001getting better at that. Seeing a quorum of voting members, I call the June 23rd Cincinnati School Board meeting to order. Treasure Wagner, please call the attendance role. Mr. Craig here, Mr. Crosset here, Mr. Lindy here, Miss M here, Mrs. Weinberg here, Vice President Bolton present. President Moffett here. And before we stand for the pledge of allegiance, I want to apologize to everyone that we were delayed coming out of exact session. I just wanted to make sure that you knew that we weren't trying to be this late. So, we apologize for being delayed. And let's stand for the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I know I miss the
002kids. Well, that would be a good idea. We didn't have students. That's the reason why we we were all kind of delayed like what's going on. So, maybe we should have a recording bank of students. Superintendent Murphy. Superintendent Murphy, just give us a recording bank of students. Like, let them all record and then we'll All right. Vice President Bolton, please explain the virtual hearing process for the to the public. Thank you very much. Happy to do 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 requests for five minutes. If you would like a direct response to your questions, please make sure to share your name, your affiliation
003to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information. Thank you. I need a motion and a second to approve the June 23rd business meeting agenda. Is there any uh additions, deletions? I'd like to make the motion, Madame President, uh to approve as written with the addition of the possibility of the board uh having any discussion or decision about authorizing the administration to begin the process regarding the sale of property. All right. So, let's add that. Um do you oppose to adding that under board matters? That's great. Inquiries and updates. Thank you very much. Absolutely. If it pleases the board. Absolutely. Is there a motion and a second to approve the June 23rd business meeting agenda with the revision to add sale of property under board matters, inquiries, and updates? I need a
004first and a second. A second. I'm sorry. Board uh Vice President Bolton is the first. Board member uh Crosset is the second. And uh Treasure Wagner, please call the voting role. Mr. Craig, yes, Mr. Crosset. Yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Miss M. Yes. Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. Tonight's agenda is approved with revisions. Let's now begin tonight's me meeting readressing the board's membership and professional organizations. I think we just I wanted us to have a little bit of clarity around what we decided on. We discussed, but we didn't really vote on anything the last time with regard to membership and professional organizations. Um, just for the public to be brought up. We talked about the Council of Grey City Schools contract. They have graciously offered us the opportunity to kind of
005freeze our membership. There was discussion on the floor about putting half that money aside for another year, but we didn't really talk about that. So, I just wanted to revisit this one last time under the guise of the budget with the board members that we are going to freeze our membership. We're still a member, but we they're allowing us the opportunity to not pay for this upcoming year. And is that acceptable to everyone? Vice President is very gracious on their part recognizing that school districts throughout the country are faced with these particular challenges and I think it allows us to remain as a cohort to the council on great city schools on which I know member Craig serves as a trustee uh and it allows us as I say to continue but uh at this
006time not to necessarily have the financial burden as well. So I think it's gracious and I think it's a great idea. Great. Any other discussion? Okay. Do we need to vote? All right. So, now we have a um let's see. Give me just a minute to change my page. So, we have um a resolution advocating for full funding of the fair school funding plan. There is there was a really gracious motion and resolution by the city of Cincinnati city council members to do this. Um, our board is also requesting that there is fair funding, full funding of the school funding plan. The resolution is on board docs. Do you have that up, Rob? Thank you so much. Board members, let's um Would you like to read it? Okay. Well, then I'm going to tell them
007that they read it. Everybody get two because there was 14 of them. So, let's start at the top, Rob, and let's let the board members just read two of them and read it. Read it quickly. Board members. Where are we starting? At the beginning. We're uh board member map, we'll start with you, unless you want us to start on the other end. Board member Crawford, we'll start with you. Thank you, board member map. You're welcome. Whereas the Ohio Constitution guarantees a thorough and efficient system of common schools throughout the state. And the Ohio Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the state school funding system must be both adequate and equitable and not excessively reliant upon local property taxes, which leads to disparities in educational opportunities between districts. And whereas nearly 90% of Ohio school age
008children attend public schools, making it essential that the state budget adequately supports public education. And whereas the fair school funding plan developed through a bipartisan effort led by state representatives Robert Cup and John Patterson with significant input from superintendents, treasurers, educators, and policy experts established a transparent needs-based formula to determine the actual cost of educating each student district by district built on the principle of shared responsibility between the state and local communities. hand. Whereas the fair school funding plan was enacted by the 134th general assembly through a six-year phase in and has made meaningful progress toward stabilizing and equalizing public school funding across Ohio, which must be continued to achieve an adequate and equitable system of funding public schools. And whereas the fair school funding plan is not a static formula, but one that requires
009regular updates based on current economic uh realities and evolving student needs to maintain its effectiveness. And whereas provisions in the proposed FY fiscal year 2627 state budget threatened the fair school funding plan integrity by undermining or underfunding the state share of the current cost to educate Ohio's youth and reverting to residential residual budgeting practices that not only disregard the fair school funding plan but also do not have an objective and systematic approach to determining the cost of educ. educating a student in Ohio. And whereas the budget currently proposed in the 2026 27 state budget significantly underfunds the Cincinnati public school district over the next two years compared to what would be provided under a fully funded fair school funding plan. and underfunding the fair school funding plan will force districts to return to the ballot
010more often, shifting the burden to our local taxpayers. And whereas school districts rely on funding guarantees to prevent drastic decreases in state funding from year to year. And any reduction to funding guarantees would destabilize educational services, harm students, and shift financial burdens onto local taxpayers, or force cuts to essential programs. Now therefore, be it resolved that the Cincinnati City School District Board of Education one strongly supports a state budget that includes the continued implementation and full funding of the fair school funding plan using current research-based inputs that reflect today's educational and economic realities. two opposes any proposals to cut funding from districts currently receiving funding guarantees as such actions would create financial instability and negatively impact students and communities. Three, opposes legislative efforts to impose arbitrary limits on district cash balances or withhold voterapproved levy
011revenues as such actions erode local control over district finances and management and hinder district's ability to plan and operate effectively. Four, calls upon the Ohio General Assembly and the governor to uphold their commitment to fair and adequate school funding by ensuring that the current and future bional budgets fully fund the fair school funding plan with updated cost calculations to reflect the actual cost of educating Ohio students. and five encourages fellow school districts, educational organizations, and community stakeholders to advocate for an equitable school funding system that supports all Ohio students. Thank you, board members. Is there any further discussion? Treasure Wagner, please call the role. Did we get a second? Well, do we Well, I need a motion to approve what we just read and a second. So moved. Second. Thank you. Treasurer Wagner. Mr. Craig.
012Yes. Mr. Crossson. Yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Miss M? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice President Bolton? Yes. President Moffett? Yes. And thank you. Thank you. Treasure Wagner, do you want to briefly just talk about um we've we've approved this resolution, but there is a budget that is going to be passed by the state June 30th, potentially signed by the governor with some vetos hopefully. But what does this really mean for CPS? So, this particular resolution is asking to preserve the FA the funding formula. Um, you know, originally the old formula was ruled unconstitutional four times because of its over reliance on property wealth. Um, this funding formula is better because it the dollars follow the students. It still has an over reliance on property wealth, but it's better than it was before. So, the governor's budget,
013the House version, and the Senate version all hurt our funding in different ways. Um, much of which is captured here. But I do have a presentation in a little bit that goes over a bunch of the state uh language that is being voted on on Wednesday. Okay. And so there'll be a call to action for um activity tomorrow. Um and we'll send this up tomorrow as well. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, I I'm going to Next on our agenda is a resolution supporting changes to state and local laws to increase the penalties for vehicle moving violations in school safety zones. So, I read the um the title. I'm gonna ask each board member to read one line and then um this is super super significant with us because we take safety in our school zones
014very very seriously. We want our students to make it to school safe and to get home safe. So this is a what we're getting ready to read is a resolution supporting changes to state and local law to increase penalties for vehicle moving violations in school safety zones. Let's start with board member Matt. Read the first line. [Music] Whereas the Cincinnati City School District Board of Education supports efforts to increase safety for student pedestrians. And whereas Western Hills High School student Gabby Rodriguez was involved in a fatal pedestrian traffic accident on her way to school in September 2018. Other CPS students have also been seriously injured in traffic accidents while walking to and from school. hand. Whereas students in the Western Hills High School pedestrian safety team recently met with the board of education and Cincinnati
015City Council to advocate for more public awareness and stronger measures to enforce traffic and pedestrian safety in school safety zones and well thank you. Whereas there is significant student pedestrian activity within CPS school safety zones during the mornings and afternoons, including students and family members walking to and from school and students loading and unloading on buses. And whereas the board of education is supportive of efforts by state and local lawmakers to increase safety for student pedestrians. Now therefore, be it resolved, the board of education urges state and local officials to adopt stronger penalties for vehicle moving violations in school safety zones. I need a motion and a second. So moved. Second. Treasure. Any other discussion? Treasure. Yes. One addition that I think is really kind of helps clarify this. uh this came up as an
016a action by the legislature uh and has been discussed but the thing that I thought was kind of captured besides the fact that we're so care about our kids and that people are concerned about the safety school zones one of the ideas is that they match the um penalties and the preoccupation and advocacy that we have regarding uh the kinds of vehicular uh activities activities inside construction zones. And I think making that comparison where you know people are out in a dangerous situation and I think is very very important and I I think that's sort of captured some of the imagination of the legislators up in Columbus and very supportive of this uh resolution. Thank you. This was actually we got a presentation in case you were not able to watch it. I think it
017was two meetings ago. some students came and presented to us uh what they also presented to the state legislators up in Columbus around school safety. So, this is capturing some of their voices as well. Treasure Wagner. Oh, I'm sorry. Board member Lindy, thank you very much. I I also wanted to just uh acknowledge and appreciate the students who gave a presentation here at a recent meeting and their teacher, Mr. Demery at Western Hills High School. I know I mentioned this last time, but um he has been at this issue with his students at least as long as I've been on the board, which is five and a half years. Um and I think that I think the both the um perseverance um and also the uh collaboration with student advocacy is a big deal uh
018and and a good thing for us to do. That is all. Thank you, Treasurer Wagner. Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crossen. Yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Miss M. Yes. Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. Last thing under old business is a resolution determining to proceed with submission of a renewal tax levy. I'm rather than have all the board members read this, I'm going to defer this to the um budget committee members to read this. And um this is kind of your thing. Money. Yes. Wake up. Wake up. So Board me uh board members Crosset, Craig, and Vice President Bolton, would you begin with Crosset and read the resolution determining to proceed with submission of a renewal tax levy? Whereas this board of education at its meeting on the 19th day of May, 2025
019by resolution duly adopted and determined the necessity of a renewal tax in excess of the 10 mil limitation for the benefit of this school district for the purpose of providing funds for the emergency requirements of the school district in the amount of $48 million per year for a 10-year period commencing in 2026 first due calendar year 2027. 7 and provided that the question of leving said renewal tax shall be submitted to the electors of said school district at the election to be held on November 4th, 2025. And whereas the county auditor has certified to the board of edation board of education that the total current tax value of the school district is 9 billion 56,911,480 and the estimated average annual levy required to produce said annual amount assuming the evaluation of the school district remains
020constant throughout the life of the levy is five and 500s mills for each $1 of taxable value, which is $175 for each one7 $177, I'm sorry, for each $100 $100,000 of the county's auditor's appraised value. Now therefore be it resolved by the board of education of the stat city school district and then we'll do section and one two I'll do one that the board of education hereby determines to proceed with the submission of the question of such renewal emergency levy the emergency levy to the electors of the school district at the election held on November 4th 2025. Section two, that the tax shall be levied upon the entire territory of the school district. The school district has territory within Hamilton County and no other county. Section three, that the treasurer of this board of education
021be and is hereby directed to certify the following to the board of elections. A, a resolution of this board of board of education determining the necessity of renewing said tax and said election. B, this resolution. C the total current valuation of this school district and the amount of the average tax levy expressed in dollars and cents for each $100 of valuation as well as in mills for each $1 of taxable value as calculated and certified by the county auditor and d the number of years said levy is to run and to notify the board of elections to cause notice of such election to be given as required by law. The school district has territory in Hamilton County and no other county. Section four, that the form of ballot upon which the questioning of renewing said
022tax shall be submitted to the electors shall be substantially as follows. We don't have to read out. We'll just skip that part. You can read it. That's a lot. All right. And then section five is that it is that it is found and determined that all formal actions of the board of education concerning and relating to the adoption of this resolution were adopted in the open meeting of the board of education and that all deliberations of the board of education in any of its committees that resulted in such formal action were in meetings open to the public in compliance with all legal requirements including section 121 uh.22 of the Ohio Revised Code. That was great. Motion moved. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Judas Wagner. Mr. Craig. Yes. Mr. Crosset. Yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Miss M.
023Yes. Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. So, under new business acknowledgements and announcements, um I am going to begin with giving the board members each a pin. We have been acknowledged by the Cleveland Take one. That's the Cleveland NAACP and Rob's putting that on the screen. Thank you, Rob. The Cleveland NAACP Education Committee has presented the Cincinnati Public School Board with the Guardian of Justice Award for our stance on um DEI. So, everyone has received a pen and a plaque. This was presented at their meeting in June and we weren't able to make it to Cleveland, but just wanted to show you all the plaque. Do board members have any other announcements? A couple. You do. Board member Wineberg. All right. So, if you can look on the screen, um, first
024up, I just wanted to say congratulations to Miss Ebony Joe, who recently got honored a couple of weeks ago at our CPS employee of the year banquet. She also recently completed her degree and became CPS first graduate of the Western Governor's University, a program that assisted individuals who wanted to pursue education and serve as a pipeline for new teachers. So, Ebony recently graduated with a Bachelor of of Arts in elementary education. So, let's give Ebony a big round of applause. And Miss Ebony Joe is a senior support specialist at Rising Stars. rising star on Vine. Hey, on the next slide, I just wanted to kind of give some kudos to Oh, there it is. Sorry, I'm trying to follow along here with my slides as well. Um, just wanted to say congratulations to the Warner
025Hills track and field team on being honored at city hall. We had rising seniors Malachi Lars, Tazar Profett, and a recent graduate, Havlin Fairman. They were recognized with resolutions for their hard work and their dedication and commitment to their sport. Malachi broke a 31-year-old 400 meter record at Walnut Hills High School and both Tazar and Havlin placed 11th and 10th at the Ohio State Division 1 meet. Um, Malachi and Havlin ended their season by competing at the Adidas Outdoor Nationals which was held this weekend in Greensboro, North Carolina. I also would like to give a huge shout out to another CPS school which was Taff High School, Taff Senators. um their track and field team. They closed out with the bank at the division 2 state track meet. As you can see on the screen,
026we have and sorry if I'm butchering the last name, but we have Lorenzo McMullen. Um awesome job, was a state runnerup in the high jump, so he placed second place at the state meet. Then we have Javvon Gar, seventh in the 100 meter dash. And then we ended with the 4x1 of Eddie Holloway, Marcus Hawkins, Monsanna Tolbert Jr., Javon German, and they had an alternate of Z Baker, and they placed fifth overall. So, if we could give TAP High School and of course Wed Hills High School a big round of applause. Those two particular schools were the only representation at the state meet, so they get a big round of applause for that as well. And then on my last slide, I just wanted to give a huge kudos um to our very own CPS
027graduate, former employee and advocate Paul McMillan III on opening his brunch spot in the heart of Bon Hill. It was great to attend with my colleague here. Um and just to be able to see CPS graduates excelling, giving back, and making strides in entrepreneurship. And I just wanted to say make sure you go out and support Brunch Deluxe. It's open and great food. And let's give him a big round of applause as well. And I'm done. Any other board member kudos? Board member Craig. So I I will more than make an announcement, but not necessary kudos, but uh over the weekend uh a giant in our community passed away. Uh Jim Johnson, who was the founder of the Swell program. I am a alum of the SW program as well as many other CPS students
028over the years and so I just wanted to send a shout out to him and to his family as they are going through their process. But uh again, this is a person who dedicated his life to making sure that all of uh the legal profession is is reflective of uh what the community looks like. And so he's a giant among giants. and I he will be sadly missed but I know that the SW program currently has several CPS students in it this year and we'll continue on in his name. Okay. All right. So, Superintendent Murphy, do you have any announcements, retirements or Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So, first I want to start off with some of Okay, we're going to start with the announcements. Great. So, we have uh CPS applied for funding from the
029city for the RAP, which you are all familiar with, to support our children experiencing homelessness, and they have been awarded $147,250 for that new programming for the upcoming school year. Very happy about that. Yeah. Thank you. [Applause] And then we want to acknowledge the following CPS staff members for being recognized this year by adopt a class. Our first our school champion of the year and adopt a class is not only in Cincinnati public schools but in many school districts across our region but Antonio Fernandez from the resource coordinator at Roberts Academy. Congratulations to him. And then C CPS has two teachers of the year who were acknowledged. The first Mr. Doug Toller, a teacher at Wro University High School, and Elena Williams, a teacher at Woodford Academy. Congratulations. And my next kudos, uh, board member
030Weinberg did an exceptional job of acknowledging our, uh, OSAA Division 2 state track and field championships. And so here's another acknowledgement of those teams. Congratulations. Then we do have some retirees that we want to honor both on the uh certificated and non-certificated or civil service side of the house. And we will start with a couple of teachers. Rob is so talented. Tanya J. Done, a teacher, uh, English as a second language teacher. Congratulations to her. And Robin D. Grimes, an English as a second language teacher. Rainey Harsh on the next slide is a teacher at Wanda Hills High School. And Pette A. Meyer, a daily substitute teacher in our district. We have a couple of more teachers. Walter T. Reigns who teaches at Western Hills University High School and Andrea L. Spaller, a teacher at
031Mount Washington School. And then finally, civil ser Okay, this was an ad, I believe. Wanda Williams, a teacher uh with our hospital satellite program. And then on the civil service side, we have Judith Cherry, an occupational therapist assistant with the Department of Student Services. Congratulations to all of our employees who are retiring. [Applause] All right, Vice President Bolton, the chair is now yours. Okay, sorry about that. The chair is now yours to please conduct the hearing of the public. Thank you very much. And we'll uh read this so folks will know what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. We are now on the item of our agenda for hearing the public. Each speaker will have two minutes and will address all comments to the presiding officer. If you're online, once
032a request to speak has been granted, you'll be invited to enter. You should click on the camera icon to go to interactive. Provide your name, your affiliation to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information if you'd like a response to any questions 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 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. After speaking, if you're online, you'll briefly see the welcome screen again as you transition back to live stream meeting. Finally, we ask that your public commentary be respectful of
033all listeners. Do we have anyone online? Rob, Madam Vice Chair, we have two online speakers today. if it pleases the board. We'll start with the online folks and then we have uh around 18 uh uh uh speakers here tonight. So, Rob, thank you. Our first speaker tonight is going to be Jillian Whitaker. Jillian, you can go and unmute your camera and microphone. You have two minutes. Hi. Um I don't know how to Okay, sorry. Um hi, I'm Jillian Whitaker. I am a teacher, parent, and community member. Um, I want to just share two main concerns. First, the district is missing a valuable opportunity by not including teachers in budget discussions. Central office and admin may see the big picture, but we see daily where money could be saved without cutting staff. One example, most high
034schools could switch to laptop cards. This would drastically reduce the cost of replacing lost or broken devices, which has to be literally in the millions, and solve the issue of students reing unprepared. Small practical changes like this could have a big impact. Second, I want to respond to Mr. Lindy's comments about curriculum and training. He cited a pre-COVID study stating that materials are 40 times more effective than reducing class sizes, but that study looked at K through3 classes with 13 to 25 students. In CPS high schools, we're teaching 32 to 35 students. Last year, I had a class with 42. No curriculum, no matter how strong or well implemented, can overcome that level of overcrowding. You also share graphs comparing third and eighth grade reading progress. The gap isn't due to poor curriculum use. It's
035due to resources. K through 3 gets major investment to meet the third grade reading guarantee, and after that, unless a student has an IEP or a 504, support drops off. Our ability to offer reading interventions after third grade is extremely limited. You stated that only 27% of ELA teachers fully implement the curriculum, but where did that number come from? How was it measured? I've never been asked if I use it. The issue isn't training. It's that the curriculum doesn't meet our student needs. By 9th grade, students are expected to read to learn, but many are still reading at a fourth through 7th grade level. That affects performance across all subjects. Our curriculum doesn't support older students still learning to read. That's one of the reasons we were supposed to pilot new ELA materials this year.
036If we do have funding, we should be hiring middle school reading and math specialists to support students who need help but don't qualify for special ed, not investing in training for a curriculum that doesn't serve all students. Please utilize your teachers. We're highly educated and deeply experienced. We're in a crisis. Let us help solve it. Relying only on data and not on classroom expertise will only keep us stuck. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is going to be um Debra Brock. You can go and unmute your camera microphone. You have two minutes. Thank you. Tonight I'm speaking in support of social workers. I come to you as a product of CPS, as a past school social work intern, and as a current school social worker who joined the district in November. And while I
037rejoined recently, I joined the team knowing what my role entailed and grateful to be here for our kids. Social workers are trained and we're subject matter experts in empathy, perspective considering, crisis intervention, and social emotional learning. We are the train the trainers. We are trained in advocacy. And while I can't share specific examples because of confidentiality, I can tell you that I've given our students a platform to be able to express feelings that they felt were unheard. And in doing that, I'm sorry, I'll go back. In doing that, I was just following what I was trained to do. I observed, I built rapport. I made connections. And I honed in on the strength of our community. I made sure that my presence is seen and heard that through floods, crises, and grief, our students understand
038the importance of coping with and advocating for their needs. Social workers are necessary and so is our active presence. Because when someone's at their lowest point and their coping skills aren't working and they're disregulated and they need a safe space, we're who they go to. Social workers do so much. We assist with any interruptions to their success, including attendance, and we're on the front lines making sure that we're doing home visits and connecting with our families. Taking social workers from the building could be detrimental. And as one of those eight social workers, I'm speaking because I would be remiss if I didn't advocate for our students needing our active presence in every building. I understand that we're in a deficit, but I hope that if you're at all able to, you reconsider making cuts into
039this integral and extremely needed goal. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Is that it? Thank you. We have a number of speakers and let me get started. Uh if she is still here, uh Jessica Davis, if you're still here to speak, come on down. She said she might have to leave before we would get started. Is she here? Then we have April Austin who does not wish to speak but has a public statement to enter into the record. And so we'll then go to Rama Smith, uh, Abria Drummonds, Carolyn Green, and Sarah Medrical. Come on down, please. and uh Jessica Davis um was had to go We'll start with uh Rama Smith who come to the podium. Then it'll be Abria Drummond and Carolyn Green and Sarah Madrebal. Thank you for being here. I
040am the mother of two children in Cincinnati public schools, an advocate for many more, and I have no idea what is happening in the district. Initially, I was willing to believe that it was due to lack of engagement in the school building or in the community. So, for the last two years, I have sat on two LSDMC's and I'm the president of the PTA and I am still utterly lost. We parents are constantly and consistently left out of the decision-making process, but at the same rate are held accountable for adhering to all of the decisions that you make for us. You claim a lack of parent engagement, but then you make decisions so rashly that we are kept in crisis mode, dealing with the fallout of your choices. We don't have time to adjust to
041one decision that you have made about what we have to do before you make another tactile, strategic decision that will throw us into chaos once again. You decide we need more middle schools and we have to turn our lives upside down to readjust to our educational plans for our students. You say start times will change and we must figure out how to adjust our work schedules to accommodate the changes. You put lies on report cards and we don't find out until too late that our children cannot read. You decide to change communication platforms and testing standards and we are left to scramble searching complicated websites and emails trying to understand how your decisions affect us. You replace teaching with technology all while telling us we're bad parents because our children are addicted to their phones
042while your policy demands that they come with their laptops and tablets charged and face consequences if they do not. And you do and do you know how I found out about these changes that you have made that would affect every facet of my life through the minute through the last minute emails sent at random points in the night through interviews with NPR and channel 12 informing parents but never transparently and never before the decision is made. You decide and we face the consequences of your decisions. I say no more. And if I could speak to the people sitting around this deas, not to the people sitting around the deas, but to parents in this room and at home, I would say you have the power. We do not have to just go along with whatever
043you say. We will not continue to be reactionary to the decisions and our children will not be set up for failure. Thank you very much. Hey, I'm Averia Drummonds, the parent of three school age children in Cincinnati. I stand before you today, not just as a parent, but as a passionate advocate for every family in our district. The white we wear today represents the systemic white out at the very of the very voices that matter most, the parents. We are here tonight not begging, but demanding genuine parent voice and true representation of our children and the decisions you make. We are not just names on the ballot. We are not just taxpayers, nor should we be mere recipients of policies. We are unanized first teachers. The first line of defense and the most unwavering champion.
