CPS Board Business Meeting May 5, 2025

001seeing a quorum of voting members, I call the May 5th Cincinnati School Board meeting to order. Mr. Gustin. Oh, wait. Do we have to do the treasure treasure? We need to do the treasure prom. We do or we don't. Okay. I need a motion to appoint board member Craig as our treasurer prom for the evening. So move. Second. Thank you. Mr. Gustin. Yes. Mr. Craig. I'm sorry. Mr. Craig. Do you accept that? Okay. Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Crosset? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yes. Miss Math? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes. Vice President Bolton? Yes. and President Moffett. Yes. And then want me to do the role as well? Yes. Thank you, Mr. Gustin. Mr. Craig, here. Mr. Crosset here. Mr. Lindy, yes. Miss Math, yes. Mrs. Weinberg, yes. Vice President Bolton, present. President Moffett, here. Thank you. Superintendent

002Murphy, please introduce our wonderful students who we virtually lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Absolutely. It would be my joy if everyone could join us and the Woodwork Career Technical High School students where Mr. Sam Yates is their principal for today's pledge. Ward High School student, please join me in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I love teenagers. We are like students. We like the littles. I like the teenagers. Thank you. That's like the best part of the night, I tell you. Assistant Treasurer Wagner. Okay, we got the attendance role. Uh, Vice President Bolton, please explain the virtual hearing of the public

003process. Thank you, Madam President. Members of the public who are online and wish to speak during our hearing of the public this evening may do so by clicking the chat button now. The chat feature will be open for your requests for five minutes. If you would like a direct response to your questions, please make sure to share your name, your affiliation to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information. Thank you. I need a motion and a second to approve the May 5th business meeting agenda. So move. Second. Mr. Gustin, Mr. Craig, yes. Mr. Crosset, yes. Mr. Lindy, yes. Miss M. Yes. Mrs. Weinberg, yes. Vice President Bolton, yes. President Bett, yes. We are now at the absolute best part of tonight's meeting. This is all about the hard work of our

004students and their accomplishments. Woohoo. So, um, Superintendent Murphy, let's turn it on over to you so you can make us smile. Thank you, President Moffett. So, there are two days in the school year that are my absolute favorite consistently. The first day of school and then graduation day. And so, I am so honored to be able to introduce you again to the high school principles as well as their validictorians, their saludiatorans, and their top scholars. And so the principles will be introducing the young people and I would tell you about them that I am so excited about learning and sharing with you what they are going to do next because I think one of the flagships of the success of Cincinnati public schools is what happens after graduation day. uh it doesn't matter to me

005if they are planning to go on to post-secary college or university or if they are beginning their career or engaging in a military experience. What I would say to them is um you have what it takes to be successful. We can't wait to see what your journey brings you and to just reassure you you are well prepared and you are ready for the world. And so today uh we'll start with principal Lisa Volta. Thank you. Okay. So I think the we're gonna have the board members come up and assume our positions. There are uh spaces marked on the floor. Okay. So join resume the position so we can give warm hugs and welcomes to our saludiatorans and validatorans. Let's go. I wanted to start this evening um by saying that both my Val and S

006had to choose between a track meet and being here with you this evening. So, we had a mixed bag of who decided to do what and so we appreciate both their dedication to whatever it is that they felt like that tonight was the night. So, I'd like to start by introducing my valadictorian. I am honored to introduce Brendan Frierson, the valadictorian of our class with a GPA of 4.88. Brendan excels both academically and athletically, serving as captain of the track team while maintaining top academic performance. His partic participation in football, basketball, and track highlights his teamwork and discipline, and he balances these commitments with remarkable time management. Brennan is deeply involved in his church and community service through programs like My Brother's Keeper, Miami Teach, and Speak Up, Speak Out. Demonstrating strong leadership, and civic

