would collect this information and importantly CPS uh does not collect this information from families uh on enroll during enrollment or any other process. Um since at least 1982 uh the Supreme Court case of Plyer vo held that children have a right to education regardless of immigration status. Uh we are aware of no other state that collects this information from families. Um and previous attempts in other states to do so uh met with uh constitutional challenges including an 11th uh circuit case uh in 2012 holding that Alabama's recordkeeping requirement uh quote significantly interfered with family's fundamental right of accessing a public education. Uh this bill's been assigned to the House Government and Oversight Committee. It's had its second hearing on May 20th, 2025, and expect it to be taken up again after

199the summer recess. Uh second bill is Senate Bill 172, mislabeled in in the agenda. It's 172, uh which provides that no person who is or suspected of being in the US illegally is privileged from any kind of arrest or detention anywhere in the state of Ohio. Uh this follows a highprofile case out of Boston in which a judge allegedly assisted an immigrant from escaping detention from ICE as a part of courthouse procedures. Uh and and the bill specifically does relate especially to courouses. It tries to reverse some of the policies that that have been put in place from so-called sanctuary cities etc. But it could also impact CPS and it would reverse CPS's long-standing policy of how we work with law enforcement really of any kind, immigration enforcement or any other law enforcement. Uh it

200has been the long-standing policy of the board only to present a student for interrogation or questioning uh either with parental permission or with proper legal process. Uh this bill would purport to turn that policy on its head. Uh this bill was passed by the Senate on June 18th. It was introduced to the House on June 23rd uh and is pending currently in the House. I welcome your questions. We will be monitoring both bills. >> Lindy, >> thank you. Uh, one of the things we chatted about in policy and I'm glad for the chance to bring it to the board here, but um I hope that neither of these bills pass and I hope neither become signed into law. Um, if they do, um, I would like to go back just a month or so to

201when I was very proud of our district for being one of, I think, two school districts in the country, I think two, that sued the Trump administration for withholding uh, federal title dollars um, that had been passed by Congress and that had been signed into law. And I I I reference that just because um, there are all kinds of awful things happening uh, I think nationally and in our state. Um, and on any one that we can, I want to see us fight back. Um, and I don't know that that's going to be possible on every single one of these cases. Um, but if we have a legal argument, if we have a constitutional argument to fight back, I want CPS to be leading the charge. And I'm so proud that we were part of

202leading the charge on the title dollar issue. Um, I think it's premature to do anything at the moment because neither of these bills has been passed. Um, but I wanted to at least raise the issue that if if we have the opportunity again uh to fight back in court and make the constitutional argument um and be on the right side of history on these issues. Uh I just wanted to say I hope we can do that. >> Thank you. Well, Craig, >> I I think u I want to also just reiterate one point that I thought I think you were making and I think it's just hopeful important for us to let other folks know about which is we have an obligation not just by our saying we will do it but because the law

203says we have to educate any child in our district regardless of their immigration status. And I think one of the things that I'm truly fearful of is stuff like this is meant to defund programming and processes. So what we will then say is, okay, well, you have a bunch of immigrant students. Guess what? We're not going to give you money for this part or we're going to take dollars away. Which then puts us in a position where we're having to fight to get funding in a way that is appropriate. And I think as we already know, there are so many other ways that this state has made an effort to take away funding from our students in order to deny public education the resources it deserves. I think this is another example of things that

204are being done solely for those purposes. In a similar fashion, I could almost immediately imagine processes where the state says you did not handwalk the person from, you know, from ICE down to the classroom to pull the kid out of the building and therefore we're going to take x amount of money from you because we know they've already do that other things. We saw that with how they've done their transportation systems place. We see that how they do it for other stuff. So I hope that what we are what our public also hears is there the these are efforts to widow away at public education. These are efforts to attack and put different uh barriers to public education in place. Um and we'll push back on those those ef those efforts. >> Thank you. Uh,