044Our lived experiences, our deep knowledge of our children's unique needs is not just valuable, it's indispensable. When decisions are made without the direct honest input of the families who live with the consequences, those decisions become disconnected, ineffective, and often harmful. We demand authentic foundational collaboration. It means centering the voices of parents from every corner of our community, especially those who have historically been marginalized and ignored, not checking boxes on emails. CPS bylaw 0169 implicitly grants the board the discretion to manage the agenda. If the board chooses to include them include an item on the agenda, it does so at it at its discretion. You have the power to amplify the parent voice. Establish a formal empowered parent advisory committee that reports at every board meeting with diverse rotating members who can provide regular, direct, and
045unfiltered feedback to this to this board. Will you do so? Get rid of the notion that parents don't care. Our shared goal is simple. The success well success and well-being of every single child in this district. Achieving that requires a partnership where parents are not just partners in name but in practice. When parents are truly empowered and genuinely represented, we won't just build stronger schools, we'll build stronger futures for our children. Thank you. Caroline Carolyn Green and as she is beginning to speak if uh Miss Hilton will come down and Miss Dans and uh Miss Boyd. Go ahead, Carolyn Green. That was just 90 seconds of silence. Emerson Kolinrris was detained for two weeks and CPS remained silent. It is truly the silence of our friends and not the words of our enemies that we
046will remember. In those two weeks, CPS found time to make 21 posts on social media. No statement was issued in support of Emerson, who excelled in CPS for 10 years. Relatedly, CPS continues to be obligated to maintain state and federal compliance for EL students and their services. Sarah magical. All right. Well, I'm back again. Um, I feel like every time I come here, I plan to say something or I have something written and then my heart just says, "Go with what you got." And once again, his name is Emerson Kolindres and he was on paper the perfect kid. And if we cannot stand up and root for the perfect kid, we have many kids who are wonderful in every aspect of their lives, but they don't look as perfect on paper. So if y'all remain
047silent, if you look past him, if he is insignificant to you to the point where you can make 21 social media posts about the things that we do splashing around the city, but not one post saying, "This kid did nothing wrong. He deserves our our respect. He deserves dignity. And he deserves to continue to flourish within our community." He had plans. He had dreams and you all have looked at me how many times this is the third time I've stood in front of this board and said please see my kids I don't feel seen they don't feel seen nothing that comes out of this board ever gives me the impression that you ask yourselves what about our immigrant kids I know I don't get that ever from a and when I speak to the people
048who do have access to these meetings I say hey have they done this leading immigrant kids as part of the main discussion or they addendum every single time they're like well we weren't invited to the table and I I don't think y'all actually own that knowledge yourselves. I don't know if you guys have ever been immigrants in another country, if you are immigrants in this country, but I do not believe that you are leading with the knowledge that we need to move our immigrant community forward. If we are remain silent on Emerson, guess what that tells me when other families say, "Hey, are we safe?" I'm going to say, "Well, I don't know." Because the board won't make a statement. They won't support you. So, I can give you my word that I will be
049at every jail house rally. I will be at every thing that I can to support our kids. But I am assuming that all of y'all will remain silent as you have done for our most perfect example of an immigrant child. So I'm guess my question is when you say here for kids, do you mean my kids or do you just mean kids that you personally can relate to? That is the question I have for y'all and it is going to be my question on repeat. Thank you. Thank you very much. And I I think I misread the name. It might be Davis, not Dan. So, it's Davis, Boyd, and Helton. Good. Yep. Kristen. I believe it's Christian Davis. Davis Boyd and Elton. After those three, we have uh Hartman and RZ and uh Oakley, it
050appears. Go ahead. Hello, my name is Christian Davis and I'm a mother of nine amazing children, most of whom who have attended CPS school over the course of 25 years. For the past 15 years, my children have had the privilege of attending one of the good schools within CPS. My children have had access to teachers and administrators that have invested in them since kindergarten. As a result of having access to ch to caring professionals, exceptional educational resources and opportunities and supports, my children have been exposed to a very rich prek through 12 educational experience. My children have performed with international artists, have traveled in the across the world. My son went to Germany and Austria, Italy, and Rome. My daughter Madison, who's up in the seats, was featured in commercials, has had art features with
051FCC, and recently went to Spain only by being in the ninth grade. But my question is, why isn't this the experience for every CPS student? Why do you have to go to one of the good schools just to have access to that? I just don't understand that. I don't when you drive 20 minutes from the the Cincinnati Urban Corps and you look at all the other districts, not any of those districts do you have to say what school does your kid go to for it to be deemed a good school. If you go to Lovelin, you go to Sycamore, you go to McDer, all of those are good schools. All of those kids have access to the same experience that my kids do. Every other school district, I mean, every other school in CPS outside
052of maybe three is failing. Our kids don't have access to that. And with the access, they'll never thrive in life. My kid, my kids that I listed are also college students and CCP, but that's a program that the board doesn't even elevate. We should have more black kids graduating from CPS schools with a high school diploma and a college degree for free. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause] Oh, whenever you're ready. I thought I was supposed to turn green. Sorry. Good evening, school board. My name is Serena Boyd and I am the mother of a beautiful daughter that is currently enrolled at Dao Marasuri. I come to you today as a deeply concerned parent, passionate about parent voices and meaningful parent engagement in our schools. My main concern is limited parent voices from the
05366 CPS schools when making permanent decisions for our children. We currently have just one parent representative speaking for all of Cincinnati public schools. And that representative is a paid CPS employee. Think about that for a moment. one voice projecting for over 35,000 students and countless families. This simply isn't a true reflection of the diverse diverse voices that need to be at the table when critical decisions are being made for our children's educations and futures. I want to share a quick personal experience that highlights the power of parent support and empowerment. My daughter Christina struggled during her seventh grade year. Superintendent Miss Murphy, you were the principal at Woodward High School. You personally reached out to me, assisted me in developing a plan to get my daughter the help she needed and aligned her with a
054better school. Today, I'm incredibly proud to have my daughter standing right behind me on track, thriving, all things to that direct support and empowerment from hearing my our concerns. This is a powerful example of what parent engagement can and should look like for all having someone in each school dedicated to providing that level of support. While this might seem overwhelming to some, I believe it's far less overwhelming than inspecting one person to represent the entire CPS district as the can only be at so many places at one time. We are here today asking for we're not here asking for a spot at the table. We are bringing the table to you. We're asking for a clean slate, a new approach that genuinely represents all of our parents and students today. We are the table. We
055are here with parents, students, and community stakeholder holders who are demanding to be included in the board's final decisions. This will empower parents, strengthen our schools, and ultimately keep our youth within Cincinnati public schools where they belong. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to empowering voices with you, parent voices. Thank you. We have now Hilton and Hartman. And then we will have Risby and Oakley. I think it's Oakley. Hi, my name is Diana Evans Hilton. Um, good evening CPS board members and madam superintendent. On Wednesday, June 4th, a recent CPS graduate was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE at a routine status appointment. From his arrival to the US in 2014 until just one month ago, he was one of our kids and he is now one of our alumni.
056This forceful separation from his family and the ultimate self-deportation of his remaining household members, including another CPS student, has caused immense stress on them in the community in which they live. The National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics section 6 line oh section 64 line D states that social workers should act to prevent and eliminate domination of exploitation of and discrimination of many groups including the basis of race ethnicity, national origin, color and immigration status. I have personally seen the effects of families being torn apart. I marched in support of our students and have answered the immediate need for supportive services and interventions. However, there is a significant gap of services in access from our EL to our EL ELELLL students. We have no full-time Spanish-sp speakaking therapists or education support personnel. Mazo's hierarchy
057of needs states that we unless we address students emotional and environmental needs, we cannot adequately support their academic needs. CPS's diversity and equity and inclusion statement reads, "We recognize that true progress rec requires intentional effort to dismantle barriers. Therefore, let us be intentional with our efforts and deliver on this promise. Furthermore, eliminating and decreasing the amount of social workers would directly negatively um affect this promise. Please act in support of all of our students and be here for all of our kids, including those who were not born here. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. I'm Sandy Hartman. I'm the Hartwell social worker. Um, thank you for allowing me the time to speak on the matter of school social workers. I want to first acknowledge that this has been a very trying and difficult time for
058our school district and balancing the budget and I appreciate the sacrifices that have been made for our students. Tonight is proposed that to cut eight school social work positions, including six vacant positions and two additional filled positions. The six vacant positions which have been discussed in prior board meetings were not vacant last school year. These vacancies are due to staff changes and requests made by schools. I'm asking the board at this time how will the responsibilities of these eight positions if cut tonight be fulfilled if no one's hired. If these positions are eliminated, it does not eliminate the need for the crucial services. Who is going to be the safe person for that student? Who will provide the suicide and threat assessments? Who will provide the much needed social emotional learning? Who will encou encourage
059restorative practices? Who will find the students who have not shown up in the fall? Who will check on the nonregistered homeschool families? who will fulfill Ohio House Bill 410123318 and ensure the requirements of Aaron's law is complete. Last school year I worked I came to school at least one hour before I worked in the evenings and I worked on the weekends, not one weekend, every single weekend and I am still behind and my chronic absenteeism rate grew 2%. So I'm concerned for our families. I'm concerned for the impact that this will have. On a side note, we are also voting on Hartwell's name. I just want to remind you guys that prek will be at the middle school. So, please keep that in mind when putting a middle school name and having preschoolers enter the
060building. Thank you, Mr. Ry Oakley. And then also, if Broen and Coleman can start to make their way down, that'd be great. Yes, sir. Good evening. Good evening. My name is Ali Risby and I'm here tonight once again to ask and to plead with you to do the right thing. The first time I stood before you, I shared a department's data, including that social workers provided 345 life-saving suicide prevention screenings in just eight months. The second time, a story about a student who, with trauma-informed support went from dozens of serious behavioral incidents to none. Tonight, I'm here to present the evidence and to underscore the urgent need for school social workers. Since 2022, 370 school-aged children have been shot in Cincinnati. 49 have died. Many of them were CPS students, several of which who've died
061in the past few months. In Ohio, guns are now the leading cause of death among children. For children ages 10 to 14, suicide is the number one cause of death. Over the past decade, suicide attempts by overdose among Ohio children ages 10 to 12 years old have increased by five times. According to the CDC, nearly one in three high school students reported seriously considering suicide in the past year. Black youth has shown the steepest rise in suicide attempts. Black children under 13 now die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of their white peers. Here in Cincinnati, 61% of children have experienced at least one traumatic event, putting them at risk for all of the A4 mentioned devastating outcomes. At the last board meeting, some of you stated that student outcomes must drive our financial
062decisions. But student outcomes are directly linked to the presence of school social workers. Social workers save lives. Point blank. Kids show up to school when they feel supported and safe. If we're talking about academic success, districts with social workers report consistently higher graduation rates and schools with strong social emotional learning support see on average an 11point increase in academic achievement. As I've said before, when something truly matters, you find a way. And this matters. So, I plead to you, please find a way. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. My name is Victoria Oakley and I'm the school social worker at West High. In discussion at the previous board meeting, it was stated that if something happens to one of our school communities, we can use our district response team to help our kids process
063the trauma. In my 10 years in the district, I have both been a part of the call out district response teams as social workers are assigned to do and utilize the response team. In the past eight years at West High, we have called upon the district's team seven times. We have internally within our own student services team ran an additional 11 crisis responses. Four of those times were days two and or three as we continued to have students need a place to process because this is what was not discussed previously. Sure, we can call on each other to help in a moment. But what we the school social workers mo of most most often deal with is the aftermath, the continuous crisis responses, the processing of the grief as we are the mental health licensed
064professionals holding a masters of social work, a social work license and an OD license in our buildings. Holding the groups, the random check-ins, the safe spaces when our kids are feeling overwhelmed and angry. It's not a matter of if something happens because every day happen because every day something happens in our kids' lives. Our ASA scores are astronomically high and the social workers are not here only to provide resources to lower those scores but to handle the emotions and behaviors that come along with how the the brain responds to the trauma. I know the budget cuts are difficult decisions to make but at minimum taking away support for our students mental health will greatly negatively impact their ability to learn and will impact our state report cards. But that aside, our students lives truly depend
065on us. The work we do is valuable, essential, and cannot be replaced by others who are also putting in overtime. Thank you for allowing us to be here for the kids and advocate for ourselves so we can continue to advocate for others. Thank you. Good evening, board members. Last summer, we were told to trust the restructuring of multilingual services that we'd be pleased with the outcome. But instead of progress, we've watched essential supports unravel. On 41625, the culturally responsive psychologist position created to support equitable MTSS evaluation and culturally appropriate assessment was never fully staffed and still it was reduced from 1.9 to 0.6. 6 FTE for next year. Then on May 29th, our department leadership had an emergency meeting to decide what else to cut from our already minimal budget. And now, effective today, your
066title our Title 3 funded HCESC consultant is likely being eliminated with cuts to outside vendors. This consultant to uh provides critical support to nearly 6,000 multilingual learners, 147 ESEL teachers, ESEL social workers and families. Eliminating this role doesn't save general fund dollars, but it does dismantle vital infrastructure to our for our fast growing and most underresourced student population. This isn't about individual roles. It's about systemic disregard for multilingual learners and their staff. As a specialist in multi-tered systems of support, Robin Coleman is repeatedly asked to be included in policy decisions from a culturally responsive lens. But both ML students and school psychologists have been consistently excluded from meaningful planning and decision-making despite public claims of equity and inclusion. On November 21 23rd, concerns were formally raised about the inappropriate IR use with multilingual learners. concerns
067grounded in research and later validated by an expert from curriculum associates themselves. Yet CPS continues to invest in heavily in this program promoting it as a universal reading solution. Thank you. And if uh Miss Lopez will come down and Miss Smith come down. Hi, I'm Robin Coleman, school um culturally responsive psychologist. Um, why do we continue to overspend on tools that aren't appropriate for all students? I'm going to tell you my hypothesis that many of the decision makers for these types of things lack the statistical literacy to recognize when a polished sales pitch backed by internally conducted studies and pretty slide decks is masking a fundamentally flawed product. Um, that also further diminishes human interaction. Since the ML manager position was reduced from 1.6 to 1.0, 0. Our ML gap closing scores have plummeted. In
0682022, we met all targets. In 2425, only 42.7 of our students progressed. We're not closing gaps or widening them. CPS also continues to overidentify students for special education. Currently, 21% of our students are identified, far exceeding the recommended 13 to 15% for students just or for districts just like ours. Even more concerning is the emerging belief that because English learners are underidentified compared to this inflated rate that we should catch up by uh qualifying more of them. That's not equity. It's dangerous misuse of identification practices. We lack a culturally responsive MTSS continuum and have not provided the training nor infrastructure to implement one appropriately. My former full-time role was created to support teams unfamiliar with multilingual needs to prepare to prevent inappropriate special education identification. that uh that need has not gone away yet. I'm
069being asked to train myself out of a job this year with what time, with what resources. We didn't even have enough test kits and protocols last year to do our basic jobs, let alone meet additional demands for every psych having the materials and training to appropriately evaluate and make decisions for culturally diverse students. Thank you. Thank you. This lack of infrastructure and support for students and staff, particularly ML students and staff, has real consequences. This year, multilingual students were excluded from summer school planning. Some principles even told staff not to enroll them. Our team had to scramble to enroll students separately. Please tell me how that reflects being here for kids. When a national letter from the Trump administration threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that refused to cut DEI programs, CPS declined to
070sign it. This was celebrated publicly and featured on television as a bold defense of equity. But the rhetoric hasn't translated into action. We have not seen meaningful efforts to pre preserve the few remaining resources that support our most marginalized students. The Ohio English learner cost study commissioned by this district was clear. Large urban districts must invest in multilingual leadership. TESSLE endorsed educators and targeted student supports. We have failed to act on those recommendations. So today we are not just asking we are calling for increased administrative capacity for multilingual services structured collab collaboration with principles and district leaders. A formal seat at the table not lastminute feedback after decisions are already made. If we say we're here for kids, it's time to prove it with action, not just words. Equity for multilingual learners must be central,
071not side, not the side conversation. And just to show you, I am a first generation Mexican immigrant and came up during a time where these services were not provided. I had to fight tooth and nail for my education. Don't have our kids have to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Carol Smith. Good evening. My name is Carol Smith. I'm a senior accounting tech in the treasures office and the president of CFOP. I'm here to talk to you about the potential potential reduction in force. I know school districts all over the state are struggling to balance their budgets and unfortunately layoffs are just a reality that we have right now. I greatly appreciate all the work that has b done been done to avoid or limit rifts as much as possible, but I understand that unfortunately
072um the reality is they're probably unavoidable. I know it's been a daunting task. I also understand the hesitation to notify employees when you're unsure if it will come to a riff. However, these are human beings that you're dealing with and I feel that you have a moral responsibility to inform employees when you become aware that there is a possibility they may lose their jobs. Cuts to to specific CFO positions have been discussed that I'm aware of since April. But here we are in June and as far as I know there have been no communication with CFOP employees to inform them that their position could possibly be possibly be cut. If there has been communication, CEO leadership has not been informed. Again, I know you're trying hard to avoid it and I'm hoping that even with
073the possible cuts, COP has enough vacancies so no member will lose their job. But even this could result in a disruption to their lives. The vacant position that they could be put into could be in a different building. They could have a different schedule. Their commute time could be different. If they take the bus that many of our members do, it could be a significantly increased commute time. These ca these changes could then cause issues with child care and other commitments after work. If you know there is a possibility that a person's position will be cut, the right thing to do is to give them as much advanced notice as possible to allow them to plan for this change. I urge the board and administration to have communication immediately with any employee whose position could
074be identified as a cut. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. I believe our last speaker is Angela Couch uh uh on behalf of CTF. If she'll come down uh Good evening, Superintendent Murphy and members of the board. I'm Angela Couch, executive vice president of CTF and also a preschool teacher at Winton Hills Academy. Julie Sailors is unable to attend um tonight because she is out of state at a conference and and so I will be speaking on her behalf. Public education in Ohio is under attack. I strongly encourage each of you to contact your legislators before Wednesday. We've been trying to plan a responsible budget, but it's nearly impossible when we don't know which version of the state budget will be adopted. And frankly, none of them are good. One of the
075most alarming proposals is the elimination of inside millillage statewide. This will devastate cities, municipalities, and school districts, including ours. Despite these challenges, I want to share some positive news. Both CFT and CFO members ratified their contracts with 97% approval. That kind of overwhelming support shows our members commitment to this district and their willingness to be part of the solution. Lastly, I want to be clear. CTF will fully be involved in any reduction in force discussions. We will fight to make sure that any displaced members are offered available positions within the district. We are committed to protecting our people and the students and families that we serve. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Madam President. That concludes hearing of the public. Thank you. And thank you to all that spoke. All right. Superintendent Murphy and
076Treasurer Wagner, please present the CPS budget topic in your presentation. Madame President, do you want to go over the state budget one first or the budget one first? Um, well, which which order do you feel it is? I prefer the state budget one. Yeah, because Jen's narrative is going to help lead into the budget. Yeah. Okay. Well, good job, Rob. Thank you. So, is that the is that I under there or No, no, no. It was originally put in under the resolution, the appropriations resolution, but it fits better here. All right. I think sorry there. Yeah. Okay. So, uh, next slide. So, um, we completely agree with Miss Seller's comments that public school funding is at risk in a big way. And so, next slide. So for CPS, there's a lot of language in a
077bunch of these bills, but the the highest and critical areas of concern for Sensei public schools is the lack of funding of the state funding formula, which we um adopted the resolution earlier. Um what they did in the state version, the Senate version is they updated the income measures for the wealth index, but they didn't update the cost factors. And so we got richer um when nothing else changed for us. And that caused us to lose $6.3 million overnight if that if that version is is adopted. Excuse excuse me if I could interrupt our distinguished treasurer if you could as you were doing this could you just when you talk in terms of the multiple versions if you'll explain to the public the version that there's a governor version and a senate and the house
078and whatever other versions they've come up with. Yes. Thank you. Um so as as part of the bianual budget process at the state level, the governor develops proposes a budget um that would have caused us to lose about $13 million over a two-year period, his version. Then the House does their version. They take his budget and and change it. And they came up with a version and um that would cause our revenues to be almost flat. So they in and basically what they did in the house version is they set the formula aside and they said everybody gets a 0.1% increase over last year's revenue and if you have an enrollment growth we'll kind of adjust for that. Um, but that doesn't take into any account any change to any of the categorical funding such
079as if you have increase in students with disabilities or English language learners, gifted career tech. Um, and so for so that is not a positive for the long-term view of CPS. The Senate version went back to the formula, but like I said, they updated the income values to the most recent year, but they left the cost factors. And what I mean by cost factor is they calculate the average teacher salary, the average counselor salary, every position that they'll fund, but they use 2022 uh values and they do an average across the state. And so urban districts typically get hurt in a big way that way because we end up having to pay a higher average salary to attract people to the urbans. Um and so if they didn't update it, so you know, inflation happens
080and uh our costs got more expensive and they kept them stable at 2022. So that was a $6.3 million hit. The second um langu the conversation I'm going to have is about property tax relief. And so we all know everybody's property taxes went up with the last update, trial update. Um, and legislators are getting hit by the public and they're trying to find ways to relieve property taxes, but they're doing it on the backs of our students. So, there's language that proposes the removable, excuse me, of fixed sum emergency levies. So, it's when they call it an emergency levy, it's not like it's an emergency, the house is on fire. It's an emergency. It's just a term that says we need money. And um the different types of levies which we typically use are what
081we call fixed sum. So the levy that's on the ballot in November is a $48 million fixed sum levy. So no matter what happens with property values, they go up, they go down, the the voters approve for us to get $48 million a year. And so the Hamilton County auditor adjusts the millage rate, the tax rate to give us $48 million a year. They're proposing to we have three fixed sum levies um that represent about $165 million or 26% of our our revenues. Um they're proposing to eliminate fixed sum levies. Now, we did see some language in one version that said for elections after January of 2026. So the the November levy I don't think is going to be impacted, but we don't know what's going to happen in conference committee and we don't know
082what's going to happen with the governor's vetos. So um if they remove the fixed sum levies completely and we have to go to a school district income tax which is a tax on the residents um we would have to replace we would have to ask for a t an income tax of 1.5% to replace 165 million. The third uh concern is the language that um moves fixed some sum levies into the 20 mil for calculation. And this is going to get really complicated. So in the funding formula, the state of Ohio says every district should have 20 mills at least to operate on. And so um back in the late 70s, I believe I can't remember the exact year, House Bill 920 was passed that said property taxes can't grow with inflation. So they reduce
083the millage back and you see it on a tax bill. It's called the house. It's the called the reduction factor. So that the operating levies, the fixed rate levies that fluctuate dollar values, um can't grow with inflation. So they they change the tax rate to collect about what the voters had approved at the time and then they add new construction. So what they so what but those are the only ones that are in the 20 mil floor calculation and we have dropped below the 24 mark uh calculation on our commercial properties. So what the county auditor does so we're dropped down to 17 mills now. So what they do is they increase property tax bills to get us back up to that 20 mil floor. Now if what somebody's recommending is that the fixed sum
084millage rate gets added in and so we're automatically above the 20 mil floor. So, we'll lose about $10 million a year in revenue just for that change. Next slide. The fourth thing is that there's there's a the bill out there that wants to eliminate property taxes completely in the state of Ohio, which will be devastating to everybody. We would have to put in a and and their answer is just do income tax. Um, and so we would lose 62% of our revenues. And if we didn't pass an income tax levy, quite frankly, we'd be bankrupt and have to go into a loan fund. Um I I I can't see that honestly passing, but it's out there and there is support for it. And then the fifth the fifth one is um what President Cellers um
085referred to as the eliminating inside millillage. And so that's 10 mills that the state of Ohio uh sets aside and every county gets to split it up. We get 4.19 of that 10 mills. The city and the county and other organizations share in that. That would cost us about $36 million of loss of revenue. The thought from the Ohio Association of School Business Officials is that the inside millillage is constitutional. So there's not a lot of thought that that's going to move forward. um but we don't know for sure and so it's there and it's being considered. Next slide. So this is why this is really important. The state of Ohio has a responsibility to fund a public education. We enjoy local local control and so we participate in the funding of school districts by
086property tax levies. So you can see over history that it's been almost 5050, not quite but close. And then suddenly it deferred deterred. So when the funding formula changed and we got we got wealthier as a district because we have high property wealth our state share gets diminished. And so s just five years ago we were at 47% of state share. So what that means is that for every child in our district that creates funding in the formula we're getting 36 cents on that dollar for every dollar that child. Uh, and that's just on the base cost. Now we're down to 36.9% and now we're projected in next year's formula to get down to 30%. So you can see that puts more and more pressure on us and our costs aren't going down. So it's
087putting more and more pressure on us to keep going back to the public to ask for more local funding sources, whether it's through property tax, income tax, um, or what have you. Next slide. So this represents a percent of our revenues and so it's it paints the same picture. Um the yellow line we're just adding like the other revenue sources that we get besides property tax and state income but you can see the same gap. Next slide. This is going forward into the future on the three budget bills um and what they might look like. And you can see the blue one which is the governor's budget was the most painful moving forward. The orange one in the middle is the House version and that's what we built our forecast off of. It's the best
088information we had at the time. Most school districts use that version to build their forecast and then that's what drives our budget target of 624 million for next year. And then um I'm sorry that was the green version. I got the colors mixed up. The orange one is the Senate version. And so the Senate version um would lose $6 million this year and another 6.4 million next year. So we're we'll still be cutting next year. Next slide. Just to keep up with inflation. So excuse me. In the Senate version, um this is the what they're proposing is property tax changes. So you can see the line out items are they're they're trying to eliminate our options to fund locally. Um even though they keep saying you have local control but they're trying to take it
089away by reducing our options. So they're trying to eliminate the fixed sum levy a replacement ley levy substitute levy and a combined income and fixum levy. So really we only have current expense or fixed rate levies or income tax available to us. And if every school district is going after those same things it's they're very difficult to pass. There's also um language in there that says you have to have a twothirds vote for the board of education to pass to put something on the ballot. Then there's a new language that says you have to have a 60% passage rate in order for it to pass. Not just 50% or 51, you have to get up to 60% which is um I don't if somebody looked at the levies across the state I many would fail.
