CPS Board Business Meeting May 19, 2025

001So, I call to order the May 19th regular meeting of the Cincinnati Board of Education. We welcome everyone and request everyone in the audience to please silence their cell phones and electronic devices. Due to treasurer Wagner I'm sorry due to treasurer Wagner attending the meeting virtually I need a motion to nominate a board member to serve as treasurer pro tempora. Motion I nominate member Craig. Second. Thank you. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Any opposed? All right. Board member Craig is elected to serve as treasur pro tempora. Assistant treasure Augustine please call the role. Mr. Craig here. Mr. Crosset here. Mr. Lindy, Miss Math here, Mrs. Weinberg here. Vice President Bolton present. President Moffett here. Seeing a quarter I'm sorry, quarter a quorum of voting members, I call the May 19th Cincinnati School

002Board meeting to order. Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our wonderful students who will be leading us in the pledge. Yes, ma'am. I'm so happy to have the students from Hide Park School where Jill Sundererman serves as their principal. Hide Park Eagles, please join me in the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Well done. Well done. Graduation. Okay. And for those of you that have noticed, we only have six members. Our board member, Lindy, is um confirring the diplomas for the uh School of Creative and Performing Arts this evening. So, they have a uh graduation ceremony on the same day as our meeting. We miss him. So, all right.

003Assistant Treasur. Okay. Gustin, do you need to call the attendance role again? You did that already. All right. Vice President Bolton, please explain the virtual hearing of the public process. Gladly. Members of the public who are online and wish to speak during the 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 to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information. Thank you very much. All right, I need a motion and a second to approve the May 19th business meeting agenda. So moved. Second. Thank you. Assistant Treasurer Augustine, please call a voting role for the agenda.

004Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crosset, yes. Miss M. Yes. Mrs. Weinberg, yes. Vice President Bolton, yes. President Moffett, yes. Now, we get a special treat from our scholars from Clifton Area Neighborhood School. Come on up, board members. We're going to take their seats so that we can see the presentation. So, I'm going to ask board members to stand up and let's go to the front and take their seats. scholars, the floor is yours in just a moment. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for having us. Hello everyone. Thank you so much for having us. My name is Carol Brammer and I have founded the program Kids Act Out Clifton Performance Theater and I have had the privilege of working with these students and several CPS students and CPS schools. Um, helping theater become not only um

005something important to them for the principles and practices it can offer their life, but also helping them understand how to take those skills and relate it to their social, emotional, and academic wellness. seems that there's an amazing crossover between life skills and skills that actors develop in order to do their jobs. Um so this process for Ecotales, which is what um the piece is that you're about to see, Ecotales was um born out of a request that I had gotten from a local um artist and gallery owner, Paul Croner. And Mr. Croner uh said, "Hey, I would like some students to bring the ideas of environmental science to life for a showcase that he had in his studio." So, I'd already uh been uh working with the children of cans and uh they were doing

006quite a different piece with me before. We were doing Charlotte's Web in the spring. So, they were working more on personifying animals um and using their physical uh body to create characters. So, this time I approached them. I said, "Hey, we're going to do a great course and we are going to present our ideas um about environmental science concerns and questions um that children may have. So, I was also at the same time in four other Cincinnati public schools working with children in different types of groups related to theater and we did surveys and we said uh I said, you know, what comes to mind when I say environmental science, environmental issues? what do you uh think that you care about right now? Do you have concerns? Do you not? And there was certainly no

007wrong answer. But the two things that came up over and over again with our students of different ages K through six, um that their concerns were one, what does the world look like in 50 years? And it was funny that that number kept coming up over and over again in the surveys, 50 years. Um and then also, um the other concern was water. water was a huge topic that the children kept bringing up water conservation and uh cleanliness of water. So these monologues were written out of those responses and u the children today will present three four pieces to you and it is a call-in response which means it is a Greek chorus piece and uh very presentational which is again very different from what they did earlier um in the spring. Very proud of

008them. Are you guys ready? All right. Presenting Ecotales. A child's call to Earth. In the morning stillness, I lay upon my bed, staring through the window. There's a future just ahead. I try to imagine my thoughts locked, geared. What would the world be in 50 years? Will gray threads adore my hair? Will laughter still ring? Will people still dance without care? Will trees still stretch skyward, bold in their grace, and birds weave their melodies, filling the space? Will rivers flow crystal or silence reclaim, leaving only an echo of life, whispering blame? I hear the murmur of adults fraught with concern and vice caps retreating in places that burn. Forest ablaze. Oceans swelling with rage. Hurricanes pounding. Why is this climate change? What will I tell the future of children? Should they come to be? Oh,

009back in my day, the world was so free. Will they look to me a relic in time and question our silence, our choices, our time? No, I refuse to linger in fierce tight embrace. I will raise my voice demanding my place. Stand on my box and proclaim, "Nurture our planet. It's our only domain." Then dow into knowledge and embrace what remains. When I'm old, I yearn to reflect and proudly say, "We turned it around. We changed the game. I'll weave tales of courage, of battles we fought, of trees we planted, of wisdom we sought." In morning stillness I lay upon my In morning stillness I lay upon my bed. Staring through the window. There's a future ahead. Sitting up looking to the light. Rubbing my eyes. Clearing my sight. Take a deep breath and yell

010with all my might. Rise up child. It's mine to protect. I'll make beauty and order a generational safe bet. The world awaits my voice, my courage, my voice, my spark. A legacy of hope, illuminating the dark. Our hands ready to nurture and hearts open wide. We hold the power to change, to turn the tide. We plant fields of compassion. Let kindness unfurl, for we are the architects of a brighter world. [Applause] Earth response. Ah, dear child, with your bright eyes and curious heart, I hear you. Your worries are like whispers in the wind, carried through the trees and across the oceans. You sit upon your bed, dreaming of a world yet to come. And I feel the weight of your thoughts like the gentle touch of rain on my surface. You wonder about the future,

011don't you? But about your gray hair and the laughter that will fill your home. You fear that my forest might become mere memories. And the songs of my birds might fade into silence. But let me tell you, little one, I am resilient. I have weather storms and endured changes far greater than you can imagine. Yet your love and care are what I need most know. Yes, I feel the heat rising and I see the ice caps melting. But you must know all hope is not lost yet. Hope still sprouts from the ground just like the seeds you plant with your mother. Each small act of kindness towards me is another stitch towards the fabric of our healing. I want you to nurture that magic you feel when you dig your hands into the ground. It

012is that magic that can save us both. You speak of your children in the world you wish to share with them. But remember, your actions today shape the stories you'll tell tomorrow. Will you speak of despair? Or will you share tales of triumph? Your actions today, these are the legacies that will ripple through time. Just like that. Every seed you plant, every river you clean, every voice you raise for my case. Ah yes, the polar bears, the tigers, the bees, those wonderful creatures who dance across my earth. They are part of me just as you are. I know you worry about their fate. But what if I told you that you had the power to protect them? Your voices, as young as they may be, can echo through the halls of power and spark change.

013You can be the champions of my wild places, the protectors of my creatures. I understand the fear your children might feel, but mingle that with hope, dear child, teach them to love fiercely, to fight for those who cannot speak, and to cherish every corner of this planet, to show them how to listen to the rustling leaves and the flowing rivers. And they will carry the wisdom into their futures. So when you ponder what the world will be like when you're old, know this. It's not just a question of what. It's a question of how. How will you in how will you choose to act? How will you inspire others? How will you nurture the bound between us? I am here waiting for you to rise to the challenge. Together we can you we can weave

014a future where laughter dances on the breeze. If trees touch the sky, where stars shine brightly once again. You are my hope, my light, my promise. [Applause] A child's call to water. Sometimes during a thunderstorm, I would sit by the window and watch the raindrops race down the glass. I would trace them with my finger, place bets on which drop would reach the bottom first. I wonder what would happen if the skies ran dry. What if all the water just disappeared? Water's response. Ah, dear child, I hear your heart. Your worries ripple through me like pebbles tossed into a pond, creating waves of concern that reach far and wide. You sit by an empty jug and I feel your unease, your fear of scarcity. But let me share something with you. Something that go something

015that flows deeper than just numbers and droughts. I am ancient and wise, having traveled through the ages, nourishing life in every corner of this beautiful planet. I am the rain that falls softly on your skin, the stream that babbles over stones, the ocean that stretches beyond the horizon. I am in I am in every drop of dew that clings to morning grass, and I am in the laughter of children splashing in the summer sun. I have witnessed the cycles of life and the rhythms of nature. Yes, I sense the changes, the strain on my waters. I feel heat rising, rivers dwindling, and the reservoir shrinking. But I also hear the voices like you. Those like you, young, passionate, and filled with hope. Your concern is a spark, a gentle reminder that I need guardians to

016protect me. You worry for your garden, for the plants that rely on my gift. They are indeed counting on you, dear one, just as you are counting on them. This connection is sacred. Every seed you plant and every drop you save are acts of love that strengthen our bond. Remember, you are not alone in this. Together, we can nurture the earth. Together, we can conserve and cherish what sustains us. Think of the streams and rivers as they weave through the land, connecting mountains to valleys, carrying life wherever they flow. They depend on your understanding, your willingness to share their story. Teach your friends and family about the importance of water and about the small changes that can create great waves of impact. Every time you turn off the tap while brushing your teeth or use

017a bucket instead of a hose, you are sending a message. a message that says I matter. So when you look into the sky and wonder about the promise of rain, know that I will always be here, ready for you to reach out. I am resilient, adaptable, and ready to flow alongside those who cherish and protect me. As you grow, carry my message with you that every drop holds power and every action counts. And together we can ensure that water continues to flow through the veins of this planet. [Applause] Hello, my name is Henry Hicks and me and my fellow acting partners would like to give a thank you to the district uh the school district for letting us perform [Applause] tonight. Uh my name is Elanor Chaya and I sometimes worry if the world's going

018to be here in 50 years. Uh me and my friend bike or scooter to school sometimes and that helps because it emits less fossil fuels that so it doesn't harm the environment. Hi, my name is Zuri and um one thing I worry about is how the water is really polluted and we have the same water like every year and I really hope that people like understand that and help clean out the waters. Um, water is a big problem because we don't have lots of water that we are able to drink and most some most of it salty. We only have 1% of fresh water and not not a lot of actual fresh water is really clean. Some of it has like dirt and sand and it's really polluted. So, [Music] um, at school I I

019was writing like an essay about how we can we need to protect water and conserve it and use as little water as possible. Hi, my name is Flora. Something that really concerns me is how the things that we're doing that are harming the planet and us are also harming animals. Something I'm going to try to do to um help with this uh problem is volunteering and donating at um organizations and places that help the animals that are harmed. Hi, my name is Henry and me and my brother walk to school and our school collects plastic from the cafeteria and sends it to the hub. Um, my name is Rockwell and I worry about how much trash is all over the place and how like it's in oceans and rivers and lakes, um, killing animals, destroying

020their homes. And something that everyone can do to help is pick up as much trash as you see it if you can. And um eventually it can help save our planet. As I said, my name is Henrik Hicks and I have a really big concern about water pollution. As one of my friends said, there's a limited amount of water. And well, by giving donations to pure water and supplies like that, it could help spread to more local locations and to more people who need it. Thank you. [Applause] Okay, thank you all so much. Students, if you could follow Miss Pat, I'm sorry, Miss Phyllis right there. She's got something for you guys in the back. some food. Thank you all so so much and thank you to former board member Carolyn Jones. So, uh let's

021see. Do board members have any questions? All right. Board member Matt, please update the board about the mental health and wellness policy. Absolutely. So, thank you for providing the opportunity um to just bring an update about the policy from May 5th. We had a thorough discussion as it was our first time presenting it to the board and so the committee had a chance to reconvene and to apply the feedback that you all shared. So, just wanted to give a update for that. So the first area which was in goal one and board member Bolton really stressed this as well as community community members as well. So, we wanted to make sure that we were calling out our school-based educational supports as well as our trained licensed mental health professionals to ensure that there's not um

022duplicity within the role, which we do, as I stated the last time that we met is that there is a lot of duplicity because we all are owners of this work, but we wanted to ensure that we were differentiating uh the language and making it a little bit more concise as well. So you will see um an updated version of each row while at the same time in goal one if we're looking at the description area. So that first paragraph um in the bolded description, we wanted to make sure that we discussed that the goal here is for each professional to collaborate to provide optimal services for students within each school and within the district. The district will ensure fair distribution of resources using an allocation procedure that is non-discriminatory, equitable, informed by needs and

023comprehensive data and is consistently applied. Again, we want to make sure that individuals are informed about what these roles and these scopes of practice entail while also different differentiating their work as well. So the next call out, Rob, if you could go to goal area 4, and a lot of this is just really um word smithing. We didn't really have to change a lot. Um but we added in goal area 4 in the last sentence and this is talking about the PBIS uh supports and framework but we wanted to also add that the community will be provided education about the district's PBIS work. So again we want to focus on everyone being informed. This policy is about awareness. It's about advocacy. It's also about prevention. And so there's no isolated work um that can be

024done that will help to ensure wellness. So we know that it has to be a collaborative comprehensive effort. And so not only from a district level, we wanted to focus on the community being knowledgeable and educated on this work as well. Are there any questions before I move forward? Board members, any questions? All right. So, the last uh few areas, this was one of the areas of feedback that board member Craig suggested and I'm so glad that you called this out. We did include um the school-based teleaalth and virtual services. And so that paragraph reads is an additional modality to receive comprehensive therapeutic evaluation and treatment with qualified licensed professionals through secured video sessions. School-based teleaalth services are a supplemental support to help strengthen access to care and provide flexible scheduling options. And so these

025type of services will also um adhere to the same board policies, professional ethical standards and legal obligations um very similar to what it would entail for inerson session. And then just the another area to mention in that section, if we move down to the next um sentence below, it says to access treatment services, students must have a referral, a signed informed consent, and have completed the clinical intake process by the partnering organization. And then finally, this was to board member or president Moffett's recommendation in goal seven. So we talked about the critical incidents and who would be the owners of that work. And so while we don't have a district approved crisis response uh policy, we do have procedures. We wanted to incorporate that the district's crisis response team will be the owners of that

026work and responding in those situations. So those are the updates that we have made. Again, we wanted to honor the feedback that you all shared in addition to um feedback that community members have shared to make this again very comprehensive um and aligned in scope. And so I submit the mental health and wellness policy for approval and adoption as written or excuse me I move to submit this as written. Okay. Okay. So the motion is on the floor to approve. Second. We need a second for God. You guys are so good. So we got a motion and a second um vote. No discuss. discussion. I'm sorry, Vice President Bolton. Yes, I appreciate the adjustments uh based upon community and member support and suggestion. The I would like if it's possible um for the eight goals

027that are listed uh where appropriate and I think it works for all eight just as a phrase that says as finances allow. I know that we've had to do that before where because once we say this will happen uh it has to happen if the policyy's for real but I think it might be uh if if indeed the committee was interested in in approaching that or being willing to accept a friendly amendment uh and if there's a better phrase to say it I'm happy or open to to that suggestion but I just think that that that makes it a little bit more reasonable that it's going to happen uh and that we mean it to happen but indeed it is predicated on whether or not there is money to do that and I think it

028almost makes it stronger rather than weaker to do that. So in response to that that was something that we definitely took into consideration as a committee and a team. One of the major drivers that we focused on was looking at honoring our guard rail guard rail one which we have stated we made a commitment to and also making sure that we're focusing on that data that's driving it. So I think you know while finances is can be a challenge. I I believe that as a team our focus was to ensure that we're putting the actual work at the forefront um and using our data and using our needs to ensure um that this work is being implemented. So not accepting the friendly amendment then well the the reason being I think that it while I

029receive what you're saying I think it can also create challenges right because if we say that it's focusing specifically on finances well then we may not ever have the finances so that could kind of deter the work from being done okay so let me ask a When you all came up with the goals, they align already with the goal and guardrail. Correct. Did you all explore how much there has been um alignment financially? Like we're already doing these things. We're on track to do these things. So it it already it should automatically align with what we're doing so that there's no need to there would in essence be no cuts to anything because that would impact the goal in the gu the guard rail. Correct. Um so in developing this policy the focus has always

030been on these are things that we're already doing in the in the district. how can we make sure that we're putting it at the forefront, right? So that all of our constituents, our students um are aware and so when we also discussed this and we talked about it at the last board meeting, the only area that was of concern truly was around the SEO curriculum and as Dr. House mentioned um at the cow meeting that is um be looking into being supported by grants as well as title funding. Okay. Any other questions, comments, discussion? Well, wait. We have a amendment. It's been denied. So, we're back to the original motion. So, we ready to vote? Sure. And we are voting on the adoption a resolution adopting new board policy 8516, which is mental health and

031wellness policy. Can you pull that up, Rob? Do you see it so people can see it? Is it up there? Okay, great. All right, it's on you, Mr. Craig. Yes. Mr. Crosset, yes. Miss M? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice President Bolton? No. President Moffett? Yes. All right. I need a motion to approve a resolution to renew tax levy. To renew a tax levy. Is there a second? Second. I'm sorry. Is there a motion and then a second? So you're making second. Caught myself. All right. Is there any discussion? Vice President B. I think it would be uh useful to have the assistant treasurer uh explain what this renewal is and what it is not. Sure. My pleasure. Mr. Gustin. So, the motion before you is um to proceed. Basically, the board's declaring there's necessity to

032renew the $48 million emergency levy. Um first time we can first time we can put on the ballot would be this November. Um this is again the $48 million um fixed um levy. This is the one that includes 15 million for preschool expansion. Um it's been renewed twice before at fiveyear terms. And so, um, this this motion is looking to change that to extend that to a 10-year term, but keep the fixed amount the same. What members have any questions? All right, let's uh call take a vote. Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crosset, yes. Miss Math, yes. Mrs. Weinberg, yes. Vice President Bolton, yes. President Moffett. Yes. Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our next topic. So, this is the 2025 2026 code of conduct and I believe this was um Dr. House coming back to um revisit

033what was shared previously and seek your support. Good evening, board. Can you make it a little bit larger? Um, and this should be on board docs as well. Yes, ma'am. Go ahead. So, based on the feedback from the committee of the whole meeting, there were a few uh adjustments that were made to address um the feedback that we received from the board. Uh thank you um board member Bolton for the reminder of um board policy 2257 regarding hate speech. So we wanted to add that in right in the beginning um on page five that discuss some of the other board policies around equity. So we just wanted to throw that in as well to put that in so that that's clear. Um also looking at um board member Moffett the clarity around sexing uh regarding

034adding the word recording uh because it puts sending or transmitting messages through video or text but adding the word recording kind of encompasses both the recording and the transmission of those items. Um and then the other feedback that we received really um when discussing with the team and moving forward on implication of how we support our staff and schools. Number one in making this accessible, making sure that not only we have printed copies for our staff, but that it is electronically accessible to all of our staff, to our parents, to our community members. Um looking for opportunities to build student voice throughout the year. So the committee was really excited to say like this is a good opportunity for us to build with our students especially around our top issues of um obscinity, profanity, disruptive

035behavior um those things that are leading to exclusionary um consequences and then also continuously um providing updated uh referral data around those subgroups so that the board is informed and that you can see. But regarding the other changes, there weren't any other additional changes that were made since the last presentation last week. Do board members have any questions? Board member Weinberg. Yes. Thank you so much. Um, just a quick question on is this available in different languages as well. Interesting. I think what is posted online is in English, but we can work on making it accessible in different languages. Thank you, member Matt. Uh, yes. So, uh, Dr. House was one of the, um, members of the team that worked on the mental health and wellness policy, and I do know that, um, board member

036Bolton had asked about the alignment with the code of conduct. And so, could you just speak to that, um, in terms of how this the framework or the policy would directly align and connect? So in the policy being able to support mental health for students and staff and really identifying the opportunities that we have in our district to support, we wanted to ensure that our code of conduct is restorative in nature and that speaks to that. And so in our policy where we speak of restorative practices and those strategies that really help to support the classroom environment and the school environment, we wanted to make sure that in our approach to addressing discipline and concerns, not only is there just a menu of what you would say punitive measures, but there's also measures to be

037able to teach, to restore, to bring the child back into the learning environment in a safe space so that they can learn and understand the impact and the harm that their behavior had so that it can decrease um as opposed to just continuously giving the same consequences for behavior and not seeing a change. So there is an alignment and we wanted to make sure there was alignment with that. Thank great thank you. All righty. So you need a vote on this or is it just need to be presented twice? I believe we need a vote. Okay. So, let's do it. Any other discussion? Mr. Dustin, call for the vote. I guess we need a motion. I'm sorry. We do need a motion. Somebody make a motion. So, move to accept the uh corrected edited uh