205Treasurer Gustin, please update the board about Ohio state law overrides by the governor. >> If you don't mind, I'll do B and C kind of together. >> Say it again. >> If you don't mind, I'll do items B and C together. So, okay. The overrides in the property tax legislation, they're >> Yeah, >> they're very much intertwined. So, um, just for the public's for the public's information, if you remember, at the end of the budget process, the governor Dwine vetoed, I think did 67 line item vetos. Um, a lot of them were around school funding and property tax reform. Um, the Ohio House has in discussion to override three of those vetos. They overrode one a little bit earlier. Um, that was the one that ends fixed some levies. There's two more in kind of

206in progress. One is about the role the county budget commission and whether they can reduce property taxes and the other one um changes how the 20 mil floor is calculated. So legislature did take a break kind of after the budget was passed. They are back in session now but I have not seen and leo council Hoy and I both independently checked today. There is not any there aren't any override votes scheduled at this time. We do anticipate they will be scheduled. Um it's just kind of I think a matter of time before those things to happen. So going on to property tax reform legislation, we have some updates here. So I'll start with the property tax work group. So if you remember that group was um created by the governor. Uh the chair is former

207board member and state senator Bill Sites. Also our commissioner uh Miss Dhouse. She is she's also on that on that work group. Um their last meeting was on the 4th. the last week talked about a lot of things um things that might might impact us. One is talking about can we pause property tax reassessments statewide to give this legislature a little more time to look for a legislative solution. Another option was changing the ballot language from millage to percentage. So you would see instead of x number of mills on the ballot it would be x percent. I don't know that's a huge change. Uh, one of the more interesting ideas is a tax deferral program. So, folks who met a set set of criteria, generally agent income, the state would allow them to defer their

208property taxes and the state state would pick that up until the t until the property was sold and then it would work kind of like a lean and so the state would recover the money at that time. Not sure if any of things going to come of that, but that was a a big topic of their last meeting. And then the final thing I would say is there's still a lot of interest in kind of the provisions in House Bill 186. So that is the that is the bill that would change the 20 mil floor for us. And so it would limit the growth of um property tax revenue on the 20 mil floor to the amount of inflation over the same period. So that will have and it would it wouldn't impact us until

209our next reappraisal. So, we have a couple of years, but it would it would decrease um increases in the property taxes. Other items, uh there's a ballot initi the ballot initiative on eliminating property taxes statewide will not be on the ballot this November. So, we can we can not be concerned about that for a little bit at least. Uh there are bills in the general assembly. So, I did get a message from Senator Lang, Senator George Lang, about Senate Bill 66. um we sent him a letter earlier in the year and you know he he wants to make sure there's a grandfather clause and the and any changes to um the 20 mil floor which would be a help for us. So that would basically take existing tax levies and not have them change but

210anything new would then fall into the 20 mil floor. There's also three new bills that were introduced in the House in the last couple weeks. These are called the taxpayer freedom trilogy. So that's House Bill 420. Uh would eliminate any continuing tax levies. So you would have to every levy would be time limited either five or 10 years. So you have to so you couldn't couldn't pass a continuing levy. Um House Bill 421 would allow citizens to do a m a ballot measure to reduce inside millillage. So inside millillage are the first 10 mills of property taxes. Those are split amongst the different groups inside a taxi entity. So like so out of the 10 I think we get about four 4.9 and then the city gets some the county gets some. So this would

211allow taxpayers to put on the ballot basically initiative to reduce the inside millillage below the 10. And then house bill 422 would raise the approval threshold for any new uh tax levies. So, anything over one mil would require 60% approval. And a new tax levy over two mills would require 66% approval. So, so up up to almost 2/3. And like I said, those are all brand new. I don't think any of them had hearings yet, but it's important to know they were kind of rolled out with some fanfare as another attempt for the general assembly to address property taxes. >> Okay. Thank you for the update. Thanks. >> Seeing no questions, anybody have questions, comments, concerns? Okay. >> Well, member Craig, please update the board about your question around employable graduates or did we already