090Um and then I already talked about the 20 mil floor calculation. So next slide. This is just a sample showing you how we would lose revenue on the 20 mil floor calculation. It wouldn't hit us in 26 because property taxes are a year in a rears and um it would go forward and so it'll hit us in 27. Next slide and 28. So here's the loss of local control. Um there's language in the Senate version and I think it was in the House version too where they wanted to limit how much cash we could carry over from one year to the next. So a lot of school districts try to save money to fund projects and they leave it in their cash balance and their cash balance grew during ESSER because they use federal funds
091to fund a bunch of stuff. Well, they want to say that you can only have 50% of your prior year expenditures and if it goes above that, the Hamilton County can go and reduce everybody's taxes and take money away from us arbitrarily. Um, county budget commission can reduce tax rates if they think that we're not calculating our statement of resources properly. There's language in there. It requires us to sell buildings first to charter schools if our buildings are less than 60% capacity. We've seen this language coming. So, that's one of the reasons why we made changes to the district in order to better utilize our buildings. Um, it also reduces from a five-year forecast. So, every school district in the state of Ohio has to produce two cash forecasts with a general fund. One in
092November and then an update in May. And instead of it being five years, um they're doing reducing it to three years. Um they did five years because we were typically doing five-year levies and it made it a really nice planning tool. It's really hard to predict what's going to happen in five years when you have bianium budgets that change dramatically in between. Um and then this bizarre language that um limits what boards can do for to recruit superintendents and treasures and helping to pay their portion of the retirement pay. Um it's really it's going to be very difficult to maintain good quality people and and attract them to your district. So next slide. Um so this was the impact to the forecast. So, we build our budget based off of our forecast and the House
093uh version um was going to eliminate $6 million. Sorry, the Senate version was $6 million. Too many versions out there. Um and then in 27, so a cumulative loss of $18 million. Next slide. So, this is all subject to the timeline. I know Mike um when he did Just ask Jen with me, he talked about being in the something inning of the baseball game and now we're in the top of the ninth. Okay, it's time to act. Okay, next slide. Here's our call to action. Go one more. So, conference committee is meeting tomorrow at 3:00. So, tomorrow morning, we need to flood their communications, social media, emails, phone calls, whatever you do. Tell them to vote against those things that we just talked about. Um and here's a list of who to contact. that's on
094the conference committee. They are going to vote on Wednesday at I don't know the time on Wednesday. So, um I just know that they're meeting tomorrow at 3:00. Any questions? So, that's heavy. Everybody wake up. Do board members have any questions, comments? Board member Craig. Um not so much a question, but just a comment. I think this is something we've been talking about for the last uh few months to get people aware. But I do think it is worth noting that what the state is also both doing is saying we want to limit funds that the state will provide to the school districts. And their response when asked, well, how do school districts continue to do the work that they need to do? They say, well, you need to go to your voters and get
095a new levy or ask for new money. And then they then say, well, but we're going to tell you how you can ask for new money. And then what we're going to do is tell you you have to go and ask for an income tax because we know that that's one of the most regressive ways to also get folks involved because it doesn't just hit property owners, but it hits everybody who's in the community. And there are limits on who could be included in that income tax. So I just think it all is about the effort to defund public education from a state level. And the way they do that is to take the most important things that we know that students need and make them more difficult for districts to provide, especially urban districts
096where we know that there are more things that those kids are going to need. And so I just do think it is very telling that there are also efforts to not include information about how much needs to be funded for things like special or special needs students and students with disabilities. All those things are information the state has that it's not shared. And they're not sharing it for a reason because they know that this will deeply concern folks to know that it costs more to actually educate a child who needs more surprisingly right. And so I I just I think it is important for us to continue to keep saying the fact that they're limiting the ways that we can bring revenue in while also cutting revenue to districts. um and that this will also
097affect cities and municipalities as well and some of these different passages of the budget that they're looking at. Vice President Bolton. Yes. Uh I I really appreciate the the the presentation and I I think the word is defund public education. I think it is also uh to remove local control of our of our schools and we have to remember there were school boards before there were city councils or village councils. Uh so at least in this state uh in the states around us because of the Northwest Ordinance. Um, we know that tonight we're going to make some very difficult decisions and we know that our administration and our staff and our union leadership have been making those decisions enough to make recommendations. But the reality too is that we haven't even really addressed the possibility
098of changes within the federal efforts that we await not during retribution but even in the federal budget which is dealing with Medicaid which is dealing with uh the grants that go to uh kids that whose English is it's not not their first language. Um, so this we're only kind of tapping all the things that could be happening, but uh I would be interested to know that uh what we're trying to do tonight and we've been trying to do is be as as uh fiscally responsible as possible over a number of years. Uh we actually as a board uh have uh between asking for new money we have and I think the treasurer can substantiate this in case my memor is wrong. We have gone almost nine years without asking for new money. And before that
099we went eight years before asking for new money. And so it's not like we are anxious to ask for this. It's not like we've been abusing this opportunity to go to our public. We want to be held accountable, but we've had relatively flat budgets all things considered without flat costs and as you've demonstrated with the occasional esser uh infusion because of COVID which actually was nothing to do about education but what was happening is a national crisis. uh we have um held our own but at this point in time maybe you could talk about the the how we've gone eight years and then how we've gone nine years and now indeed our our status as even a taxing agent is in question. So you were correct. We went um 2008 we did a 5-year levy
100spread it to eight years. In 2016, we passed the $48 million levy that we're getting ready to renew with the $15 million set aside for expansion preschool. That was also a 5-year levy um that's re been renewed and then we're coming back. And this renewal is at is um changing it to a 10-year levy so that we're not always coming back for renewals. And so we've been very frugal and um always in reduction mode because inflation is driving our costs up our cost and at some effort we at in part the administration's assist you know insistence and the community's insistence uh we have committed ourselves as best we could to a balanced budget. the law requires that, but actually committing to uh restrict our expenditure to our revenue. And we've made those commitments and made
101some adjustments along the way as to what those revenues might be or not be. But tonight, we had also hoped that we would be able to pass uh a an appropriations, permanent appropriations um that speaks to the coming year. But the reality is because we don't know what the state is going to decide, we are going to be asking the board to vote on what uh a temporary appropriations resolution that um and we're restricting it to 30 days. Law allows us to go to 90 days, but um we need to get moving with the with the school year. So um we're promising a 30 year I mean sorry 30 years. Listen to me. It's getting late. We're good, but not that good. 30 days. Um, just to give us a if they're voting on the
102bill. So, conference committee votes and then the governor gets veto, right? So, we won't know exactly probably until next week what the real budget's going to be. So, we need a little bit of time to react to that because um in my 32 almost 32 years with the district, every ban budget, there's always surprises at the 11th hour and so it's it's you just can't predict what they're going to do. Thank you. So, any other board questions or comments? I want to thank you for the presentation because it's really it is very heavy and I can imagine how the public probably feels like much of this is a little over their head. Um it's not it's not very interesting uh to have to talk about budget in terms of millions. But some of the key
103takeaways of what you shared are that we are having to make adjustments because our funding is being impacted at the state level. And not only is has it, as you mentioned, been deemed unconstitutional to rely heavily on property taxes, um rather than the state legislators actually working to fund the fully fund the school formula, they're not doing that. They're now making or proposing legislation that would impact the levies that we are using that have been deemed unconstitutional to provide public education which is constitutional. So there is something that people can do. I know all of this is weighted. All of this is very very heavy. Um people there's a lot of language that says don't fund the levy. We're not going to pass the levy. Um, we really need that and it's already threatened by
104the state legislators. So, we need people to contact via email, phone calls, voicemails. We need you to contact the legislators because we cannot do this by ourselves. And next week, we are making some decisions today that may have to be altered again next week heavily depending upon what the governor and the committees vote on. So that's the the key takeaway. We sometimes get bogged down in the the words and 14 slides is heavy, but we there is something that we can do and this is a big big call to action that we need everyone to make a phone call. We need them to send a text message. I don't personally like talking about these these cuts, but we we're having to do this. We are playing the hand that has been dealt with us at
105the state level. And so, um, thank you for the presentation. Ready for the next? Do board members. Are we all good? Next. That brings us to the next piece of the presentation. And in this one, uh, myself, Jen, Jeremy, and Julia uh will have a part to play. So, uh, this first slide here is, uh, the contents overall of our ask, uh, frontloaded for you and then a reminder once we get to the the end of the presentation, but we are asking for your approval of the master list reductions that we have shared uh, in the past, the impact positions, a slight schedule E reduction, uh, consideration around the TIFF CRA agreements with the city, a consideration to enter into the process for the sale of property. Um your considerations around work that was done
106around the spring teacher allocation committee which helps us to be relieved from doing at least quite as much in the fall when it's a bit more painful and then the staffing reduction in force and then finally the proposal around a school social worker adjustment for the upcoming school year. So at this point I'll toss it to Jen. Yes. Thank you uh Miss Murphy. So you've seen this slide before. This is kind of the process in which we began knowing that we were going to have to face heavy cuts. We started with the bottom of the pyramid in what were our fixed costs, you know, debt, what our debt payments, um liability insurance, um and obligated things that were obligated by the board. Um and then we went to state minimums in terms of what does
107the state fund and what were the collective bargaining agreement requirements particularly around our staffing formulas in schools and the cost of that what we considered the compliance level is 438 million of the $624 million budget. So it's a big chunk of what we spent our money on. Then um we looked at what is critical to achieve the goals that guardra the borders have done and um the investments that are beyond those critical commitments that are um showing good return on investment and then the top layer were things that were new uh investments strategic investments the the board has asked us uh or superintendent has asked to fund that totals about 13.3 million and so we went from the top the bottom of the pyramid to the top of the pyramid and then we worked on
108the So um the next slide shows you the top the new initiatives the board established is CPS foundation and then we had to frontload um the administrative cost of $1.1 million. We brought in the crossing guards that the city used to pay for and they decided not to pay for them anymore. So, we had to um bring them on board and that was an increase to our budget or the total cost of that budget now is $1.7 million and we're estimating about 800,000 increase because um there's a salary minimum in retirement that you have to pay and if you don't have that and there's part-time employees. So, anyway, we have to pay like a sir charge. Then um we brought and stood up Bramble Monasuri School. So this is the school that was at uh
109Xavier University as a lab school. They decided to close it. So we opened up to expand um our monastery offerings as part of our long-term um plan for growth. We established the wrap that the superintendent referred to and that's all grant funded. Um we established centralized enrollment. it. So the centralized a moment department but their budget went increased by 417,000 but they were they those positions were pulled from the schools to fund it. So it was really a a neutral cost neutral. Um they created a new walnut hills test that was a savings of $40,000. It was a board approved. Um there was a proposal to reduce smaller class sizes at K to8 that would increase the school's budget by $5.7 million. we were unable to fund that. Um invest investigating funding sources for the
110growth plan phase three which has construction costs. Um and so we're looking at different options there. And then um the million-doll investment for teacher instructional development is really 2.3 million. You'll be very happy to hear. So next slide. This shows you the $2.3 million investment in um instructional development implementing the board's adopted curriculum. And so there's instructional coaches in each content area. Um there's quite a bit of money in professional development and teacher resource tools. And um there's also in addition to that is a teacher stip those are paid for by lead teacher stipens and districtwide mentor instructional coaches. Then there's a instructional coach for just career tech. Um but that's funded by the Perkins grant I'm fa to mention. So the links here show you um how they do this work through the tiers
111of support and the professional learning requirements if you're interested in getting into the to the weeds of that. So the next slide will show you the first thing we looked at and and just for the public and and the media's um perspective. We actually looked at every single line item in the budget and look to determine whether can we live without this expense or is it critical and is it driving a return on investment and towards instructional growth. And so um the team went through several iterations of looking at all of our vendor contract. We went for vendor contracts first rather than employees. We looked at almost a thousand contracts honestly and then um we were able to it out of the general fund only. We cut $15.1 million but then remember I showed you
112that there was a whole bunch of contracts that were split funded. So part of it was charged the general fund, part of it was charge idea B or title one. And what we realized was there was three major contracts that were split funded with ESSER. And since Esther's gone, that entire contract came into the general fund. So it was actually that netted a positive growth of 1.4 million, offsetting other cuts. And so we weren't able to realize a $15.1 million cut, but just 13.7 million. Um so at the June 2nd board meeting, I believe it was, the board um voted, I believe, on stating a 16.2% cut. So my question to the board would be, do you want us to keep cutting to get to the 16.2% or did we get close enough with the
11313.7? Think about that and then we'll I'll pass it off to Jeremy. I believe tonight we wanted to bring an update to the pathway to balance sheet that we've been tracking to make sure that we also had a perspective on the overall financial impact on the individual items we were talking about tonight. So starting at the top with the item we have seen the most uh the master list of reductions under the purple heading which does include the vendor contract reductions that the treasurer was referring to as well as the 32.4 central office impact positions that we pulled out separately but they are included in the value of that list. Below that under the to be reduced in the red section are those items that have been pending in our previous uh presentations for either
114additional information or finalization of the amount that could be represented and potentially reduced for each item which includes the schedule E reduction that the superintendent mer uh senator the superintendent referenced as well as those items we've talked about potentially being able to move to title funding the deferring of the ITM lease device payment the executive assistant realignment, the potential reduction in eight school social worker positions, as well as the 109.9 teaching positions. U as we look to align with our spring enrollment and projection staffing updates, which would bring our total ask uh while still over 624 to 636.4 million. In the new section today, what we have not had in the past is the blue where we we've now included the increased the potential for increased revenue items. This includes um the potential of an
115agreement with the city for the additional tiff items that we've discussed, the prior year cash balance from the preschool levy, as well as the potential of sale of property. Uh so if we look at those revenue items that would potentially bring our target from 624 to 632.3 million and compared to our new ask that means our remaining gap at that point would be uh $4.1 million approximately. Next slide. I said we've looked the most at the master list of reductions. So we won't spend a lot of time there, but other than to recall that this summary represents what you can see the departmental amounts that are represented or by budget unit as well as the link there will take you to a sheet that does also have a details tab that provides a breakdown on
116a near line by line basis of everything that is represented in that initial $29 million figure for the master list of reductions. Thank you. So, when we think about impacted positions, um we've talked a lot about central office positions in the last several weeks. Um and so I h I have a link there to um what those positions would be. We've seen those um many times. Um that's available for you, but that gives us a total savings of 3.45 million. We also um discussed and have the closing of 12 preschool units um able a able to combine some preschools that were smaller um looking at locations where families needed those preschools most. Um and so that reduced um by another 1.5 million. As we move on then to the school staffing update. Um we talked
117about this in terms of spring TAC. TAC for those um unaware TAC is teacher allocation committee and really what that's looking at is when you look at all the students how do you assign the number of teachers to those students. So that's in a nutshell what TAC is. What we did and as the superintendent alluded to that's usually a fall activity. We really did it in the spring this year to look at both where were students actually signed up to go to school as well as how could we maximize the use of teachers given that the budget restrictions are what they are. And so as we looked at that realignment of where students had enrolled this spring and we uh coupled that with a filter for retention, we found that we could by combining school
118by combining staffs and and some classrooms and um working with CTF all along the way with all of that work um we were able to reduce by almost 110 teaching positions which which would generate $12.3 million in budget savings. um of these positions 68.9 of them were already vacant. So um I know um many of you have been first asking us to look at vacancies of course and so um that's definitely what we did in that case. Um however there were 41 positions of those that are filled with teachers K to five teachers. So even though at first blush so a riff is always when you have more people in than you have positions that would be the case. However, when we sat down with CTF for many hours over the last week to really
119work through what does this look like they and we agreed that we would rather have those teachers reassigned if they if that's their wish to a class that may not be in their current lensure area. They may be teaching sixth grade math rather than with a K to5 license for instance. So they might have to be out of a lensure area for this year but it would still afford them the opportunities to stay in district and in the teaching force. So with that said really we do have spaces for all 41 of those um teachers to stay in the district if they wish as long as they're willing to teach outside their lensure area. Those would all be conversations we would have with them. So, a little more about that um on the next slide
120um is that as of June 17th um 41 K to5 teachers could be rifted, but that riff implementation plan looks a little bit different than just simply riffing folks. Um our plan is to meet with principles tomorrow at 11:00 and we'll talk with principles a little bit about what happens here tonight and how it's going to impact their buildings. obviously very important for them to know what's going on um this summer as they're getting ready to leave for for um their July break. Um then this week we'll have some small groupoup um teacher meetings, some of them individual teacher meetings with CFT and HR um at towards the end of this week where we'll bring people in in um in face-toface um sessions where we will talk with them in reverse seniority order um to
121avail to to avail them of what options are out there that they could choose to select from to fill um any time that we need a long-term sub. And in this case, what I mean by long-term sub is a leave sub. So someone's going to leave for the year for maternity leave. We typically wouldn't hire a contract teacher in that spot. But if we have someone who is going to be reduced, um then it would make sense to give them first shot at those positions. Um those would also be another option. And then finally, teachers who decline to teach outside their certification band. We we can't make somebody teach something that they're not licensed in, right? We wouldn't want to do that. But if they choose to not um take advantage of the fact that
122we have a position for them, albeit not something they're licensed in, um then they would be formally rifted, in which case we would discuss with them their statutory rights, their unemployment eligibility, and the call back protocols and any other relevant procedures that they need at that point. So that's where we are with um reductions in force. Um finally um for me um is the reduction of school social workers that we've spoken about before. When we look at social work positions from all funding sources so before when I was here we talked about social workers um as we looked at all funding sources um both grant funds as well as general fund. We actually have a total of 90.5 FTEES for social workers. There are currently six positions that are vacant um across these sites and
123we are proposing reduction of eight positions. So in terms of thinking about well what would you just not have a position at the school that's vacant? No, we would pro what we would do is sit down and figure out what the allocation should be. Where does it make sense? So we have on average more than one social worker per building um given that we have 90.5 um social workers in about 67 buildings. So um we we are fortunate that way. Um but another area where when we think about cutting direct services to students, social workers is a really hard one to understand. So are teachers, but those are the times that we're in. And so that's what that's what we're looking at in terms of um social workers. Therefore, board, this takes us back to
124what the ask is for tonight that we're seeking your approval on. Thank you. Board members, any questions, comments? Board member Lindy. Uh, first I'd like to say that this slide is great where it asks for where you need our approval on what specific things tonight. And I'd like to say thank you. I think that's excellent. Um, I have a number of questions and also some gratitude about the proposal around support for curriculum implementation. I just would defer uh to the chair. Is now the best time to ask that or should we do that later? Sure, let's do it. Great. Um could we go to the slide that talks about that investment? This I think was slide maybe uh five. I think that's great. Um, that's great. I mean, I I've uh made no secret about
125this. I think this is the single most important thing that we can invest in this year because I think that you get the biggest impact for your for dollar invested when it comes to student learning. Um, I just want to say again and again and again how much I appreciate the fact that this is on here and that we have a moment to talk about this tonight. Um, uh, I did read this ahead of time, but I wanted to just ask some questions about what this means because I had a couple questions. And all of this is coming from a place of wanting to understand, not from saying it's bad or it's great. I just want to make sure that I understand it. Um, so in that when it says that 2.3 million can what
126I'm trying to understand is if we were to compare that, this is the FY20 FY26 proposal. If we were to look at the FY25 actual spend on this same line, was it zero in FY25 and now it's going to 2.3 million? Was it 2.3 million in FY25 and it's still 2.3 million? We're just using it for something different. Was it the same amount in both years and we're using it for the same thing? I'm just trying to understand how does this compare to last year? I think there's a combination going on here and so what I'll start is at the end um and that is what we intend to do is train and work with the coaches differently and then the district-wide mentors not sure how far I can go with the district-wide mentor conversation
127um because it's contingent upon the negotiations is it okay for me to say so uh we're repurposing our district-wide mentors in terms of how we use them, how they've been used over the past several years in terms of helping uh the teachers not only coach them but um improve their practices in a more evaluative uh standpoint. They used to do that several years ago. We want to bring them bring that piece back. So I believe that is going to help us tremendously with the curriculum implementation. The same will be true for the instructional coaches. We have a good core of instructional coaches. I believe four in ELA, three in mathematics, two in science, two in social studies. So we want to retrain them and talk with them a little bit more deeply about how we
128are going to look for and coach for implementing the curriculum much more broadly than we have um in the past. So, as far as your initial question, the dollar amount, um, I don't know that there was an adjustment, but a repurposing. I don't know what it is off the top of my head, but I believe 2.3 is an increase over 25, but I will get back to you with that data. And and I'm I'm trying to figure out, too, is that the same thing adjusted for increases in salaries, increases for inflation, like that's going to go up every year. Any you understand what's behind my question? I'm trying to figure out is this a new investment or is this I think the instructional coaches are the same and the district ventures or maybe more but
129um what I want to what I want to say but I can't prove it right now tonight is that there's more money in professional development and tools. So let let me get back to you on that. Um so it could be that there's this 2.3 million which might be the same as last year might be an increase over last year and then in addition to that there might be something else on PD and tools or that's a part of this number it's part of that number part of that number there's a definite repurposing of the work of those districtwide mentors yeah that that's helpful um and I' I've just a maybe two more minutes on this and then I can I can um yield the mic. But um for people who may not understand, can
130you describe what a district-wide mentor is, what their role is, what they've done in the past? So these are full-time out of the classroom teachers who go into the classrooms. Generally speaking, in the past, it's been newer teachers and it's also been um maybe teachers who need a little bit more of assistance in order to complete their work. Um and so we've had districtwide mentors for quite some time. Uh but they have been pulled away from the more um support for teachers who need a little bit of more help uh in being able to deliver the curriculum. But these are full-time teachers who are out of the classroom 100%. And how are they selected and who manages them? So they are selected um via a process that is a con combination of um administration and
131CTF. Is that right Julia? Yes. Okay. um a committee of administrators and CTF. Um they are lead teachers. It's seen as kind of a a a very prominent position because they are pushing into classrooms. That's their whole job is to push into classrooms um for many many years. Many of you know we've had the peer assistant evaluation program and a few years ago it moved to the peer assistance and um and review program. So they weren't evaluating. We're moving back to that model um uh to put a little more teeth into what people can be held accountable for. So it's one thing if I say hey I have a great idea. you might want to try it versus I have a good idea and I would expect to see that because this needs to happen
132for it to show up in your evaluation. And that's a big difference. And so I'm working really closely with CTF around the the language to get that role back. And I think that's a very very powerful role and very important excuse me as we think about our less experienced teachers or our teachers who are struggling and then who manages the districtwide mentors. So ultimately they fall under HR. Um Travis Rowley is the direct manager um of them and he is performance evaluation. And um this is the last thing I'll ask about. I think this is all very very helpful. Um I think you know I was trying to figure out before just based on the slide um you know are are we going to be in a situation where this represents an increase of at