038new uh code of conduct. Second. Great. I'm sorry, guys. I'm just ready to get out of here. Huh. So, uh let's call for a vote now. Okay. Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Cross? Yes. Miss M. Yes. Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. And thank you to the team that did all that work on that. Appreciate it. I will present this next topic. Um board members, we had some discussion probably two or three meetings ago now around prof board membership in professional organizations. And I was bringing this back to you because there was discussion around one particular organization, the Council of Grey City Schools and the cost. My question is we talked about um there were a couple of my colleagues that wanted to contact them to see if there was exploration of

039any other values other than the um $48,195 that they were charging in comparison to the Ohio School Board Association. And just so that the public is aware, um, we have to make significant cuts and we recognize that and the board office is also looking to where we could make cuts as well. So, we weren't trying to do anything ask ask our teams to do anything that we weren't doing as well. So, two representatives, board member Craig and board member map, were you able to confirm that there's a smaller priced option if there were? Uh, I don't recall us being asked to do that. I can certainly reach out to do it, but I don't recall in the last discussion it wasn't being asked to do it. Um, so I mean I can certainly ask and

040find out if there's any other options or opportunities. I know they've had allowed units in the past if they wanted to delay a year or two for budgetary reasons to not maintain their membership but not be removed from uh being considered an active member. they've allowed that, but I don't know that they've ever, to my knowledge, they have not had any um cities be able to use a different rate because they use a formula to calculate what that rate is. And so, but I certainly can reach out and ask Yeah. So, not to my knowledge. Um but again, I don't think it was a formal it was. Okay. So, um just having that information, both Brandon and I can follow up. Okay. So, we'll put this on for the next meeting just if you all

041could I think it's June the first week in June. So, um get back with any June 2nd. June 2nd, we will have this come back. Uh and then we will vote to maintain. Rob, can you put that back? Maintain or um delete the relationship. That was the most expensive um area. So, we'll have that we'll have that come back as old business and board member Matt formally and board member Craig will inquire. Thank you all. Do board members have any announcements or acknowledgements. All right. Hopefully you all will be able to see um the first slide here. As we are getting to the slide, I just wanted to acknowledge one of the things that I enjoy about being a board member is the opportunity of attending graduations. So, I wanted to highlight the graduations that

042I was able to attend. And as you can see on the screen here, um the three graduations that I attended was Western Hills University High School, Riverview East Academy, and then also Gamble Monasuri. So within these pictures, you get an opportunity to see also other board members that attended. And it was just a great night overall for all of the graduating seniors and to just see the support of all of the family members and also being able to confer the diplomas was pretty great and exciting. So kudos to all of the graduates of 2025. Great. So let's clap that up. There we go. And I will share my kudos. I did attend the Hughes graduation and the Spencer Center graduation. I didn't get my pictures in in enough time, so we'll have those pictures next

043time. But again, congrats to the class of 2025 from Spencer Spencer and Hughes for them as well. Clap it up. I was able to attend the adopt a class ceremony that um some of our partners uh at adopt a class, they provide hundreds of volunteers for our our students in our schools. and I was able to be a panelist with some other great city and community uh members and this is just some of the pictures of that great event. So, thank you to the business partners of adopt a class. I got to wiggle. And then this one is a special kudos. She would never do this herself. She's probably a little embarrassed that I'm doing this, but I think it's super important that we recognize that our very own board member, Mary Weinberg, was the

044head coach for the Wana Hills track team and they did really, really well this year. I would expect nothing less. But this want to say congratulations. They came in third. I know they came in third. That was the one specific thing I found. But tell us a little bit about how the season ended just a little. So, we actually are still in the season. We have our district competition this Wednesday and Friday, but for the ECC championships, we placed to third overall for the boys team and the girls team, the highest finish ever. Um, also at the meet, um, as you can see on the screen, I had a young gentleman who was able to break a 31-year-old Walnut Hills 400 meter record, and he now has set it at 48.86, 86. We also had

045a young lady who's a senior. She was our first gold medalist winner in two events in the shot put and also in the discus. So overall third for the team and we're looking to continue on to the state championships. Cong congratulations. And was that all of my And then really quickly, North Aenddale Monastery has an AI club and they had invited me this year, but this is really special because this is the very first AI club in an elementary school in the city. And so they are doing really, really good. Their students told their advisor, Mr. Beck, thank you. So really quickly, we're going to watch just a few minutes of this and I'm going to give you um just a few few seconds. I promise it won't be long. Um, but Mr. Beck had

046some really great students that taught me AI and taught me the value of AI. Can you play it, Rob? They created this game with curious minds and sprouting. Hi, Mr. Beck. This is from me and Ezra. Thank you for putting together AI club and teaching us how to use it safely. It's very we appreciate it. Shine brighter. Hello Mr. B. I love going and stuff like when I when first I didn't know but I'm glad I know you now cuz I know the best. There's no AI teacher like you. I thank you for being a teacher. Also, you are like the world's number one person I know. So, reason why I didn't know you because first day in AI I didn't even know you cuz it was my first day. But I'm glad I know

047you. I know you now. love, Miss Beverly, you and Miss Simpson and Houston, all that stuff, man. Pour all your hearts into it and good. So, big kudos. Kudos to Miss Simpson. Anyway, so we'll stop it right now. Miss Simpson, Mr. Beck, and he has also corrected me. There are similar AI clubs at Bonhill Academy and College Hill Academy, too. So, this is a great great great program. Thank you so much to Mr. Beck. Um, any other board member kudos? Oh, board member Matt. Uh, yes. So, thank you for congratulating all of the graduates because I too want to do the same. So, I had the opportunity to attend uh Gamble Monasuri High School. I had the uh opportunity to attend Woodward uh high school with uh Superintendent Murphy and I also had the opportunity

048of attending Taff High School and I look forward to attending Akens. Um and so great experiences. I'm so happy that um I attended Gamble. One thing that I want to call out about Gamble is that I truly appreciate the leadership at Gamble Monatory High School, Gamble Monatory Elementary, uh, Dator Monastery, as well as Parker Woods because they had an a ceremony or a sendoff for their seniors where they were able to walk the halls of each school. And so I just thought that was so amazing and my daughter said, "We need to make this a tradition." So, so I just wanted to highlight just the level of leadership and community uh that those schools exhibited. Um I also want to call out Reissi Price. They recently um received a kindness corner which is a outdoor

049learning landscape and so we're so thankful to the partners of Seeds of Change for their grant the Bean Project Keep Cincinnati Beautiful and Greater Cincinnati Foundation. You all should go over there. is absolutely amazing and the students had an opportunity to engage in the work um so that they can be owners of the work um and so also wanting to add that Habitat for Humanities supported in that effort as well. And then lastly wanted to recognize the Hawkins Educator of the Year recipients and all of the finalists. So great job and well done Vice President Bolton. Yes, thank you. Uh, as chair of finance, I want to pay particular attention and congratulations to the treasur's office. As many of you know, we've spent a lot of time and a lot of years uh trying very

050hard to be as transparent as possible with the public's finances regarding our district. Uh, we were the first among many or a few or whatever to uh have the open checkbook uh kind of effort and an open dashboard. And now the auditor of the state, Keith Faber, uh has introduced the um what is called the financial um health indicators. And of the ones that pertain to our district, there are 15 indicators. It's important that 13 of the 15 uh for CPS. 13 of the 15 have uh been uh tested and uh assessed as being positive outlook, which is pretty remarkable. It's uh green and yellow and red. We have all green and only two yellow. And that's a testament to the treasur's office and to all the staff and all the people that have some

051responsibility of carrying out uh the financial oversight and u exercise of our finances. So congratulations and thank you. This is brand new and not new to us. We've been doing this for a long time but the state finally caught up uh with us. We lead, we don't follow. Congratulations. [Applause] And I just want to add two more things. The DS I attended the DSS partner celebration. I did not have an opportunity to get those pictures in on time, but thank you to the team for DSS and all that they do for our students. You'll see those pictures next time. And then I also want to give a big shout out um some of our social workers at I think Aken were um honored on WLWT and didn't have a picture of that but for all

052the social workers, paraprofessionals, parents, teachers and support staff along with our principles. It's the end of the year. This is the last week but thank you for a great year and thank you for all that you do. So just wanted to make sure that we said that to to them. Thank you to the entire district. Superintendent Murphy, do you have any announcements over I'm sorry, board member back? Yes, just one final kudos. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the team that supported the mental health and wellness policy. And so I want to say thank you again. U we have our school lead, social worker, Miss Naomi Maderas here. Uh Dr. Manisha House with positive school culture. uh lead counselor uh Bianca Gay, uh our general assistant counsel, Miss Stephanie Scott, our mind

053peace partners, Miss Susan Shelton and Nicole Ferman, as well as our DSS director, Miss Chrissy Reeves, and our lead psychologist, um Miss Sarah English. And I don't think I've missed anyone. Did I miss anyone, Naomi? All right. So, thank you again. This work was really intensive, um but very collaborative. And so I just want to make sure that I congratulate you all and thank you. [Applause] Superintendent Murphy. Yes, ma'am. So I am honored to share uh several of our uh certificated staff members. Oh, I can start with ed um the kudos part, but I also have some retirements I want to uh acknowledge. So, similar to uh board member map recognizing all of the educator of the year nominees, the winner this year, Kristen Carter, who is a career and technical education teacher at Riverview

054East Academy. So, we want to congratulate her again as well as the other finalist who also this year for the first time received a cash award um as well. So, very grateful to Western Southern. And then we want to acknowledge, congratulate, and celebrate Michelle Dunn, Julie Sers, and all of CFT for hosting the community town hall to save our schools. Greatly attended, well attended, and uh really wonderful speakers to share with our community at large, all the things that are going on at the state house that could impact uh Cincinnati public schools in particular. So, congratulations [Applause] Then on the retiree side, we want to begin by celebrating Mr. Jerome E. Brady, who is a teacher at Walnut Hills High School. And we also have Amy S. Brewbreaker, also a teacher at Roberts Academy. Continuing

055on, Charlotte A. Harold, an intervention specialist at Schroeder High School. Melinda M. Hughes, a teacher at Mount Ary School, Stacy W. Huxel, a teacher at Clark Monasuri High School, and Latana McCoy Lamin, a teacher at Witro University High School. Congratulations, Patricia M. Rush, a psychologist in our department of student services. Deborah R. Sherwood, a teacher at Pleasant Hill Academy, and Mr. Al Schumer, a teacher at Aken High School. Those are certificated staff personnel retiring this school year. And then on the civil service side, we have Miss Anna Ferdinand, a pair professional at Dator Monasuri. Mary Freeman, a prayer professional at Dator Monasuri. Paula Jet, a pair professional with the juvenile court center. Paul Love, a pair professional at the school for creative and performing arts. Lisa Moalli, a pair professional at Dator Monasuri. Dr. Izzy

056Rutnik, our fine arts curriculum manager. And that concludes the retirees uh for the 2425 school year. Vice President Bolton, the chair is yours to please conduct our hearing of the public. Thank you very much. Before I do the reading, I would like to Mr. Wilson, do we have anyone online? Seven. Okay, it will come to no surprise to anyone, but we have a significant number of folks that are going to be uh uh speaking tonight. Uh and let me read uh kind of the rules and regulations. We are now at 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 the request to speak has been granted, you'll be invited to enter. You should click on the

057camera icon to go interactive. Provide your name, your affiliation to the district, your school community, and your topic, and your contact information if you'd like a response from the administration. 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 matters. And be aware that after speaking, if you're online, you'll briefly see the welcome screen again as you transition back to the live stream meeting. Finally, we ask that the public commentary be respectful at all times. At this time, uh, if it pleases, uh, the president, I would like

058the many folks that are here from, um, Kilgore School and Troop 4161 to come on down. We have a number of individuals, uh, that have things to say and share with us. And I'll start naming some of those names. Ryan uh Winstra uh Moore, Heidi Shore, Claire Janson, I think, Bryce Shore, uh Siora Sheckler, uh Elia Moore, uh Emmy Grody, Priya Benjer, pardon the pronunciation, uh Jazelle, uh BHA, and melee uh Lrod are the ones I believe all from uh troop from Kilgore school and that's troop 4161 and do you have kind of your own order that you're going to be going in? Is that okay? Feel free to take that mic and do the order as you've planned. All right, thank you. So my name is Ryan Wstrip Mir. Thanks for having us here

059today. This is a troop of fifth graders from Kilgore. A lot of these girls have been in the troop together since kindergarten. And we recently completed our zero hunger, zero waste badge, which is a badge that's um sponsored by Kroger. And it taught them about food food insecurity in our communities as well as food waste. And the girls were very inspired and empowered and had a lot of great ideas about how they could reduce waste and food waste in the cafeteria. and they said it's not just a problem at our school. I bet it's a problem at all the schools. So, we thank you very much for letting them all um give their ideas to you and I'll have them all come up in their order and say one thing at a time if that's

060all right. Great. Thank you. Um, hi. My name is Claire. Put this down. Um, and we are here today to talk to you about food waste and um, plastic harming the environment. So, it has come to my attention that some choices in our cafeteria are hurting our environment and world, as well as causing food waste. As a member of Girl Scout Troop 4161, it is crucial that we are handling food waste the best way possible. If possible, I would like to recommend some changes to our cafeteria environment. First, at Kilgore School, some fruit is wrapped in plastic, and it's not guaranteed that the plastic wrap will make it to the disposal. Some fruit is not wrapped, bananas, strawberries, kiwi, etc. But fruits like pears, apples, and plums are hurting our environment because the plastic does

061not break down, causing further damage. Next, I would like to say that many people at school that buy lunch do not eat at all, causing food waste. And one part of that is that people are not getting the food they want. At lunch, you are required to get milk, one entree, and at least one fruit or vegetable. But some kids are allergic to dairy and don't drink milk or just don't like it at all. I do understand that the school is trying to keep kids healthy, but if a kid doesn't like something small, like milk or chips, they should not have to take it. Same goes for snacks after school. If a kid has a club, the guardians there make you either take the drink and snack or none at all. But if a kid

062just wants one of the two, the other goes to waste. Next, I would like to say that we should all continue to use plastic reusable lunch trays instead of styrofoam. We often use plastic ones, but styrofoam can harm our planet and turn to microplastics. So, it would be better if we use plastic and reusable ones full time. Next, I would like to comment that some kids don't have enough time to eat. We only have 15 minutes to devour our lunch, and the kids that buy often have to wait longer to get their food. So, by the time they come out, there's only 5 to 10 minutes left for them to eat. Then, when lunch time is up, the adults there make you go to recess, no matter how done you are with your food. Many

063kids don't get to finish, causing them to throw away the uneaten food. This is causing drastic amounts of food waste, and I think that has to change. These changes are one step towards less and less food waste. And with your help, all of these changes could be made, changing our universe. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Um, hello. My name is Bryce Shore and I am a fifth grader at Kilgore School. With my Girl Scout troop 4161, I learned about food waste. I realized my school cafeteria contributes to food waste. I want to share my ideas to help reduce food waste for our school and thus help our entire world. These are a few of my ideas. First of all, my cafeteria wraps fruit in plastic. Fruits such as apples that don't need to be wrapped.

064My cafeteria also uses pla uses plastic forks or utensils even though we have a dishwasher so we can use washable forks. I also get hot lunch and I'm required to take food I won't eat and then throw that food away. I think we should only take the food we will eat and the drinks we'll drink. We used to have a share tray to put unopened food or milk we did not eat for others to have for free. The staff used to collect us, but now they don't. I think that they should bring this back. Our school is throwing away pounds of good food and drinks that no one touched. This is very wasteful. We also need recycling bins in the cafeteria. Um, also we wrap our plastic utensils in more plastic just to add to

065the um, food waste. I think that just doing a few little things can really improve the world and we can start with our little school at Kilgore. Hopefully other minds in our community can also make these changes. Thank you for listening to my ideas. Thank you. My name is Sora. Um, my Girl Scout troop and I have noticed some things at our school that we would like to have changed. Um, some things are that at lunch, um, sometimes when there's things that we don't want, we have to take them. Um, this results in us throwing away that item instead of eating it, which results in food waste. Not only does it increase the level of food waste on the planet, it increases the chance of the garbage cans overflowing, which is just not good for

066this coal. We also noticed that several fruits that we get are wrapped in plastic and this will just pile up in the environment and not get biodegraded. Um, there's also the fact that sometimes we use styrofoam trays instead of reusable plastic trays that we know are available. These will also not biodegrade and it results in more waste in the environment. Another thing is we don't have enough time to eat which forces us to throw away a lot of our lunches which makes more food waste. There's also the quality of food. So sometimes when we get things that we don't like, we just have to throw them away and there's no other option because there's not other options to eat. Um, I think these can be changed and thank you for listening to my ideas. Thank

067you. Um, hello. My name is Jazelle. I'm a member of Girl Scout Troop 4161 and a fifth grader at Korea Elementary School. I recently learned about food waste and it really bothered me. I realized that my school contributes to this waste. I want to share my ideas to fix this problem. I think it is wasteful that we sometimes use foam one use trays when we have a dishwasher to clean the ones that are reusable. I think we should have people stand near the trash cans or come to our table to collect our unopened food and drinks that could be shared with others. I think that we should have a compost bin at our school for all the leftover food items such as banana peels and apricore, etc. This would be really easy and also would

068teach the kids school science things that we could learn in class. In our classrooms, we have recycling bins, but we don't have it in the gym or cafeteria. And I think that is silly because these should be in all locations. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much. Hi, my name is Pria Banerjee and I'm reading this for my friend Cor Roberts who could not make it tonight. To whom it may concern, I would like to bring to your attention that the amount of food waste that comes from our school. First, there's no recycling can in our cafeteria even though there are plenty of recyclable items. Second, we don't have enough time to eat. Kora says her and her friends try to keep eating, but instead of going instead of going to recess, but some

069of the adults don't let them. Therefore, they have to throw away the food that they do not eat and that has not been eaten, which is a huge waste. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your time. Hello, I'm Emiline Grody and I am reading this for my friend Tony who could not make it today. Um, first, all the fruits in the cafeteria are wrapped in tight plastic and this is bad for the environment. Next, I think the cafeteria should add a compost bin and have more share bins for us to share what we don't want to eat so less is thrown away. Also, I would like to see better food options in the school cafeteria like apple juice, gluten-free stuff, and vegan options. Um, thank you for your time. Thank you. Hello, my

070name is Mey Lrod and I'm a student from Kilgore Elementary School and I'm worried about all the food that's getting thrown away at our school every day because some people don't have enough time to finish eating. It seems um like a lot of food just ends up in the garbage. And I believe our school can find ways to make a difference. I've learned about some something that have done oh that have really helped reduce food waste. For example, some schools have started food donation programs where any unopened and uneaten food can be given to local charities. This sounds like a wonderful way to make sure good food doesn't go to waste and can help people in Cincinnati who need it. Another idea that seems easy to do is having share tables in the cafeteria, which

071we used to have. If a student doesn't want their whole apple or a sealed package of crackers, they can put it on the share table for other student for other student who might be hungry. It's a simple way to to make sure less food is thrown away. Um, I really hope you will think about these ideas and find ways for all the schools in the Cincinnati public school district to reduce food waste. It will be good for our planet. Keep you can finish. You can finish our for our planet to teach us all about being responsible with our resources. Thank you for considering my thoughts. Thank you. That's all of us. Well, let's uh if you will all stand up and we are so pleased that you came and shared and congratulations. Great job. You

072all did really great. You taught me some stuff like that's right. 15 minutes for lunch is short. That's it. Uh, Miss Wilson, we'll uh have our um remote testimonies. Thank you very much. Our first speaker will be Jamar Hurse. Jamar, you can unmute your camera and microphone. You have two minutes. How you doing? Um, you guys can see me. Yes. Go ahead. How you doing? I am um I'm Jamar Hurst and I go to Western Hills. I'm a 10th grader um at high school. I will be uh talking about social workers. Um I understand with budget cuts there there are talks of reducing social workers. However, they are there are schools and communities. They play a crucial role in improving essential service that have positive outcomes. Um Miss Oakley and Mr. Cam helped by having

073groups, group talks about what I could do to stay on track and be on the best be the best student I can be. Me being in these groups gave me the opportunity to do the event, put the guns down, pick the ball up. They helped me through a hard a hard time when u my brother passed away, Augusta Lee. They kept me in a good mindset and on the right on the on the right path so I can walk the stage. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Sandy Hartman. Sandy, you can go ahead and unmute your camera and microphone. You have two minutes. Hi. Hi. Good evening, President Moffett, Vice President Bolton, board members, Superintendent Murphy, CPS staff, families, and students. Thank you for allowing me time