007responsibility. Respected by peers and faculty alike, Brendan is known for his integrity, dedication, and eagerness to support others. Brendan plans to major in cyber security at UC, where he received Marian Spencer Scholarship. [Applause] Kamari SS whom I've had the privilege of knowing for a very long time. I'm honored to introduce Kimari Sanks, an extraordinary student with a GPA of 4.86, who has excelled academically while displaying outstanding leadership, character, and dedication. She maintains straight A's and rigorous coursework while actively leading as vice president social awareness JCG officer in National Honor Society and captain of her cheer and track teams. Kamari is a multiport athlete who has contributed to the CMAC championships in soccer and track consistently demonstrating teamwork and perseverance. Her deep commitment to service is evident in her volunteer work at events like Flying Pig

008Marathon and various charity drives. her respect for her honesty, empathy, and strong work eth work ethic. Kamari is well-rounded, driven, individually poised for continued success. Kamari plans to major in social work and plans to take Miss Parish's job as soon as she graduates. Uh Kamari is a Darwin Turner scholarship recipient. You're fighting chicken. Good evening board. Superintendent Murphy. Uh proud principal of Clark Monasuri High School, Eric Higgins. Um we have uh six individuals that we will recognize tonight. Um all of them uh have displayed our five core values um to the utmost uh hard work, learning, peace, community and respect. Uh we will start with our first student u Molly Reber. Molly has been a part of our epic program which is a studentrun um play group uh a member of GSTA um part of

009the ethics bowl and poetry club. [Applause] It's fine. [Applause] Next up, we have uh Caleb Eert. Caleb is Oh, I forgot to tell you. Molly is going to go to Smith College in Massachusetts and study economics. Uh Caleb is going to uh study a wilderness program at Jack Mountain College. And uh Caleb Wall Clark is part of our jazz band uh cross country and his senior project is on elephants. Uh he says African elephants are his favorite because they have a cooler ears. [Applause] You know what? All right. Number three, we have Sorry, Caleb. All right. Mave Clancy. May will be studying biology in Oberlin College, but while at Clark, Mave is part of our writing center, uh poetry, um a a very talented artist, gardening club, and part of our steel band. Uh her

010senior project will be on microbiome and um mental health. [Applause] Next up, Violet Underh Hill. Violet will be studying uh fine arts at the University of Cincinnati. While Clark uh Vo is part of Epic uh cross country. She's doing a individual art survey and her the senior project is on murals and how they be uh there's a sense of community. [Applause] Maria Pratt. Maria will be studying business and marketing at the University of Cincinnati. Uh Maria volleyball player, part of LSDMC jazz band at a job at Chick-fil-A and over the weekend was voted prom queen. All right. [Applause] Last up, Adelina Nagel. Adelina Nagel will be studying marine science at the University of Southern Mississippi. uh while at Clark uh Adelina was part of a steel band uh worked at the aquarium and her senior

011project is going to be um misoponia which is the body's response of fight or flight and and explaining um how that works. Hold it up. Hold it up. Thank you. [Applause] Good evening. I am Marina Randolph, uh, assistant principal at Dar High School. So this evening for you, I have our validictorian, Mahelia Garma. Mahelia is attending the Ohio State University. She has a 4.7 GPA. She she will be majoring in premed with a focus on neuroscience. She plans to attend medical school after her bachelor's degree and wants to eventually work in pain management. Throughout her high school career, she was in the ethics bowl, student council, and the National Honors Society. Maho was award awarded the governor's merit scholarship. Our saludiatoran at Dator High School is a Steu J with a 4.4 GPA. A Stu

012is attending the University of Cincinnati majoring in management information systems. After graduation, she hopes to work in the tech and business industry. She also has goals of starting her own business to give back to her community by mentoring students from diverse backgrounds. As Stu is a part of the yarn club, the IB club, National Honor Society, at which she is the president, she was awarded UC's Marian Spencer Scholarship in January. Good evening. My I'm the excuse me, I have the pleasure of serving as the principal of Dr. Odell Owens Center for Learning. I'm Nicole Issacs and this is Michaelel Taylor. He is our validictorian. Michaelel has a story of relentless effort, discipline, and resilience. His perseverance through a lot of storms, but he never gave up. And today, he stands here as head of our