133least a million dollars no increase at all or something in the middle and I think what I'm hearing is this is probably something in the middle. So if it's something in the middle, the the criteria I'm trying to use in just making up my own mind about whether this is going to make a difference or not are two things. I think to get help on bringing the curriculum to life well. I think teachers need time. They need time to be with other teachers and experts and principles and work on this stuff and that costs money. Um so one of the questions I'm asking is will this create more time for teachers? We should pay them for that time to work on this. And the second criterion I'm using is uh will that time be better
134time? Um because I think we've been trying this stuff for a while and I commend and applaud all of those efforts. But the the question I'm trying to ask myself and whether I'm going to support this or not is do we have a reason to believe that this upcoming year is going to be different? And I think honestly the answer seems to be maybe. Um I really appreciate what's on here. I think I have some additional thinking and questions that I'd like to ask. Um it may take longer than tonight. Um but we're in this position where I think we're going to be voting on the final budget anyway at the special meeting that we've added because we're going to be waiting on all the information on the state budget. Is that accurate? Uh so
135I do want to address the time piece for you, Mr. Lindy. Um, so I mentioned before that the deputy and the assistant sup and I have been working on what our curriculum plan and model will look like for next year and that includes the professional development portion and we've looked at how we have delivered that in the past few years and have made an adjustment how we want it to be done this year moving forward uh for August and we're moving to what we're calling a cohort model where teachers are working together um on this and so that they have kind of a buddy system within their school and across the district in light content areas. So I think yes, there is a plan for this to be different. I'm happy to share uh where
136we are with that at this point. I I want to be thoughtful about everybody else's time, all the other issues we have to talk about tonight. I I really do want to say thank you for all the thought that's gone into this. Um I'm I just want to check the timeline. like we we um we will be making a final vote on this at the next board meeting when we vote on the full package or we're voting on this tonight. So, we're my hope is that we're voting tonight because we have to have conversations with principles. We're hoping to be able to do that tomorrow and then we have to have conversations with the staff who are going to be impacted by the adjustments. So, sorry, I'm all for voting on all those things. I
137just noticed on your slide that you had the bullets of where you need board action. The investment in curriculum was not one of them. So we we it well it is a part of the whole package to get Yes. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to think for a minute. Thank you everybody. I come back. Sure. Thank you Vice President um board member Weinberg. I'm sorry. And yes, thank you so much also for the presentation. And I just have a couple of questions and I'm just going to go by slides. So if we could just go to slide four. My first question will be the Bramble Monastery School. You're saying that that's going to be a cost of 2.1 million. Correct. That's correct. Is there any way have we looked into um can this be done for
138a little bit cheaper or what does this consist of? What is the 2.1 million? This is the cost of the staffing that will have to go into the school. Is it just for staffing? No, there's some uh uh materials. Startup supplies. Yeah, I just want to know just everything. So, staffing materials. What else? That's about it. That's it. That's it. And how many students will is this for? I think the last time I checked there's 195 students registered. Yeah, it it's full. And I think I think yeah it's around that I don't have the exact number you know so 195 possibly um the 2.1 is for staffing and materials and to my other part of the question have we looked at and other ways to decrease the cost of 2.1 I think with the number
139of staff I'm not sure that there's a way to decrease the cost I mean we've tried to be as tight as we possibly can be um looking at the number of students comparing comparing that with the number of staff for each of our buildings including this one. Okay. And in addition to I don't see it on this particular slide but maybe you will bring this to us later but with our middle schools I've asked a couple times what will be the cost for the middle schools and I haven't quite seen that yet. So what are you thinking in terms of for that cost? Yeah, we've shared the cost for middle schools a few times and I don't have it today. Um I I'll look for it then. I'm sorry. I said, "I'll look for it."
140I just don't recall getting that. Are you asking for a cost per school of the middle schools? No, I think I asked for just a whole general sum of how much would it be for the uh operation, just everything included for the startup of the middle schools. And I don't think that I've gotten that, but if I if it was shared, we can kind of figure out where that is and just probably email it to me. Um, so my next question will be slide six and just I know uh, Treasure Wagner, you had stated that you were going to ask us a question again about something about revisiting this. What was your question? Yeah, so the the board's vote was for us to get to 16.2% in contract reductions and because of the split funding
141issue, we weren't able to get there without cutting more vendor contracts. Um, I didn't know if the wanted you still wanted us to get to the 16.2% or um, were you okay with the 13.7 in reduction? Okay. I just wanted to make sure I heard that correctly and I'm pretty sure we'll have a little bit of a discussion on that. Um, so slide seven, I wanted to kind of just go over a little bit on some of the things that were listed here. And I know the reduction of the SSW. um we've heard several people today um kind of state their reasoning or their rationale on why they think that's important. I know we've heard um in passport meetings and so for me I know that that's not something that I personally align with and
142I just wanted to know if there would be any way possible I know you have here that you're reducing it by eight positions but stating that there are six vacant meaning how many are actual positions. So the actual uh people and position that we would be talking about would be two. So two actual positions but saying six. But I think we heard today that supposedly those vacant positions were actually given to people for next year. Is that true? I don't believe given to people for next year because that hasn't happened yet or discussed or discussed to go towards people for next year. I we haven't gotten there yet. We haven't um approved this at all yet. So, I don't know if someone is discussing it. I don't know where that discussion is taking place other
143than when we've brought it here. Um just people uh people's general feelings about it. Thank you. And I think that for me on slide eight, the master list of reduction, I know that you have it listed as one um line here, but do we plan on going through each of those or you're just uh suggesting that we just do the whole entire thing? The whole entire thing. These are um each department had their conversations about where we could make adjustments or shifts and this is what that listing is. Okay. And within that, I know there was a curriculum and instruction manager position. I just wanted to make sure that you're still stating that that would be something definitely that you would like to be included in that. So, anything that for me I know that
144will affect student outcomes, don't necessarily agree with, but just wanted to kind of get a rationale from you on that decision or proposal. Yes. My rationale for that is this is a um English language arts curriculum manager that was an interim position. So really when we began our work, we started with those types of positions uh interim uh vacancies that had been in place for a moment. In addition to that, when I think about how the department is staffed, so they have four instructional coaches that I believe we can repurpose a lot of that work. And I think that's my last question. Thank you. Appreciate it. One member Cross. Yeah. First of all, I just want to say that I think I just wanted to thank you and your team for the tremendous amount of
145work took takes to get to this point. It is not easy. It's a lot of lot of effort, a lot of collaboration with lots of departments, everybody in the district. So, you know, thank you for for all this terrific work under trying circumstances. Um, I Ben is not here. I was going to say he might want to also put into his thinking, you know, maybe there's some collaboration on the uh curriculum that'll be strengthened with CTF next year too. that'll impact uh make that 3 point $2.3 million maybe go a little farther too. Yes, I definitely uh know that the CTF is in agreement with us and working on this and as evidenced in some things that we were able to change together through negotiations, right? So, there's some impact there that maybe is not
146uh reflected necessarily financially. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I just I was waiting for you to finish. I just wanted to thank all the unions for being at the table with us and being very collaborative in this process. Everybody has been sharing in the pain. Agree. I'm I'm okay. Great. Member Craig. Um, so I want to start by saying again, thank you for bringing some of these things back. I I want to highlight one little part for me, especially regarding the spring tac. And I think for me this goes a little bit to the purposes of doing all the changes to the district that we took that were passed by the board is that you can't on one end say we need to go to kind of consolidating K through three and in and four through
147six in these ways and then say we can't we wouldn't adjust the actual staffing of those spaces where you had two classrooms and now there's one. you in theory will not need two of every teacher in that same way. And so I do think that's an acknowledgement of that was part of the work that was being done is to consolidate some of the way we're doing business. That's part of the savings that was expected from the the need. I think it also speaks to a little bit of where we were as a district with regards to some of the efforts we made over the last six six or so years, five or six years to not cut staffing and where everyone else around us were, right? And that came at a cost and I think
148that is not to be held lightly because we we we made decisions at times to keep folks on in spaces where the actual numbers did not make sense. And I think that's something we have to get more committed back to is using enrollment at a school and the need at a school for a particular class or program to really dictate those roles. Um I do want to I also want to say that some of this we cannot balance a budget off a central office and I think the treasurer said this to us for the last two years directly that we cannot balance a budget off of central office. there is going to be hurt and harm that's going to affect every part of our district. And unfortunately, that is just the the truth from what
149we get from funding, as we talked about earlier, from the state. The reality is that if we were funded appropriately and adequately, we could do and run a district with the resources that are needed for everything that our students need. We are not funded adequately from our state. Um, but I wanted to to also speak a little bit to um I think some of the things on here we're going to have folks who don't like them and and that's the nature of the work we do and that kind of deal. Um, what I want us to get us to a point to though is that we have to get as close if not all the way to a number that at least prepares us for what will come out of the state budget. um because
150right now we're pro we're using a projection that actually is probably going to be higher than what may come out of that committee uh that meets over the next couple days. And so one one of the things I am a little bit worried about in in us as a as a board having this discussion and I think it's fair for us to have the discussion and go through it all is just are we as a board committed to getting to at least today that closes you know whether it's two whether it's a 632 based on the projected revenues that added in um or it's the 628 number I I think we have to be as a board saying willing to say that we're committed to doing that and then we're willing to say we're willing
151to give up something if we want to keep something else. Um because I think I know folks have wanted to say what are the things we want to save and protect. But I think honestly what we have to be able to say now is I want to give up X because I think this is just so much more important. And if we're not willing to say that I don't think it's fair to you all to say to criticize you all for the work you've done. I don't think it's fair to the workers who will be affected by the decisions we make today to say let's wait. Um, and I and I wish we would have done some of these things last on on the second. I wish we could have done a little bit more,
152but at the time we couldn't. Uh, but I I do just I want us to be as a board committed to that idea that we understand it's going to be heard and we understand people are going to be upset and we understand that none of these things are easy. If they were easy, we wouldn't need us, right? Um, if it were easy, then everything would be really quick and the budget would be done in May, April. They're not easy. the state isn't making it any easier and it won't make it any easier going forward. And so I I appreciate the hard work that's being done. I do think some of the things that have also been shared um make it you know certain challenges that we're going to have to have with as a district
153and I would love for us to no matter what we decide here to come up with plans of action that go along with any places where we have seen a reduction in in services provided to ensure that students are not lost because I do take to heart the comments that folks made regarding how our immigrant students feel about how the district cares for them and I think that's important about things like um our welcome centers and the other efforts that we're we have been making but but maybe we can find a way to do with the staffing and do more of to at least make a more vocal presence to that. Um I got two more points and I'll I'll drop off. Also, I want to thank the folks who have sat at the table
154and worked with us to get to where we are, which are our union partners, our teach our teachers, our principles, our administrators, and everyone in the district in in our central office as well who who works hard every day to make sure that we do as much as we can to minimize the pain that's going to be felt and to make really tough decisions about their own budgets because I know there are several people who would probably love to be able to have a few more, you know, prints they can do or a few more um trainings they could attend or a few more other resources. Um the last thing I will say on this and this I I I know I'll bring a smile at least one person in the room's face on this.
155Everything we're doing here today is about this budget, but it has nothing to do with some of the major things that need to be done in our schools that we still need to find a way to fund over the next few years. I already see the smile. Uh, so I do think we also need to be preparing ourselves because we are going we have schools that we already know need major repairs and we don't have a funding source and the state's not making it any easier to come up with a funding source for those repairs. And I think my biggest worry in our district while it is excruciatingly difficult on a lot of things my biggest worry is that we have a school that we cannot use the building because the building is not usable.
156And I say that because we have schools that are in the city that have shut down operation and those students are now probably in our district because the building was not safe for the kids to even be inside of. And I think that's the most embarrassing thing a district can have happen. That's why we had teachers unions uh threatening to strike up in Columbus. That's why we've had other places around because it's not always about the money. sometimes just about walking into a room where you have asbestous falling from the ceiling or you walk in and your lights don't work, those types of things. So, I really want us to also make sure that we are prepared for next year's conversation in the years of the future on how we'll address some of the things
157that are really necessary to our schools being safe for all kids to attend. Thank you, Vice President Bolton. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I need some just points of clarification uh regarding what we're voting on. We know we have to vote tonight on the final appropriations resolution that kind of begins to end the current year we're in. Is that correct, Treasurer Wagner? That's correct. We're required to file with the Hamilton County Budget Commission by the 30th. Yes. And we're going and we're voting at obviously we did already vote regarding the renewal and you going to the um or somebody making that run to the auditors legal counsel and legal counsel they know him well. So, as we look at the other votes that we have this evening as it pertains to the budget,
158uh we have to vote on the overall cuts that have been explained to us. But it's my recollection from finance committee on Friday that the hope was as we faced an additional meeting in July uh that would be that we would be only having to then address what the state does to us. That's correct. That is the hope. So tonight what we're trying to do is get as close to the where we are on the gap and could you once again explain the gap uh of four point or whatever it is uh because we have to try to be there before we are able to adjust to the damage that the state will do to us. So um so Mr. Mr. Craig was correct. The revenue target went from 624 to 632 based on those
159revenue estimates. Um and based on the reductions that you've already approved, so you've already approved all the vendor contract reductions and you um have repro approved some central office reductions. Um the vacant positions, you approved us to remove vacant positions. Um, and then if you approve the other things that the superintendent is asking for you, we will be um closing that $4 million gap. We'll be close to closing the $4 million gap or that the $4 million gap will exist before the state people do damage. No, the $4 million gap um causes the riff. Okay. So then we have to deal with what the state does to us. So, so if the vote then tonight, then we have a motion or whatever, however this is going to be, we have those forms of resolution regarding
160appropriation and the 30-day uh appropriation for the coming year. But the rest of the vote on the budget are the cuts that need to happen as well as moving ahead on the authorizing the um um temporary resolution. Yes. because on July 1, um, without that resolution, I cannot cut the first check, not a payroll check or a vendor check. So that's my legal authority to write checks. And that temporary resolution would be based on us closing that gap. Correct. And that temporary resolution would then uh set it up that indeed with the authorization of the reduction in force, we will have closed that gap. That's correct. And that gap gets us when that closes then when we come back in July be July 9th or whatever the president decides if it's that or what have
161you. Um we would only then god forbid but really have to deal with whatever the state budget has done to us additionally. That's correct. Okay. So, you'll notice in the temporary appropriations resolution, it's $550 million. It was just an estimate to get us started. Um, regardless of what happens tonight, I can still move keep moving forward. And then on July 9th is when we'll bring you the full value. And so, that's also in part the property piece, the riff piece, us accepting what has been negotiated regarding the uh collective bargaining agreements. Yes, all that is being approved voted on tonight. Hopefully approved. Um and then on July 9th, it'll just be reacting to what the state changes. And we have to authorize tonight hopefully the going forward on the tiff and the and the committee
162and the community um reinvestment agreements, the CRAAS. That's correct. that'll bring in more revenue to the district that we could use to prevent from cutting more bodies. So, all of that is to close the gap. Yes. And get to the budget before the state then tells us additionally what else we have to do. Yes. Thank you, woman. Yes. So, thank you for um providing us with this uh presentation. Um, and I do appreciate you all um, based off the number of positions that will be riff trying to find a different way to rep repurpose the position. So, I do appreciate that. Um, I do have a question um, regarding the school social workers as I've had questions about it before. So I know initially the um first recommendation was uh that there was a proposal
163to reduce by six uh school social workers because they were vacant positions. Correct. Can you please inform me how we are now at the eight positions and then I'll go forward and ask my additional questions from there. Yes ma'am. So even the last presentation we still had this budget gap. Uh, and when we looked at the school social workers, I believe we were just looking at the general fund social workers, which were around 67, I believe, positions. Um, but then when we looked at the school social workers funded by all uh um budgets, there were funding sources. Thank you, Jen. There were 90 and a half. And so to help us close this even more is how we went from the six to the eight. Okay. Thank you. And so with the uh six positions
164um three of them are actually critical positions. We talked about the long they have a credentiing of long-term sub. Correct. Um so these positions will ideally cover um the PBIS work. Um they will cover the um the chronic absenteeism and truency work. So can you speak to how we are thinking about addressing um ideally these three positions and then also what that would mean in terms of the 0.5 um positions for the social workers. Um just in general what I would say is that whenever we have to do any sort of reallocation like this we would sit down with our lead social worker as well as with this case um Manisha House who oversees the social workers and work with them together to say where is the need. So, it's not like we would just
165take those six positions, say we're not filling those, those are vacancies like but those particular positions up, but it might be that we look at social workers at large and say where is the need for social workers based on the data, based on the number of calls that they're getting, based on the bully button, based on all of the pieces that social workers are doing to allocate according to the need. Um that's how I would see that when we look at those positions and those those um positions unlike teaching positions work under an allocation committee and so those are not we don't post a position they go they actually have an allocation committee per the C the CBA for CFT where their team gets together and they by seniority kind of talk about where they're
166going to be placed. So they might say I'm 0.5 at this school in this school I'd really want a 1.0 as they move up in seniority then they can look at those positions that are vacant that way. So for me, I believe we would go back to that allocation committee and work with them to figure out where do those positions have to come. I mean, where does it make sense for those positions to be cut and where does it not make sense for them to come to be cut? So, for instance, if we have a a school that had let's say we have a school that had three social workers, a large high school, and now they're not going to have seventh and eighth grade anymore, and so now they're 9 to 12, it might
167make sense for them to lose a position. So rather than keep three social workers there, move one that way. I I'll ask the superintendent. Yes, ma'am. I appreciate that. And the other thing I want to make sure we address um board member M and everybody last time we had those.5 positions but that was based on a different number that we thought we had just from the uh general fund school social workers. But now that we see the number is different I I don't know that it will necessarily have to be a 0.5 situation. And I understand that a lot of times that's not very attractive to people because maybe they have to go to two different schools. I get that. But I think with the number that we have overall looking at all funding sources,
168um that probably is not going to be necessary. Okay. But it would still be the expectation for the eight positions to be reduced. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Um and then um well, let me ask you this and I don't know I know you said that you will work with the uh lead social worker as well as with um Dr. House. Yes. Will those conversations begin have they already started or will they begin after a decision is made on where that actual need will be allocated? Thank you. Great question. Um I I think it's I think it's probably there have been some I would imagine there's been some preliminary talk because we've been talking about this um piece at the board meetings for a while, but I don't think there's anything practical that has happened because there's
169not board approval for it. And so no one's made any decisions. There also haven't been offer letters. So we we've had a few social workers who have resigned. We haven't sent any offer letters out either for the same reason we haven't sent offer letters out to some of the teaching positions that we feared we might not be able to keep because if they're not kept I don't want to have to resend an offer letter back from someone or have someone excited about their new job and then we write them and say you know it's not going to happen. So, we've kind of been on pause in a lot of our hiring practices based on the work of of the board and the direction of the board um towards meeting this this end of of a
170balanced budget. Okay. Um my other question is around the ELA manager. Can you and I know that you addressed that there are some um ELA coaches that you're thinking about in terms of doing the work. I'm just trying to identify systemically what that work would look like. As we talked about, board member Craig talked about priorities and I know that several of us have talked about the priorities of honoring our goals and guard rails. And so if we're thinking about having that strategic alignment and improvement with our curriculum, I would really want to one make sure that I am clear on what the ELA manager um with their work entails because the way I'm envisioning it, they would provide that uniform and succinct, you know, um implementation of the curriculum and communicate that to the
171coaches to ensure that the work is being done. So can you please expound on what that position um covers and again what would be the impact um to our uh our our goals such as our third grade reading or our eighth grade reading and things of that sort. Yes ma'am. So, the ELA curriculum manager is currently overseeing uh a high school coach, uh a middle school coach, and I believe two um K6 coaches. So, they wouldn't have that manager position anymore, but you would still have the support in each of those grade levels for all of the schools across the district. Um I also uh will rely very heavily on our um curriculum director to be able to support the work. The biggest reason I feel really strongly about this and our ability to still
172deliver highquality instruction in this way is we've as I mentioned already begun to create the plan for instruction and so we can share that plan and the ELA pieces mapped out. the pieces that we have to add uh are in the areas of world languages, fine arts, and career and technical education. And we're also going to layer in our multi-ter systems uh with this whole document that lays out what is expected to be taught, what is the calendar that is to be taught on, what is the professional development, what are the in the case of science, when are the um labs to be shared and given and taught to the kids to experience. So because I believe we have a plan now then I feel strongly that we will be able to do this uh
173at least for now uh until maybe the finances change without having that position. Okay. So ultimately you're saying this person is not over the entire district for focusing on ELA. They're just over specific schools. Oh no. This is over ELA. But in addition to that person, they we still have those coaches um four total ELA coaches who are still available and still will and they really are the direct um support going out to each of the types of schools depending on the grade level. That is not going to be taken away. Okay. And are these coaches um are we insourcing this work or are they outsourced by a These are CPS employees. Yes, ma'am. Okay. And then lastly, I don't recall us having conversation today about the uh monatory pair professionals. Is that We dropped
174that a a while ago, Miss. Yes, ma'am. All right. Perfect. Thank you. Oh, applause. So, thank you. I I want to um tell the staff, thank you for all your hard work. This is not an easy conversation to have to engage in from an HR standpoint or an IT standpoint or an administrative standpoint and I can um it's not an easy conversation for board members to have to entertain and vote on. Um so I don't want to minimize the work that's been done, but I I do have some significant concerns with voting on the master schedule with some of these positions um as listed. And I'm going to I'm going to base my preface all of my comments around our goals and guard rails. Um the goals I I'm concerned that some of the that
175the impact to some of these choices by the administration, the recommendations could adversely impact the goals that we've decided on. and I'm not quite sure what the plan would be to reduce the amount of um impact to student learning. So, goal four talks about the percentage of black, Hispanic, and multi-racial students graduating with college credit plus credit on a workforce or a workforce credential. Yet, we're significantly cutting career tech tech um there's some career tech positions on the master list. Um, guardrail one talks about the superintendent will not ignore the needs and talents of the whole child. Yet, we're talking about cutting social workers significantly beyond what the recommendation of that particular um we had gotten a presentation before that they were recommending five and we're exceeding that. Go real five talks about the superintendent
176will not ignore districtwide chronic absenteeism at school sites and I believe the social workers impact that as well. So I asked a few months ago when we started talking about board the budget if we could have some of these cuts prefaced with what the impact would be to our goals and guard rails and academics. We haven't seen that yet, but I do want to um address that I have some serious concerns when there are 38 line items impacting curriculum. There are 41 line items impacting it and DSS has a significant amount of line items that are listed on the master list to be cut. Um I do have a couple question well actually I have more than a couple but with regard to district mentors those would be funded from the general fund, right? Okay.