074to speak before you to discuss the continued need for full-time school social workers in every building every day. My name is Sandra Hartman and I am a school social worker at Hartwell Hartwell School and I'm finishing my fourth year at CPS out of 20 years as a school social worker. And as many of you can attest, in the last 20 years, the needs for students have changed significantly. And I don't foresee a decrease in those needs, especially the need for mental health services. For the last three years, Hartwell has offered a designated area where students can take a break, which aligns perfectly with goal two in our newly adopted mental health and wellness policy. Our school psychologist, school counselor, and myself staff the area, and it's open to all students every day. At the beginning

075of quarter 2, we began to track the use of the space. And from quarter 2 to quarter 4, we provided 500 breaks and/or resources to students. And of those 500 visits, I provided 380 of them. It is during these breaks that students share very personal and traumatic events, built trust with adults, had their basic needs met, and were able to return to class. I'm so proud of the brave students at Hartwell for utilizing the space and prioritizing their mental health. I know that finances are extremely tight and if we cut social work positions, the district will save money, but it's not worth the cost to our students mental health. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker will be Leanne Gardner. Lean, you can unmute your camera, microphone. You have two minutes. Hello. Uh my name

076is Lean Gardner. I'm a parent and board member at Sans Monasuri. Um first I want to acknowledge the challenging efforts put on this board to balance a budget with a barrage of legislation proposed by the state that will drastically reduce funds for our public schools. I urge everyone in the room and those listening in on our call to continue calling your state representatives to oppose these funding cuts. We know that balancing this budget is going to hurt and the cuts have to come from somewhere. Uh, one budget reduction option that was shown on page 13 of the budget deck includes cutting pair of professionals from full to halftime in our monastery schools. I'm here to speak up and give voice for our beloved Paris across the district and especially at Sans Monastery. Yesterday afternoon, my

077peers, a group of strong women, drafted a letter of opposition to cutting our Paris to halftime. We circulated a petition and over 300 members of our CPS monastery community signed on by 1 p.m. today when I sent that letter over um to the board and superintendent Murphy. Uh just reading a little snippet from that letter. At the elementary level, a full-time paraprofessional is part of the collective bargaining agreement. Reducing paraprofessional hours in monastery classrooms is not just a staffing cut. It fundamentally disrupts how monastery education works. These schools are built on a model of hands-on individualized learning in multi-age classrooms. One teacher simply cannot deliver the required small groupoup lessons, monitor independent work, and support students socially and emotionally without a consistent second adult present. Paraprofessionals at CPS already do so much while being compensated

078far below the demands of the role. This change would directly impact instructional quality, school climate, and parent confidence in the model. Please reconsider this option and the current budget cuts. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Thank Thank you. Our next speaker will be Clayton Adams. Clayton, you can unmute your camera microphone. You have two minutes. Good evening, members of the board and superintendent Murphy. My name is Clayton Adams and I'm the father of two data monastery students. I'm concerned about the proposal to cut pair of professionals in monastery classrooms from 1 to.5. I'm a strong believer that CPS Monasuri schools are one of the biggest strengths of our district. The CPS Monasuri schools attract large groups of students and are usually competitive to get into. The proposal to reduce pair professionals in Monasuri classrooms will negatively

079impact students and teachers including my own children. It does not make sense to disinvest in our monastery schools when they are so popular and successful. Our family is quite pleased with Dator Monasuri and the wonderful community present at the school. Reducing paraprofessionals will ultimately make monastery schools less appealing to the public. I respectfully ask that you do not cut Monasuri pair of professionals. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Our last speaker will be Siobhan Taylor. Siobhan, you can unmute your camera and microphone. you have two minutes. Hi, thank you so much. Um so as you know along with what everyone has said the last few speakers a monastery classroom spans three grade levels and covers four core academic subjects ELA, math, geometry, science and social studies alongside practical life and grace and

080courtesy lessons which essentially are components of the monastery philosophy and parallel life skills instruction to traditional settings. Beyond delivering these core elements, we also work to integrate new curriculum, interventions, and current best practices, all while striving to maintain fidelity to the monastery model. Um, and as a monastery educator, both private and now public, this is a demanding task and having only one teacher and a part-time pair professional makes it nearly impossible to fully meet the diverse needs of our students across these grade levels. I understand that the proposal to reduce the full-time pair professional position was removed from the agenda. However, in in case it surfaces again, I feel very important for us to share and be present um these thoughts for your um consideration. I deeply respect the difficult work of balancing budgets, but

081ultimately we're here for the students and our goal is to help them thrive. Even in a traditional setting, larger class sizes and fewer adults present present is not ideal. In a monitory environment, which is intentionally designed to support independent, small groupoup work, and indivi individualized learning, adequate adult support isn't just helpful, it's essential. So, I just want to say thank you for your time and all that you have to do to support our students and classrooms. My hope is that we can find another way to balance the budget besides cutting these critical personnels that really help our children thrive. Thank you. Does that conclude the speakers from remote? Just No, it does not. We have one more speaker online. Nikki Mayhow. Nikki, you may unmute your camera and microphone. You have two minutes. Thank you.

082My name is Nikki Mayhew. I am a veteran monastery parent with kids at Dator Monasuri and at Gamble Monastery High School. and I have served on several committees including LSDMC and ILT and our family's nine-year tenure with CPS. I am well aware of the budget constraints that are facing the district and the challenge that it is to close the gap on that budget. However, um I'm hoping that we can um honor the monatory curriculum that was um adopted just two short years ago with this board. Our pair of professionals are essential to the success of our monastery programs. In our unique classrooms, our students learn from self-directed activity and hands-on materials. And our paras pay play a critical role in maintaining that structure, their support and in giving the students individualized attention. They assist with

083classroom management, guide students through their learning and help create the calm, prepared environment environment that's central to the monastery model. Eliminating half of our paraprofessional staff would not just stretch our teachers thinner. It would fundamentally compromise the monatory integrity of our schools. Monatory education requires carefully balanced classroom with adequate adults, adequate adult support to observe, redirect and encourage independence. Without enough pair professionals, we risk increasing disruption, reducing engagement and moving away from the very principles that define monatory learning. Thank you. Thank you very much. With the remainder of the speakers that we have in house, we remind folks regarding personnel matters. Uh uh we cannot prevent you from speaking about personnel matters, but would hopefully refrain from using any names. Uh, our next speakers are Carol Mitchell Lawrence, uh, Pat Hunley, I believe, Charlotte, uh,

084Laneir, and Nancy Sullivan. If you'll please come down and start in that order to speak, I'd appreciate it. We'll start with, uh, Carol Mitchell Lawrence, then uh, Pat Hunley. Welcome. And I will a little bit. Hi. Hi. Good evening. Good evening. Um, my name is Carol Mitchell Lawrence and I'm a CPS graduate from the Wthro High School, class of 1984. I'm the current vice president of the WRO Alumni Association and the vice president of the Major McNeel Scholarship Fund. I'm the chairperson on the Wrow Athletic uh, Hall of Fame and uh, the Withro Athletic Brewsters and currently I am a CPS audit committee member. I've worked closely with several of the CPS board members sitting before me today for the last seven years. Miss Balden, Mr. Crosset, Mr. Craig, and Dr. Moffett. I list all

085these things because I want to impress upon you that I'm not a person that just is all here for talk, but I have actions. I believe that I truly have the boots on the ground. Giving back through service and monetary support. I am here for the kids. As the alumni board member, I've written a letter to each of you. We personally met with Superintendent Murphy and we've exchanged several emails. I'm here today to make our request in this public forum. My simple asks is has been to Superintendent Murphy and to you today, look at the numbers and consider the improvements in test scores and graduation rates. And I ask you and I ask and ask yourself, is there a compelling enough reason to disrupt the momentum and the gains realized over the last past seven

086years? If not, I ask the current W with throw principal contract be extended for at least one year to evaluate best path forward. I believe Wthro's principal has met expectations and exceeded the mission of being here for the kids and is greatly respected and appreciated by parents, alumni, and community. Uh his body of work speaks for itself, and I thank you. If there's not a path forward, I ask that the LSDMC board be given all applications submitted for the current position. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Mitchell Lawrence. Appreciate it. That Hunley, thank you very much for allowing me to come before you. My name is Pat Hley. actually Pat Stevens Hley and not only am I a 1978 graduate of Woodro High School, but I'm also a 62year community member. Yes, 62 years. So, I

087have been in that neighborhood and I understand very much how important neighborhood and community is. But unfortunately, we're no longer a neighborhood school. So what happens is you have a community that's not attached to the real estate that's there which is the actual school. So I am here also in support of our current principal at Wro High and actually asking for consideration for contract renewal. I have personally witnessed as a community member. I have um volunteered on a regular basis and I ask who is our village who is truly here for our kids who's here for our kids are our community members and I know when I attended our community members was in the community and so the students know when they come from the other side of town that there's no one there so

088when I'm sitting at my property and I see students that are wandering around there's no checks and balances there but an involved olved leadership and principal that puts their heart and their soul into each student makes a difference. It makes up for that difference that we don't have community involvement. So, I was excited. I says, "Oh my goodness, they're going back to the junior high model." And knowing that, I really believe that we can move forward and have a more positive outcome and not just look at numbers, but look at respect. And when you earn respect, you get respect. And I feel that respect has been earned by the current principal. So I ask that you reconsider. I ask that now that we have reduced our older crowding situation. Thank you very much. Thank you

089very much. Uh while uh Miss Laneir speaks or gets ready to speak, we need to see Miss McCoy and uh Naisha Johnson start to come on down. If you would go ahead, good evening. My name is Charlotte Laneir and I'm a current parent at North Aenddale Monastery as well as the LSDNC chair and I'm here to request that you reject the recommendation that is in the current budget update to reduce the monatory pair professionals formula from 1 to 0.5 according to the base of the budget pyramid principles. We need to be in compliance with current best approaches and then implement strategies to achieve our goals, guards and strategic plan. Prioritizing core instruction and student services is the most important strategy. Monatory classrooms are intentionally designed for hands-on individualized learning and having one pair professional per

090class is key for all Monasuri children to be successful and a best practice. Like many others have said, I do not take lightly the challenge of solving for their $35.5 million budget gap. So like many parents of the monastery curriculum as well as the LSDMC at NAM, I'm willing to partner to find a better third way. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Sullivan, good evening. Good evening. I My name is Nancy Sullivan. I live in East Price Hill. I'm the parent of two um graduates of CPS and I serve on the LSDMC at the Carson School, but I'm here not to talk about internal issues, but issue House Bill 42, which I spoke about several months ago. There is now a res petition or rather resolution being submitted to school districts around the state to ask

091you to oppose HB42. And I'm sure there are lots of people behind me who just love paperwork and can't wait to get more data to submit to the state which they'll never look at. Um HB42 would really penalize school systems with diversity um specifically immigrant kids and um ultimately citizen kids with anyone in their household who is not documented and to try and collect that data those data is insane. So I would really ask this board to sign on to this resolution. Thank you very much. Hello, my name is Shya McCoy. I am um a parent of a child at North Aale Monastery and I wanted to speak on uh school climate and culture and just how it has um changed over the years. I've been a N parent. My oldest is in the 10th

092grade and he started there in kindergarten. Um, and just I just want to say like I'm a taxpayer. I want to support CPS, but how can I support levies that you'll put on ballots in November when my child and I as a parent doesn't feel supported? Um, there are no meetings. Um, teachers are very busy, principles are very busy. Um, climbed up the ladder, everybody is very busy. Um, so when does CPS squeeze in time for um, worried parents and taxpayers? With the issues I've had, no restorative practices are used in the school anymore. Um, and it's either AOC removal for a day or um, the latest which was sent to the promise center. Um and I was known of that 20 with it was 20 minutes after school was let out. Um he was

093banned well personal but children are banned from programs and parents are not notified. They're learning this from their child not able to go to field trips learning this from their child. Um grades are horrible. Um, I've always been told my teachers is a triangle and we need to be as a triangle to support our children, but if there's not support both ways, then there's no way we can be as triangle. Um, grades are horrible and I've been referred to Amazon to help my child. Um, so at least the climate and culture that I was used to no longer exists at North ADL Monastery and other things has happened, but I'm just going to leave it at that and hopefully that can change in the future. my child as a sixth grader, but I still would

094like it to go on as what I remember to be. Thank you. Thank you very much. As Miss as Miss Johnson approaches, so we need to have Miss Green, uh let's see, Miss Jackson, uh Miss Anderson, and uh Miss Rullie. Rley, come on down. Rley. Go ahead. I'm Naisha Johnson and I am a product of CPS. Have two CPS graduates and I'm here just as a support to my sister about the NAM environment. Um what I've seen over the years of the breakdown of the NAM environment and the nonusage of the PBIS system. Yes, I do work for some school systems. is not CPS. And um I've seen how they tried to play on her intelligent and things of that nature because she didn't know the verbiage and I just did not appreciate any of

095that. And I was on the phone and when I started speaking that verbiage about the tears and things of that nature about how things are supposed to be dealt with then and only then were they starting to do things by the book. I didn't appreciate it at all. And I feel as if within the restorative practices of things, you have to talk to the children, maybe redirect and things of that nature, then come back with maybe a plan and not just go to a punitive measure. And that's what has happened time and time again throughout this school year at NM punitive measures then trying to get meetings and things of that nature and nothing has happened and nothing has changed. And I would like for things to go on the way we knew N to

096be. Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Green. Good evening. Um, I would like to speak to you tonight briefly about the impact that cuts in the number of social workers in the district could have on an already marginalized, often silent and invisible population, our multilingual learners or MLL students. For the past couple years, I have had the privilege of being a social worker working with the MLL students at Wro, AMI, and Hartwell. There are four of us serving the over 5,000 ML students in the in the district. Many of these students carry an unimaginable history of trauma. Many don't have either of their parents or any supportive adults here in this country. Many of them carry the weight of the world on their very young shoulders. We as social workers have the honor of

097crying with them, laughing with them, encouraging them, and helping them to see their potential. Providing them with crisis and mental health support when nothing else is available to them. Our support for them goes from helping them enroll in school to cheering for them at graduation as sometimes the only supportive person in the audience for them. As one of our MLL social workers put it in an email, she said, quote, "We are the keepers of so many silent fears, worries, and grief, but we're also part of a growing circle of people who can be witnesses to their bravery, strength, and courage. A cut in the number of social workers could directly take away from this very vulnerable population as well as indirectly by forcing us to spread our time and effort so thinly they would be

098no longer be as meaningful or effective. I urge you to not take away from those who already have so little. And I also urge you to read an email sent to you today by my colleague Caitlyn um Salgado. It's titled the keepers of small things. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Jackson. Hello. Good evening. My name is Adrienne Jackson. I come before you not just as a school licensed school social worker, but as a proud CPS parent. And tonight, I bring both of these perspectives to the room. Let me tell you about my sixth grade son, Ryan. When our family, military veteran family, moved from Georgia back home to Ohio, it was a major shift for all of us. But Ryan, then just a young boy, fourth grade, carried the weight of that

099transition in ways that were both visible and silent. He understood we were saying hard goodbyes and stepping into uncertain future. We could have never imagined four months later, uh, I will lose my dad. He will lose his grandfather. That grief hit super hard. But Ryan had something so many CPS students depend on, a village of support in school. Teachers, a school-based therapist, um, Mr. Ryan Dapper, and a phenomenal school social worker, Nicole Koozie, who walked alongside him every step of the way. With their help in ours, Ryan began to heal. He this year was named man of the year at SANS with his Moore group, a testament to his team. Social workers don't just work for students. They walk with them through trauma, transition, and triumph. I urge you as a social worker to reconsider.

100But as a mother, I am pleading. Do not take away the safety net that is still holding so many of our kids above water. They need more supports, not less. Over 240 community members, parents, staff are also in agreement. Thank you for all you all do in your time. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause] My name is Ali Risby and I'm here tonight not only as a social worker but as an advocate for every student uh in Cincinnati public schools. I recognize that the federal government in the state of Ohio have placed this board in an extraordinarily difficult position. You're being asked to make decisions that no school board should ever have to make. Public education hasn't just been depprioritized, it's being dismantled. Still, the proposal to eliminate any social work positions would dangerously

101weaken the safety net our students rely on every day. Let me ground this in facts. One in every nine CPS students, 3,794 in total, are experiencing homelessness, a 33% increase from last year. Over 85% of our students rely on free or reducedpric meals, exposing systemic widespread economic hardship. This school year alone, CPS has documented 27,716 serious disciplinary incidents. That's nearly one behavior incident per student, signaling a deep need for behavioral and emotional support. Chronic absenteeism affects 43.5% of students. Almost every other child is missing large portions of their education. In a single quarter, social workers provided 11,434 hours of mental health support districtwide. And most urgently, between August and March, social workers completed 345 suicide prevention screenings. These are not numbers. These are children, and these are lifesaving interventions. Suicide is now the third leading

102cause of death among Ohio high school students ages 14 through 18. And black students continue to face disproportionately high rates of discipline. further entrenching racial inequalities. Let me be clear. I'm not advocating for the elimination of any other staff positions. When something matters, you find a way. And in this dark time, we must find a way. Thank you. And before Miss Anderson uh speaks, the eight people that are also here to discuss and share with us your views on the uh Monasuri Paris, if you'll come on down and uh that would be great. Go ahead, Miss Anderson. Hello. Good afternoon. I'm Kamaya Anderson, a sixth grader at Midway School who doesn't think any social worker should be cut. I've dealt with many mental health problems and I used to feel alone until I started to

103go to my social worker, Miss Benson. She made me feel seen. She made me feel heard and she made me feel like I was someone when no one else did. And that made me realize how important social workers are for us. They don't do it for money or paychecks. They do it because they care. I've watched my social worker be so helpful in many situations at my school that it inspired me to speak up for when things aren't right. That's why I'm here now to speak up for social workers who have who has had made an amazing difference at schools. They help people with depression, anxiety, anger problems, and many more mental health issues. Whenever I get stressed or anxious, I know that I have someone I can go to. And I think that is

104very important. That's a very important thing to have in today's generation considering the bullying that happens in schools. Thank you guys for listening. I hope you I hope this helps you guys when you make a decision on whether to cut social workers or not. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Our next group. Oh, go ahead. My name What's happening? Can you hear me? Okay. Not really. Good. Hello. Yes. My name is Allison Fristo and I'm a parent of a third grader and a kindergartener at Gamble Monasuri Elementary and I'm here today to address and speak to the proposed budget cuts to Monasuri pair professionals from one in each classroom to half. First of all, generally speaking, it seems illogical and unfounded to propose cuts that would negatively impact a curriculum within the school district that

105is in demand. The Monasuri schools consistently have a wait list and are highly soughta in every CPS neighborhood. Secondly, I don't know if you've ever been in a Monasuri classroom, but lead teachers prepare several lessons each week for three grade levels across multiple subjects. And the beauty of Monasuri learning is that instruction is tailored to students individual needs and paraprofessionals are a fundamental part of the Monasuri learning communities. Monatory pair of professionals are responsible for tasks that support the lead teacher and learning environment including classroom management, assisting students with individual work plans and communication with parents and families just to name a few. Finally, from a personal perspective, my son's experience with his paraprofessional has been profound. He has ADHD and is on a 504 plan. His par his parah has been a cornerstone of

106his success in the classroom. There have been times that he needed a walk down the hall or even just do 10 jumping jacks to refocus his attention. His parro was able to help him settle and regroup quickly. Most importantly, she's able to do so without disrupting his classmates. His lead teacher did not have to divert attention away from 25 other students during a lesson. And there is no doubt in my mind that my son would not have succeeded in the classroom without the positive support and reinforcement he's received from his paraprofessional over the last three years. And to think she would not be able to serve other students in her role the way she has for us is a disservice to all students and families in this district. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

107Hello, my name is Jessica Dew and I am a parent to three students at Gamble Monasuri Elementary and I'm here today to speak about the budget cuts and paras going from one to 0.5 in each class. While touring the school um we had a lot of options. the pair of professionals um were a huge reason that I chose Gamble as our home and we were so lucky to get in. Um and I know that's not unique to our family. As an involved parent volunteer who's inside the building 3 to four days a week, I have witnessed firsthand how essential our paras are to our school success. Our teachers need the paras as they're teaching multiple grades and lessons and it' be detrimental to all of our students learning and our teacher sanity. PAR professionals are

108a second educator in the classroom without the redundancy because clear division of labor is provided and the ability to differentiate instruction is there. I've seen paras deal with social issues so teachers can continue what they're doing with their groups. and my son specifically when he hasn't had a parah to now having a parah has said how supported he feels by his par profofessional. Um lastly, Monasuri public schools are unique to Cincinnati and I'd like to see our leadership and the board lean into our unique strengths because the world is watching and we owe it to our communities to do everything we can to protect what's working and not hinder it. I know this is hard and I'm here and willing to help brainstorm what we can do, but please, please, please protect our paraprofessionals in

109the Monasuri schools. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Um, thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Ashley Tongrit and I have a preschooler at Gamble Monastery Elementary and I'd like to speak against cutting the allocation of uh paraprofessionals in CPS Monasury classrooms. Back in the early 1980s, I attended a private monastery preschool in Coington. I can't tell you the name of the teacher, but I will never forget the paraprofessional Sister Henrietta. She fostered and encouraged a love of learning in me that led me to being high school valadictorian, then getting a bachelor's from Harvard and then a master's from the University of Cambridge in England. And throughout my life, I've given the credit for that to my mother and to sister Henrietta. So when I moved to Cincinnati school district, I grew up

110in Fort Thomas, you know, one of those well-funded independent school districts. When we came to Cincinnati and I found out you had public Monasuri education, I was thrilled because Monasuri features a range of ages and abilities in each classroom community and the second teacher is vital to support that mix. A stark example of this is the 3 to six classroom. While it's um while it's the first classroom experience of any kind for many preschoolers, the kindergarteners are in their third year and many are already reading. My daughter is in her first year at GME and she is thriving. She adores both of her teachers and the parah professional is indispensable. She shepherds the preschoolers through early literacy exercises while the teacher works with the kindergarteners. The close collaboration of the teachers and paras to tailor

111education for each child is inspiring and essential. Please do not endanger this key part of the magic of the Monasuri classroom community. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, I'm Carrie Arsterster. I'm a parent of three students at Sans Monasuri and I'm also the chair of the LSDMC there. And everyone has done a tremendous job outlining all the many reasons our paras are wonderful. So, I'm not going to reiterate any of that, but I am going to just speak a little bit about the personal side of things because I have had the honor of being in my students classrooms twice a week for the last two years and really seeing what the pair professionals are doing, not just in my kids' classrooms, but I'm in the hallway. So, I see all the paras doing all the things.