013class. Not just because of the what you've achieved, but how you achieved it. We're very proud of him. He is going to continue his education in the field of becoming a truck driver in CDL and then going straight to the employment. Yes. Michaelel wants Mikel wants to give a special shout out to his dog Nova and his mama. [Applause] Good evening. I am Dr. Jennifer Williams. I serve as principal at Hugh STEM High School and I have the honor of introducing our validictorian Sosa Soul Mar. She is graduating with a 5.08 GPA. She has earned 53 college credits. While at Hughes, she took part in our Tri Health work-based experience. She has earned a full scholarship to the University of Cincinnati where she will study in the health sciences in the pre-farm pharmacy track on

014her way to become a pharmacist. at Hughes. She participated in Girls to Women National Honors Society, is the recipient of the Governor's Merit Scholarship, and has earned the STEM honors diploma. Our saludiatoran is Emmanuela Molo. She is graduating with a 5.02 GPA. She has earned 26 college credit hours, earned the Governor's Merit Scholarship as well, participated in National Honors Society and Girls to Women. She will be attending the University of Cincinnati for exploratory studies on her way to become an architect. [Applause] Good evening, board. Superintendent Murphy, families, you should be very proud of um your students. I am a proud principal of Gamble uh Monasuri Ele uh elementary high school. I'm s super super super proud. Super proud. I'd like to first uh have Tatum come up. Tatum Evans. This is our valadictorian of class

015of 2025. Tatum has consistently demonstrated all five of Gamble's core values, including peace, learning, hard work, community, and respect. With a GPA of 4.99, Tay has shown an attention to detail and passion for learning that is unmatched by her peers. She has shown a tremendous ability to self-regulate by working to truly learn the content presented to her, taking a wise and thoughtful approach to her relationships with her peers and showing great humility in all of her accomplishments. Next year, Tatum will be attending the University of Cincinnati to work towards a degree in health sciences. Congratulations, [Applause] Tatum. A solitude solitude. Only Greco would do this. Salit sal. I said I wasn't going to mess this up. Superintend S. S. Our S. Our wonderful S. And this one is a special one to me. Sky when

016I was the principal with Dator Monastery. I've known Sky since she was a a three three to six student. Yes. Just coming out of diapers almost. And uh I had the pleasure of knowing her and and Rainey and Lavel, wonderful parents. And I just so blessed to watch her grow up under my leadership. And then to stand up here and see this Sky, it's just amazing. So Sky has earned a 4.88 88 GPA throughout her high school career. Skye's deep love of learning, peerless resolve, and bountiful bountiful compassion radiate to those around her. She has been involved in a number of activities at Gamble Monastery High School, including varsity uh volleyball, student council, and several community service projects. Sky works hard to better herself physically, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually. And this relentless commitment to improvement

017is evident in her numerous accomplishments. Next year, Sky will be attending the University of Cincinnati as a health science undergraduate on the journey to becoming an OBGYn. Congratulations, Sky. Salut saludiatoran. All right. Thank you. We got it. [Music] We do not give up in CPS. Good evening. My name is Kayla Brunswick, proud principal of Oiler School and I am here to introduce proudly introduce Michaela Pritchard as our valadictorian. Michaela is consistently demonstrates hard work and dedication to her studies. She's a part of student council, the academic quiz team. She started two podcasts at our school. She's a part of the adventure crew and took CCP and AP courses. She she plans to attend Berea College in majoring in psychology. She ends her career at Oiler with a 4.24 GPA and has over $800,000 in scholarships.