177And yet we've heard that the selection process for them would be by HR and CTF. Is there any discussion? I haven't heard it yet around those particular mentors being selected based off of their performance or evaluation data so that we know that there are high quality teachers who are mentoring other teachers that are new. I I I appreciate the fact that HR is entering into that discussion, but I haven't heard where there is going to be some data impacted. We've got some great highquality teachers in our district, and rather than it be arbitrary, I would hope that there would be some datadriven decisions around those particular positions. Um, and you can answer that question if you want. Sure. So, um the the as you're aware, the career and teaching program is a a very long
178um um a long a longlasting. It's been around a very historical um a very um original program to CPS um that actually I grew up in as a lead teacher here. And so um one of the things that the districtwide mentors have to do as do all teachers that are out of classroom um is that they are in a that are in a lead teacher position is they have to um pass their lead teacher credentiing. And so that is not a small feat at all. So they have proven that through their evaluation. They have to have certain scores on their evaluation. They have an they have a selection process that involves a very in-depth application that a committee of administrators and teachers sits on to approve them um for their application stage and then they
179go through an evaluation stage. So they are this that is a very tried and trueue process. um those districtwide mentors even when they're consulting teachers were always some of the best and brightest in the district in terms of thinking about their practice and um they are vetted by their peers um who have also many times been a consulting teacher or districtwide mentor in selecting those folks for those jobs. So I would say yes they are some of our best teachers who are out in the field supporting some of our newest teachers and those that need the most support. Great. Great. That's great. And so, um, I saw some cuts. I have some concerns around the curriculum and instruction manager position being cut, particularly as it pertains to, again, our goals and guard rails and the
180need to ensure that we are meeting goal one, the percentage of third graders proficient in the um, Ohio State testing. Um, goal two, the current gap in reading proficiency between sixth grade black, Hispanic, and multi-racial students and sixth grade white students being able to shrink. Um, when I look at some of these choices like your there's a a recommendation to cut the leader in me and it had a line item next to it. What does that mean? That means that that school or that department we're not going to expand that or what does that mean? Right? Those are programs in schools and so yes, we wouldn't be able to continue or expand those. So that means that an entire school who utilizes the leader and me programming would not no longer have that programming. That's
181correct. Not necessarily. So just to speak specifically to that line just because I'm familiar with that a couple of those curriculum in terms of those the intention is to transition those from being centrally funded by the department to being funded by the school. So the schools often have access to title dollars or other dollars that as a central office budget unit we wouldn't. So some of those items are intended to be transitioned to schoolbased funding. So they have to make the choice as to whether they want to continue that or not within their overall budget. And if I could take just a moment, I I apologize maybe kind of an unwanted commentary, but just to kind of help set some context around the master list of reductions as a whole because I know it it's
182kind of an ongoing theme, but just so kind of to set where that list come from, right? As we transition from the list of 100, the line by line, and the overall central office reductions, that list represents primarily central office positions, items, and resources that were done in collaboration with those budget unit budget unit owners, the work stream owners. And for the most part, the overall impact of those is intended to be do more with less. I mean that's the real short answer is the intention is there is a plan to be able to offset that work to spread it across the remaining resources to be able to maintain the minimal level of service if not the normal level of services that we're trying to accomplish. So that's the overall context of that specific list
183if that's helpful. Okay. Thank you. And then some of the positions too are the intent is to shift to um being grant funded. So, for example, Dr. Maf, you mentioned the career and technical education concern. That's one that I do recall is going to shift to being grant funded. Okay. It doesn't say that on the on the sheet. So, that's why I'm asking these questions. Yes, cuz I didn't see that part where it says that it was going to some of them on another sheet say going to be switched over from general fund to grant funding or or something. the these partic the ones that I'm asking about don't um it says restructure resource coordinate co coordination is that a a savings of 562,000 we did that um a while ago and so yes so
184that's a previous one and then the transportation explanation 2.9 million and it says around the that's the seventh and eighth grade you approved right is that all there was some someone asked me for clarification you're trying to clarify It's all all seventh and eighth grade at this point. You did the board agreed to do it for many of the seventh and eighth graders last year. Well, for the 2425 school year and u moving forward would be for all. Okay. And that's a savings of 2.9. And then um there were a lot of problems with DS um sorry not problems there were a lot of line items around DSS and it said specifically like home instruction. Are we cutting those positions on the master list? It was on the master list. There were a lot of
185cuts to DSS services. Can you share some of those DSS positions that were teachers who were working out of central office who will be repurposed to school positions instead of being here at central office. So they're they're not out of a job. They're teachers. They just will be in schools. Okay. It I'm sorry. It just wasn't noted on um on this on the master reduction sheet. So, I think there were nine, eight or nine, and they all they were all teachers that then got moved back into a classroom in part because we wanted to give those direct services of an intervention specialist to students rather than have a long-term sub in those spots. And then the work that they were doing will be assumed by the managers that are in that that department. Okay. And
186one one last thing we I have received um I was kind of targeted around problems with focus and consistent concerns around focus. And so I'm wondering how accurate is the data that we're are we using focus for some of our projection data. So I ended up um getting a lot of questions from people around focus is not focusing on parents and focus is not working and the data is not as accurate as it could be in comparison to power school because that's the only thing that they have to compare it with. But I'm also wondering how accurate is some of our projection data when we say like we have 195 students at Bramble. How accurate is that data when we've had some noted problems with focus? I feel fairly confident that it is as accurate
187as we could possibly be. So to address some of the concerns there, we're facing two overall challenges with focus. Obviously, one of those is that we're still in the first year of implementation versus having 15 years of powers school. Um so our knowledge around the system is still somewhat in a gaining and learning phase. So there's a lot of reports and differences um that we run into a lot of challenges with the data not being accurate is we're not running a report to give us the data we think we are. So we're having that ongoing work as well as there are some issues in reporting from focus where you know we think we're looking at a data set that is not representative of what we think it is. So if you actually pull the raw
188data out and you calculate what it is you're trying to find the data is accurate. It's the report that we're having struggles with where some people just are still learning the system to be able to get the data out of it the way they need. Well, the concerns that I've heard from a parent side because they wouldn't obviously be looking at it from that particular example, but there there there's more baseline concerns around being able to calculate a GPA, getting accurate information around or being able to be presented with the information around um the grades of their students. I mean it's it's more baseline things. But my question is um is focus cheaper? Are we saving a significant amount of money with focus? Uh we are I'm not sure I can't remember off the top
189of my head what the exact difference is. Um but I mean overall we went through a multi-year selection process that involved stakeholders both internal and external to CPS and it was the product that was selected for us to use going forward by all of the various stakeholders. Okay. So there was a savings but in terms of functionality feature set it was the selected option to go forward with. And did we have a happen to have a lot of parent engagement with that? In fact we did an entire virtual community session that was available to anyone um essentially in the city could cast a vote on what product that we were going to go with. Okay. All right. Now, with regard to the need for the vote of all of this, if there I don't want
190to go line item by line item, but um in looking at some of the things that are being asked of us, um I suppose we need to go line item by these line items rather than each line item underneath each section. Is that what you all are wanting is us to approve the entire master list, improve the impact positions? Okay. Do board members have any other questions? Oh, board member Craig. Um so kind of two questions about going forward. Um because we and potentially we'll have I mean not potentially we're almost guaranteeing that we not going to get the number that the house passed um for our budget based on at least the reporting I'm seeing so far the house and the senate ain't getting along on this committee so far before they even meet.
191So, I guess my my other point of question is we passed as close as we can get to the 632 number today. And then the cuts that would need to be done um if we had to make adjustments. A lot of these are the things that are going to make they're just even rougher than the ones we already seeing. Correct. Um, and I think one of the things that we should also be keeping in mind, and maybe this is a point for us to think about, is just are there roles or positions that maybe we ask you to come back to us with that are maybe outside of what is like is there things that we're paying for with title dollars that for instance, maybe we need to say this isn't something we can we
192no longer can do, but maybe we can repurpose someone who's under the general fund or repurpose some spending under general fund in a different way. I say that all to say I think we do need to get as close as possible to the 632 number so we make it easier. But I think the direction I would maybe seek for us also to kind of give guidance on is is the expectation that we would find ways to like for instance the contracts is a great example. There are things that we can go back and say to you to go look at and not do in a contract we pay out a general fund. There may be things that as Jeremy gave a great example of where we may have to send it back to a school
193to say is this something you want to spend title dollars on in order to continue and then we may be able to reallocate some of the way title spent. But I I just I what I worry about is that we're going to end up with still the same options that come back to us even if we don't approve them today plus other worse options that will really affect how we do uh classroom content. So I I just want to know if it would be helpful for us after we give the vote to maybe also give a little bit of a feedback as a preparation to what we would want to kind of balance some of that stuff on as to the things that'll be really hard. Um because I do think that might give a
194little at least give you all a little bit of things to think about where we might be able to rest your minds around because what I am extremely worried about is that we're going to see a number like 12 million that we have to come down as opposed to like six and if we see a like a 12 that's that's dramatic cuts to the district that's going to be really painful. Six is bad. 12 is worse. And so I just would hope that we could give you some guidance after we do the votes on on the rest of it. It's a great point, Mr. Pre. Board member M. Um yes, thank you for that. I think that's a great uh suggestion. Um while we're talking about the budget, um I would like for us, I
195know it's on our agenda to talk about the CRA, but it seems in the tips, so it seems like it's a part of this conversation. now just would like to get u more clarity on um just what that entails, what the expectation is for us and I I do have some maybe further questions about um what are the implications of um the CRA and TI. So, I I'm hearing that yes, it would generate revenue, but I also don't want us to just have a um an immediate kind of instant gratification or win and not think about the long-term implications of that. So, if you could give us some context, that would be really helpful. Yeah, thank you. Um uh good evening. We had a discussion in finance on Friday about what's been proposed. Uh the
196city has come to us and proposed u an extension of the tax incentive agreement that we have with them where the board uh essentially defers to the city on any tax incentives abatements and tiffs tax increment financing that that this the city and the district together have the ability to offer. Um this would be an extension of a fi five years. So, uh, the current agreement between CPS and the city expires on December 31st, 2025 this year. It would extend that agreement 5 years to December 31st, 2030. Um, it would also extend the TIFF districts that the city created in 2002 and 2005. Uh, the city wants to be able to extend those districts for 15 years from their current expiration dates. The upside to the district is they'll increase the payment that we get
197for those districts from 27% to 33% of our taxes, which we've calculated roughly equates to uh the tax dollars that the district should be getting at least for its fixed rate levies for those uh for those districts. And by acting quickly, by uh agreeing uh this summer to a deal with the city, the city is willing to extend that 33% increased pilot for the entire calendar year. Uh which that's where there's significant new revenue uh that would not have otherwise been received by the district if we don't go forward with this uh deal. Um it's I think we estimated uh $5 million in new revenue. I think that's probably conservative in terms of uh uh what we can expect in new revenue. Um finally, just some other points of the agreement that we've talked about.
198Uh the there is um an open question in the state of what defines residential property, which is something that the city can offer incentives on and abatements on without asking the board's permission, and what constitutes commercial property. So, there's a dispute right now going on in Norwood City Schools where a 400 unit um piece of property is is being deemed by the city as residential as opposed to commercial and therefore not um giving the school district Yeah. The city of Cincinnati currently uses a definition of a multifamily units of four four units or less. A multifamily uh development of four units or less is considered residential and anything above that is considered commercial uh that we do have the right to participate in the payment in le of taxes and everything else. And so the
199city would agree to ex continue uh that definition through the term of the agreement. That's helpful to the district. Finally, uh the city would agree to consult with CPS on the use of TIFF funds to support public infrastructure projects that are beneficial to CPS schools as well as um the neighborhood or the TIFF district itself. So, that's what's being proposed. Uh again, we talked about it in finance and and I don't have a final agreement for you to approve, but we are asking for your um authorization to continue those discussions with the city hopefully to bring you uh an agreement uh in short order to approve. Okay. So, if I'm hearing you correctly, um what the recommendation is for today is to not have um it's just to ultimately continue furthering the discussion. It is
200not around making any final decisions to say that we are in agreement with whatever is proposed. No, but those would be the parameters that we'd be taking to the city and asking to write up for final approval both by city council and by the board of education. But we would still as a board have to vote on you would have to vote to finally approve that. Yes. Okay. Um some additional questions and so again I hear the financial possible gains and benefits. Um but as we know within our city within our our communities there's a lot of development that has taken place and continues to take place. And so I am curious to know um especially with the CRAAS if we're um focusing on these like low to moderate um communities, right? What would that
201look like in terms of our student population? Because if developers are coming in and maybe possibly developing in these areas, will that displace our students? Will that impact our enrollment? So again, I'm hearing yes, the financial benefits, but I don't know if you're able to provide some context on what potential challenges could be. I I've not heard that as a potential challenge to this agreement. I I know there's been debate in the city over how those abatements are used strategically and and whether their use has um not always been evenly or um fairly uh distributed throughout the city. Again, with respect to residential abatements, pure residential, the board doesn't have any say over those anyway. The city can offer those and will offer those without the board's approval. with respect to the commercial and industrial
202that's where the board has to approve but even that the board's ability to approve is being diminished by state law. So we used to have the ability to approve all those now now the city has the ability to offer up to a 75% abatement again without even asking the board's permission. So I do think there's value in here in that the state is progressively writing the board out of these decisions. This gives us another five-year period at at what we're currently doing that we and a good payment in lie of taxes that we think is fair based on what we would get otherwise in terms of the development strategy for the city. We that's not something we study. That's not something we're generally involved in. Okay. And so just final question when we talk about
203commercial spaces that could be those mixed use spaces could be uh yeah again it would extend the the city's definition of residential property uh that are multif family units uh treating anything that is five units or more as commercial property and therefore that that means that the board then gets u a payment in lie of taxes for those properties. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Okay. So, just I'm going to ask my colleagues here. I don't see where we need to approve this. Okay. Did you have a question? I'm sorry. Go ahead. Okay. Did you all want us to just does approval just continue as we approve the resolutions or are we going through individually? What's the expectation? is for me. Um I believe the things that are on slide 13
204um need your approval. Uh the sale of property um we just had the conversation about the um tiff CRA. Well, we've got resolutions on here for the um appropriation, the riff, the city agreement. Um, but I'm just wondering how was what was the expectation because it was just listed as a presentation. So, what's the expectation regarding this list? I'm prepared to take a separate vote on each of those bullet points if that's what the board desires to do. It's not listed here that way, but um I can do that. Separate what? So each each item on that list we can vote for independently. Yes. First this I mean this package. Yes ma'am. Because it was just presented it was just presented to you all as a presentation but we didn't have a specific um vote
205for each one. Vice President Bolton. Yes. I think there's a it's all valid. We also have to add um this question that the treasurer asked about the motion that was made on June 2nd regarding the vendor percentage vendor contract reduction if we're willing to live with the 13% versus the 16% which was the motion. It was 13 million 13 million excuse me. Yes. It's 10% 10% lower than 10% because of that those three large contracts. So that's the other. So it is the property, it's the CBAs, it's the cuts from the slide 13 as you mentioned two appropriations resolutions CRA TF and TIFF and the vendor thing I guess it's added. I mean technically we could do if we needed to the vendor thing on the 9th. We don't have to. Well, we don't we
206don't have to is my point, but we could we could. I'm just saying it wasn't listed. We didn't have it listed. But go ahead, Bible Craig. I will say I think we do need to do any of the staffing votes because I do think we need to give folks adequate time to um everything discuss it but then also figure out who those positions are and those folks and that kind of deal. Um, and then I do think the like the tiff one, the seller property, um, and that might be the only the tiff and the seller of property are ones that we're giving authorization for them to begin the process because as a part of the budget we're going to account for, right? I don't think it's something we're asking them a specific task. So,
207I mean like something like that might be something we could jointly do as a full um like have the motion to approve their the authorization to um continue the negotiations of the agreement as well as the opportunity to explore sale of property as one vote. So, great. Um happy to motion anything that needs to be motioned. Well, I'm I'm working on those friendly amendments. I don't know if everyone is um I guess I'll just speak for myself with regard to the master list reductions. I would like to see where some of those are actually going to other funds. They're like it's not listed here where they're actually coming from. But I do think we need to give permission. We need to give authorization for the RIFF thing. So that's why I'm I was just wondering
208is this a um are we saying each of these individually or are we saying the resolution is enough to generate the action for those? That's what I was wondering. Well, yeah, that's what I'm asking. Vice President B. Yes. I think if if the treasurer is willing to uh to do the slide 13 as separate entities uh and to Craig's member Craig's position we could merge what is authorization like sale of property and and the CRA but those would be under the parameters it would be those distinct properties and it would be under the parameters that general counsel has given us as to what that agreement's looking like it's not like to go do something else. Uh and then um I think um so I'm asking that question because under when we're talking about the riffs,
209it's already a resolution for it. So that's why I'm saying why don't we just go with the does does the resolution give them the authorization to do the things already listed or do we need to individually do those things and the resolution? I think in the name of uh u transparency we should make a motion for what is all has been published for sure and there's a list here that's been published okay and people are expecting us to vote on those things and then if it's not a motion on the agenda then we can add today too uh to to but we have to at least vote on what we said we were going to vote on. Okay. So, we're going to go line by line and I will accept board member Lindy. I'm sorry.