112And it's just a tremendous support for the community as a whole. And I see them giving lessons. I see them, as I said, taking students out to comfort them in moments of need. I see them helping students with at home projects that don't have the support at home to do them. I see them doing each and everything that the lead teacher does minus, you know, all the planning behind the scenes things. They are so valued. And I had a conversation with one of the paras in my child's class today during the science fair and she started to tear up and hugged me and said thank you so much for helping to compose that letter to the school board because when I found out it felt made me feel expendable and it made me feel seen

113when I read that letter that the Sans Monasuri community started. So I just wanted to get up here and speak to that because I know it's important to our paris and our community to know that we're behind them. So thanks for listening. Thank you. Hello. Um, so my Alexandria Bishop. Um, and I just want to thank you for the opportunity to speak. Um, my son is a first year preschooler at Gamble Monasuri. Um since he was born, I implemented monastery principles at home and always envisioned my son attending a monastery school knowing the impact um the monastery principles would have on his development as a whole child. And I feel incredibly lucky that my son gets to attend Gamble Monastery. Um my son's pair professional has been absolutely instrumental in his first year of school.

114He's excelling academically. He's even reading and does basic edition. Um, but more importantly, he's learned to be a supporting member of the community, developing emotional intelligence and gaining incredible independence. I can't imagine how different his development experience of environment and community um would be without her. She even made fifth on his best friend list. So, pretty important. Um, as a new parent entering schooling, um, these cuts are honestly terrifying. Um, I know there's going to continue to be challenges that we're going to face, but I just want to reiterate that, you know, pair professionals are absolutely essential to our monatory schools and I want to show my support to against the um budget cuts that would you guys are considering. Thank you. Thank you very much. [Applause] Hello, my name is Penny Greenler. I'm speaking

115to you about the importance of full-time classroom. I am a retired Cincinnati public school monastery teacher and now as a grandparent to my grandson in his first year of 3 to six at Gamble Monastery Pair professionals are an integral and essential part of the three-year cycle in the monastery classroom. They are not just assistants to the teacher. They are essential to the children's education. They are not just playground lunchroom supervisors. They are foundational part of the children's emotional and path emotional development and path to independence. They are not just copier and paper filers. They help create a monastery classroom that reflects a monastery philosophy and curriculum. They are not just involved part-time. They support our children every minute all day long. Our children need full-time paraprofessionals. Thank you. Thank you very much and thank you

116for your service. Hello. Um, my name is Megan West. Uh, I'm a CPS parent. I'm an alum of the CPS magnet French immersion program. Um, and I'm a Walnut Hills alum and I am a parent of two children at Sands Monastery and a member of the ILT there. Um, first I want to thank you. Um, balancing district-wide needs with a tight budget is a very difficult task. Um, and I appreciate your service and commitment to our students and how hard this is. Um, when we chose SANS, I didn't fully understand the unique qualities that made Monatory learning successful. But over the past six years, I've been astounded. Our Monatory students are peaceful. They are independent and they are deeply thoughtful. The model develops not just academic growth, but emotional intelligence, care for community, and a

117love of learning. It's not just a curriculum. ments a pedigogy grounded in individualized hands-on learning in a multi-age classroom as you know and that approach only works when there are enough adults in the room to support it. They're not extras. Paras are not extras. They're essential to the monastery method. They facilitate small group lessons, maintain unre uninterrupted work cycle, guide student independence, and ensure emotional safety. At our school, they also supervise lunch and recess. They manage transitions and they allow teachers to plan and collaborate with their teams. Without them, our entire system unravels. So reducing paras in our classrooms isn't a minor change, it's a foundational one. It risks school accreditation and diminishes the model that has made CPS monastery schools so effective. The negative ripple effect this would have on families and teachers is

118clear. The result will be lower instructional quality, greater teacher burnout, rising behavior challenges, and eventually failing test performances and family attrition. Since Saturday, we've had overund 360 monastery parents signing a letter asking CPS to preserve our full-time pair of professionals, and I ask you to do the same. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much, Liz Virgo. Thank you. Hi, I'm Liz and I would love to perspectives. I would love to to say many things, but as I only have two minutes, I want to echo much of here have said I you need to not touch it anymore. That's the trick with that. That's the trick. Thank you. Um I am a Montasauri parent. My child is a uh is going into second grade at Parker Woods Monasuri and she says that

119her paraprofessional teaches her morning math while her teacher works with the second graders. Um so it's not just support um although that is very much needed. I I did um yeah that that that extra support is very much needed but it's also actual actual instruction time. So I want to speak to you um as somebody as a director of education from the greater Cincinnati homeless coalition uh for about how much students need support as well. So I want to say that um keeping the paraprofessional certainly does not mean removing any other professionals specifically the social work professionals are very important and integral. However, I also want to speak as somebody who last year served as a long-term uh substitute teacher with 20 hours of work uh of week a of work a week. And that

120was not as a prayer of professional, but I had to piece together the rest of my income. I was uh recently separated from my now ex-husband and my socioeconomic status changed dramatically as soon as we separated. Uh I had to immediately start working and the work that I found was part-time teaching work. I had to supplement the rest of that work with afterchool programs and all that sort of thing. And it was incredibly scattered. It was incredibly challenging. And the burden was on my children. The burden was for them to go to friends houses and to do all these things while I had to piece together this income. I was an incredibly um capable teacher as well, and I wasn't able to deliver the full-time quality support that I wanted at uh that level. And

121it was scattered between several different schools. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Our uh next speakers, uh we'll start with um we'll start with uh Brad Smith and then we'll have our two presidents speak. Mr. Smith. Good evening, Board of Education. My name is Brad Smith. I'm a resident, a taxpayer, and a CFT field representative. want to offer three uh ideas um before any CPS employee is laid off. Um first, we should end all contracts uh for outside contractors, for example, uh data coaches, life coaches, and tutoring coordinators. CPS employees would be cheaper and they do a much much better job. This would free up more money uh to provide services to students and families such as ELELLL coordinators, reading and math specialists, attendance specialists, and graduation counselors. Second, we should end contracts for

122off-site events. For example, one contract is labeled as professional development at the Summit Hotel to quote, "Give the leadership team a two-day off-site facilitation to discuss feedback, collaboration, and plan for the next school year." There's also a contract for over $30,000 for an off-site event. We should end those before we lay off any CPS employees. And then finally, we need to take a very, very close look at the revenue and before we make any decisions to lay off CPS employees because right now the projected revenue exceeds the budget target. So, we need to take a close look at all of these items before we lay off a single CPS employee. We should not be keeping contracted employee contractors before we lay off CPS employees. Thank you. Thank you very much. President uh Emily Bell. Good

123evening everyone. Good evening. My name is Emily Bell and I am the president of Ask Me Local 232. We know that balancing the budget is not easy. But I want to tell you about our paraprofessionals. The Monasuri paraprofessional is the right hand of the operation. The monastery experience was created with them in mind to be the constant assistant in a child's education and life. So that every opportunity for the child to flourish in their creativity, independence, and self-discovery with a partner who supports them and is alongside of them. To take away the partnership will cause this to break. Our children need stability, love and compassion moving with them as they grow. Please reconsider this decision to decrease the number of monatory paraprofessionals in the schools. Also remember we are here for kids. Secondly, we are

124also asking you to reconsider reducing the number of security in the schools. Safety for all should be the first thought in everyone's mind. We have precious cargo moving through the hallways in every building in the district that we know is not replaceable. Security is the front line and should be treated with the utmost respect, communicated with and included in all aspects of the daily activities and operations and be equipped with the resources necessary for the safety of all. We thank you for the opportunity to come before you to speak this evening. Everyone who was before us have shared their hearts, their minds, and their thoughts. And it is appreciated because pair professionals work very hard, very hard to make sure that all of the children in the district are taken care of, are loved, are

125nurtured, and supported. Thank you. Thank you. Our last speaker tonight is President Julie Sellers from CTF. And to remind the audience uh here and viewing uh President Sers through agreement has an extended period of time to speak if she so desires. Good evening members of the board, Superintendent Murphy and um Treasurer Augustine. As you all know, public education both in Ohio and nationally is under attack. Our budget is grossly underfunded. It will be difficult to make the necessary cuts to balance the budget. Please, everyone who is listening this evening or here in person, reach out to your elected legislators to emphasize the need for fair school funding in all public schools, especially in CPS. CPS is an outlier to the formula and we are usually the one who the district that is hurt the hardest

126and um with the most drastic cuts. Also, if you could reach out to the governor's office to restore our wellness dollars to the full amount so that we are not just getting the 30% because that is what we use to fund um the school social workers. As we review the possible budget cuts, it is imperative that we do not harm district services to children. There are cuts that just can't happen in any school. We must continue to support all schools to have proper staffing. I'm sure you all heard about some of the cuts that will be discussed this evening as you do your budget presentation. Number one, it is not possible to cut Monasuri Paris to 2.5. In case you are not aware, Monasuri classrooms have three grade levels in one classroom all at the

127same time. Yet each grade has their own accountability and state standards. One person or one and a half person cannot do this job. A parah would not work implementing the monasuri curriculum. A.5 parah would not um work implementing the monastery curriculum. The accreditation process requires that there are two people in the room. Also all monastery classrooms are maxed out. So there really is not a cost savings with this recommendation to cut the Paris to 0.5 because they would otherwise be entitled to um overload pay because they are maxed out with their enrollment. The uh um we also have concerns with cutting security in buildings. You must understand that security helps monitor students during breakfast, lunch, recess, and dismissal. This help keeps building secure and calm on a daily basis. Remember, there are not subs for

128principles, assistant principles or security. So, if one of these positions are out ill, their skill will their school will be short staffed, which destabilizes the building for that day and any other day that someone is out. Um, the other projected cuts is with the school social workers. They currently have five or six vacancies. Um I've talked to some of the school social workers and they said they worked with their leadership to cover all the schools necessary um with those vacancies, but they could not possibly do that cutting eight positions. That would result in riffs for highly needed services. These services are necessary to work with students and families to help them improve chronic absenteeism and social emotional learning. Kids need to be in school in order to learn and be successful in the school social

129workers are critical for this to happen. But I do want to thank you for supporting the $ 48 million fixed sum levy. This does not include any new money, just so everyone is clear, but it renews the dollars that are already used for our current operating budget. In the past few years with superintendent previous to Superintendent Murphy, people were spending money needlessly and that has been um one of the reasons that we are in the situation we are currently in. Um, many of those contracts passed through the board approval without even any discussion and many of those things were things that were fluff and not necessary. So, I believe that we need to have the board needs to be more on top of every single contract that is being voted on and approved because we

130it is critical that we use the educational dollars that are coming into our district to educate our students um currently in our school district. Thank you. Thank you, President Sers. That concludes the hearing of the public session. Madame President, thank you. Superintendent Murphy, I believe we are um ready for presentations. Can you present your spring happiness data? Yes, ma'am. Uh, Assistant Superintendent Chambers is here. Um, and he will actually present the spring happiness data as well as the partnership presentation, I think. No, the spring happiness data. What's the partnership? Good evening. Um I'm going to uh present on the the final um uh group with the or um happiness survey or or climate survey. Um and this will um encompass uh uh guardrails 1B and 2C. So, looking at Garwell 1B, um we're looking at

131the percent of elementary uh school students who have a favorable response for a sense of well-being on the Qualric survey and we said it will increase from 56% um in May of 24 to 60% in May of 25. And um our um data from the um this particular um section we had a 61% favorable or 61.1% favorable in the fall and we had a 59.1% favorable in the spring. So um technically we did not meet this target but um in the fall we did uh meet that target but the end of the spring in the spring survey we were um just shy of that target. In guardrail 2C, it's the percent of a percent of students in grades 7 through 12 who have a favorable um response for teacher student relationships on the Qualric survey.

132And we said it will increase from 48% which was on the Panorama survey in May of 23 to 52% um by May of 25. I'm happy to report we have um met that target. We had a 58.4% 4% favorable rating in the fall survey and 57% um in the spring which um exceeded the 52 um% target in the uh for 2425 and some of our um you know takeaways from the um the spring survey and we have um some opportunities for improvement. We looked at um the question, how much um do other students um uh how much respect do other students show you at school? And there was a 50.6 favorable um rating in the spring survey, which was a 3.3% decrease from the fall. Also, we looked at the um the question, would you

133be excited to have the same teacher in the future? and we had a 56 uh point.4% favorable in the spring and uh that was a decrease of 4.7 um from the fall survey. But we also had um a couple of celebrations. Um we met the goal two target of 52%. And um the question um that uh says um I feel my school has high standards for achievement there was a favorable rating of 80.7. So, um you know that is um you something we're looking to build upon, but we also um know we have some uh work to do in those other two areas. And um just linked in the um in the survey in the slide deck, those are the um the three links from the um the uh elementary students, secondary students, and also

134the reports from the families. And it lists the schools and the um the number of students and parents and families that took the survey. Thank you. Board members, do you have any questions? Board member Crosset, do you uh we had a slight decline uh from fall to spring in in some of the measurements and the overall measurements. Is there do you have any insight as to why we had that? I I you know um I don't at you know um have a exact reason but I would say one of those um uh reasons possibly can be the difference in the number of participants that we had in the survey. Um it was a um significantly less uh number of uh students and families as well as um staff that uh took the fall or spring

135survey versus the fall. So, um, as we, um, analyze the data, we're going to look at what, um, what the survey results were from each individual school and see if there was a correlation with, um, the low turnout in the survey, you know, versus um, the um, the actual results that we have, member Matt. So, yes. So, board member Crosset just spoke to both of you actually spoke to the questions and concerns that I had um around what is actually causing this trend. So, I know Dr. House has talked about um in previous meetings looking at what that specific narrative is um so that we can understand what's happening with the data and to the point of recognizing the small sample sizes with the survey. um by clicking on the link I did see that

136it was significantly no low numbers and so can you speak to the reliability of the data because there it wasn't that much participation if you look at each specific school so about 14 um you know individuals from certain schools 34 individuals so that's extremely low and so just trying to get an idea of the reliability of the data and then also what is the plan or path moving forward to make sure that we have more of that engagement. Well, the you speaking to the reliability, I I can only say because I'm not a data analytics person, but I will say the um the the students that um you know answered, you know, in that um particular unfavorable rating in um the individual question, I think it's valid to them. So, that's you know what we're

137going to look at. we're looking at are those um unfavorable responses coming from a particular cluster of schools. No matter how small the group is, if it's the majority of their students, then I mean that um as far as the the students that uh replied to the survey, if that is a majority of those students, no matter how small that number is, it's it's concerning that in an individual question that a majority of the students would in a particular school would have an unfavorable response. So, we're going to work with the um the PBIS team to um analyze the data to try to find um some root causes at the um individual schools who had the um unfavorable results. Okay. Thank you. Because my thought is, and you're right, I'm not a data analysis either,

138right? or analysts either, but just looking at it and recognizing how small the sample sizes are that can potentially skew or bias the data, right, to appear as though we are closer to meeting the target than maybe what is. And so, just wanted to call that out. And then just the last thing as a friendly recommendation for the um the title um maybe it could be recommended for it to be spring climate uh survey data because we want to make sure that we're honoring that social and emotional wellness language and have that fluidity throughout. Yes, ma'am. Any other questions? I have a question. Um well, I have a comment. It's it's related to my my two colleagues. If we go to slide two, Rob, um it's interesting that the elementary school students target was not

139met yet. Go to slide three. High school students or junior and high school students met that target. um that we were just pulling it off because I do analyze data, but pulling that off a little bit off the paper in that we typically high schoolers are a little bit more difficult to capture than elementary school school students. So that tells me a little bit more about the data in that, you know, what did we do to get the elementary students because they're pretty much a captive audience. And so if we couldn't get them, that's concerning. What time of year was the study was the data collected? It said spring, but when is that? Before testing, after testing? It was uh right before testing. Interesting. Okay. And I I would be really interested to see um

140because the target wasn't met, what grades fared where where and because they're elementary stu school students, that's pretty significant in my mind that elementary school school students when talking about support and safety and respect don't meet the target. So, I'm very curious. Um, would love to invite you back or whomever back to give some more data on that. I guess I'll tell the superintendent. I'm very curious about interpreting that data, why that target wasn't met, if you all could do some more exploration around that. Um, why that target wasn't met, what schools is this, what grade bands is this? I'm assuming elementary school students may be first or third through sixth. And so, um, is this our neighborhood schools? Is this our magnet schools? What? Um I I just think that if we go to

141slide two, um that having not met that target means that there's needs to be more exploration as to why so that we can remedy why that's not being met. Although it's very shy, it was close, it still was not met. And so there's there's reasons for that. And I think um I'm going to invite you all to do a little bit more present a little bit more data um next meeting this summer around the targets that weren't met, why they weren't met, and what's being done to remedy that. Um any other questions for my colleagues? Just one uh additional question. Um so when we click on the link to look at each uh respective school, some of them stated that there was no report available. Can you speak to that and how that impacts the

142data? I can get that for you. I don't know right off hand. Okay. Thank you. So, we'll invite you back. Okay. Or or the department back so that we can get a little bit more explanation as to why that wasn't met. Thank you so much though for the presentation. Thank you. Superintendent Murphy, you are somebody's presenting on partnerships. Yes. Uh Sierra Badget, Director Sierra Badget is going to report on the school community partnership work this year. Good evening everyone. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Um, next slide. Can we go two slides? Thank you. So, this evening we're going to talk to you about our key partnerships achievements this year. Um, as you recall, we came to you around October and gave you an update. So, we're going to give you an update this evening

143from November till May. Um, next slide, please. So, our department's been pretty busy um doing some district-wide events for the district. Um if you look up you can see that we had our student um superintendent student conversations where we um impacted 41 students over three sessions the month of November, January and April. Um the students were actually very engaged and it was um at first it was just going to be one session but they said hey we want to keep talking to our superintendent and letting them know letting the superintendent know their views from the students voice. Um so again we um impacted 41 students. We also continued the Sundays with Shauna. Um that happened over the month of November, December, March, and May. We just had one this past um Sunday at Western Hills

144High School. We've impacted over um four 100 families. And one thing that we implemented this year that was new was our CPS partner New Year's kickoff where we invited all of our partners districtwide. um UC University of Cincinnati hosted us at the innovation hub and we had 110 partners show up and the superintendent went over the growth plan and the district strategic plan moving forward. We also this year invited our community council presidents for breakfast. We invited all 52 community council um presidents. If they could not attend, we asked them to bring um a leadership person within the community council. Um, also at your seat, you should have received a student book. Um, we had read across CPS, it was for our title one schools. We um brought in local authors and the local authors

145read their book and then we gave u they gave a book to each student that they read in that classroom. So, we encourage you to take that book and give it to um a student in the community. And then last week we had a CPS partner fair where we brought in nonprofits and we had our resource coordinators come in and they learned about the different nonprofits and how they can take that information back to their schoolhouse and utilize those partners. It was very well attended. Next slide, please. Our upcoming team events, we have our end of the year parent celebration by Miss Londa Thomas and her parents. That'll be tomorrow at Rothenberg on the rooftop if it does not rain. And then we have our parent summit leadership retreat um working on that date and

146we will get that out to you. And then an annual trip that we have um every year through this department is we take a 100 students to Miami University during the summer retreat and they get to experience a day as a college student. Okay, next slide please. Next slide. So just to give you a recap, currently we have 54 resource coordinators across 56 sites. Um if you look at our number here u looking at the impact report and the reform tools we have resource coordinators has facil facilitated over $1.3 million in goods and services donated from September to March of this year. If you look at your everyone every board member has a partner log we gave that to you. Uh one question that you asked in October was who are the partners that we

147have in our schools. Um so the resource coordinators they submit a reform tool. So you'll see by school the partners and uh services that they have in the schools that the resource coordinators are dealing with oneonone. Next slide please. And those are our current 15 lead agencies that are supporting our 59 sites. Next slide please. and our parent and voice engagement. Next slide. We have currently 64 active parent groups across of our schools and we have on our Facebook page 1,800 active members on the uh parent page online. Also want to share um Dr. Mafu encouraged us on this. You should have a flyer at your desk. Coming up in June and July, we're having the district's having popup enrollments. We have plenty of these flyers, so please ask the superintendent to get you some.