018[Music] And I'm also proudly introducing our saludiatoran, Alejandra Martinez. She Alejandra sets very high standards for herself and her peers. She has been a part of the student council, the softball team, volleyball team, academic quiz team, and summer med programs. She also plans to attend Berea College with premed and biochem as her studies. She ends her Oiler career with a 4.0 GP GPA, excuse me, and over $600,000 in scholarships. Hello, superintendent board. I am Becky Wolf, principal at Riverview East. Um, our validictorian this year is Everett Scott. Everett has been at Riverview since the fourth grade. He is a scathing reporter on our newspaper, The Early Birds. Um, and he was also recently crowned prom king. Here, Ed is going to go to the University of Cincinnati for business management and he wants to shout

019out his mom. There she is. Okay, Kayla. Our saludiatoran is Cley Shroyer. Crosley is a legacy student and started Riverview in kindergarten. So, he's been there for 13 years. Um, Crosley is a star on our baseball team, also one of the team um captains. He is a first baseman who recently was kind of forced to pitch his first game due to an injury of another student and did pretty well. Versatile. Uh next year he will also be attending the University of Cincinnati for business and marketing. [Applause] Follow the rules. Sorry, get my phone. Good evening. I am Aikita Barl, the interim principal at Robert A. Taff Information Technology High School, and I have the honor of introducing our valadictorian, Tunia, Tia Chancellor. I didn't expect you to be over here quick. Sorry, Tana Chancellor. So,

020Tana is a multisport athlete. She's been a TAB student from 7th grade through 12th grade where she's played basketball, volleyball, and track. Um, Tia is a woman of three words. Um, so we try to pull a lot out of her. She has, um, taken AP classes as well as college credit plus classes. And so she will be leaving us to attend the University of Cincinnati where she will be majoring in business and she will also like to obtain her medical assistance certification. All right. Our saludiatoran is Miss Syla Jackson. Syla has been a student at Taff High School from 9th through 12th grade. She also participates in extracurricular activities. She has been a cheerleader for the last few years at Taft. Um Teni, I'm sorry, Syla earned the presidential scholarship at Wilbur Forest University where

021she will be studying to become a nurse. She's also outside of sports and taking college credit classes college credit plus classes. She has already obtained her certification in doing nails which she would like to move forward with as well. Yes. So congratulations Miss Jackson. Now we talking. Now we talking. Let's go. All right. Good evening um board members um Superintendent Murphy. Um it's a pleasure to be here. I am principal Michael D. Owens at the School for Creative and Performing Arts and I'm excited to announce our valadictorian for the year of 2025. It is Isabella Aaliyah. Isabella earned a 5.56 GPA. Um she's the president of the National Honors Society. Um member of our recycling club as well as she has taken 10 CCP classes for AP courses. She will be she will be attending

022the University of Cincinnati majoring in biochemistry with a minor in French on a full ride as a Marian Spencer Scholar. Our saludiatoran, Macio Mo Hooper. Macio obtained I'm sorry. Macio obtained a 5.43 GPA. He will be attending Northwestern University majoring in material science and engineering. Um he has been the lead set designer on three of our mainstage productions at SCPA. He's a Corbett Marrison winner in scenic design. He is the president of the technical theater career tech student organization. He has 39 credits and a 4.0 GPA at the University of Cincinnati that he will carry forward at Northwestern as well. And he has received fives on his AP chemistry exam. Good evening. I am Leavon Neil, the proud principal of Schroeder High School. It is my pleasure to introduce to you our validictorian, Kaylee Williams.