210Thank you. I think this will be a forward moving set of questions because once I get them answered, I can vote on the things that you're suggesting and we can go in that order. Um uh thank you um for the chance to come back with just a couple other follow-up questions. Um earlier in the spring we heard a lot of concern about paraprofessionals in monastery classrooms. Can you just remind me and I apologize if this came up when I stepped out for a second where that is? We um took that off of the list no longer being proposed. Correct. Quick question. Um next. So, so back to the um uh investing in what I think is the most important investment we can make, which is how do we help teachers effectively implement the curriculum? I
211think this is the most important thing for improving student outcomes. Um I had just a couple of follow-up questions. Um was the administration able to figure out of this 2.3 million is this like is is this what we would have spent this year anyway after inflation and step increases or is this an investment of something new? So, I was able to gather more information. It's the 2.3 million represents only the stipens for the lead teachers and the and not the professional development of the tools. I misunderstood the information when I put that up there. So, that is the same. Um what I'm don't know is how much are the the comparative values of the teacher tools and the professional development values and and we're contractually obligated to put those stipens in anyway. So this is
212this is literally exactly what we would have spent. We're just proposing to spend it in a different way. Correct. In a more effective way. Yes. Yeah. Um so this feels like a particularly hard call from my perspective. Um, and I think, um, the uh, this is going to lead to two questions I want to ask the superintendent. Um, but I I come back again to the fact that only 21% of eighth graders who are economically disadvantaged, and that's 80% of our eighth graders, 21% of them were reading on grade level last year. This is the thing that I think will do the most good. Not just I think but I think the research supports that Louisiana and Mississippi that had the highest NAPE results of any states in the country. This is what they're investing
213in. Um this is the way we can get the biggest bang for our buck in terms of making a difference for kids. Here's where my concern comes from. Uh, I would love and I'm willing to support the idea that using district mentors for this purpose is a great idea and I'm excited about that because it would be a fabulous partnership with our teachers union. What gives me some concern is that several meetings ago in our hearing of the public and including one tonight, several representatives from the teachers union came to criticize the argument I was making for why this matters. There were six of them I think who came to a meeting in May. So I have some concern about the level of buyin we have from a critical partner in this. Now that leads
214me to the questions I wanted to ask like if superintendent you feel like you can guarantee that we will have full support from the teachers union to help make sure that the curriculum is taught in classrooms. I am all in. This has the beauty of being a testable hypothesis because I'm going to continue to ask for data on this and I'm going to continue to ask how it's going and I'm going to continue to talk about how important it is and we'll know from our hearing of the public whether or not we have full buyin or not. So if you tell me that you think we have full buyin, I believe you. But I feel like this is an important question. Two things, Mr. Lindy. One, when you stepped out, Mr. Cross. It reminded me
215the amazing agreement that we have with the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers around implementing curriculum, around doing algebra 1 as a pilot differently, around your concept and your idea of incentivizing teachers who do that hard work. I think that's huge. I'm excited to vote for that. And and I I think that's huge. And for the teacher today who said um that they haven't been at the table, I I have to tell you I'm so grateful for my team. I don't know how many hours Julia and Delatio spent at the table with the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, including Julie Sers, including Kendra, including Brad. Hours they are on board. I'm so grateful for the amount of time that Jeremy has done to take what my ideas and thoughts are and put them in a logical way that
216I feel can be presented to you and to the public. I feel like the team is on board. um for them to pass their contract at 97%. I don't know how I can say CFT is not on board with the direction we're headed in. Well, we'll find out. I mean, I think this is the beauty of being a testable hypothesis. Um I think that that for this to work, it needs to be a joint effort. uh and I'm in um and I look forward to um pushing this work forward together. The last piece that I want to push on on this is I do worry about a world where we're trying to do all of this ourselves within CPS and not allocating resources for any kind of external support. There are firms that do a
217lot of good work with school districts helping teachers and principles bring high-quality curriculum to to life. That's frankly where where I thought the proposal was going to go earlier was a much smaller number, but that number being invested in some kind of external support around professional development. Um, Mr. present I think maybe can you talk a little bit isn't there a principal um seminar collaborative with outside support with UC coming up this summer so excited yes so University of Cincinnati is going to spend three intensive days with our principles in August working on things like how do you work with teachers to be able to specifically implement the curriculum but even to do more with whatever the best practice practices are and curriculum is one area of that that time. The majority of the cost
218for this is coming from the University of Cincinnati. And I I will back up. The idea quite frankly came from when I was a principal several years ago, the high school principles had an opportunity to go study at Harvard in the summer. It was the richest experience I can possibly think of. This year, uh, we wanted to be able to have more of our principles have that experience. We brought Harvard here for all of our principles. Then I thought, you know what, we should be creating our own uh uh system within our city, within our rich university, University of Cincinnati, who has partnered with us in many ways, including supporting getting our kids to college and in many ways at no cost to them. And so we began working on this with them last September,
219October and it's happening uh this coming August and I am extremely excited about that. So I I think we have CFT on board, we have Cass on board. Um and these have not been easy conversations. They've been very challenging, very hard. I don't know what else I can ask them for at this point. uh even with them in this uh upcoming um hopefully you will vote on uh these contracts with them to take a zero cola is helping our budget. I don't know what else I could have asked them to do. So um yes, I feel that they're on board. I feel like we have a plan to move our district forward as it relates to student outcomes. And yes, these are very, very hard conversations. People are willing to have them and people have
220had them and will continue to have them. I I appreciate that and I just want to agree on all fronts with regard to the contract that we're going to vote on later this evening. Uh I agree with every single thing you said and I'm delighted to support it. Full stop. I'm also excited to look for uh evidence of full alignment on the role of district-wide mentors in advancing high curriculum instructional materials is I I I I'm I'm willing to do my part and give that a chance and uh I'm excited to follow very closely um the impact that that has. Okay, great. And I think it's great, Jim, that you knew that that was happening at least to be able to remind the administration. So, Treasure Wagner, how would you like these listed? Want to
221just go down item by item? Sorry, could you repeat what you said? How would you like these to be voted on? Okay, so how about if we go with um the master list reductions, just go down the bullet points and then we'll cover the things that were already in the agenda as resolutions or motions. Okay, let's go. Oh, I'm sorry. board member map. Just a quick question about the master list reduction. So is um where where are the social workers? Is that under the positive school culture or where would that be listed? Yes, board member Matt, we pulled that out separate and it's at the bottom of the bulleted list. Slide 13. I get what you're saying. Okay. Thank you. Okay. A motion. So moved. Second. You guys took the words out of my mouth.
222Okay. Any discussion around the master list reduction slide eight. So for the treasures department um can you speak about uh the positions that are being recommended to be reduced there? Um there are three vacant positions. Um and with every department was asked to make a significant reduction in their budget. It was difficult for us because we are very heavily personnel with very little non-personnel. So in order for me to meet that budget target cut, we had to go with bodies and um we can't really sustain anything further than that without hurting operations. So the the positions that are vacant are the ones that we agreed to cut. Okay. Thank you. And this is a list from all of the departments in terms of those budget holders. This these are their recommendations. Okay. Is that it?
223I have one. Yes. One question, a reservation on the cutting of uh anyone uh any personnel regarding the ability to get the computers um distributed to the students and staff in a timely manner to begin the school year. Um and also the ability to repair quickly and replace because I think that is a direct impact on instruction. Uh where are we on that? because I know that was on the original uh impact and it was of concern to me. Yeah. So, u moving forward for next year, we have plans in place that we should be able to maintain the service levels we have for one year. Um and I think I've said this before that our plan basically accounted for this current year and next year. Um so we're within that plan, but after next
224year we will have a whole different conversation. Thank you. something to look forward to. I'm just going to say for my discussion points, I still am very concerned and I am not convinced that some of these cuts are not going to impact the academics of um our goals and our guardrails which we spent a significant amount of time. Um I I just and I'm not convinced because I haven't seen a plan. I've asked for it. I've asked for what is the plan for being able to um ensure that we're asking our staff to do more and that things don't get slipped. And so, um I just wanted to go on note that I asked for that multiple times, not received it. And um I'm going to to trust and commit, but I'm very very concerned
225that some of these cuts are not aligned with the best interest of the goals and guard rails only because I haven't I've asked for that information and haven't received it. So, are we ready for a vote? Yes. All right, Mr. Craig. Yes. Mr. Cross? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yes. Miss M? Wait a minute. I'm sorry. We're doing this in the totality. I'm sorry. Individually, we're just a master masterless reductions. Just this one part. So, I want to go on record with agreeing with um President Mafet. I don't think that these align, but um I will say yes. These are the recommendations by the budget holders. Thank you, Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett, yes. Impact positions. Impact positions is next slide nine. So moved. Second. So Rob, okay. I was going to say
226Rob, can you Thank you, Rob. You are on it. So we the board members can see what slide N is. Is there any discussion? Member Craig. Just as a question uh to clarify, are these different positions from what was in the master list? They're the same positions. No, these are the same position. Oh, sitting here. Sorry. Yeah, these are the same positions that were in the master list. We had them pulled out separately for visibility as a request of the board in the past several meetings. So, it was listed separately, but it is the same positions. They've already voted on it, so we don't need to vote on that separately. Okay. Thank you. Great. That was good. Moving on. Okay. So, the next one is schedule E. Um, and that's slide seven. Rob move. Second.
227Any discussion? What member Lindy? Um, this this may have come up when I was out and if it did, uh, just hit fast forward. Um, we we've run into trouble in the past on schedule E where people think they're going to get paid for something that there actually is no budget for. And so I think they're they're I think operating to my understanding good in good faith but also really frustrated. Is there some communication that's going to happen to make sure that to the extent we can people are just not the their expectations are managed? Yes, absolutely. So first again we're meeting to tomorrow pending the results here with principles. uh Josh Harden has been working with all of the principles to help them understand what it is that they have to work with for
228the upcoming year. This amount will be an adjustment from what had been previously discussed. So there will be an edit needed to be made should you vote to support this. So I also want to note thanks I'm sorry for Lindy schedule E reduction is just the 200,000 because this slide has other things on it. It has the social workers. It has the sale of property but you're just talking about the $200,000. Correct. Yes. Correct. Okay. Just to be clear to board members member Craig. I just want to also kind of maybe reiterate the schedule has always been this confusing thing because schools are allocated a certain pot of money to utilize and not every school utilizes it and not every school has programming or resources or services they offer to utilize it. And so in
229some ways we always have some level of schedule E dollars that just don't get spent by certain schools and have to be either reallocated or just don't get spent. And so what we're doing now is saying from that larger pot of all the schedule E dollars we'll do a $200,000 reduction and schools will then be tasked with determining based on what their programming is, their needs, their students, uh how they want to allocate those dollars. Uh which is a little bit different in some ways because I know some of the problems in the past have been about whether or not folks felt they should be getting additional dollars even beyond what their allotted schedule E funds were. And so there's always been that dispute on how schedule E gets distributed at the school level at
230certain schools where you have a lot of programming. Any further discussion? Okay. Treasure Wagner. Mr. Craig. Yes. Mr. Crossen. Yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Miss M. Yes. Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. the additional TIFF CRA revenues on the same slide. So, we're talking about um line item well the $5 million for members. Is there a motion? A motion. I think we have to say that it is about authorization under the expressed parameters as have been described. Correct. Okay. If that can be part of the motion, I'll make that second. So, there's a motion to accept this under the express parameters that have been described. Is there any discussion? Treasure Wagner. U Mr. Craig. Yes. Mr. Crossen. Yes, Mr. Lindy. Yes, Miss Matt. Abstain. Uh, Mrs. Weinberg. Yes, Vice President Bolton. Yes,
231President Moffett. Yes. Sale of Properties. Next on same slide. So moved. Second. Discussion. I was going to say discussion is this is authorizing the administration to enter into um the process to begin to sell property I would say maybe the to the have the authorization to review the possibility of the sale of property because I think that's the other thing is what we started with is the appraisal and everything else so I don't necessarily say we're actually selling it at this point but it is the the re the initiation of the necessary reviews to consider the potential sale of property. Who made that motion? Okay, so say that one more time. The actual motion on the floor is uh to give the authorization for the administration to begin the uh review for the potential uh
232sale of property. Is there a second? Second. Well, Mr. Okay. Is there discussion or members? All right. Judge Wagner. Mr. Craig. Yes. Mr. Crosset. Yes. Mrs. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Miss Matt. Yes. Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. Next thing was the spring tac and staffing riff on slide 10. So moved. Second. Is there any discussion board members? Yes, ma'am. Mr. M. Uh, yes. So, for clarity, um, how many positions were the it wasund and was it 109 or something like that? 109. Okay. However, so some of them were vacant and then 41 positions ideally those positions can be repurposed. That is correct. And there are Julia vacancies in the broad areas of right. So yes. Oh I'm sorry. Um so those 41 people um so the positions aren't repurposed. The people
233can be repurposed. Um and the people will have options for what is vacant. So it won't be a vacancy in their area. The lensure area will be vacancy like music PE intervention specialist um art teacher um for this year. And then if say say next month five K3 teachers resign and decide to go to another school district then according to the law we'll have to invite those teachers back to those classrooms. So we'll be keeping very very close track by reverse seniority order to make sure that we're offering those first. We won't hire a single external person um until those folks who are rift have an opportunity to get back into their lensure area. Okay. And so I do see the implementation plan that is outlined. Um for those individuals that um may decide that
234they don't want to secure a different position, there will be ongoing conversation about what that um process would entail in terms of um I guess how to phase out or what what is offered to them. Yeah. So if a teacher says if we call you know we call them and they come to the meeting this week and say and we explain to them that this is the option unfortunately we're not able to keep you in your third grade math position. However we have these positions from which to choose and they say I don't want to do anything but third grade math. And I'll say we don't really have a position for that right now. You're the 10th person down the list. If we get to 10 you know we'll offer that job. And they say
235nope that's all I want to do today. I'll go find a job somewhere else or I'll look for something else or what have you. Then we would go through those that process. We would say all right then let's explain that you are rift. It's not an ongoing really. It's really kind of like this is your choice and if you say I don't want to do this I understand that and I understand why people don't want to teach outside their license. I mean that makes sense. Um but if that's what they choose to do then we would just explain to then then we consider your your position a reduction in force. you are considered a reduced enforced and then we would give them the opt give them unemployment information and what is the call back procedure
236and all those procedural pieces that come into play. So we'll have all that ready in the event that there will most likely there will be some teachers that don't choose to teach outside the area. I understand that, but but if they if they want to, I'm here to say that they c they could because we've looked at this data and in sliced and diced every which way to make sure that that could happen if if that's, you know, if that's what they want to do. So my only concern is just in kind of doing that work is to in the event that they decide that they do not want to um explore another position that there's proper resources and ports in place to help them transition out. So whatever their benefits or severance package look
237like, things of that sort, making sure that there's direct and clear communication on how to navigate that. Oh yeah, definitely. Yes. So, we'll make sure that that is very clear that they have um you know, if you say that's fine, I'll do music for a year. We also want to be able to support the people that are going to be teaching outside of their area for a year, right? Like, so we want to make sure that that's available. So, we'll be working with curriculum department, working with the districtwide mentors for sure around that to support those teachers. But then if they choose not to remain in the district, um then we will certainly have this is what COBRA looks like, this is what benefits look like, etc. for you so that they feel like they're
238still we really still want to usher people out even if that's their choice to leave with dignity and with respect and with graciousness and gratitude for the time they spent with the district. Thank you. So I have a question for you and Delatio. Don't sit down yet. You said that teachers would be teaching outside of their area, which would mean that we would have teachers who could potentially be rifted teaching outside of a content area where they would be highly qualified. Right. Correct. So, in the slide that's in front of you right now, that last bullet, um these the teachers that the 41 teachers are as as of July 17th, it could be I mean June 17th, it could be a little bit different today. Um but those teachers could not be offered a K
239to5 position because by the numbers when we reduced the number of positions we have too many people in those those roles right so we had too many by 41 so then those people would teach outside of their area of certification and so for that yes they would be teaching outside of cert certification or as long as we don't have positions so if I doubt it would happen but if we had 41 people who resigned from K3 that were current teachers, all those people will be back in their lensure area. There the goal is to get them back in their lensure area. And the the um statute in the collective bargaining agreement require that as well. So we can't just go hiring folks when we're riffing. It's not like non-renewing. You you have to hold that
240position for the person who was displaced from their position. So if they happen to still be working here, we would say, "Hey, Miss Jones, we've got a third grade position open for you if you're interested in coming back to this Um, I I get it, but my question still remains unanswered. So, you could have a person who's licensed in math, correct? But be forced to teach music. I know that's a farce, but it could happen. Correct. Sure. You Well, you would have a teacher that's licensed prek to three or a teacher that's licensed prek to five because those are the only people that we're talking about riffing. um who might be asked to teach PE, who who might they might choose because we'll have a list of positions and we'll say, "Do you want to
241be the librarian at this school for this year? Do you want to be a reading specialist if that's a role that we have available? Do you want to be um the technology teacher?" So, yes, they would be outside of the area of being highly qualified for this year until until unless we can get them back into their lensure spots in the coming years. I remember when um my kids were of course I'm pretty old but that generated a letter that got sent to parents that you got a a person who's teaching it's not what are the other ramifications? So we do those every year those are required by title one. Um so any teacher that is teaching outside of his or her lensure area in a particular course um a letter needs to be backpacked
242home sent home with the parents to say your child is teach is being is being taught by a teacher outside of the lensure area. And if and as you recall from earlier conversations we had a lot we've had a history of having a number of long-term subs. This will actually diminish the number of long-term subs but we may end up with at least 40 positions where people are teaching outside of the area certification. So those teachers in some cases um we're we're doing like some more in-depth research on the lensure rules because there's a lensure dictionary that ODW puts out that looks at exactly what you can teach with this lensure. So can you teach library with the K5? The answer to that is no. But what would it take for those teachers to get
243a supplemental license? So there are some other pathways that we can help folks if they say you know what this is funny. I always wanted to be a technology teacher. I I can't believe I'm ending up in technology. We My next response will be, well, let's talk about how to get you licensed because there are supplemental pathways that don't require that you go back to school for that. I can work with them. Our team can work with them to help them get a supplemental license. So, not only do they not have to be backpacked home, but they end up with from our EMIS data as not not coming um and that may be something that they want to to sit in for a while. And and we if they do, that's great, but let's get
244them licensed. Okay. And my last discussion question very quickly, do you know the schools that would primarily be impacted by the riff? It's all over the place. Yeah. So, um, we we have a list of the teachers from riffs, but obviously they're elementary schools because they're K5. Um, and some schools have several teachers, some have none. Um, I I don't have that list in front of me to give to you. Be happy to break that down by schools. Um because we can look at you know if we look at the the number from like 1 to 45 just to be safe I can give you the the schools that were that are impacted. Great. That would be great. Absolutely. Whatever map um so just for clarification these individuals um would be classified as long-term sub
245positions if they move into if they're moving outside of their lensure. So that was a discussion that we have had and um the union has been very helpful with us working with us very closely on that and we're we've decided to keep them in a contract right now. Um and the reason behind that makes sense because they'll hopefully then be just moving right back into a K3 classroom or K5 classroom depending. Um we just don't know what happens. As as you may as you probably know, June and July are big months for us for people moving to other jobs or moving out of the district. So, we don't know what we don't know yet. We don't know who might be moving yet. Um, so our decision was in in collaboration with CTF was to keep
246them under contract for now. Quite honestly, most of these teachers are first or second year teachers. So whether they get paid as a long-term sub or a first year teacher, they're getting paid almost the same amount of money. So it's not a huge It's not like we're giving them $85,000 versus $51,000. They were getting about $51,000, $52,000 without regard to whether they were a long-term sub or a contract teacher, just how they were getting paid, how frequently, and whether it was level pay and that and that. So it just it also made this whole piece a lot more palatable to um the federation. Okay, one final question and then can defer to you. Um, so you spoke about many of them will be either first or second year teachers. Um, I am curious to know
247for those teachers especially uh teaching either three third grade, fourth grade or fifth grade those are testing grades. Um, are we taking into consideration if those teachers may have moved data forward? um like how do we is that a consideration at all? Uh it is not according to the Ohio advice code in the collective bargaining agreement. You would literally go you start with um retire teachers. Um next up is part-time teachers. In our in our situation, most of our part-time elementary teachers are job shares. Job shares are not considered part-time because they are sharing a job and they're getting full benefits. So, we have an agreement with CFT that anyone at 6 or above is full-time. Job shares are considered that given that they have full benefits. The third bullet down in that list is
248um limited contract the least seniority first. That's it. It doesn't matter. This is not like surplusing. If you're a if you're a principal, you're deciding whether to surplus. You're you have to, you know, reduce from five teachers to four teachers and you're trying to decide which one to surplus. riffing is a very um statutory process and so they don't look at evaluation data, they don't look at quality of teaching, they don't look at lead teacher credentials, master's degrees. What matters is whether you have a limited or continuing contract and how many years of experience you have. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, any other questions? I think we're ready to vote. We did the motion, right? It was a long time ago. Ready to vote? Yes, Mr. Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crossen, yes. Mr. Lending, yes.