148U when you're in the community, please pass us out. We are going to three elementaryaries in the month of June, which are all in each corridor. And then we're going to three high schools in the month of July. And we're going to have our enrollment crew, and we're partnering with the 513 relief bus to meet parents where they are and get students enrolled. Next slide, please. and ne and of course our uh mobile engagement unit will be there as well. Right. And then our PLC's. Next slide please. We currently have seven um peer leadership collaboratives and you can see on the board how many um of those are at each school and then what it impacts far as students as a whole. Okay. And next slide. Thank you. Board members, any questions, comments, concerns for

149the good? Well, I'll go with my questions until my colleague is good. Oh, I'm sorry, Kendra. You got to take off the mic so I can see. There you go. Miss board member M. Uh, so thank you for the presentation. Uh, I think it was really informative. So, I appreciate you highlighting all of the work that is being done um with our partners as well as with our families and our students. Um I am con curious to know how does this work? Um how has it been aligning with the data or moving that data forward? So we just received information about the client survey. We've received information um previously about where we are with um academics discipline all of the things. How is this work being factored into analyzing and assessing the data to make

150sure that there's collaboration? So, a couple things. Um, the resource coordinators, they complete a needs assessment in the beginning of each school year aligned with the one plan and then they work their partners making sure that it's aligned with their school goal and vision and mission. Um that's we stress that at the CLC's every month is making sure our partners are in line with the work that we're doing within the schoolhouse. Also to add to that piece, um the goals and guard rails, our goals and guard rail as far as partner increase when we went up to 72% I believe this year. Um our goal was 80. Um but the feedback that we're getting from our partners is community uh consistent communication. They want to know what's going on throughout the district. So, with our

151new communications director, we've added um their email addresses. So, whenever um we get the Sundays with Shauna or Sundays with the superintendent, it's going to them as well. Um communication. Okay. I think more specifically, my inquiry is more about how does this how is this work directly impacting um the student overall achievement academically and wellness? Is there a direct link or connection to the work that you because it all works together. It all has an impact. So ultimately are you all analyzing the data or providing that support or information to support the work around the data that's being presented on um to us as a board. So on I was just going to say on our reform tool when we when we're tracking by school um we can see if the services that are coming

152in from our partners if it's align if they're meeting the goals. Okay. But we'll kind of get that in a separate report not as a comprehensive that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a comprehensive report on yes we have these partnerships. Yes, we have these um you know interventions that's happening at the school but this is how these supports are directly impacting that studentf facing um work as well as the the overall achievement academically um pertaining to discipline and wellness that's kind of what I'm looking for more of that alignment and connection there I think board member map it may be hard in this work to find the direct correlation between our partnerships our engagement work and the impact it has on our academic outcomes. However, we do believe philosophically that all of those

153pieces matter in supporting the child, the whole child in terms of the parents being involved and what's happening in the school and what the needs of the child are and what we need from the parent with respect for support. The same is true for partnerships. There are many things that we've not been able to do that they're able to help support the school in doing whether it's um after school tutoring that would maybe have an indirect impact on what we see in a state of Ohio test score for example. It could be some incentive that a partner is providing that helps get the kid to school that might assist with um attendance data. It could be additional partner work around seals that specifically help a kid to accomplish those goals. Okay. So, I hear you.

154I think and what I'm hearing you say is that it might be challenging, but I do think that it may be feasible to or something worth considering to make sure that we're getting that full picture. um because this information not only drives the supports that we have in place, but it also drives the the budget and finances, the financial decisions that we have as well. We want to make sure that we're also having that return of investment. And so again, if there is a comprehensive way to take all of that information to present it to us. Thank you. Vice board member Craig. Um so again, thank you for your presentation. I think one of the things that I wanted to kind of tap into or at least uh pose the question around there are a

155number of opportunities for folks who to support some of the things that are going on in our schools that and again I think the resource coordination is one effort in that um but I think one of the things and again it's a conversation that superintendent and uh myself and Mike Turner had with regards to tapping into some of our local entrepreneur some of our local businesses some of our local community leaders who even can just speak to the students even if it's not something where they're doing something on a regular basis. And I think this is one of those things where it may be a way to tap into exploring career opportunities, exploring different fields of study. Again, I always speak to a student who once told me they want to be a dentist, and

156I was like, who starts out as a kindergartener thinking you want to be a dentist, right? Um, and so I'm wondering, one of the things I'm I'm kind of penciling a question around or or thinking around to to pose to you is the efforts to unite opportunities for our students to learn about areas that they may never get a chance to explore or see through some of these opportunities, some of these connections, some of these relationships that are being built. Right? So, you're building the relationship already. Now, are we able to leverage some of that to explain to a student why they could be a writer? why they could be a journalist, how they become a journalist, right? Like it may not be something they come in and do a class for, may not be

157something they in. But if you have a parent who is in a field that is not a, you know, not a well-known field for students to explore those types of relationships also with our parents because I think that's another way to utilize our community of folks to really open the eyes to our students. And there's nothing more like refreshing to hear a student not say they just want to be a doctor or lawyer, but to say, you know, they want to be a they want to own their own electrician company, right? They want to they want to own their own construction company someday. They want to be a uh a a pioneer in some area of study or research. Um, so I think that's that's kind of my one maybe push or pull to to

158ask is that we keep exploring those ways to connect the work we're doing to build a relationship with the parents and get them involved to utilize them in our classrooms more um and maybe even spread them out right you know you have a kid at one school but maybe you can do this at other schools as well kind of idea. The other thing that I want to talk about and it was just a question that we talked about when we did the resource coordinators before about how do we how are we collaborating the information that our various lead agencies and the various personnel for those lead agencies are able to bring together and unify. And so maybe if you can just give a little quick uh explanation as to how they're coordinating a little bit

159more of the resources and opportunities so that some of our schools are seeing that in a more equitable fashion. Sure. So, we have a um an RC communication that goes out and RC's are sharing resources every day with each other. Um flyers of programming uh when a RC needs help to assist a student, they're putting that out there and other schools are helping each other. So, our RC's, it's like a family and they communicate with each other. This uh giving each other resources. Well, as far as uh our resource fair, the lead agencies were there last week and the lead agencies had a table and so our resource coordinators got to go to different lead agencies and nonprofits to learn about their organization and what resources that they could get from that agency and bring

160back to their building. Thank you, Vice President Bolton. Um, thank you. Uh, and want to first of all, thank you for this. I've been here a whole bunch of years and I think everybody's been asking for something similar to this. Um, where you actually have the schools listed and their partners. Um, I I really appreciate it. Um, very useful. Um, what what do we really mean by a partner versus a program? I mean, there's so many programs in our schools. What how what what's this what's the the criteria that gets you to be listed as a partner as such? Good question. That is that the we don't have a rubric currently. Um so that is a um RC can pick that but for me a partner is a a consistent uh nonprofit coming in and

161helping um the schools versus a one-time program that's coming in. Maybe it's um leading fellows that come in maybe do a two weeks series. Okay. Thank you. I I uh have had a chance to attend a couple of your events. I know the one back in January or December and then this recent one. I will say that the um Aspree decor is feels very good. Feels very outstanding in the way that people seem to be collaborating, working together. the spirit of these events is very good. So, just an observation. Um I do I was encouraged when I first got on the board by um Dr. Moffett and and Mary Weinberg to visit schools and I've I've probably not don't know if I'm up to 40 out of 60 schools yet, but I'm getting close. And

162um the um everywhere I go, the resource coordinators are very valued. it it's it's all every school I've gone to, the principal talks about how important that is to the principal and to the school. So, I it is it is a very good program that we have that that's that's going on and uh you know just encourage the us to continue to develop as many good partnerships as we can especially long-term sustaining ones and and uh u just keep it going. So, thank you. So, I have a couple questions. Um, I think this is great. I really really do like the um the summation. Never seen that before. And I I I value what that offers. I do have some concerns around um return on investment and efficiency. So, if we go to like um

163and just the low numbers. So, look at slide four. Um like we're we're we're serving 100 families at Sundays with Shauna. Uh 41 students with the superintendent. is great. The partner kickoff is 110 partners and that's great. Yet, um th those numbers seem very low and they kind of seem like oneoffs a little bit. Um and I just want to make sure are we surveying the hundred families, the 100 plus families that came to Sundays with Shauna. Out of thousands of families, we had a hundred that that participated. What type of qualitative and quantitative data are we collecting at these events to help us get better to help them be more efficient? Because I I've asked before about providing surveys at after events to capture data. I think I said that last year and it

164didn't happen yet. So, um 100 families is nice, but I'm wondering about the return on investment. That's a lot of time for staff to be out on a Sunday and just to have a return of a 100 families. What are we doing to capture that? That is going to that that's actually an efficient measurement of of time. That's my that's I'm just going to put them all out there. So the um e even at our events on slide five, I really want us to capture data at all of our celebrations every at the retreat, at the celebration, at the camp. We should be capturing data from the consumer who was our parents. We should be capturing student data. Did they enjoy the event? All of that can go towards wellness data that we just heard

165a report about. um parents, do you think that X is efficient? Do you think this was a great I don't know the questions, but you all should be able to come up with those questions around um efficiency and programming and then the return on investment. I'm also looking at growth of these programs. So, to me, I I I I don't define a program the way that you all did. A program is not a one-off necessarily. Um because to me, the more is a program. Girls to Women is a program. So, it's not just a one-time meet, but we need to be ensuring that those activities are actually um efficient. Go to slide 13. I would love to see the numbers of those students participating increase. I love the more program, but there's only 541 students

166that are serviced out of 52 schools. That's not a lot of students. And so I I know that there are other young men who need that support that are not getting that 883 girls significantly more than the boys. Less schools, what's the difference? And so that's data that you all should be capturing after every single event for efficiency of the programming and so that it can get better. I'm curious as to how there's a significant number less of men that are participating in more schools than women. Just me personally, speak up, speak out. What partners are involved with that? And how can we grow that? That's only 133 students. I know I've been to some of you all's programming, and it's really, really good. It should have a heck of a lot more students there

167than just 133. With regard to career, college, wellness, and philanthropy, I kind of agree with my colleague, and I've spoken to the superintendent about this. I think we should have ambassadors to help us with communications because we have a small team. we could have ambassadors at every single school and then allow them to maybe connect with the department around career tech and and getting the information to you all so that you all could make the programming um more robust but use what we have to give credentials to students and also um get work done. Additionally, survey each one of these students that are participating in the in these programs, but most importantly survey their parents. we need to find out why they're participating and why they're not participating. Um and and that would be the

168same on slide 14. If you go to slide 14, um I love the fact that we're doing these things, but again, those numbers to me are extremely low and they need to be a little higher. The one thing that I will say when when I looked at um connectivity and connecting to the community and the engagement, parent and family engagement, um we have asked, I know I have asked on multiple occasions that the schools that are impacted by the growth plan be engaged and I don't see that here and it's very disappointing, but they should have been engaged and we should have that data as well. So, I think I'm I absolutely love your team. You all are a small and very mighty group who I absolutely love and appreciate. I just want you to

169be a little bit um if we can help you be efficient with capturing some data to grow, that would be most helpful. And like my last one was for ReadAcross CPS partners, are we partnering with the literacy lab? Are we partnering with Imagination Library? So, those are two partners that we could kind of get the books out um in conjunction with so that we could serve maybe more students. So, that's my that's just my concern. I love the report and I love the team. I just want you all you're doing a lot with less. So, maybe if we could figure out a way to get some data to help that'd be great. Any other questions? Board member Crosset have an idea uh to follow on with board member map and and board member Craig. Maybe

170there is some data that you can uh correlate at a high level between uh student outcomes and the re resource coordinator effort. I'm sure there is not equity and school to school and it might there might be some insight there that could be gained is it might be at a high level but I think you could correlate student outcomes with different uh partnership efforts. Follow Vice President Bolton. Yeah, just as a followup something that uh Mr. Crosset mentioned and and uh Mr. Craig mentioned, you know, it might be possible. I know we've done it in the past uh periodically sporadically. You know, we have our our three E which is I think one of the better messaging efforts and and target efforts we've ever done. Um, it might be uh possible to add that fourth

171E of entrepreneurship because I think that would help focus the district. And I think it would also be more inviting to a lot of the folks that might be of interest. And we know that many of our young people and and their families are focused on wanting, as uh as mentioned here, to have their own uh business or whatever. And I just think if if the if the leadership, the academic leadership can kind of think about it, if if we can make that move uh in in this coming year, I think that would be more inviting to a greater number of partners uh as well as I think um kind of capture part of the spirit of our of our families and our students. Thank you. Welcome, board member Lindy. All right. Thank you. Thank

172you, Superintendent Murphy. I believe this is yourself and Assistant Treasurer Augustine to present our five-year forecast. Yes, ma'am. I think yes, we are starting with the five-year forecast first. Yes, thank you. I'm going to ask Mr. Kevin Ashley to come up. He's our director of um financial transparency and reporting. uh while he's getting up and getting settled, just wanted to um first apologize to the board members for the late posting of five-year forecast documents. You guys do have everything um at your desk now and it's now on board docs. Also want to thank the uh budget finance and growth committee for reviewing and giving some feedback on Friday of the forecast. So, thank you for that. Uh and just a reminder that we do need at the end of this an approval of the five-year

173forecast tonight. So, we have a deadline to have it filed by the end of May. And since this is our last business meeting between now and the end of May, we will need a motion um and we'll need to get it approved. Thank you. And Madame President, if I could uh add regarding the finance committee, we did have a lengthy good presentation regarding the five-year forecast and also great kind of budget uh presentation and discussion. Appreciate that from the treasur's office. And uh we uh I think we're united in our appreciation for the 5-year forecast as it's been presented and been updated for us. It is different uh a little bit from the one we saw earlier in the year and uh uh it's a um quite an achievement and also appreciate the assistant treasures

174u topics that he brought forward for us to kind of contemplate regarding the budget. Thank you. Thanks. Great. Um, good evening. Glad to be here with you guys tonight. Um, so one of the things I'll start with kind of hitting some of the highlights. Uh, as Mike mentioned, this is required to be filed with the Ohio Department of Education Workforce by the end of May. Uh, and then we do another we do the original in November and then the update in May. So that is it is a required step that all school districts have to do. Um, the first slide talks a little bit about some of the considerations. Um so the just to kind of set the set the stage for the difficulties in estimating and forecasting this forecast touches five years which actually

175touches three state bianial budgets. Um so there can be a lot of factors that change over that time as you're well aware of and even at this point going to July one we hope to have a new budget. um we're still not sure which things will survive in the legislature, come back up with the governor, etc. conference committee and all of that. So, the the House has approved a version. Uh it's in the Senate having hearings now. Once a version is passed, there'll be a conference committee. Uh and then the governor will have opportunities for um line item vetos even within the budget. So just setting the stage that that is really one of the challenges with the forecast. Um I do want to say too um one of the highlights we we explore a

176lot of different opportun different scenarios. We spend a lot of time really on the revenue sources because in a lot of ways that drives what we have available to spend. Um you guys obviously are the important piece in in setting the budgets with along with the superintendent of course uh setting the budgets. So we I as far as the forecast myself the treasur assistant treasur we spend a lot of time looking at current current revenues trends in revenues and what we see um coming down the pike. One of the things too in terms of our scenarios and we talked a little bit about this at finance at the current the current forecast includes um a lot of elements of the house version. Obviously, we don't know for sure how that's going to pan out, but

177one of the things we reached out to a lot of peers, urban treasurers, other school district treasurers, and using the house version seems to be the predominant feeling at this point. Um, since we do have to file the request by or file the forecast by the end of May and we won't see the final budget till probably July. Uh so on this slide obviously the district controlling spending levels within the general fund. We've talked about this. The board has made a commitment over the last several years that uh every effort will be made to hold expenditures at the level of revenue that is important to maintain the balances that are reflected in this forecast. As you are aware, a lot of the ESSER obligations came back to the general fund this year and so that

178creates a challenge for the budget as well. Another thing within the forecast um is enrollment projections and I'll talk a little bit about those in another slide, but those drive some of the factors that end up being state revenue dollars. So, just keeping that in mind. And then obviously collective bargaining agreements and other uh commitments of the board are things that will affect the the financial forecast as well. Next slide is some of the factors that we looked at for 26 kind of repeating a little bit of what I talked about. I know was mentioned earlier about the full SCA fair school funding plan. The governor's proposal did include it. However, it um did not fully phase everything in as was the original plan. So, the House version actually removed that. And so, our our

179partners at the Ohio Association of School Business Officials, you know, they've highlighted that this that not continuing the fair school funding plan undermines the core intent of the plan to provide objective, student centered, and predictable funding. and it ultimately shifts more of the funding burden on to local taxpayers by increasing pressures for new levies. Some other proposals that are out there and I know you're aware of is capping school district carryover balances at 30%. Which seems u not very prudent considering that we you know schools are looking to save as much money as possible and have a rainy day fund if possible. Um, in this case with Cincinnati public, we do not even have 30%. So, this particular provision at this moment was not would not affect Cincinnati, but districts around the state are fighting

180back against that issue. So, just want you to be aware of that. Another requirement that may or may not pass is shortening the forecast requirement from 5 years to three years. Um, originally from a lot of discussion, five years was based pretty much on a levy cycle. So, we're, you know, again, not real sure what the intent of that is. um some separate legislation that would very negatively affect the district's uh revenue actually local revenue although it says state uh changes to the many 20 mil floor are being considered u one consideration will be including emergency levies into the calculation which ultimately would reduce the amount of local tax money that the district would continue to get as uh reappraisals occur. Okay, the next slide is the current considerations when we looked at fiscal year

18125. So, in first determining what we're going to see in 26 and if we can make any tweaks based on um between the November forecast and now, we have to look at where are we at this year and what are the positives and negatives that have have affected us this year. 25 is still an estimate because we obviously will not close the books until after June 30th. Um but at this point property taxes have been received and so we were able to increase our projections from November slightly uh for real estate and public utility personal property tax for state aid. Um we had an enrollment so from our projections in November to our projections now which are based on April actuals uh we increased about 500 students. So that has increased our state revenue this

182year which will then layer into our projected increase next year. Uh for other revenue there's a lot of categories there. Tax increment financing community reinvestment area dollars that are uh through the city those dollars are generated in lie of taxes. So instead of getting tax revenue if those were normally under the normal assessment process we do receive some funding for that uh in this category and that is in the other revenue category. Uh expenditures personal services salaries and benefits were increased moderately from where we projected those in November. Uh another savings that we did identify was um transfer for debt service. We project we ask the board to approve a transfer sufficient to cover all of the debt service payments this year, but then we do receive some revenue from the federal government in the