212talk about that? >> I was going to say I think we somewhat covered this in the discussion. I'll have a assignment later for it, but I think we kind of covered it in the discussion. >> Okay. And you've also got the next topic. >> Yeah. Uh, so we move these quickly. Um, so this one is really just in looking at the amount of things that we as a district use paper for. I I'm hoping we can move ourselves into at least the 21st century >> soon. And so just thinking about ways that we can create a plan to start digitizing a lot of how our records transfer. I think this also helps speed up some of the processes because I do think that is what also brings a lot of the consternation when people folks

213come to the the district office to enroll is the amount of things that we have to have you know two or three times somebody have printed off or two or three times somebody had brought up because either didn't have it the right way in the first way and that kind of deal. So I just uh would like to put on the thought processes for the administration of just bringing us more into a digitized version of the the world here. Um and and again putting us towards ma keeping some of these documentation some documentation making it more digitally transferred throughout because the other part I'm thinking about is that at least when I worked and the uh worked with the general counsel's office the amount of records that we maintained and how we had to store

214those records became even more cumbersome and in this day and age we don't exactly have a bunch of free spaces to keep adding more to. So, I just want to make sure that we're thinking about moving ourselves in that digital towards that digital footprint era. >> Any comments, questions? Thank you. Board members, are there any assignments? I know that's board member Craig. Um so I will just do two and one is really again um having us work through a plan that looks at a way to track the career tech credentials the the the industry credentials in addition to the standards that the state um applies. And so the the assignment is really just to think of a way to develop a plan or whatever so that we can track some of those records into and

215how we keep up with some of our students because I think that's one of the challenges that there's not necessarily a consistent manner for each industry or each workforce. So, if we can just kind of start to develop that plan and then the time frame I was thinking about is just by the first of the year having some type of plan put together on how we can start to keep track of that and that's something we could then implement as students finish up this year. Um, and then the second one I think we kind of raised it already in the discussion, but I just think be helpful to put together um plans for how we can develop marketing plan for next start of the school year that would incorporate the use of our students. Um

216I I I again think some of the best things we've done at the back to school thing that the back to school program or video that was done the students walking around. I think some of those types of things are great ways to also get parents engaged. So just coming up with some type of marketing plan for our next school year that we can start to then prepare for and build on so that we can get students and folks registered earlier. um because I do think the late registration and these are things that may help the district um sell the district as well. >> Any other assignments? Member Lindy. >> Um this is not a a new assignment. I just wanted to follow up. I think we the superintendent addressed some of this earlier. I

217just wanted to check and thank you. Um I heard reference in the presentation around the RFP around support for curriculum to be coming I think at the next meeting. That sounds great. Thank you. Uh did you also say at that meeting the here's what we used to do last year, here's what's different about that this year with respect to those three positions. Is that also coming in the next meeting? That's great. Um and along with that, what we're going to look for to see whether or not the efforts are making a difference over the course of the year. This is all in the assignments log. I just wanted to make sure I heard right. This is coming next meeting. That's great. I think the only other one I had in there was um I think

218you were going to come back at this meeting with a date when we could have the results of the immigration task force like pulling together the internal and external folks to see how we could be more supportive as a district. And I wanted to check in on the date for when that would be ready. >> So, um Deputy Smith did hold the initial conversation. we meet tomorrow and if it's okay with you, we can um talk about what our next steps are. Like they gave us quite a few suggestions and we want to kind of categorize them. >> That's great. That it's really good to hear that that's still moving and I think if we could um this could be in a board meeting or an email just what some update on how that's going