249M. Yes. Mrs. Weberg, yes. Vice President Bolton, yes. President Moffett, yes. Next on our list, uh, school social workers, slide 12. So move. Second. Discussion. I'm sorry. Who seconded it? Craig. Mr. Craig. Discussion. Well, I'll go since I I really am not comfortable with eight or I'm sorry with the six. Um I would really feel more comfortable with the five, which is what we had seen from a presentation a few months back. Um I just think social workers are extremely important to our students and the meeting those goals and guard rails. Um it does we don't have two social workers per building. It looks like we like we do but we don't. So I would propose to modify that number down to five. See what we can do. That's that's where I feel comfortable. I'm
250willing to support that. I think too Dr. Mafet just a reminder the initial presentation when we were at six is when I think the total number was 67 and that's why there is an um slight adjustment from 6 to 8 because the true number is 90.5 that's where I feel comfortable that's just You ready? Oh, did anybody else have discussion? All right, so let's vote. Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crossent, yes. Mr. Lendy, yes. Miss M, no. Mrs. Weinberg, no. Vice President Bolton, yes. President Moffett, no. Motion passes. Okay, so back to the agenda resolutions. So we have a Dr. Moffett. Yes, sir. Mr. Before, are we about to leave the budget part of the meeting? Yes, we're going to go to the resolution. I I have a motion I'd like to make before we leave
251the budget part. Okay. Um, I'd like to I'm going to motion now um that we also invest $350,000 in the budget. We can figure out how to spend it later. The superintendent can figure out how to spend it, but I'd like us to leave $350,000 in the budget for the purposes of getting professional development help from other organizations to help with this effort to support teachers on the curriculum. Uh, I support the plan that's been proposed with the commitment that we're going to be full partners with the teachers union to help get this done. And this is really hard and I think we need to have help. $350,000 in the context of a $620 million budget is less than 1 half of 1%. 21% of our low-income eighth graders can read on grade level. That's
252barely four out of that's four out of five kids failing the state test. This is the the cheapest way to have a system level impact on student learning. And I'd like to motion that we invest $350,000 in ways to be determined by the administration but to get added support on this effort. Is there a second? Second. Let's have some discussion. Vice President uh quickly um just a question to member Lindy. It this would be $350,000 more uh for a particular for an outside you know expert group to help us do this is if if I could understand that if we could say that that it would be part of what we already spend in professional development. Great. I mean rather than new dollars. Great. If we can earmark those dollars that we we know are
253already committed in the in the budget. I' I'd like it to be something different than what we did this past year. Sure, that's fine. To come from within existing PD funds is no problem. That's great. I would like if if I could a friendly amendment to that then. Uh that's great. Like, but just to be really clear, like this is this is an investment that we did not make in FY25 that we will make in FY26 that is $350,000 and it is that is within the budget we already have for professional development, but fully fully friend amendment is friendly. Thank you. You do realize you're going to have to cut 350,000. You have to cut it from somewhere. No, no, no. But then there some then that means that something is not getting something that
254was $350,000 budgeted for professional development is not getting it. Then we're changing vendors is what we're doing. And to be clear from my perspective I actually am agnostic as to whether we do member Bolton's suggestion or the administration finds a cut from somewhere else. The piece that feels important to me is that we're we're providing help for educators. This is hard. There are groups that are very good at this. in $350,000 in the context of a $620 million budget is not a big number relative to the impact that it can have. But again, happy to take member Bolton's strategy, but but agnostic. Mr. Craig, um, so maybe one question and one thought. So first question is what and I know we've gone back and forth on this because I think last year we actually cut
255some of the professional development budget to close our budget gap and so this year we brought back a portion of it but I don't remember I think some of the contracted services were cut. Yes. So we have actually reduced additional PD dollars this year across various means uh to replace. So, I mean, I may offer as an alternative to consider if we want to do an eitheror. So, potentially if we can find the 350,000 under current obligated funds that we would look at doing it that way and if not available, then we potentially would look at it as a new spend. This could be title 2A funds. It could be a federal funding stream like like does that work? I so and that this is part of my again I think we can do it
256on a bunch of different things but there are some limitations on what you can use different title funds for and how we use them and how much we have. Um, my only reservation about this is that we, even in all that we've done today, we are potentially going to be cutting hardcore next uh week, what 9th or whatever it is. Um, and I don't know that I just I just think there's a a also an a a a concern that I have at least and that if we're taking away something, so if we're just reallocating funds, then I could, you know, again, I'm fine with that. whatever we do. If we are saying we're taking away something, I think it also still looks weird for us to be telling folks you got to pinch your
257pennies on how many copies you can do, how many pieces of paper you can use, how many pens and pencils you can order, those types of things. And then also saying we're going to take something else away to do it. So, I'm actually I mean I would maybe my vote would lean a little bit more towards that idea of if if we could reallocate current PD money into that as opposed to taking away something at this point and maybe leave that option as something that we can talk about on July 9th if we do if we do it that way. um only because again I do think I I I would love to say that the state folks will come back with zero dollars for us lost. I don't think that's going to happen and
258I don't think the conversation we're going to have on the 9th is going to go much easier than today's votes. Um so I I would be in preference of the idea of uh reallocating current PD dollars of up to $350 amount. um whether it's through again whether it's title $2 for this year because we probably won't have some of those dollars for the future years, right? Um or whether it's already allocated PD dollars to that purpose of providing uh a professional resource uh for for uh professional development. So I think that that would that would make sense to me. I don't know if I want to add the the second part of it or reallocate because I just for me right now that feels we're doing a lot of other cuts that are hard and
259it just maybe looks different. It sounds like we got support for the idea of taking it from within current PD. So I'm going to accept that friendly amendment and encourage us to move on. Great. Thank you. So, we're at the discussion port portion because I really don't understand how we're moving money around. And I and I completely support the professional development of teachers. I support your initial um charge to the administration to ensure that this is going to happen and to ensure that she has buyin from CTF and ensure that the teacher hold her accountable for that. but to designate already restricted funds and divert them a significant amount, $350,000 specifically for this initiative. And we I just made a motion like can we just go down to can we keep some social workers which
260directly impact kids which directly impact student outcomes. There was no no discussion for that. There was no there was no support for that. So if it can I'm not willing to support it because I feel as if we're it's telling the administration that this absolutely has to happen. We should she's ensured us that it will happen. We'll hold her accountable if it doesn't happen. But to divert funds away from students that directly impact these goals and guard rails to me is problematic. So that's my discussion part on it. I I I don't understand how we can even have this discussion to cut to divert PD money when we to board member Craig's point are not even finished with this particular budget. Vice President Bolton. Yeah, I I I'm I'm comfortable with uh diverting changing or
261reallocating uh for the specific purpose that member Lindy has suggested. And I do think that that does directly impact instruction. Therefore, it does and the teenagers. So, I I'm not I don't feel like we're negating them. I think uh what's happening in the classroom and us getting ready for that, whether it's uh however we work it, I I just am uncomfortable adding something. I'd rather within the money we have change what we're doing in the already allocated dollars or understood dollars. So I'm I'm ready to to say I'm supportive. Is there any other discussion board member Matt? Yeah. So I am I'll you know I in ensuring that um we are developing our teachers as well as um the implementation of the curriculum is um being um upheld in a uh in a manner that's
262going to uh yield outcomes for our students. My only concern is what's been presented is that we're making significant cuts right now and um I I think it will be challenging for us as we're trying to decide where to cut and stabilize. My only recommendation would be um for member Lindy is if we could possibly wait um still have that expectation. Um, but if we could possibly wait until the July 9th meeting to bring this back up so we can at least get an idea of where we are after we've made these um proposed uh cuts from the administration. Any other discussion? Board member Crosset. Yeah, I'm I'm comfortable with um using our PD money to emphasize what Ben has proposed. If it's a if it's a place where other states have seen good bang
263for their buck, I'm happy to vote now is we just repurpose existing PB money so that we spend it more effectively. I'm I'm happy with that now. Okay, great. Last comment clarity and so what funds are the uh professional development uh what fund is that money coming out of? So we have title dollars that we use for professional development and as I mentioned earlier we're in the process of doing the complete instructional planning for next year. So, I feel comfortable working to um as we review what we're going to present for principles and teachers that that be an element. And so, with those title funds, how much money already has been are we allocating to professional development? Oh, there there's a good chunk of Yeah, but we we just now received our allocation, so we
264haven't built those budgets out yet. A question. I don't know if I'm allowed to do this. I'm not allowed to do this. I apologize. Um I wonder if it's possible for the board to consider maybe some slight adjustment there. Maybe $200,000. I don't know if I'm allowed to do that. Sorry. No. No, I'm not allowed to do that. I I I didn't say that. I think we're going to scratch that from the record. Scratch that from the record. I think it has to be I think it has to be in excess of 300, you know, in order for it to do any make a difference with a district of our scale. If we were a smaller district, I think with 150 $200,000, you could do something. I think with with our size now, I I
265I um I really in past years, the title 2A fund alone has been millions of dollars. Um and I think the I I I want to be sensitive to the fact that we are budget constrained. And so I do like this idea that with by by being intentional about how we allocate PD dollars inclusive but not limited to federal funds plan could be developed over the next several months as we figure that out. Like all of that is friendly from my perspective because it creates a situation where we can invest at least 300 $350,000 new in this next school year to help teachers and principles on something that really matters. But I I think there's a way to do this that I think is is responsive but also impactful. Well, does it need to be
266done today? Is that what that's my my my question to you is I'm with you on the fact that it needs to be significant. I'm with you on the fact that it needs to exist first of all and be significant. How it looks, I think, should be determined by the administration to come back to us with a plan. It could be partnerships. It could be um you know, it could be title money. It could be a mix of both. But I think Yeah, sorry. No, I I just think that at this junction it's unfair to say that we we need to say that we need to see it, but I don't I just I don't feel comfortable voting on that at this moment when we have the motion I want to make tonight as reflected
267of the various suggestions that have come through is that the board is directing the administration to find $350,000 over the course of school year 2526 to invest in external professional development of their choosing to help with the implementation of curriculum. And the only thing I want to add is dur for the implementation of the curriculum during the school year of 26. So it's find it and then use it in that year. Yeah, that's right. Let's vote. I like that. Is that is that a friendly amendment to the amendment? I'm the motion maker and it's exactly what I said a second ago. Okay. You good with that? All right. So she seconded it. Let's vote. She seconded. Miss who did? Miss Matthew. Yes, I did. We don't even remember what we said. It's It's getting kind
268of late. So, as long as you know, let's vote. Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Crosses? Yes. Mr. Did you say yes? Mr. Lindy? Yes. Miss Matt? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice President Bolton? Yes. President Moffin? I think so. Um, I do want to also invite the administration to look at util utilizing some of our own staff. You know, we we created the monatory program. Maybe we can incentivize some of our current teachers by giving them monies to do this, too. But be creative. Come back to us with a plan. I think that's what we're asking for. All right. Um, I need a motion to approve the fiscal year 2425 final annual appropriation resolution. So, move second. Okay. Any discussion? This closes out the year. Thank you, staff. I'm sorry. Uh, take a vote. We're ready. Mr.
269Craig, yes. Mr. Crosset, yes. Mr. Lindy, yes. Miss M? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice President Bolton? Yes. President Moffett? Yes. I need a motion to approve the fisc year 2526 annual 30-day temporary appropriation resolution. Motion. So moved. Second. Second. Any discussion? Be really quick. I want to say when we talked about this in budget and finance, part of the thing that I said that I would be willing to vote for this based upon is the idea that we would make hard decisions today that would allow us to make what will likely be harder decisions in a couple weeks. Um, and I so I want to commend the board for making some hard decisions today that not all of us are going to feel great about and not all the community is going to feel great
270about, but we have an obligation to pass a budget and we've done a substantial step towards that. And this allows us some time to be flexible since the legislature seems to think that passing their budget on time means the 29th or the 23rd hour of the 20 the 30th day of the month. So, um, which but it may also require us in the future. I just want to acknowledge it may also require us in the future to do something similar in that same instance of passing something to allow us to adjust for what may be problematic things that come up in two years from future budgets. So, any other discussion? Thank you. Let's vote. Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crossson, yes. Mr. Lindy, yes. Miss Mav, yes. Mrs. Weinberg, yes. Vice President Bolton, yes. Yes, President
271Moffet. Yes. I need a motion to approve the reduction in force resolution. You've already approved that. You don't need to do the next two. So, you're down to B. All right. Sorry. Is that all right? Um, who's I'm just Okay. Second. I was I was about to call the title of it. Okay. The CBA update. Is there any discussion? There's a question. I mean, did you How many is this? Good evening. Thank you. Uh, in the superintendent's report, we present for your approval tenative collective baring agreements with four unions that represent CPS employees, including the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, Cincinnati Federation of Office Professionals, Ohio Council 8, Local 232, the American Federation of State Count uh, County and Municipal Employees. the Cincinnati Association of Administrators and Supervisors. Uh the tenative agreements are the result of
272protracted labor negotiations with the union groups and reflect the fact that the district, its employees, their union representatives are all affected by the uncertainty over state and federal funding and the budget shortfall for the 2526 school year. So in these negotiations, the unions have partnered with the district and agreed to a temporary pause or withdrawal of most economic proposals uh that were under discussion and agreed to no cost of living adjustments to salary to start the 2526 school year. Parties agreed to defer negotiations on those salary increases until November, which will give the parties the opportunity to assess the effects of these budget reductions. Uh we hope for your support and the board's approval of the tenative agreements. We are continuing to work with the district's other bargaining units, the trades and local 20, and
273hope to present tenative agreements with those unions at an upcoming board meeting. Is there any further discussion? Congratulations. Uh, let's vote. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. Mindy, I just very briefly, this is really good. This is really, really, really, really good. I know it's come up before, but I want to personally thank our negotiating team, our administration. I want to thank our partners at the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers. I think the partnership around a balanced budget is hard and important. I think incentivizing great teachers to work in the areas where we need them the most is important. The shared commitment to curriculum, paid family leave, these are wins for everybody. Uh, and I just want to say thank you. And this is a long meeting, but like not all votes are equal, and this one is
274a really big deal. Uh, and I wanted to just say thank you and congratulations to everybody who's been involved with this on the assumption that this passes. I'm voting for it. Just one more, Mr. Craig. Just a point of clarity. Is this pulling it out of what is in the superintendent's report and voting on it now or are we voting on it in the superintendent? Let's vote now. Well, that's fine. I just make it clear. Let's just Let's just vote on it when we get there. Count twice. Let's just get there. Let's just vote on it when we get there. Okay. So, next we've got the Oh, wait. What? [Music] It's not in my It's It's No, it is not. And I need a motion to approve the treasures report. Oh, well. So moved. Second.
275Is there any discussion? Mr. Correct. I just want to commend the hard work that the treasur's team did to put together a lovely colorful display of information for us to provide guidance. Um, and I don't know this if the treasurer wanted to say anything uh about kind of the updates to the format. Yeah, I just thank you. Um, and this was um really Miss Bolton's idea to color code different contracts that are coming through because the board specifically wanted to know when new contracts are coming. And so if you'll take note of the legends on page the top of page four, um this dictates what the color codes mean. So I won't go through them for you, but um there is slight correction on that legend. The red section is really a light orange because
276I didn't like red, but they just forgot to change the word in the legend. Yes. Um, that's technology people could versus finance people, right? Um, and so I don't know if you have any questions or anything, but I I can I can find my glasses. Um, so the blue indicates a contract extension that is being renewed for another year after its original term. So many times we'll approve a three-year contract with two one-year renewals after that. That's that. The green is a continuing contract. So it'll say one of three or the first year of three or two of three. The yellow indicates it's a new contract that will continue into future years. So it's a brand new uh contract that was RFPd. Purple is a new one-time expense. You know, like I'm going to go
277do a roof at a school or something like that. the red or the bright or the little orange. Well, we'll have to change that color. It's a continued continuing end of life. This is the first the final year of um previously used contract. So, those are the ones that have to be RFPD in order to continue. And a white is simply a purchase. It's not a like a contract for service. And you'll can see the you can see them in there. Any questions? the the contracts that you have in front of you are for next year that are over $50,000 um that need purchase orders to begin on July 1. So you're approving them pending board budget approval. So that's why I did the 550 thou 550 million so that we can get these contracts
278through and get payroll started. Vice President B. I think this is is is good. I I'm concerned. I think they counted there like 13 or so yellow contracts or yellow. Those are new ones for this coming year that don't exist. Now it it's a new contract. Doesn't necessarily mean doesn't be new vendor to that same service. Okay. It might be. Um, so for example, the on page five at the top is a GO4 healthcare LLC. It's to provide athletic trainers. I think it's just a different vendor to provide for the service that we have already with the different vendor that we're no longer going to use. So, so it's not necessarily it's a brand new expense. It's just a new contract with a different vendor. Thank you. Any other discussion? Well, I want to commend
279you all. I think this is great work. This has been a couple I think a couple years in the making and so this is looks great. We have a fabulous team. This might be some incentive for you to stay a little bit longer. You know, see your work grow. that I will watch from afar. That's the spirit. Um, are we ready to vote? Yes. Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Crosset? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yes. Map. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice President Bolton? Yes. President Moffett? Yes. Thank you, Treasurer Wagner. Um, please do your update about contracts for 26 for the fiscal year 26 with any recommendations. That was it. That was this. Okay, great. Do board members Oh, have any um No, I guess not. Okay. So, we are now I need a motion to approve a resolution
280adopting policy 2263, the parents bill of rights. I'm happy to make that motion. Is there a second? Second. Mendy just for discussion. Yes. So we have three items here that are coming out of the policy committee meeting from May. Um many of these are actually Thank you for staying a few hopefully this takes no more than five minutes but they are uh some of them required by state law and things that we need to pass in the context of the budget. Um all three of these are committee um member map stepped out for a second but Mrs. Weinberg you will interrupt me if you disagree. I think that all these have the full support of our committee um and are good things to do. Um just on the first one briefly, there is a a
281new law from Columbus that requires school districts to pass this parents bill of rights. Um I was initially pretty like antenna up and worried about this given the authors of the bill in Columbus. Um I shouldn't say that. I'm sorry. Um, given some of the national dialogue that surrounds things called parents bills of rights, as we talked about it in policy committee, uh, I I actually think that almost that most of this uh, just as a parent, as a CPS parent, um, this this feels like, um, things I agree with. Um, and there may be one or two small pieces that are slightly more controversial and that the state is requiring us to pass. Anyway, um I'm I'm sure if people have specific questions about those, I might ask Mr. Hoing to address those briefly.
282Can you summarize it? Like just what is it basically the policy basically saying? I'm going to turn that over to our fabulous general counsel. Thanks. And again, this is as board member Lindy said directly from the statute. It's verbatim. Uh it's it's a policy the board is required to pass. A as you said, most of it is um things we're already doing. a few uh in particular, I'd draw your attention to the piece that talks about a requirement for uh school employees to um uh notify parents of substantial changes to students. All of that is right. Changes in grades, changes in um academic performance, uh sickness, physical injury, all of that is fine. There is one point in there that is of particular controversy and that is any request by the student to identify as
283a gender that does not align with the student's biological sex. That that's the piece of this bill that's gotten the most attention. Again, this is verbatim from the statute and required to be passed by the board, so there's not a lot of discretion here, but that that certainly has been a controversial uh piece to this to this bill. I have a question. Was that required by the state to be in there around the It is required. Okay. It is. Yes. Thank you. For members, any other questions? All right. So, is there a motion to accept? We had a motion to second. This was discussion. Let's vote. My apologies. Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Cross? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yes, this map. Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. No. Uh, President Met. Yes. I need a motion to
284approve a resolution amending policy 6152, student fees, fine. I can I can motion this one, too. Oh, okay. Yeah. And charges. Um, so this is in um treasur's office. You can correct me if I get any of this wrong, but last year we had given a temporary reprieve on student fees. The recommendation from the finance committee is to make that permanent. We had a good discussion about this in policy um and the committee is supporting the recommendations of the treasur's office. So this would um eliminate uh student fees um on ongoing. Happy to take questions or that the treasur the incoming treasurer might have a perspective too. And these are just student fees that the district charges the schools. There are other fees that the schools charge that will continue. I don't want the schools
285to freak out. That's correct, Mike. Yeah, Mr. Craig. Well, first let me second the motion since we hadn't actually done that part, but I'm tired. Um, thank you. I want to also add part of the discussion we also had in budget and finance about this is that the cost of trying to go back and retrieve these dollars later because we had students who were literally going from kindergarten through 12th grade without having paid these fees and then we're coming at the 12th grade level trying to get these fees back. um was not worth it to the district and the amount of money that we were going to expend to do it versus the amount of time and effort um or the amount of money we would get from it versus the amount of time and
286effort that was put into doing to retrieving it. So I I think it was just giving clarity to whether or not this was something the board wanted to do and was committed doing uh beyond just the one one year that we had agreed to do it. So I would just add that I think it needs to be very very very clearly stated to to the families and students what this is waving because I could very easily see our monatory families or our families that have extra fees that are attached say hey no there's not supposed to be fees because it was not clearly stated around what fees are being waved. Um I know that I'm engaged. I'm pretty interested. So, I know what fees we're talking about. But I would just invite the administration to
287make a very clear campaign as to what is being waved, what the expectation is, and um what parents are still going to be required to pay, especially those that attend schools where there are outside fees for like trips and and they still must pay for computers. They still things that they break, they are still going to be required to pay for those things. So, um, I just would make sure that it's clearly in the code of conduct and that it's also clearly stated on our website. Wherever we need it to be, it needs to be very clear the fees are being waved. Um, not all fees, just CPS charge fees. Um, any other discussion? Are we ready to vote? Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Crossson? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yes. Miss M? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice
288President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. I need a motion to approve a resolution adopting policy 6215 cash balances. Is there a motion? Second. Who was the first? I do. Okay. Have we got a second discussion? Mr. Lindy, I'm sure is you. I I second. Yeah. I realize I don't need to hog the mic. If if Miss Map or Mrs. Weinberg want to share about why we recommended this policy forward, either of you are welcome to do so. You're out of gas. Doing great. Okay. Don't say I didn't offer. Um, this is good. This is important. I'm really glad we're doing this. This requires CPS to grow a cash balance in the direction of 60 days, but starting small. So, this year we do 500,000 to a million. Um, I think we've all seen presentations from
289the treasurer. I think is it has everybody seen those or just policy and finance? Just policy and finance, I think. But that's everybody except Dr. Moffett. that that that covers um she can just trust us. This is a good idea. Um but we we we've had a um uh we want to make sure we're always maintaining enough cash on hand to be able to cover 60 days of expenses. We do not have that currently. We want to move in that direction. This sets us moving with a a a right sized amount for this next fiscal year. Thank you. Any other discussion? Let's go get a vote. Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crosset, yes. Mr. Lindy, yes. Miss M? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice President Bolton? Yes. President Moffett? Yes. Thank you. Would Vice President Bolton, please
290present policy 7250, process for naming or renaming buildings? Uh, yes. This is not a policy for adoption. Uh but if some of you will recall um some uh I think two or three sessions ago uh I had made the mistake of suggesting that the naming of of the buildings or campuses or parts of a building was something that the policy committee uh takes responsibility for and I believe policy came back and uh said no actually it's not our responsibility it's a full board responsibility and so uh when to bring this uh to us because I think we have uh at least uh one major um naming that probably needs to take place uh at Robert's uh regarding the health uh school-based health center there. Uh and we have a proposal uh for a first reading
291because you need a first reading if uh action for the board does not start in a committee. And since naming of a naming of a a building or an area, it doesn't uh necessitate a committee action. Uh a first reading would be good for the board to uh see. Uh and so this is uh the wanted to talk about that policy. Then also introduce the first reading, not for a vote, but for the first reading regarding the naming of the Roberts uh uh health center. Um uh and you have the presentation the resolution that would uh be proposed. Uh I think general counsel put together admirable resolution. didn't think it was possible to capture the qualities of of Darling Kine, but they I think they've done it. And hopefully this first reading and then sometime
292later this summer um we would then vote on it as a second reading and uh I know there's going to be an official more public uh ribbon cutting that occurred that that even occurred withund and some people there last month. and so needed to remind everybody about the policy, remind everybody the policy, came back and said it's a full board action and then give the first reading regarding Darlene Kines's uh and we've talked about that at least twice before kind of informally in public and then I have also uh realized and I think we all have that we we may have more namings that might be needed based upon marketing as it pertains to the six uh middle schools. Uh and certainly um some other issues. I don't know if we've voted against uh I
293don't know if we've cut the new tech connection yet with with Aken or what have you. So that name might have to be changed. So this is work for later on. Uh but that's the process by which we would need to go. And I do have a um I think board staff was able to put something together. Here is a new rendition of possible names for a number of these schools. And this is totally informal and totally just for your perusal. We do need to have the first reading and discussion about whether or not uh to proceed regarding the naming of the health clinic at uh Roberts. Okay. So, this was the first meeting. This is a process. Um I'm going to ask the superintendent. We didn't have this when we discussed in our meeting.