183form of federal interest subsidies. And so as those come in, that reduces the need for the transfer. So we did identify about a three $3 million savings this year in that category. Um just to highlight you know for the forecast it is a est an estimate. I mentioned again how we we look at various alternatives. We we have to make some judgments. It's not uh an exact science. Um and then I talked a little bit about the budget process. Okay. The next slide uh the next slides will I think go a little bit faster. Uh this is a forecast summary just to give the highlevel perspective. Um as I mentioned we are let's look at the last three years for 27 28 and 29 we are we've spent a lot of time on the revenues

184and then we are matching up the expenditures with those at this point. So the bottom line where you see 47.5 million that is after incumbrances. So we estimate incumbrances because uh we do have a team working on reducing those incumbrances as we get close to the end of the year. Requisitions are pretty much closed uh except for extraordinary needs and so we we use an estimate of 183 which is consistent with the last couple of years. Um cash balance is that line 7.020. So and then the other key thing on this slide which is also in the forecast the green category is renewal or replacement levy. In this case we you talked about asking the voters to renew. You'll see in year three um 24 million is half year of collection and then 48 million

185would be fullyear collection in the following two years. So this is really key to showing where the district would be without that renewal. very important uh that that the voters will support that. We we hope of course. Um the other thing is the yellow highlights that's the point that Ohio Department of Education workforce looks at to determine fiscal stress. Um and again we're keeping that basically flat. One of the highlights for 26 and this is probably going to be one of the takeaways for today. Um we are estimating the revenue now to be 628.6 six, which is approximately $4 million more than we were projecting in November. Again, a lot of that's tied to the enrollment piece uh and the state funding. Um at this point, the target for 26 being 624.6. You know, I

186am comfortable in this forecast saying I believe we will have about $4 million additional for next year. However, this year we were deficit spending. So, we're looking at a $12.3 million deficit spend once we close out the books this year. So, just all of those things need to be kept in mind uh going forward. Um I'll slip skip back to slide seven. Well, actually, I should highlight slide six. I'm sorry. Um this is again we talk about this each time about 36% is the state share and 63% is the local share. So just to emphasize that the burden really is on our local businesses, residents and taxpayers in general. Next slide is a graph showing district educated enrollment. This is basically what they are determining. ODW determines our funding based on this enrollment. It does

187not include preschool enrollment. Um the state does provide some funding for preschool disability but not or other preschool that's mainly supported through the levy and federal grants etc. Next slide. I really like how this slide kind of emphasizes the categories of revenue sources. You can see 58% of the district's revenue. Again, this forecast focuses on the general funds. So it's excluding internal service funds, debt service funds, those kind federal grants. But in terms of the general fund, 58% is tied to local taxes. Uh 30% is tied to state sources and the remaining is are those things I mentioned. So our estimate for this year, which hasn't closed yet, uh will be around 631 million. Next slide. Um I'm just going to hit the the total revenue slides and then obviously if you have any questions

188we can talk about those with the sources are broken down in the following slides. The key thing I think on this slide uh for 24 there was a little bump in revenue but that was simply a short-term borrowing for cash flow purposes. So we did a tax anticipation note issue of 75 million that created the little bump in 24. But if you look in 20 and 21 is an anomaly based on um the pass through funding that we used to receive related to community schools where we received revenue and then we had offsetting expense. So if you to were to take the pass through funding out and you take out the tax anticipation now you would see a fairly constant uh slope. Um just kind of emphasizing that there's not a lot of change in

189terms of opportunities for large changes in revenue or or even expenses. But um and the other thing that's really important is the 27 28 29 again is that renewal levy. Uh it's broken down. It's rounded out here and broken down a little bit but obviously without that would have a devastating effect on the district. Uh, next slide is real estate. Again, you can see a fairly constant slope. We did have a little bump in terms of reappraisal following the reappraisals that happen either a reappraisal or an update every six or three years. Um, next slide. I'm just going to actually skip back to the expenditure slide, which is number 15. Sorry, Rob. Um so 15 again this is taking a look at expenditures general fund high level um really 74% is personnel salaries and benefits

190is the biggest part of our expenditures there u purchase services which includes contracts uh and and a lot of other categories but that's about 19% I think the budget presentation will talk a little bit more about the the delineations there um and And then our 25 estimate for expenditures for FY25 is 643. Okay, next slide again total expenditures. You can kind of see the slope as I mentioned uh the pass through um dollars in 2021 and then the tax anticipation don't increase in 24. Um, next slide just because it does create an obvious um, difference here. Just pointing out that 2021 and 22 that time we were doing schoolwide pool and so those dollars spent in the pool uh, came as transfers out in the general fund. So they weren't categorized as personal services, benefits,

191etc. Uh, next slide kind of be the same trend employee benefits. Um the next slide again I noted at the top the password funding um 22 prior to 23 schoolwide pool uh general general fund expenses were reflected as part of the transfers. Okay. Um next slide is other financing uses. This again is where you can see the transfers out. Okay. So one more uh slide that I want to highlight here is what we are presenting for board approval. This is showing um with 25 again I mentioned that deficit spend and then 26 based on the current forecast showing that $4 million difference in revenue and expense and then flat beyond that. So the key point when we get to 2029 is the cash balance being 65.7 as an estimate. Once you take away the incumbrances

192that are estimated to be outstanding to leave us with a unencumbered cash of 47.4 million. So the next slide is something we talked a little bit at finance. Um, like I said, we ran several scenarios, but in this particular scenario, we looked at a traditional expenditure growth. Uh, again, the revenues are based on the projections that I made, but if you were to anticipate a larger spend at the end of 29, obviously we would be in a huge deficit at that point. One of the key points on this slide is around 27 at the end of 2027 is where uh there would certainly be a need for extra for new money in this scenario. So just kind of wanted to point that out. This isn't something we're asking you to approve. We just kind of

193wanted to give you the perspective. Um the other thing is, you know, again, we cannot determine all the factors that are out there. changes in the 20 mil floor, the state budget, um even tax changes, other tax changes the legislature may approve. So, just kind of want to highlight all of those matters. And then the next slide is um our forecasting software calculates a cash on hand, essentially the number of days based on average spend. Uh you can see it's around a little under 40 days of cash that the general fund would have. Um, and that's another thing we've talked a lot about in finance as well about um, increasing the cash on, you know, having a cash reserve because typically you want to be looking at 60 to 90 days of cash. Uh, so

194just kind of giving a perspective of that. So I think that's all I have. It's that thank you so much. I know that's kind of it's kind of tough tough crowd to be up here talking to about finances. It's kind of sexy to you guys. It's kind of like to us, right? Do you all have anything to add? I think the the one thing that I think will be somewhat apparent from a big picture as we go through this and go through the budget is the upcoming need for some new money. you know, if you look if you look at these graphs and and especially kind of the the bad scenario, you know, it's very hard to continue to keep working with the same amount of revenue. And I think at this point, you know,

195state is not a trustworthy source of new revenue for us. And so, so it's just something that that we need to keep in mind that that as we go through these painful budget processes that that we need to think about when the right time is to look for new revenue. Okay. Thank you, board member Craig. I just wanted to highlight like three real quick things that we've talked about in budget finance multiple times. Um, one is recognizing this does not include need to do repairs to any of our buildings or need to do any maintenance to any of our buildings, which is again another reason we would need to go back and get additional resources or additional revenue. Um, this is also building on the idea that we that the cost factors that we would

196adjust as a board are going to we we would we would be adjusting more each year because of increases in the cost of doing business because we're maintaining that same alignment of our expenses to our revenue. So, it's not simply that our expenses are actually flat. It may actually be that yes, the total dollar spend is flat. what we spend dollars on may increasingly become more and more difficult which is another reason the need for additional revenue because you know everything gets more and more expensive every year. We know there's a number of world factors that are making some things more expensive than they should be right now. Uh but there are other things that may come up uh that that really present present problems as we try and keep that balanced structure. The third

197point and I think uh Kevin I think you talked about this um early on with the revenue is that we are projecting this based on what we are assuming to be somewhat close to what will get passed and I think that's the other huge variable to all of this is because we may want to be more conservative again given the fact that the budget that was passed the budget that was sent down by the governor had one formula or one methodology of paying the House has a different altogether methodology that is really based on this idea of giving the same amount and adding a very small fraction of dollars to say that we didn't do a cut, right? Um and they will not likely pass this budget until the very last second they can which

198will be after if we complete our budget after we would have submitted a budget. So, it is somewhat easier for us to to really think about it as if we get that extra four, that's something we would then deal with after the fact, not treat it like it's a guarantee in some ways. Because I I think it's just to recognize we don't have a great partner in our state budget to say that they're going to give us all that is being proposed right now, if not a little bit more. Thank you. I'm looking around. Did you have something, Vice President Bolton? Just go. You're good. You're good. Um, thank you. Uh, again, thank you and thank you. Um, for the five-year forecast this coming year, 26 is the lowest um in the total expenditures and

199other financing line. uh the you know uh this past year is higher and the years after 206 are higher. Is there a reason this one particularly is so low? It's it's really driven by the revenue. Okay. Yeah. The revenue calculations um the the tax revenue will stay fairly flat because we don't have a reappraisal or an update. Okay. U so for for one thing that will stay close. Um there could be some other tweaks in there. Um again with the debt service transfer there could be you know a million or two give or take there. So there some other factors like that but it it's really is driven by the revenue. It's kind of shoehorning the expenditure levels not to exceed the revenue projection. And again, this speaks only to general fund dollars and we

200have other dollars, but those are suspect and unknown too from both the federal and the state government. I was listening coming in today. They were they were interviewing someone who very worried about the absence of social workers nationwide, particularly social workers that were being funded via grants uh regarding reducing uh gun violence, reducing trauma, and it's my understanding from this uh uh perhaps suspect report since it was NPR and they want to end NPR too. Uh but uh the the uh interesting thing was that they they weren't recognizing the existence of trauma in students and they thought that some of these grants had too much of a racial tone to them. So they were ending this grant money and it was specifically funding around the country of social workers. I'm not suggesting that's what we

201were using, but it's uh it just we don't even have to wait to see if we're going to be punished for standing up for uh DEI because really the federal government's budget is already taking in uh tremendous uh cuts uh for example for immigrant children. That's already a zero uh in the federal budget. So, we are trying to make a budget with very little information and and much of it being bad. And I I really appreciate that you've gone through this and you all have done some different options and tried to do some analysis. Um I would ask if I could uh for the budget that we need to pass uh hope before June 30th. When will we know? And I know we were saying up until the last second, but when is the state

202budget or the federal budget anticipated to be passed? State budget has to be done on by or on July 1st, but it may go up until if you remember the last budget, I think Governor DeWine signed it on the morning of July 1st. Um, now the other thing that's kind of interesting about that is some parts of the budget will apply immediately. Um, but if there are policy changes in, Ohio has a law that kind of delays those. So sometimes those things don't hit until October. It's just another wrinkle in this overall puzzle. Okay. Um, to answer your question about the federal budget, so the federal fiscal year starts in October. so that Congress has between now and October to do their appropriations bills. For our purposes, those things probably won't hit us until fiscal

203year 27. Um, you know, most of all the vast vast majority of our federal funds come through the state and so the state has kind of a separate separate accounting and so things take a little bit of time to to percolate through. But are we anticipating that the state budget or the excuse me that what the federal government wants to do you just said it might be until 27 that we might rec might uh realize some of those terrible things. Will we not realize other kinds of losses from the federal government for that that we could we could for sure. So, so you know, there's there's kind of policy and rule changes and then there's appropriations. So, so some of what the federal federal budget is is how much money they're putting in. So, like

204you talked about that cut to title three. It's basically unfunding that. So, by the time that comes through to the state, the state will have to spend out the money they have and then it's over. Now, there can be other rule changes that could go into go into effect sooner either at the state or the federal level that could impact us in fiscal year 26. And one last if I could. The my understanding and what I think we've been told is that the state government is and because we are in a red state um is anticipating writing into law the things that the federal government have threatened to take away based upon DEI. Is that what the lobbyists have told I mean that's what I'm hearing indirectly. uh meaning that uh they will find a

205way to make it statutoily uh impossible to pursue um diversity, inclusion, equity, the whole nine yards. And when they write the law, we are a function of the state, an arm of the state. What's our plan and how does it impact us financially? So, I think your information is probably a little more up to date than mine, but I mean I mean we've been told by our state partners to budget conservatively, but but kind of business as usual for for 26. Okay. I think from that point, you know, you know, that loss of funding, we have to then kind of creates a new budget crisis. You know, we're talking about between 40 between 40 and $55 million of funds for next year. That would be our state and federal grants. Now, obviously, the purpose of

206many of those are supplemental things, but but you know, this district has come to rely on a lot of those things. And if you know, we talked about in in the committee as a whole, you you know, some of the things that that we get for our title dollars, you know, and some of the critical services that come through the IDEIDA dollars. So it would it would be a new crisis to have to adjust to on top of on top of the hard work we're already doing here. Thank you very much. If I if I could um another thing I I failed to mention uh in your question about why is expenditure level lower last next year. Therefore why is the revenue lower? We did get a one-time revenue in this year from the county

207auditor um every six years on cycle with their reappraisal. If they have not used all the money they collected, they reimburse all of the governments a portion of that. And we did get over $3 million in 25 from that reimbursement. And obviously, we don't expect to see that for another six years. That's that 3.9 thing that happened several months ago or whatever that was. Thank you. Yes. Any board member cross? Do we do we need to uh approve this tonight? Please. Please. Thank you board member Lindy. Thank you. I appreciate and thanks uh to the treasur's office for all the hard work you've done on this. Um, I think uh there is so much that is unknown to your points. I don't think it's a great use of our time to conjecture. I think there

208are real choices we need to make about this coming year's budget that are on tonight's agenda. I think the work you've done is great. I think we should move on. I think we should focus on the hard decisions we have to make now. Uh, and there's going to be more information that comes. Most of it I assume bad. Um, but I think conjecturing about that now uh eats clock uh and doesn't actually get us closer to some of the decisions we have to make for this year. Um, but I think the treasur's department's done a great job uh and this has my full support for tonight. Thank you. Any other board questions question? Okay. So, Mr. Gustin, you are in need of a vote tonight around the 5-year forecast as you've presented it, correct? Yes.

209The 5-year forecast and the notes. And the notes. Um the notes. Can you pull that up, Rob? I really don't want you to go through 21 pages, but is there a board? Great. I was just going to ask and and I don't know if general counsel had a chance to confirm or not, but um is are we best to do it as a vote separate or can we just amend the treasures report as part of the um well it was not in the treasures report. And so that was that was the reason why when I spoke with the treasur's office prior to the meeting I spoke to the treasur's office and it was not in there. So we were just going to do it separately. Okay. So then I would u make a motion to

210accept the five-year the May version of the five-year forecast including the notes um and seek uh support in approval. Second. Thank you. Is there I'm sorry. Is there any discussion? All right, let's vote. Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Crosset? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yes. Miss M? Yes, Mrs. Weinberg. Yes, Vice President Bolton. Yes, President Moffett. Yes. Right. Are there any board matters, inquiries, and updates? We need to do the budget. Oh, I'm sorry. Well, we have this se we have it separate on here. It's together on Well, I just have it here. Okay. My my poor staff with the notes. We just have the forecast. Okay. Gotcha. So, let's talk about the budget. It's all right. So, uh thank you. We are um going to talk about a um some suggestions for fiscal year 26 budgeting. Where

211this presentation will start is um where we left off at the last meeting. Um our thoughts around how to organize this work and strategies around how to make the best decisions. We're going to walk you through the process. we've we've gone through pretty intensively and um there are some areas we know that uh there will be feedback from the board um asking us to revisit some things but then there are some areas I am hoping to be able to get some support and movement on tonight if possible. So, um, treasure, assistant treasurer, soon to be treasurer Mike will start us and then, um, Jeremy will, uh, also assist in the presentation. Thank you, Superintendent. Um, Rob, if you go to the first slide. So, bringing back the budget pyramid, famous or infamous? Um, and as

212requested, I tried to put a number around fixed obligated cost, state minimums, and CBA requirements. So, by my calculations, that's $420 million. If you go to the next slide, kind of see what makes that up. So, sorry, excuse me. What is 420? $420 million is fixed and obligated cost plus state minimums and CBA requirements. And so, second slide is kind of how we calculated that. So, I think you've seen the obligated cost before. These are these are debt transfers um liability insurance, tuition, utilities, those sort of things. And then additionally, we looked at the state minimums from the foundation formula. We presented that a while back. Also tried to do a calculation of what was in the CBA's staffing formulas. Um so really like the far right column is inclusive of the middle column and

213then we added in statemandated transportation. So estimate of all that is about 420 million which means there's about 204 million for the rest of that pyramid. If you go to the next slide, Rob, so you've seen this before. This is just the budget building strategies that were discussed before. if you keep going. So the first slide here to kind of set the stage of the conversation for today is how we got from fiscal year 25 to fiscal year 26. So the fiscal year 25 we started the appropriation of $644 million. That was the that was the original appropriation that was passed back in September. The second column there is our what we'll call this FY25 modified budget. And how we how we got to that number is we took the FA24 appropriations, we looked at

214some things that were in other funds that are going to come back to the general fund. So for example, there was $6.5 million of technology leases that we used ESRE money for to start this year. Those have to come back to the general fund. Um you can see the other stuff there. We also took out any placeholder negative contingencies. So the these are spots where we put a contingency in for for funds that we don't we don't know we know we're not going to spend or we're not going to spend as much of and you can see what those are. And this also includes the FY26 values for the schools. So when we did initial school staffing and allocations based on December January enrollment numbers that all got in there that gets you to a

215total of 686 a.5 million. You know, looking at our target of 624 million, that means you need we need a reduction of about 62 million, $62.5 million. If you go to the next slide, um the other thing we'll talk about is the FTE cost calculation. This comes up in this presentation from time to time. So, the average cost, salary and benefits cost for a full-time employee is around $72,660. So, that's all employees averaged out. So for every million dollars of of potential spending, that's equal to roughly 13.7 employees. So as we go through this, and I think as Jeremy starts to go down this path, we can see, you know, we're equating $1 million with 14 FTEEs. So as we talk about reductions, just kind of keep that number in your mind. Thank you, Mr.