023According to her teachers, Kaylee is a very gifted and academically ch talented student. Her academic achievements include a weighted GPA of 4.9. She has earned 20 college credit over $80 in scholarship. Her leadership roles include she is the student council treasurer, vice president of the peer leadership college program, president of girls to women, and team manager of our girls basketball and volleyball teams. She also completed over 80 hours of community service. She will be going to the University of Cincinnati studying chemical engineering. Next, it's my pleasure to introduce Kennedy Cannon, our saludiatoran. Her teachers have remarked that Kennedy is a very focused student who can excel beyond expectations. As a OSU young scholar, she has earned over 20 credit uh college credits. She also has a 4.7 GPA, has um commended over 100 community service

024hours, and also she works over 20 hours a week at Smoothie King, and she does a very good job. In the fall, Kennedy will be um attending the Ohio State University, majoring in nursing. [Applause] We do. Okay. I'm Nina Janakio and I'm the principal of Spencer Center. I'm honored to celebrate five seniors tonight. It has been an incredible honor to serve as their principal. Each year, the faculty of Spencer Center presents one of our graduating seniors with the Mary and Spencer Graduate Award. Named for our namesake, Mary and Spencer. This award is presented to a student who exemplifies high academic achievement, a commitment to our community, and like Marian is an advocate for others. This year, I'm like emotional. Okay. This year, we are presenting this award to Jasper Chzik. Jasper is graduating with an

025unweighted GPA of 4.0 and will be continuing her studies at George Washington University during internationalness. Tied for first in class is Bix Griffith. She is a National Merit finalist and earned the Governor's Merit Scholarship. Bix is also graduating with an unweighted GPA of 4.0 and will be attending Oberlin College and is thus far undecided about her major. [Applause] We have a three-way tie this year for second in class. All three of these students have earned an unweighted GPA of 3.88. First, we have Kiara Webb. Seventime Kira is a seventime martial arts national champion and will be attending the University of Cincinnati. Yes, she apologizes that she's shaking with her left hand this evening. She'll be attending the University of Cincinnati and studying supply chain management. [Applause] Next we have Malachi Shri. Malachi is a gifted

026musician who will also be attending the University of Cincinnati and majoring in mechanical engineering technology. [Applause] Yes. Yes. And finally, Jackson Rogers. I have known Jackson Rogers since Spencer Center opened in 2017 and he was but a fifth grader at that time. Jackson will be attending the University of Cincinnati and studying film studies. He is also already a filmmaker. He directs films and we're so excited to see his films on the big screen one day. Hi, good. How are you? Hi, good evening. I'm Ashley Morgan. I am currently the interim principal at Walnut Hills High School and I am super excited to introduce you to Sarah Wilson, who is the class of 2025 distinguished scholar for Walnut Hills High School. at Wet Hill. She is deeply involved in the journalism program as the managing editor

027for the visual elements for the newspaper, The Chatterbox, and won the National High School Journalism Quiz Bowl with her teammates in November. She also serves as a class of 2025 student congress secretary, a student representative on the LSDMC, which we all know is a big deal for her to be there and is um a peer tutor. Additionally, she is the National Merit finalist, and an AP scholar with distinction. Outside of school, Sarah has enjoyed spending time volunteering in the Serest Studios at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and at the Cincinnati Zoo, where she will begin working this summer. In the fall, Sarah will be attending Binmar College to study chemistry on a premed track. She greatly appreciates the experiences she has had at Walnut Hills and is eager to continue growing both academically and personally in her

028future endeavors. All right. And next, I'm proud to introduce Audrey Simon Kumlady Scholar for the class of 2025. Audrey is a driven academic and active member both within the Walnut Hills community and beyond. At Walnut, she is the co-founder and co-president of the OCYCL, Walnuts Environmental Policy and Climate Action Club. She's a member of the Walnut Hills Poetry Slam Team, as well as a public relations head for the Tri Music Honor Society and the V and a vocal ensemble member. You can often find her volunteering at the as a student editor in the student writing center where she loves helping refine students refine their writing and heading public relations for the center. Outside of Walnut, Audrey is an accelerated dancer at Goddance Studios and a book seller at Joseph Beth Book Sellers. Audrey will be