294We didn't have this on because you had made mentioned that you wanted to involve the LS LSDMC's and the school administrators in the naming of the buildings. Is that still the case? Yes, that's true. Uh initially when this I was asked to reach out to the principles about this um they were in the process of kind of building their school teams and so um now that things are getting a little bit more solidified I think it would be fine but I wouldn't I didn't feel prepared initially. Okay. So, these are some suggestions. Um, I think board members can kind of peruse them, right? Board member Lindy, when do we have to make this decision? Which decision? Naming the schools. Oh, we're not u No, no decision has been made. I was asking when when does
295it have to be? Well, originally when I was drafting the agenda, um I was under the impression that this that the schools were not going to be named until after the school year started and parents were involved in the process in addition to the staff. So I would assume sometime fall quarter. That' be great. That's great. I think um it was really helpful for me in policy committee to read the policy about the naming of the schools and given the timeline it just makes me want to request some information from the administration and it's nice that there's no rush but in the policy it says requests for naming school facilities shall include written recommendation from the school's LSDMC's written recommendations from the community written recommendations from public private partnerships so as we as we think
296about this it nice if we could and this is not urgent. We have months to do this, but at some point to get a package that says here's what the policy requires. Here's where those things are. And then also in a it talks about m the board shall maintain a balance in the demographics of persons who have schools and facilities named for them. I can imagine a nice table that shows here's what the current distribution looks like across the district. So as we think through different naming options, we can see if that stays the same or changes and in what ways. There's no rush on this, but I think the policy paints a nice picture of the information it'd be helpful for us to have. like to react to that. Vice President, we do have
297that chart from a couple of years ago when we really were desperately trying to make sure that we had not over time over 200 years had not named one of our schools after somebody that would be despicable or bad. So, we've done that. that the demographic distribution is particularly important and we added that to this policy because it was disproportionate not surprisingly Caucasian men there were very few schools that were named for women as a matter of fact ones that were named for women I think at least two two of the three there was also a man's name associated with the with the name of the school as well so these are all things that we have time to do uh I think it is important to note though that the specific responsibility for naming
298any of our uh areas or campus or building specifically rests with the board and but the idea of gathering as much information from everywhere and and being sensitive to capturing our history and capturing uh the demographics of our communities I think is is crucial. So it's a it's a it's a fun thing to do. Any other discussion board member cross it at you. The first thing I just want to emphasize the public private partnership that we be sure to do that because uh there is sort of a science to naming especially in regards to marketing and hopefully that we can incorporate that into the process. Thank you Mr. Craig. Um just the the only two thoughts I was going to add is one is kind of going to policy that uh board member Lindy already
299stated which I think we do need to incorporate the LSMC's and the parents in the school to that process because any name changes would also have to be something that the school would be able to champion and value. Um, and that we are also maybe more consistent not so much with having versus middle school versus junior high, but like really what the school is. Uh, because I could see I know one of the issues that was raised, I think it was one of the speakers today talked about calling a school middle school that has prek in it doesn't sound as as normal as maybe an elementary school or something else that might be more reflective of what's in there. Um and then the second thing is anyone at any one of the schools that or
300any schools or facilities that we would name after a person just ensuring that we've spoke to either the person or the family to ensure that they have their support as to the particular place carrying the name. I know it's been a struggle sometimes when we've tried to do it with folks in the past because not all the some of the buildings we've named have not always had a family member who is readily available in the in the community or in the city. And so it's just generally nicer to be able to have them there present whenever we've passed a resolution to give support to naming either naming or renaming a school after an individual. It's something that's a little bit gives a different feel to it. Any other discussion? Thank you. I would just reference
301I know there's a in a couple of months uh we we do need to to do the darling kayine thing but I more importantly there's even another building on the Aken campus and I think we've already agreed with that private public private partnership to name it. So we've done that and that will be going through the process. So, this is really kind of timely in that uh um we have some exciting things going on. All right. Do do we have to vote on this first reading tonight? No, it's just we just get to share first reading. All right. Any other discussion? Are we all good? All right. So, board members, are there any assignments? member Lindy. Um, thank you. This is the topic that, um, came up during hearing of the public, but I wanted
302to come back to it, which is just the role that CPS is or is not playing to be supportive of immigrant families. I know we've talked about this. We've actually done some things um, in both being, I think, clear with our staff um, about our policies and about our support for immigrant families, also with the resolution that we passed. So, so I'm I'm not coming here saying we've done nothing. Quite the contrary. However, I would um like to figure out if there are ways we can do more. And the suggestion I was going to make and this is not the assignment I would like to make is not go do X. It's could you respond to this idea with your reactions. Like this idea, I don't like this idea. Have an alternative proposal. But you
303know what? if there were some task force at CPS that were charged with um staying closely in touch particularly in schools that serve a high share of immigrant families. uh and also with local experts um who who whose whole organizations focus on how to support immigrant families um to brainstorm what are things within there's some things that we are not going to be able to control at CPS but I'd like to do everything we can that is within our locus of control to try to be helpful and so the idea was what if there were some group teachers for sure principles for sure leaders of local external to CPS organizations that know this field really well. Sure. That on a regular basis would would try to figure out are there other things that we could
304be doing as a school district and it might be that those need to come to the board. It might be they don't need to come to the board and the administration could just run with them. But I would feel better if if I if I felt like we were bringing the right people together to try to make sure that we're doing everything possible. And so my assignment if it if it meets with a majority support from the board is just to ask the administration to to think about this and come back with um with your reactions um including I'm very open to other other ideas you might have for how to advance the same outcome. Okay. Are there hold on are there any questions from the administration? Mr. Lindy. Okay. Mr. Crosset. Yeah. I just
305want to uh agree with that idea and and maybe board member Moffett I think has attended some of those meetings. We've got an initiative for sustainability uh the for the greener sustainability of our schools. I don't think they have the title right but I think the model for that committee that's is could be the exact same model that could be modeled for your immigr immigrant community efforts. Okay. what whatever is going to have the biggest impact. Lots of partners. Yeah. All right. All right. Um I have an assignment and um a question. The speakers spoke about the Ohio English learner cost survey recommendation. I'd like to get a copy of that. I didn't was not aware of that. I'd also like to know how many of our ML students attended summer school. They they made
306a a mention that students were being turned away for summer school. So, I'd like to get the enrollment numbers of how many of our um M ML students uh actually attended summer school and um I also would like to know about the retire hires um with with regard to the budget and I know we we kind of talked about it but I want to understand a little bit more around um the cost how how much is that costing as soon as there are cost savings there. So, no. Okay. Well, then that'll be a quick report or just information. Okay, that's it for me. Oh, woman. Yes. So, it's not an assignment, but it is an inquiry. So, as we're navigating through the budget process, um, and I'm believing the expectation is for us to have
307it finalized by July 9th. Um, curious to know, will hiring, um, begin to resume at that point? I know that there are some like critical areas that may be principles or um, that would just need to be filled. So, I'm just trying to gauge when that process since we have a freeze on hiring right now when that would be. I believe that we've continued to hire in critical areas like mathematics, special education, the other areas, for example, what I um were bringing to you for permission before we move forward. Okay. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. So, I'm hearing that maybe the board will will lift that. We'll let them know when we can kind of officially lift that. Any other question other questions? Okay. Um, a proposed consent agenda has been distributed. Do board members, you
308know, it wasn't on here. One moment, guys. Um, but it is on here. It wasn't in my script. There's, let me back up one second. There's one um, well, actually, it's in the the resolution approving the subsidy in Lo Transportation. It's in the consent agenda. It's in the consent. So, um, there has been a consent agenda proposed. Do board members, the superintendent or the treasurer have any exception items to the consent agenda? Mr. Cross, do we have to talk about the uh union contracts? Now, this part it's already, we talked about it. It's already in the superintendent's recommendation. So, okay. We don't have to do anything more about that. Vote yes or no recommendation. Oh, got it. After exceptions, are there any exceptions? Bo Weinberg, this is for the super recommendations. So, page three, section
309E, line two, page 25, section D, line five. I'm sorry. Can you start over? You're going too fast. Sorry, I'll go a little slower. Page three, section E, line two. Page 25, section D, line 5, 8, and 9. And also towards the bottom, line 20, 21, and 22. And that's it. member Matt. Um yes, I would like to pull the um superintendent's recommendation from the um consent agenda to discuss uh the motion. Okay. So, we'll pull that out, Mrs. Weber. And then I don't know if you needed clarification for mine. So, for the page three, section E, it was no for two. And then for the 25, I'm just abstaining for all of the ones that I listed for that. Thank you. Did you have one? Is that it? So, we'll vote on everything as
310we're pulling out the superintendent recommendations. Um, I need a motion to approve the consent agenda without the recommendations and a second. So, move. Second. So, we'll vote on who was the motioner. Thank you. Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crossson, yes. Mr. Lindy, yes. M. Matt, yes. Mrs. Weinberg, yes. Vice President Bolton, yes. President Moffett, yes. So now for the superintendent recommendations that we pulled out. Is there any discussion? Trying to remember how we do this part. It doesn't happen often. Yes. I would first like um since we had the conversation at the last uh board meeting um if the superintendent can give um an update or review as to um the findings to the full board and to the public. Yes, ma'am. So after your direction, I spoke with uh the chairs of both the row
311LSDMC separately and the taft LSDMC. We set up meetings with both LSDMC's separately. Uh we worked through uh explaining um the policy, reviewing the policy and having discussion about the policy. Um both of the LSDMC's had needs assessments completed, worked on questions for the candidates together and actually um a new learning for me was uh did a survey of constituent groups even outside of the LSDMC and um felt very strongly and very positively about the policy being followed. uh they they wanted to keep the initial recommendations the interim principal at with row and the permanent principal for taff that was submitted originally to the board and then today resubmitted to you. Okay. Thank you for um providing uh the review of that process for us and I do appreciate um general counsel responding back to
312us as well. Um but per the email that we received and per um some um correspondence from members of the LSCMC um I would like to acknowledge that I believe that there were some inconsistencies um across both uh schools which was Tafted and with in terms of how the um the policy was upheld. I don't think that it was the full array of members on the LSDMC in addition to um making sure that the time frame in which members were able to be added to uh each LSDMC. So there again was some consistent inconsistencies and as a result of that I do think that it is worth um making sure that the administration per our last board meeting not only review the process but also redo the process to ensure that there's full engagement from
313all um constituents to have that full complement of members on the LSDMC committee and also to make sure that every voice is represented. So I would like to make a motion for the administration to redo the principal selection process for WRO and TAF by the July 9th board meeting and to adhere to the full um expectation of the policy. Second discussion Mr. Craig um so I will say this I don't think we can do a full process by the July 9th meeting. I think it takes more than that to get folks to reapply to the positions because if that's what we're talking about doing, we're talking about reuposting and having people apply. Um, and so at least you'll at least with the withro position specifically, it's a interim position. So the theory will be a
314new search anyway that can be done over the next year that would require folks to go through the normal process and steps. Um I think what we could also present what also could be presented is the concept of the TAP position being an interim as well that would rely require it to if there were consistency if there were concerns with whether or not uh full process was a fair process was done to apply. I just my concern was saying do restart the process. It's as if we are talking about the process will happen in a short period of time and it doesn't. It's a long period of time which you would have to reopen everybody to the opportunity to apply and be considered and and I don't see that that happening in that short a
315period of time. So Mrs. Wineberg so in regards to that what would you propose in terms of for the amount of time that that again I think if you wanted to make them both interims and then if you wanted to review the and have them redo it. But I mean that's what we've done in the past where we've had a concern with and I'll use the example that happened I think it was two years ago where there was a concern with the LSDMC as to how the decision was made and whether or not the LSTMC had the proper composition and what was done was they made an interim selection and then they restarted everything all over again. Now that didn't work out very well for that particular situation because then they still didn't reach the
316an answer um at the the new year. uh but ultimately a a person was selected to to long-term be the the full principal of that school. And so I think that's something that's been done in the past where there's been a concern as to questions that the LSD LSDMC whether or not they operated within their process or whether or not there was some battle or some some concerns within the LSDMC. My concern with saying restart is really about there is not a timing that would complete that process within less than a month because what you're really talking about doing is restarting from scratch and having people reapply into the process and and I just don't think people would reapply and be interviewed and that all be completed in two weeks. Uh because it generally hasn't
317been done that way. So I want to offer my discussion. Um I I think that there's sometimes very very much confusion about what board members actually do. But one thing that seems to be very clear amongst board members and the community is that we establish policy. We've heard from the community that our policies have been violated and it behooves us to act with integrity to ensure that the community's perception of our enforcement of policies is maintained. So I was under the impression and I shared this with the superintendent at our meeting. I was under the impression that there would be the opportunity from the last meeting to re-engage those LSDMC's with the very minimal expectation to have a full complement per the policy which is 12 members. Um and I believe that there while I
318think our general counsel's email in lie with the superintendent was um informative it also demonstrated where there were some inconsistencies as well. I am wanting to defer to all voices. We've heard from the alumni. We've heard from the LSDFC's we've heard from the some of the students. And I think that to redo the pro the process with integrity will take longer than two weeks. But I am for and I understand that we have to have a a principal name for the buildings. I think the administration should take about 60 days um maybe no more than 90 to redo the entire process ensuring that the board policy is followed with integrity followed if there are any questions around what should be done. I think that is the board's role to help guide that and to help
319clarify any confusion specifically in general but specifically when there are issues raised by the community around the process. So, I am for a short-term naming of an interim, but I'm also going to invite the administration to reaffirm the instructions that were provided maybe loosely, but now with more clarity around re-engaging those LSDMC's, ensuring that there is a full complement of parents, staff, alumni, community members because there appears to be interest and then um restart those proc restart the process and then keep the board informed as to what the process is and the engagement that's there. Um I just think that we've heard from way too many people that are confused that are conflicted and that is enough for me to invite the administration to do the process again with integrity and this time with board
320oversight. Vice President Bolton, you had Yes. And the way we have approached that in the past, our past practice, if we want to be consistent, uh, is the recognition that if we're going to do a full re-engagement, uh, for a search and an appointment for those two schools, uh, that the have we indeed do, as member Craig says, appoint an interim and also re-engage with a complete uh, new process to find but to do that invariably we've had to uh have an inter interim and I'm not sure about the the gentlemen that are there I I think are they already in those buildings in those two or yes both are in the buildings at this time and so again that would even be more aligned to what the practice would be uh for those two
321buildings but if I don't think I I'll just say I I'm I'm not that uh I I don't believe that the inconsistencies warrant this just because 65 buildings and yes a policy this and a policy that we want it to be followed to the letter as best we can but I think within the spirit of the policy it was followed but I think it makes perfect sense to do the normal way of addressing this situation to member Craig's and to the president's position is if we're going to have to have a re-engagement then We start with an interim principal in those two buildings and engage in the process so that we can't so we can start the year and and have the full function for the for the community. U board member M. Um yes.
322So, just to take the things that you all have uh addressed into consideration, my question to Superintendent Murphy is ideally um how long do you think it would uh be before that inter before you begin to have a finalized I guess decision on um who the actual principal will be. I I will no question follow the pleasure of the board, but when I think about um when I think about this, I get concerned if there is like a midyear expectation semester. I'm not sure who's going to leave a job. I'm not sure. So ultimately I'm asking would 60 days be long enough um to be able to complete the re-engagement process and the principal selection process to Yes. Yes ma'am. Okay. Um, and in addition to that, what I would hope to see moving forward,
323yes, I would want us to be engaged with the process along the way, but I also would like to make sure that there is a principal selection implementation plan that is clear and consistent across uh the district so that we don't have these concerns moving forward in terms of what the expectation should be for the LSDMC's as well as administration. I agree. So, um it sounds like there's a friendly amendment to the original motion. There's a bunch of friendlies on here. Um Mr. Crosset, I um I appreciate the uh the need to have uh to restart a search if there's, you know, enough community concern about it. Uh, I really do in the back of my mind I'm c I'm I'm thinking about student outcomes and I really think it it's going to be good
324a good idea to have an interim principal, somebody who can start the school year and be there for the school year because I I think if we don't have that, I think it could impact student outcomes if we're not prepared to start the school, you know, with with somebody somebody there. I'd also be a little bit surprised if he can do it in 60 days. I know you just made that promise, but it's the summer. You got summer vacations. you got to recruit a new member. There's a lot that has to happen with that LSDMC to pull it off. Now, I mean, go for it, 60 days, but I I you know, I'd still see some some uh problems with with making that happen in that time frame, but just just a thought. So, I
325would I would invite a more realistic I think 90 days is is is more realistic. I would much rather it be 90 days than be something that um is is unrealistic and it's not met. I also want to share that as board members, we are to represent the community. Community members, I can't speak for everyone up here, but community members from a variety of places have reached out to board members individually and collectively. So, while some board members may not have been contacted and they feel like they've gotten sufficient information, other board members have been contacted and the information is concerning. The lack of consistency is concerning to me across what we do and we've had discussions around, you know, our policies, etc., but I just don't I don't like the minimization of well, I
326feel like it was enough. It was enough for you, but it may not have been enough for other people. And we need to we need to stop doing that. Um, significant communication has come from TAP. Significant communication has come from withro. Now, communication is coming from Roberts. It behooves us to interject around things that we can control, which are policies. And so, we should provide guidance. We should provide direction if there's any clarification that's needed. for sure reach out. But um I'm I'm I'm happy for 90 days. I'm I'm also concerned that one of those principles, the lensure doesn't even begin until July 1st. So, you know, there's some serious concerns that I have around those decisions. But I want to make sure that we're setting realistic expectations. Member Craig, do you have something? I
327I do want to state though if we're talking about being consistent with how pro how processes have gone what we have consistently said in the past is that you would restart that process and that that person would be in that role as an interim for the year and I think the only thing I will say about giving 90 days is I don't know a single person who would take a principal interim job for 90 days that is a laughingstock job to have because the truth is you're not going to be able to make any real decisions you're not going to be able to do anything of effectiveness in there. Now, I think there may be potentials to do some actions that might be more in that semester range where you might be able to have
328someone who but ultimately the process might be completed at the end of the semester and then a decision would be made going to the next school year. But like you're essentially telling a person you don't have a job after 90 days if they're not selected. And I think that's not great security for a person who is currently in a role because we would ultimately have to fill their interim role or fill their role that they were previously in. And so I mean I I get I I worry about when we do interims in that sense because we they're likely to say no. That's what I'm going to say. And I think that's my concern with it. I also would say if we are talking about being consistent with how the board is operated, the consistent
329stance is then we would place somebody in interim role for a period of time which is the up to no longer than the school year while that search happens. And if that search happens and they find somebody before the end of the school year, the person reverts back to their old position and all the other kind of fun stuff that we've done for any other interim role that we set up. That's how we did with the interim superintendent role. That's how we did with interim deputies superintendent. It's how we did with every interim uh person all the way down the line. And so I I for us to say only 90 days is also slightly inconsistent with what we've done as a board practice in the past. And so that's my only concern with if
330we're going to hold them accountable to how the districts operated and how we've done the process in the past and especially if we're concerned with the representation on the LSMC. So if we want to ensure that there's full representation, I do think that's the need to have a little bit more engagement time to do it. Okay. Um but I don't want us to get into this process of we going to do it different in this situation than we've done it ever before that we would do it in the future. So that you know I completely understand. I think the problem part of the problem for me is that we had an expectation that wasn't followed by my understanding. So, we've lost some time. Um, that could have been beneficial, but it could be mild. That
331was the only thing that I was going to um add. And so, while it's not ideal, I do know that there has been um situations, maybe not in this district, but I can attest to that there has been an interim position and by the time the school year started, that actual principal was able to uh move forward. So um the interim will be in the position of maintaining the necessities of that school until we actually finalize who that principal will be. Um but again in terms of the expectation the expectation was communicated at the last board meeting with the um understanding or belief um it was the understanding for engagement to occur and that process to start at that point. So now that we're here, I don't think that that's necessarily um something that we
332own. I think that it's something that the administration owns. Um but I would like to make sure that we are fully engaging our community members because our policies around principal selection and the LSDMC speaks to that. And so again, if we've had significant conversation, significant um discussion from members of the community, members came today to talk about how their voices are not heard. So I think it really would behoove us to make sure that we are doing this process with fidelity and create that expectation of how to move forward. And so that's why I recommend also having a principal selection implementation plan so that there can be that alignment and that consistency. So, I would be okay with um I mean, Superintendent Murphy says 60 days. If you all are um okay with 60 or
33390, I will be able to I will be willing to make that amendment. Vice President Bordon, since the point has been made about consistency, I think we should be consistent. But more particularly, I want those two schools to have an active, participatory, able to lead principal. Those are two very, very important school buildings. All of them are, but uh there's there's reasons that we need to be highly dedicated to making sure there's somebody in charge in that building. So, I think that it would be great to be able to say 90 days, but I I think consistency in order to keep people as it's hard to find principles, high school principles in particular. Uh I think it's the year commitment is is good in order to keep them especially if at those two buildings particularly
334those people are already in place. Um I think that's important in those two buildings. So move in the best interest of time. Oh, I'm sorry. Board member Crosset. I just wanted to uh I'm I'm more comfortable with 90 days than 60. I just don't think we should rush this. That's that's my comment. Okay. So, what I'm hearing is that there is a motion on the floor that has been amended friendly friend friendly to do a 90day um a 90-day interim position. Um and yes and re-engage the LSDMC's with full complement and um start that process again for those particular buildings. Yes. Was there a second? There was a second. So So the motion is just a 90-day interim principal. That's the motion. That that is her motion with re-engaging the LSDMC and we're doing that
335principal selection process. Was there was a second? I had seconded. You don't need another one because the motion maker says it's friendly. Okay. Are we ready? Any other discussion? We're ready to vote. Uh Mr. Craig, no. Mr. Crosset, no. Mr. Lindy, yes. Miss M, yes. Mrs. Weinberg, yes. Miss Bolton, no. Dr. Moffett, yes. Motion carries. All right. I know it's late and I will hurry up. I will not review assignments. I think we got them all down. The chair will entertain a motion gladly for adjournment. Oh, I'm sorry. did um do the rest. We skipped over the Darling Kine resolution. We It was the first, but we didn't do the rest of the superintendent. Did we do what? The rest of the superintendent recommendations. Yes. Well, we approved every Oh, we took it out. We
336took it out. I'm sorry. Yes, ma'am. Your mic. Your mic. Your mic Your mic's not on. My mic is not on. My 90day starts today. tomorrow. You want to start it in July 1? You want to start it? We can start July 1st. July 1st. How about that? Well, on this motion, certainly didn't vote for it, but the motion included that there would be interim principles during that period of time. Correct. For the 90 days for the at least the for the 90 days. So, while it Okay, just I wasn't quite sure that Yes. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. And the superintendent's recommendations was pulled from the consent agenda. So, you still need to vote. Okay. So, no, no, no getting out yet. So, let's vote on the superintendent's recommendation. So, moved. Okay. Second. Okay, we
337got first and a second by somebody. Vote. Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Crossen? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yes. Miss M? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice President Bolton? Yes, President Muffin. Yes. And now I will entertain gladly a motion for adjournment. So moved. Second. Second. Second. And um unanimous.