216Gustin, for helping set the table to start with. uh putting on a little bit of a new hat tonight. Hopefully I can help walk us through some of the processes and fill in the gap from requests that we had at the last meeting um for more additional data and numbers and some of that throughout the process. Uh but it will be a bit in-depth. So hopefully you can bear with me. Um to start out with, we're presenting these in a linear step fashion, but I do want to offer the caveat that these are not really happen or happened in a linear fashion. and they were mostly parallel with at least an overlap between each of the steps. So, starting at step one, um, as Mike alluded to, when we were calculating what the adjusted FY25

217budget was, we looked at what had already been provided to schools this year for their FY26 budgets, and we froze those levels to what had been provided. So we wanted to orient ourselves from a leadership and budget owner perspective that around the principle that we were going to minimize the impact to school budgets um attempting to make it as as small or as um not happening as possible until we had maximized or ran out of other options. We moved to step two then and started looking at a historical perspective to get a theoretical budget unit target for all of our budget units. If you can click the link there Rob. So this is not an answer but it was more of a tool to give us a an appropriate perspective as when we talk about

218the overall budget and we look at we need to reduce by 30 40 50 60 million what does that look in a practical sense across the entire budget of the district. So the first thing in a historical perspective in this first chart you'll see we started with all of the budget units listed in the first column. The second column represents the adjusted FY25 budget we're referring to for each of those units. Then followed in the next column was a designation of whether that could be changed or not. So in any calculation that we were going to look at to see if we could reduce the budget, we wanted to know whether that could be included in it or not. Ultimately, that came down to the first two, our fixed and obligated district-wide costs and our

219union contractual obligations are um are um calculated off of known factors. They're a fixed cost. They're not something that we could reduce in part of any calculation to resolve a budget gap. So, we remove those out of the calculations and looked at two options. The first option, as you'll see in the next column, was to calculate what percentage each of the budget units represented as a portion of the district's budget. Option A, that you'll see in green, looks at it as if it was calculated for the central office budget units being accountable to reduce the budget gap we had. So the 62.5 million original gap that we had, what percentage of that would each budget unit be responsible for reducing the second calculation into the blue section recalculates that based on if we were to

220spread the budget gap over all of the budget units. Again, remember we froze the school uh budget units. So the first one is only looking at central office. The second considers, well, what if we were to unfreeze the school budget units and include those in the reduction calculation. So, I know it's a lot to take in. If you scroll down just a little bit, Rob, way too fast. To your left a little bit, I marked a couple of examples in yellow that we can use to kind of walk through it that I think that'll help make it a little bit clearer. So, if we look at two particular budget units, the first is purchasing, the second is it. makes it easy for me to be able to explain the purchasing budget for FY20 adjusted budget

221for FY25 was 2.1 million respectively the IT budget was 39 both of those units can be adjusted to even though we have fixed costs in those the overall budget unit can be adjusted to account for a budget gap purchasing represented 76% of the central office budget ITM represented 14.08 8% of the central office budget. So if we were to take the 62.5 million gap and attribute 14.08% to ITM.76% to purchasing that would mean if we were to just roll over budgets at this point we're still looking historical that purchasing would needed to have reduced their budget by $475,000. Meaning their budget total target would now be 1.6. Same for it. the budget unit would have to have reduced by 8.8 million making their budget target 30.2 million. So continuing across we would look at if

222we calculate that percentage based on the entire district the overall accountability goes down right. So for purchasing they would now represent 32% of the entire district budget it at 6.01%. So the reductions would be significantly less being spread out across that. So again, this was a tool for getting us perspective on if we were to look at the entire budget, what would it look like to hit a $624 million target. It's easy when we start trying to picture that as a whole in isolation as to how are we going to cut here? What are we going to do there? But this gave us some insight into perspective of what the entire budget could look like. Back to the slides, please. Uh on next slide, step three or the next thing that we we proceeded to

223do was to have a couple of brainstorming sessions um across the administration, leadership um and a couple of stakeholders and conversations. If you want to click on that, this is you saw in the last budget presentation and there was a lot of requests to provide additional information specifically to costs. So I'll just quickly run through what this what what data you can find here. The first column is the budget item that was discussed or came up with. The next column represents the potential value if we could determine one that could be applicable. Right? So as a brainstorming session, it was what do we estimate the cost or value of that reduction could be if we could actualize that idea. The third column is those actualized savings. So once after the work was done, the investigation

224was completed, we decided yes, we can or cannot do that. We've recorded it here to what the actualized cost or reduction would be. This is where you'll also see the first note of the calculation using the 14 positions per $1 million because at this point we wanted to start creating a visibility into the context that for every dollar we were looking at in a reduction, what was the personnel cost that it was equivalent to um that we were offsetting potentially because we want to keep that at the front of our thoughts. Next, you'll see the the notes and results if applicable as the investigation continue for each of the items. And then finally, uh the likely budget unit that the dollars would be reduced from. Uh for a quick glance as we scroll down, the

225coloration is generally was for our working. Green were those items that were easily found uh or estimated that we were able to actualize quickly. The orange section or yellow in this case as it looks on the screen were those things that could not be actualized. Blue were likely may things that we were able to come up with cost for and we felt were likely to be able to be actualized. The purple section represented more abstract items that things that were going to require more investigation to determine whether they would lead to a path that could have a reduction. And then the last section, uh, we call this the list of 100. May look a little short in this version, but we did kind of take several items. You can see 25 in the first, eight

226in the second, um, and combine them into a single line representing all of the positions, staff reductions, and discussions that could have been funneled onto those uh, as a singular line. Not to call out all the ones that we didn't necessarily able to actualize. So in total this list represented 50 plus million in possible and you notice not everything has a cost or a reduction amount that we could estimate but those were the ones that we could estimate and from those uh we were able to actualize about 14.5 million 14.6 million. back to the presentation which led us into where we switched from that historic view into the present view of building a budget as opposed to reducing down to a budget. Right? This is where we made the switch to we're starting at zero

227and we want to build to where we're going. So from the budget owner's perspective, what was requested was and what was directed was we wanted to enter a critical minimumsbased budget. This was supposed to include the state requirements, CBA requirements, board policy requirements, and critical operations, which you've heard those in the past from previous presentations. And as the president or the treasurer has commented in the past, um our ask unfortunately again this year did not break the trend that it came in above the budget target. But it is important to keep in mind that this was still relevant of the critical minimums was what our target was. So ultimately the budget asked was 659.5 million uh which was 35.5 over the budget target. But there is a small side note to this that I think

228is easily lost um when we switch from that historical perspective into the build 2 budget perspective. And that was while the 659 is 35 a.5 million over the ask, our starting budget from last year if we would have just rolled over and said we're doing the same activities and we' have built the same was the 686 start. So in actuality that critical minimum ask was $27 million less than last year's budget. So that does actualize a significant amount of savings off the top that was not necessarily accounted for in a lot of our conversations. Click the link. Nope. Back to the link. So, we'll revisit the budget target analysis. Won't take near as long this time, I promise. But slide over to the next chart. So, the first one was a historical perspective, right? The

229second chart was basically doing the same calculations, but now we had our critical minimum values sent in set into the system and entered. So, we looked at, we know our critical minimum list, what our total was, that we were $35 million off of what our budget target was. So, we were able to take the same percentage of the budget, calculate what it would look like if we were to close the 35 million using central office budget lines only versus if we were to unfreeze the schools. So we can see again it gave us a following up perspective on here is where we would have to go to make a full balanced budget if we were to impact every budget unit that was applicable. Uh same with the the examples again through purchasing and transportation. Um

230you can see even after doing our critical minimums, if we were to apply the $35 million gap that remained just to central office budget lines, that would mean purchasing would need to reduce by even beyond the critical minimums uh another $270,000 uh it another 5 million. If we were to unfreeze the schools, those could could drop to 115,000 to 2.1 million. Right? There is one last chart before we flip back just so we don't have to revisit. If you scroll all the way to the right again because this is directly in response to some of the the ass last week. This is spread without through the throughout the first two charts, but we want to gather it here. There was a request or there was an interest in seeing, you know, just a year-over-year kind

231of comparison. So we we put this together that would looks at the FY25 adjusted budget immediately followed by the latest al budgeting system uh entries for the budget to show what the difference is at a budget unit level and how much the percentage was as far as an increase or decrease looking at it from a year-over-year perspective. Again, very different methodologies, but useful data to see. You will notice there's a few edge cases that are worth calling out. Um, so the crossing guards last year were in the safety and security budget unit. This year they were moved to the chief operating officer budget. So that's why you would see the chief operating one looks like it went to 780%. It's a specific move from one budget unit to the other. All right, next slide. Uh,

232so this is a silly work in progress, but we did want to quickly and I'll just jump through and give you the examples that we started with last week. This represents about 142 million of central office non-personnel budgets that have been tagged. At this point, we are still in the process of tagging all of the personnel and the school-based budgets, but we really want to be able to by the end of the process demonstrate a present or provide um a di a visualization of the expenditures or the budgets that we're looking at by the goals and guardrails, whether that's goal one through five, guardrails one through six, as well as fixed obligated costs and growth and sustainability. Right now I I caution looking at this for any usable you know high levels of data for

233actual numbers because personnel budgets are not in there and there are some goals and some guardrails that are very much uh exclusively almost paid you know their investment is in personnel. So it provides a very skewed view but we did want to provide again kind of an ongoing example with the work in progress. This is for the goals and guardrails. Next one. This is for the the five strategic uh items out of the strategic plan. Next, which brings us to step five. This is where our current last uh actionable and actualized item falls. So, while we had our critical minimums at this point, we really wanted to go back and squeeze every dollar we could. So we went ahead and did a executive departmental review line by line of every budget unit um with members

234with representation both from the treasures office and leadership. You click the link there and this will provide an accounting essentially what you will see here. Uh we were looking at every opportunity as always. Every time we're looking at anything, we're looking at every opportunity. But really, this was going through and trying to compare budget request items with the operational cost historically. So in the last 3 years, if you have only spent X dollars in mileage, but your budgeting was slightly higher than that, we wanted to be able to reduce the budget to more closely align with the actuals over time. So you'll see mostly what's included here are operational costs like uh printing, bundling, um copy, clicks, fuel, mileage, travel, those kind of items. But you will see the occasional um bigger item that we

235were able to utilize as well. In total, that effort gained us, can you scroll over just a little bit to the right? You'll see at the top um approximately $2.9 million in additional reductions that we were able to apply. And those were actualized into the system during the review session. So they were immediate. Back to the presentation and next slide. Real quick recap of everything we just covered. This is a single slide view of the same thing. Right? We started at the 659 as our budget request. We were able to reduce for our line through line action by 2.9. Our budget target being 624 drops us now to our estimated budget gap of 32.5 million. I would just add to point out that if we look at again schools at this point have still remained

236frozen. So the school budgets have not been impacted. So what has been all of the cuts to this point the first 27 now the additional three here which gives 30 million is from all other efforts so far which then takes us through this this is through today. We're good. We're caught up. The next step is for future. Next slide, which takes us through our considerations for step six and beyond. Step six starts with the list of items that are a result from the priority reduction discussions um investigations and recommendations through our task force efforts and represent monies or represent reductions that we would like to um pursue for actualization. These include reducing the nursing services primarily. If you saw earlier, there was a approximately a million dollar reduction for the contract during the um brainstorming

237sheet, the list of 100. This is to essentially redesign our nursing services, bringing it primarily inhouse through RNs, LPNs, and SHAs, maintaining that coverage at all of our schools for an additional 1.4 million. So, the total cost would reduce from 4.8 to 2.4. This includes reducing eight school social worker positions, removing one additional security from each building with an AP and more than one security considering the the considering the reduction of monatory pair professional formula from one per class to.5 to realign nine schools start times for transportation as well as putting all 7 through 12 students uh to metro for service. That would include the K12, K8, essentially regardless of grade ban, all 7 through 12 students. That would be uh what we believe items that are available uh pending compliance and supplant and reviews

238that could be moved to title funding. the previous uh that we saw and was approved at the last board meeting, the director and chief, pardon me, realignment for 354,000. Uh reducing two executive assistants from the senior leadership pool and finally looking at a return to the previous class size and then proceeding to redo projections and staffing in, for lack of a better term, a spring enrollment review or spring TAC. So if we were able to actualize the entirety of that list, we would be looking at reducing the budget gap from this point from 32 and a half to roughly 13 and a half. And we proceed to look at future steps. Step seven would be to further investigate restructuring our IT leases uh essentially to defer the maximum amount of payment next year that we

239would be able to work out with our financer that would increase our future lease payments in following years. But it would give us a grace on our obligated lease payment for next year, which could then potentially uh again following the this potential pathway to balance would leave us with about $8.5 million um still to to close and which we would then start uh investigating and determining what the scope and scale of a potential districtwide rift could look like. Um and if we were to be able to proceed with that, that could potentially bring us to a point of balance. But we cannot overlook some of the earlier discussion that um would could define a step nine and step 10. That any changes in funding um additional costs wherever those were to come from, whether it

240be changes in state funding or otherwise could then increase us off of balance again and which we would then need to look at additional deeper cuts and potentially again rescoping or scaling any reductions in force. Next slide. So stepping back from the future to the past a little bit again ending at step five. What we have actualized through this point uh this is the budget impacts that have already been entered and actualized into the system. So we won't go through all of these. It's a pretty extensive list four or five slides. I won't read them to you but just to summarize some of the notes. Um in a total number of positions we are looking at 69.4 positions. Uh I would call out that the right sizing of preschool is an ongoing effort as we

241review and revise enrollment and projections as we get more data um moving towards the end of the year that there are as of this morning there was potentially another classroom that was identified to me that could be under consideration. Next slide. Moving from positions to services again not reading through them but you'll see there's a couple of common themes between either an elimination of a service or a reduction. So some of the eliminations you'll note um is the elimination of mail services which would include pony service, interd district interd district delivery, mail sorting uh and metering. So essentially mail services would become self-service to the to the departments and schools. Uh it would also include eliminating background checks from being provided on site here at the ed center and returning those to staff being required

242to go to off-site to to get their background checks. Some of the reductions just one more some of the reductions of note or the things that you'll see in common are really about reductions in either the quality uh or level of services and supports or the time involved. Uh some examples were like in purchasing in terms of wreck processing and uh contract execution could potentially increase in turnaround time from anywhere from doubling to tripling the amount of time it would take to process those type of activities. Uh for device turnaround, right now we're we're looking at a next day is our goal to be able to do break fix turnarounds. Um with these additional reductions, we could be looking at extending that from between one to three days for our turnaround time of devices. One

243more. Along with the budget impacts, we also did want to call out um the things that we were really wanted to highlight that we were making sure to maintain uh respecting those things that are key and core to CPS and our values and our strategic plan. Again, not leading through the entire list, but that included uh the onetoone student device model at least for one more year. um our benchmark assessments. Um still while even so some of the some of the things on these lists include reductions uh we were careful to al to maintain our exceeding of the state minimums for services and supports. Um we would maintain ownership of all of our current properties um and maintain our level overall of student activities, athletics, extracurriculars, uh transportation, walk distance, etc. And one final thing,

244a note of awareness is as we look through the potential of a reduction in force, we want to call out what would look like the process ultimately, you know, determining the positions, identifying whose those represent, and most importantly, being able to communicate the notices that are required to go out for that. Next slide. Uh, which brings us to the timeline, which is probably the most important part of this. So this is particularly relevant to Cass, but of course all the bargaining units have a process for a riff is necessary as well as a timeline. But for the most stringent looking at these um if we would need to be targeting a board date, if we were to try and target June 2nd, then the deadline to give notice, the employees would have been May 16th.

245So that's already passed. uh we have concerns with extending it out through if we were to target the July 14th board meeting that would mean the actual effective date which has to be 30 days later couldn't be before August 13th. So we would be pretty far into the next fiscal year budget um to have to adjust that. So really our primary uh target for this would have to be to provide notice to employees by June 6th to meet the board meeting on June 23rd. So with that, we stand collectively for questions, concerns, or feedback. Well, thank you, J Mr. Galah. I think um I want to say thank you because it's tough to stand up there and give this type of news and I saw you getting some water a couple times. I'd be sweating

246bullets, too. So, thank you for that. Um do board members Well, is there anything else you all would like to add to this? I I would thank you like to just add um just as you're considering these pieces the 69.4 um positions to date coming off from central office but just a reminder in the spring the positions that were generally cut were also central office and that was 62 uh that was $32 million. There were some adjustments made at the school level but there weren't loss of position. Okay. Thank you, board member Lindy. Thank you. I have a process question first and then I want to gather thoughts. I would very very very helpful. Thank you. Um for the purposes of tonight, what is it that the administration needs board approval of? Well, it would

247be fantastic if this whole piece were approved. However, um if that is not going to happen, there are some pieces that we think are really critical in terms of timing. Um Jeremy mentioned the rift piece. Uh if when you look at this um more thoroughly the 3 to six monastery uh start up in the central corridor we have removed and would like the support for that uh if that's possible. The changes in nursing uh would be really helpful to have because this involves us reaching out to a partner and letting them know uh what the current status is. uh the transportation will take us a long time to actualize and so if it's possible to have feedback and support on that that would be greatly appreciated. The athletic trainer is also another piece because it

248involves a partner assisting us by hiring and the longer we wait for that then people don't feel as comfortable um taking or accepting a position. So thank you. I I may have expected something a little different. I think the presentation is great. It's lengthy. It's very informative. But I was kind of looking for the things that you've just described that you wanted us to make a decision about to be kind of chunked so we could see that because it's like when you you're reading what you want and I'm trying to find it in here. So, it's a little tough for me to see. Can you direct us on what you need a decision about or discussion about? what page what slide that's on and then we can Yes ma'am. So if you go to that

249not actualized page which is I believe 13 page 13. So the nursing services which we currently partner with someone we would then be doing strictly in-house. So they would strictly be CPS employees um which the total amount is more like 2.4 4 that we would be saving because we already reduced a million um in our in the budget. The um transportation is also on that page at the 2.9 and there are two parts to the transportation. The one is if all of the seventh and eighth graders in our district were on Metro. The second part is there are about nine schools. We'd like to change the start time in order to be able to stack the the the buses a little better and a little bit more efficiently. Um those are the two those are

250the main ones from that sheet. The athletic trainers that that is a cost of about 400,000 which is in our athletics budget. Um, and the monastery classroom I believe is about a $250,000 uh investment. Okay, woman. Yes. So, I was going to say thank you for the presentation. I am a little confused. Um, I would have preferred just having a slide where you're asking us what would you like in terms of the recommendation. It seems as if right now you're asking us to look at three different places to kind of figure things out. And I just want to make sure I have this correct. In terms of the redesigning the nursing services, you're saying they're going to be CPS employees. Can you elaborate on what do you mean by CPS employees? Yes, ma'am. Um, so

251the SHA, uh, the LPN's and the nurses would strictly be Cincinnati Public Schools employees. We would hire them. Right now, we partner with the health department to uh, have a lot of our nurses and nursing services. This would be a proposal to eliminate that and then to reduce the cost of that by about $2.4 million. So, are you saying that there will be a job posting? Yes, ma'am. There would be a job posting and this this proposal does cover all of our schools. Okay. Then my other question, you brought up athletic trainers and then I wanted to kind of get a little bit more information. You have on another slide you say athletics then you say athletic trainers then you say athletics contract reduction. So can you elaborate a little bit on that? I know

252that I won't won't be supporting that but I'm curious if you could give a little bit more information. So uh we have had athletic trainers at about $400,000 in the budget the last few years. We have struggled um to fulfill that contract. uh specifically with Children's just because I think of our timing and our process. So, Children's would want to know right now uh if there's going to be a contract and our process has not allowed us to complete until the last several years, September, October, that type of thing. So, that's why I'm asking if that is um a not right now, it won't stop the functioning of our school district. However, um I don't know about our ability to really get the quality of trainer we would want to have for the kids um

253because people are looking for jobs now. And then I think my other question was regarding transportation changing start times. I do recall we had a discussion I think last year maybe two years ago where we attempted to try to do that and I know it was a mess and not quite sure if that's a great idea. Um, I know you're trying to find ways to reduce, you know, the budget and I had something else written on here. And you're also talking about the monastery, paras, and the social workers. Correct. Is that all included in the three different slide locations? So, the transportation, I'm not sure about the mess, but uh, Mr. Mr. Burkhard who's not able to be here today right now um feels really confident and this is the nine schools so it's not

254a shifting of the entire district every school so because I don't know what it was before that was problematic it's kind of hard for me to say um without him being here I think I'm done for now I'm sorry one more time I think I'm done for now thank you ma'am Vice President Bolton. Yes. Thank you. Um I have just a couple of questions. So the athletic trainers is not a cut. It's a go ahead and do a contract with Children's. Not a cut. So that's you need action on that. Okay. But the um transportation piece is uh would be a cut or a savings. Let's say that it's that's not fair to say it's a cut. It's a savings. And the biggest the savings is that regardless. uh we've kind of given away the

255idea that we don't want two vehicles going to the same school that we're just going to say we can save a greater amount of money if all 7 through 12 kids are on Metro. Yes, ma'am. So that is a savings but the trainers is an expenditure in order to secure that. Okay. So, just for clarification, we're trying to This is very This is not very good for my learning style. I'm just going to tell you, I'm having to go back and forth. So, I'm just a little frazzled, but athletic trainers, you asked the question if athletic trainers is a cut. You said that it is not, but I heard you say that they would need to know now. We can't tell them until September. And if we approve to not have that, isn't that a

256cut for the following year? Because we would be not having that, right? If we don't have it, it is a cut. What I'm asking is for your approval, even if you don't feel you're in a place to approve the whole piece because we want to be able to let Children's Hospital know, please hire the people. If I'm not able to tell them that, we may lose those people. Yeah, I I I understand that. But I also hear and maybe I'm not hearing it right that the quality if we can't make a decision that the quality that we would be providing to our students may be reduced and so it would be make a decision now or they would get nothing. Right. I won't say that they'll get nothing, but in the past trying to get

257the qualified trainers from Children's Hospital, we have not done well in being able to secure them because of our timing. I understand. So, I would I would always say to Children's, we have to wait until the budget is approved, right? And then we would lose that as a resource in the past. I got you. Okay. Let me let board member Weinberg finish the question. So, I think what would be easier and I think board member Lindy asked this question and I just want to make sure that I can write this down. What are you asking for us for right now in terms of what is something that you're requesting that it be a reduction that we can know? This is the six items that I want for reduction. Okay. First, cuz I think that will

258help. Yes, ma'am. Transportation. I would like your support on us being able to make an adjustment to transportation that would result in savings. That's one. Keep going. Okay. The second one is athletic trainers. I would like you to approve the athletic trainer so that we can secure the contract with Children's Hospital. Number three, the nursing adjustment. I would like you to approve the adjustment to save $2.4 million. Understanding that this means nurses would nursing services would all be in-house CPS. We would no longer be partnering with the health department in order to actualize that savings. The next thing I'm hoping for is you had previously approved through the growth plan that we would start the central corridor monastery for next school year at William Howard Taft Elementary School. We were planning to begin that 3