219and and thank you. Uh and that's it. >> Well member map, did you have a assignment? Uh yes. Just wanted to reiterate um what was discussed with the um conversation around the goals and the interim guard rails. I know that you said there's a presentation on uh for next meeting about what you all's thinking and strategies are uh pertaining to moving um the data forward as we're preparing to establish um new targets. Um but specifically wanting to make sure that it's around equity. um making sure that we are strategically thinking about how to get our students at on grade level or above grade level. Um and then also the conversation around representation um what that data looks like for our students. And then lastly um we talked about enrollment that you will have those um

220enrollment numbers and also if you can compare it to what the projection numbers were for um that breakdown that you provided us with. If you compare compare it to those um figures that would be helpful. >> Craig, >> uh just wanted to read u send a reminder or give some reminder for the one uh assignment I had previously given with regard to building the budget uh template that I believe they've already started on. at least that's what we were we shared at the budget and finance committee, but I believe it is actually due at our next uh full board meeting so that we could then go into our October um work session and be able to look through like we're going to build the uh budget task force and that type of thing. So, uh

221just reminder of uh maybe giving us an update on that at our next board meeting. So I have um a followup to my request around the transportation piece. Um I had asked about uh there there was a comment that to do multiple some stu I just wanted to follow up around um the disagregation of the seventh and eighth graders with siblings really just the siblings piece which leads me to my next assignment. uh particularly from the large amount of parents that we are having come with students with disabilities that are having transportation issues. I am concerned they mentioned UTS transportation services or transportation provider. Um I'd like to do some have some information around the effectiveness of that provider. Is there an alternative provider? From what I understand, they they provide the most extensive coverage,

222but um it we may need to do some sort of survey or something around their efficiency rate because students are missing school. It sounds like students are not they're not providing the monitors that they should be. But I I'd like to maybe if there's a way that we can survey or get information from our parents and families with that have students with disabilities needing transportation to find out the effectiveness of their transportation services so that they're not lost so that they're not so that they are making it to school so that we can find out um just because they're a provider do they have to be? And so we need to I'd like to get a little bit more information particularly around that population and the effectiveness of transportation. And then I have a question.

223Do we survey parents around transportation? How effective transportation is for them? Um just our regular Jed students. >> I do not think we have done a survey around transportation in isolation. >> Okay. All right. Maybe we maybe we can think about it. So um I know transportation has been the bane of our existence in the past but the only way that we get better is if we recogn acknowledge where the problems and the concerns are so that we can can see that. Anyone else have any other assignments question Lendy? >> I I don't think we need to make this another assignment. I just wanted to loop back to it. I think um a big important question is whether we have full support of CTF on the curriculum work. Uh, I think that'll be clear in

224future meetings whether we do or not, but I didn't want the absence of me mentioning that here to have it fall off. But I I don't think we need it listed as a separate assignment. I feel very confident it's already on the superintendent's agenda. Uh, and I really appreciate all your help. A proposed consent agenda has been distributed. So, do board members, superintendent or the treasurer have any exception items to the consent agenda? And I will say this, board members, we are not doing anything wrong, but if when it comes out on Friday, if you do have um exceptions, Treasurer Augustine was asking if we could get those ahead of time and then you can just kind of say them and it'll go fast or at least send them to him >> ahead of time.

225But we are not doing anything wrong and I'm going to call on board member M. Thank you. Greatly appreciate it. Um and I'm glad to hear that we were following protocol as that's something I like to do. Um so I do have one exception for the treasures report. Um and it is on page seven uh for the then announced certificates which is the last um item. I believe it's line item number 17. And that's the only exception that I have that I would like to abstain from >> member W. Thank you. >> So on the superintendent report um on page nine section D in the athletics and co-curricular section it will be lines seven and eight. And then on page 11, section G, line 9 and 13. All right, board members. I need a motion

226and a second to approve the items of the consent agenda with the exclude. >> Second, >> Treasurer Gun. >> Mr. Craig. >> Yes. >> Mr. Lindy. Yes, >> Miss Math. >> Yes, >> Mrs. Weinberg. >> Yes, >> President Moffett. >> Yes, there's Is there any last call for assignments? And I will entertain gladly a motion for