259to6 classroom. I am asking you to reconsider that and not um want that classroom at this time. That would be a savings of about $250,000. And I believe the last thing I want to ask you for is your support of starting a riff. So just those five things for right now for today. Well, if you want to approve the foundation contract, that would be great, too. And then I'm done. Six. Oops. The foundation contract is in as the original amount, the 1.1 million and not what was proposed in the budget presentation they did a couple of meetings ago. So not the 1.3, the 1.1 1.1. So those six items would be extremely helpful. Thank you. I now understand. Got um Vice President Bolton, but I have a question. What's the total of those six items

260that you are requesting? Okay. And then calculate that and Okay. And then Vice President Bolton. Yes. Um those items that you've mentioned which represent some savings and then also u a timing issue on a contract for the athletic trainers. I I'm um comfortable uh on your assurance regarding the nursing piece and it goes back to three years ago about in in-house and out of house so to speak in house in inserving insourcing. Um, I'm not yet ready to tell you about riffing because I'm still not I'm I'm I'm convinced there's going to be many positions that are going to be gone uh in this budget, but I not necessarily sure that the uh I'm ready to do the riff piece because I'm not sure that uh I'm ready as a veteran of this kind of

261stuff to begin riffing based upon category or seniority. I I believe there are many many other um positions that are not uh of that nature and that's people whose contract is up uh and are on one year schedules or are not properly licensed. Uh there are many things that way. So the riffing piece, I do believe we are going to lose a lot of positions, but I'm not prepared to say yes to the category kind of riffing based on seniority because I think there are other positions that are more readily available for uh unfortunately for removal. But those other six items, I'd be more than willing to have a motion and a second to at least get this started in recognition though that this is just barely a drop in the bucket. But if we

262if there's if there's a timing issue, I I would be willing to do those other. But I I'm not convinced about the category classification riffing being started yet. Okay. Thank you. I'm gonna go to board member Craig and then board member Lindy. Um, so I'll try to be brief in my thoughts here since I know we're getting late in the hour. Um, one thing I will say, so I will almost everything that the superintendent has referenced is also in the brainstorming document that is listed and so folks can go look directly at that and and there's a number of stuff in there. I I think the athletic trainers point I think this is actually a point that has been a struggle for the last four years or three three at least ever since uh children's

263decided they did not want to provide it and wanted us to pay for it. Uh yeah and so what has been the continuous problem with that is that they've always wanted twoyear or threeyear agreements and we've as a board said we don't do that that we will certainly sign an agreement for which it's substited on board approval of the budget for each year. Um and so I think again this is part of why we've struggled to keep athletic trainers is that by the time we actually get an agreement going and they're able to bring folks in it's now September it's now October. Um, so giving that out leeway is a is a helpful thing. The transportation one, this is one for me that it speaks a little bit to part of our growing problem in

264the district just in general, which is that too many of our students travel too far. Um, and that's not necessarily their fault, right? Like some of it is just the nature of our city, right? If you live in Mount Washington and you have to travel to Wro, you're going to travel for a minute. If you live in Sailor Park and you're going to West High, you're going to travel for a minute. And even worse is when you live in Sailor Park and you're coming to SCPA or Walnut and you're going to be traveling for a while. And I think that's also something we need to be paying very close attention to given some of the potential legislation that is being proposed that would direct limitations on how students can travel across your district. Um, so

265I mean I think those are things that I think we should pay attention to, but I I appreciate this recognizing that seventh and eighth graders can ride the metro bus as they did when I was I didn't ride it because I live too close to school, but as other classmates of mine did is ride the the bus like it's not it's not an impossible fortune or possible thing to do. Um, the one other thing I wanted to stress and then I will kind of turn this over a little bit to some to folks to give other thoughts is just ultimately when we if we're going to pass a budget, what we really do need to have is also a plan on the ultimate submission of all the things that we would kind of be looking

266at and filing through. I thought the idea of kind of going through and approving the things that are the fixed costs, the obligated costs, the state minimums, those type of things may be a good way to pocket some of these things together. So like the things that we absolutely have to pay for, we could vote on that bundle. Then those things for which we are obligated in some form or fashion to do because of whether it's collective bargaining agreements, whether it's other state minimums, stuff like that that we at least for that level of it know we have to do. We we're not going to not do organizing those into a package of information for us to vote on. And then it leaves us with this last little smaller package which is what we're kind

267of trying to figure out. And I appreciate again, Jeremy, all the hard work you did, uh, putting together the various different charts, the various different pieces of information to kind of spell out some of that. Um, the last thought, it's so doing something like that as far as a presentation to us as a board and that way we at least can get through the easy stuff first. We can at least get some stuff done because I think that's the only way we're going to get to passage. We're not going to do it as one big package and we're not going to do it as every line by line item again this year, right? Um the last thing I will say and and this is where well two more things I'm sorry. Um the second to

268last thing I will say is that what we're going to have to do is make some really hard decisions that are going to affect everybody in the district in some form or fashion. Everybody needs to have uh some sweat in that game, right? Like everybody's going to have to lose something. And so if there are departments, if there are spaces, if there are areas where they have not necessarily lost in this in in in this budget, I think we do have to go back and look at those and say, is there something else that they have that we can do? And it may not be a person. It may be how they operate. It may be that they're not going to have to do more on this part because one of the things I will

269note is that bringing folks in house is good except for that's more people for our HR team to have to work with and manage and handle. And that's a burden on them, right? And so we have to recognize if we cut from HR and then we say HR do more work, that's a it's a difficulty, right? And same deal for if we're asking our communications team, which is a small but mighty team to do more work to market all these good things that we're doing in the district. It's a challenge. And so I think that's the other other part. And then the last thing I will say, and then I'll step down and allow us to get allow folks to speak. There are going to be things in here that we as a board are

270going to have to finally do the hard vote on. And one of the things I want to recognize is what we talked about in the five-year forecast earlier, which is that this may not even be the hardest of those votes because next year could be harder. And and I you know, we I said this last year when we were trying to go through these budget cuts and I said this that year was not the hard year because that year we could go through a bunch of stuff without touching people. This year we're touching people. Next year we're going to be touching more than just the folks we're touching this year. And I want us to also be able to recognize there may be other resources. There may be other things we can do to try

271and bring in new revenue. There may other programs or stuff within the foundation that we may be able to connect up to allow some things to continue going. But it may also require us to really think creatively about how we're operating on some of these things. Because I think that's the other part to this to me is that we do have some things even within a school how the school operates that can be a way to you you save a position here by merging these things to different folks. You move this thing around to help. We've got to do that sooner than later. So when we get done with this budget, not to give us more work, but to give us more work, we need to be in here in August and September talking about

272next year's budget, not waiting till October, November, December, January, because we owe it to the teachers in the buildings. We owe it to the administrators. We owe it to the staff. We owe it to everybody else in this district who's depending upon our vote to determine whether or not they have a job to make that decision earlier to give them more information and to make it cleaner and easier for them to exist. Thank you Lindy. Thank you. Um I appreciated the clarity on the pieces that would be helpful for us to approve tonight. Uh, I have real appreciation and sympathy for things that that where time is of the essence and it's important to get those done earlier. I would be very happy to make a motion um soon um to uh that the board

273say yes to all of the pieces that you are asking for tonight, including not conducting a riff but starting to do planning for one. Um, so in a moment I'll make that motion. I also wanted to give some additional gratitude and positive feedback. I think this is the first night we have seen a path to a balanced budget. It's the first time I've seen a slide where it had like total gap zero. Um, and the path to get there is difficult and painful, but like you got to we got to figure it out at some point. This is the first time we've actually seen what that looks like with some real numbers behind it. So, thank you. I I really appreciate that. It's good good progress. Um I also just to to shift gears like

274I do have a having said that I have a a bigger concern um that we are going about the budget process in a not great way. I want to share what I mean. I want to give an example. Uh it feels like the driving force in the budget is how can we back into a riff number that is as small as possible. I understand where that impulse comes from. I also would like to riff as few people as possible, ideally zero. I think the challenge with that is uh it doesn't answer the question, what are the investments we need to make in order to drive the biggest improvements for children? And I think a more strategic budget process would start with what are those small number of things that if we invest in them are

275going to make the biggest difference for the children who are in our care. then it might be that we actually need to cut deeper in other parts of the organization so that we can fully fund the things that are going to have the biggest impact. That that's what I think a a truly strategic budgeting process would look like. So that's the kind of big picture thought. I I think to give an example of that here, um I've been pretty clear with with everybody um uh um about what my two biggest priorities in this budget I think should be. I'm not saying everyone needs to agree with me, but I want to be, you know, no secrets about what I think matters most. I think the best thing we can do to make sure we're driving

276student learning is adopt high-quality curriculum and then do whatever it takes to support the educators in our buildings to help that curriculum come to life. That is hard. It is important and I think we have an abundance of evidence that we're not there yet. I shared these numbers previously in multiple different fora but as of the most recent data we received from the administration in only about 27% of classrooms is the curriculum that we have purchased been fully faithfully implemented. That's in a context where only 21% of our eighth graders at least those who are economically disadvantaged are reading on grade level. Like this is I think the most important thing for us to be investing in. And I'm particularly worried because at least as I was reading some of these slides, am I right

277that there are proposed cuts around not adopting ELA curriculum and not funding PD around the curriculum? I might misread that to pause uh any new adoptions. Okay. Okay. And then there was a piece in there also about like content specific professional development or curriculum specific professional development. That was on the services to be discontinued slide. I believe that's if if the adoption is paused then the PD connected to the adoption. Could we go to that slide for a second? It was in the like the services section. Yeah. This kind of towards the end. This is I think yeah it's on the right column. It is the middle bullet elimination of product specific content and curriculum PD. I think this we we we might be able to bring this up again in a future meeting and

278not worry about it tonight because I don't think that was one of the things you were asking for board approval of tonight. Correct. So we we come back to this. But just I think as I read this um I I empathize with the desire to back into the smallest possible rift number. I think that is a very human and good impulse. And I think there is a higher bar we could set for ourselves in terms of how we go about this budget by centering the things that are going to make the biggest difference for children and then maybe cutting deeper so that we can fully fund those things and not backing into the smallest rift number. But I I stand by my offer. Uh I'm ready to make a motion to approve the um items

279that the superintendent listed. Well, there was already a kind of a sort of pseudo motion on the floor. I'd like to take a point of personal privilege. I said that I was willing to do that um before. It does not include the riff, however, in what I would be proposing. And my understanding is what's being asked is to allow the superintendent to go into a negotiations regarding P uh regarding athletic trainers to proceed with the two items on transportation which are seven and eight uh traveling on Metro and also nine school start times changed. uh moving the nursing process and services from our partners and into being in-house provided a foundation contract at 1.1 the original agreement uh number and then a pause on the startup for Monasuri program at uh Taft. Is was there

280another one there? I' I'd like to make that motion. and it does not include yet a riff. I don't think we can have to have a motion for them to start planning a riff. I I I think that there obviously in the process we saw 167 the number of 167 there. Uh so these are active um actionable things to do. Uh, and I would I would like to enter that motion and ask for a second and a vote and discussion, of course. Okay. So, there's a motion. Oh, wait. There's a motion. Sorry. I was just trying to ask the point a point of inquiry about the recommendations before the motion, but if it's still open for discussion. Well, we can if there's a second, we can talk about that in discussion. Is there a second

281for that motion on the floor to approve the six items minus the riff? Well, this it's seven items total. But then with a riff, we take that out. There's six. One, two, three. Yes. If you separate transportation. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Second. So, there's a second. Is there discussion? Board member map was first and then board member. Um, so just a point of inquiry around the transportation. I know that the recommendations for all seventh and eighth grade students to be on Metro. Is that not currently the case? And if so, how many well how many schools are actively on seven uh on metro for seven and 8? Most are. The exceptions are and uh let's see um Spencer SCPA. Thank you. Clark. Yeah, very few. We did this last uh spring, but somehow those schools were

282not included in the written um motion. So, we moved on with it. But this would this is asking I'm sorry, the K8 schools as well. The K8 schools. So, do we have a list? Can we list of those schools? Yes. So the K8 schools are AWL, Hartwell, Amy, Roberts, Taylor Park. Thank you. Okay. Five. So for the K8 schools just just recognizing the you know that we're are we are trying to focus on that middle school junior high would this be uh kind of counterintuitive to the support and work that you're trying to do there? I mean we're separating them out of the high schools but then putting them back on Metro. So I'm not saying that I'm against it completely but well the where we are separating the seventh and eighth graders those students

283are on metro. So for example your Hughes Aken Woodward with throw those students are those seventh and eighth graders this year were already on Metro. Okay. So now we're saying now that we're having the middle schools, junior highs, so the Evston, the ED, they were already on that route. So now let's put the seventh and eighth graders that are in the K8 buildings and the K12 and the 312 also on Metro. Okay. All right. Thank you for that clarification. And then last thing for the nursing contract, um what what supports will we lose in terms of moving to in-house versus um outsourcing? I do not believe that we will lose anything because these will still be the SFAS, the LPN's, the nurses. they will just not be through the health department. I cannot think of

284any service that we would lose. As a matter of fact, it may be strengthened because they are our employees. I I appreciate that and I I do support that. It was just, you know, wanting to ensure that if they were providing us with any type of data or uh additional supports that were helping us with analysis for our overall wellness. woman Lindy. Thank you. I think my question is for the superintendent. If we vote yes on this and nothing else, can you do everything you wanted to do coming out of this meeting? I would be we would be in really great shape if you said yes to these things today. But can you do is there I want to be really clear on my end. Are you asking for something more than what is currently

285in this motion? Not today. Thank you very much. Thank you Crosset. Yeah, I just think um that um to follow on uh board member Lindy and board member Bolton's comments. I think with the uh planning, I feel like you can go ahead and plan a riff without our approval. Uh I do think though that there's an opportunity to combine what they were talking about. In my view, if when you plan that, I think you could have some very strategic criteria that could focus on emphasizing what's what are the what are the things that are going to be best for improving student outcomes. Let's do it. So, I have a question before we go to this. Well, I'll ask it after we because I can vote on this. I would like to inquire about contracts that

286need to be cut. Mr. you talked a little bit about that, but I don't understand um what the the number is for contracts. You know, we should probably be requesting a freeze on contracts and where can we save money on some of those contracts by moving some of those items from general fund into I I saw some of that, but um you know, we need to also have those discussions, too. And I would love to invite you to be able to share with us where there could be a contract savings as well. We can uh definitely um put on a slide for you where we believe we can move from central office to title very easily. We've done that. That was a part of the task force work that we we did a couple of

287weeks ago. Um in addition to that, we can take the contracts and show you uh by budget unit where the reductions for next year will be. Um that's pretty easy to do at this point. we have that information. Well, I think I sent that email in saying I kind of wanted to know where it would be by department. Um, and I think maybe that you answered some of that too um in in the spreadsheet, but maybe on our next presentation we could get a little bit more information. So, are we ready to vote? Does anyone have any other further discussion? Oh, okay. All right, Mr. Do you want the motion repeated again? So, would you like to repeat it? Yes. uh make the motion and it's on the floor for discussion uh to uh adopt

288the uh superintendent's recommendation regarding negotiating contracts for our athletic trainers and also to begin the change in transportation for seventh and eighth graders and the nine school start times changing moving nursing services inhouse. uh agree to the foundation contract that is in the original agreement and a pause on the monastery startup at uh uh Taft. No, she took that out. No, you took out the riff, right? Yeah, I took out the riff. She was just rereading what that was her. Okay, Mr. Gustin. All right, Mr. Craig. Yes. Mr. Crosset. Yes. Mr. Lindy. Yes. Miss M. Yes. Mrs. Weinberg. Why? Yes. Yes. I'm just trying to make sure everybody's still awake. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. Superintendent Murphy. Dr. Moffett. That uh the total um the treasurer gave me is 4.4 million today. Thank

289you kindly. What was it? What is it? So I asked for the total of the five items. What is the cost savings there? Six. Well, we took out six. All right. So, we still have a ways to go. I was beginning to feel like we were doing something, but and we did. So, I have a question. Can we get cost or numbers behind those things that are like on slide 15? It's very helpful for me to know and we unfortunately have had to do this with the previous administration as well where we looked at the numbers of the items. Um I I'm very concerned about cutting things that have an impact to learning. But it would be nice to know if we, you know, if you say slower response time from facilities for maintenance and

290work order requests, that's approximately $200,000. It would be very nice to have a conversation with some informed data rather than to have to make the decisions without knowing the impact that the potential impact that's there. So for me, slide 15, um, you know, really, well, really 14, 15, 16, um, 17, all of those things have a cost associated with them. Um, so we can put the cost next to all of those positions on slide 14. we can plug the impact into what the position or what the um process was to show what we had been paying this year because Jeremy's done a nice job of showing us what we paid last year compared to what we're saying this year and maybe that would be helpful for um 15 16 17 14 through 17. Okay, thank

291you. All right. Um, where are we? Are there any board matters, inquiries, and updates? Thank you, Mr. Galahghue. Are there any assignments? Board member Craig. Uh, so I was just going to accept the assignment since I've already actually did it, but to reach out to the council on what other options there were with regard to membership levels. Okay. Thank you. Any other assignments to the administration, Vice President Bolton? Yes, I I briefly mentioned this to the assistant treasurer today. Um I think uh as we uh face the next uh the June the next June meeting if the treasurer's report uh can somehow um code the treasurer's report in a way that we would know what would be one-time contracts what would be and new contracts or continuing contracts. I've reached the point that I'm not

292real interested unless it's a one-time kind of purchase in order to get the school year started. I I'm I really want to be able to know what what is the new contract we're being asked to do. Um it would be great if you were able to do that if it pleases the rest of the board. It would help me make some decisions about things regarding vendor contracts. Not personnel contracts, vendor contracts. You mean for the upcoming ones or for this current? Okay. For the whatever's in the treasures report for the June meeting. I'd like to see that kind of coding taking place. I would support that. Any other assignments? And I think I my assignment was just around um I I personally think we need to have a freeze. We need to formally say that

293there's a freeze because it makes me very uncomfortable. I've said this last meeting. I'm going to say it again. It makes me very uncomfortable to be having promotions and contract increases, addendums when we are talking about riffs. That makes me very very uncomfortable. And so, um, I think we need to freeze things. I'm not exactly sure which contracts. I know there's a a number of contracts in the treasures report for the summer and maybe that has to happen, but I'm also very confused and concerned around why we're having addendums to some other contracts. Um that we've got permission on page, you know, on the treasures report to enter into certain contracts for awards for proposals. I I just think we need to take a pause. um it it doesn't make sense to be talking about

294adding on to something that we could potentially be reducing. So that's just I'd like to get the understanding on that. Any other thing anything else? Okay. So let's move on. A proposed consent agenda has been distributed. Do board members, the superintendent, or the treasurer, assistant treasurer, have any exception items to the consent agenda? Well, member Weinberg, is this the time to list all of my superintendent and my treasurer line numbers? Are you ready? Okay. So for the superintendent report I have section E page 11 line 5 8 13 15 and 19 then section F page 13 line 2 4 and 13 then page 14 line five and nine and then page 15, line 17, and page two, section C, line for elementary assistant, line one. And then for your treasures report, page five, line four.

295And on the one where I put page two, scratch that. Sorry. It should just be ending with page 15, line 17. And then for the treasurer, page five, line four. Thanks. Any other exceptions? I'm looking at board member Matt because she's got some, but give her a second. Any other exceptions? Your mic. Your mic. Thank you. So, I do have uh exceptions to the superintendent report. Uh so page one section B line item one would like to abstain uh page two section C line item two excuse me page two section C elementary assistant principal line item one. No. And then for the treasures report, page 10, line items 14 and 17. Page 11, line item 22, 28, and 29. and um page 17 of the treasures report. Full page. Page 17. Yes. Okay. Any others?

296And I just have on the superintendent's recommendation page two section C second [Music] item under elementary assistant principal no line one and request reinstate and then that would be it for me. I'm sorry for member Weinberg. So originally I had stated um for page two but I was abstaining from all the others. Can I go ahead and put into for that particular section um stating no for page two section C elementary assistant line one and it would be no. There's a lot. I know your your pen is moving over there to that second. All right, I need a motion and a second to approve the items of the consent agenda with the exceptions as noted. So moved. Little second. Great. Any further discussion? Mr. Assistant Treasurer Gustin, please call the voting role for the passage

297of the consent agenda and the revisions. Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crosset, yes. Mr. Lindy, yep. Miss Matt, yes. Mrs. Weinberg, yes. Vice President Bolton, yes. President Moffett, yes. With the exceptions. All right. Um, we do not need to review the assignments. The chair will gladly entertain a motion for an adjournment. Is Hello. So move. Is there a second? Second. Unanimous consent.