029attending the Ohio State University this fall as a Stamps Eminence Scholar, class of 2029, pursuing a bachelor's degree in environmental policy and economics. Audrey hopes to continue her involvement in policy work and environmental advocacy while also staying in tune with her artistic side. Postgraduation, Audrey plans to take time off for travel and volunteer, ultimately wanting to attend law school and start a career as an environmental litigation attorney or economist. [Applause] Good afternoon. I am proud to acknowledge both our vows and salves tonight. Our valadictorian is Fina Ansa. [Applause] She participated in a variety of clubs including the student ambassadors, key club, JCG, and academic club. She's passionate about her success and has a strong work ethic. She is very outgoing. She received several accolades for her academic achievement and maintained a 5.1 GPA. She took

030full She took full advantage of the accelerated courses that we offer and she achieved over 20 college credits. Fina has obtained many community service hours and secured a variety of scholarships. She will attend the University of Cincinnati and major as a premed. She changed her mind. If you see that up there, she changed her mind. [Laughter] Next, I want to bring up Ar Ari Arana Kynth. She is our valadictorian. She is a kindhearted student who possesses strong leadership skills. She served as class officer, engaged in a variety of community service projects, and received several scholarships. Ariana maintained a 4.67 GPA. She will attend Miami University and major in psychology and criminology. She participated in JCG and the swim club. And while achieving all of these things that she achieved, she worked two jobs. Yes. Good

031evening, Superintendent Murphy, Board Member Moffett, and all of our distinguished uh CPS school board members. It is uh with great honor that I am again I am uh Jiren Gray, principal at Wro University High School and is with great honor and I am very excited and proud to uh introduce our Wro University High School validictorian, Miss Micah Perkins. [Applause] Micah is currently a senior at Whitrow University High School, class of 2025. She is the recipient of the University of Cincinnati's Darwin Turner Scholarship. She's also the recipient of the Governor's Merit Scholarship. She is the winner. Yes. Yes. She is the winner of the Literary Perspectives Women's Writing Group essay contest. She maintains an outstanding GPA of 4.94. She com Yes. She completed three college level courses and five AP classes earning unit credits. She's engaged

032in multiple extracurricular activities at Withro uh such as our CMAC champion academic quiz team. Come on. uh drama club uh participating uh most recently in our production of 12 Angry Jurors and former uh productions of the Adams family, Sleepy Hollow, and A Christmas Carol. And she also is a member of our mighty with row marching band. She is recognized with honor role on the honor role every semester and she works over 30 hours at Kroger's as a cashier. Micah aspires to become a psychologist who is driven by academic excellence and a passion for contributing to communities again at the University of Cincinnati. I present to you again with the University High School's validictorian Micah Perkins. I'm also very proud uh and excited to present our saludiatoran Sahar Harsh [Applause] Menhas. Harsh is currently a senior

033at Wrill University High School, our class of 2025. Harsh is the recipient of the Marian Spencer scholarship at the University of Cincinnati. Come on. That's a four-year uh scholarship room tuition board travel abroad. As most of you know, he he will be majoring in health sciences premed at the University of Cincinnati. He is a recent uh recipient of the Kappa Alphasai fraternity scholarship awarded for academic achievement and leadership. He is the recipient of the governor's merit scholarship. He is the recipient of the Congress uh of future medical leaders award of excellence. Harsh is none to play with. All right. He completed a prestigious internship at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and their accounting division. He is a member of the National Society of High School Scholars. He maintains an outstanding GPA of 4.73. He completed 15 college

034level courses and six AP classes, earning 42 unit credits, placing him on track to enter college as a sophomore. He's a member he's a a member of Yes. He is a member of the Cincinnati Police Department's police cadet program. Uh he served for two years as a sergeant in his first year and a lieutenant. Uh in this last year, he's engaged in multiple extracurricular activities at WRO. uh and with Rose Medical Club, environmental science club. He is also a member of our CMAC champion academic quiz team, Speak Up, Speak Out, Men of Moore, president of student senate. Uh he's also a member of our varsity baseball team and captain of Wthro's peer leadership uh committee. Uh he's recognized with uh numerous academic honors, uh student of the month, academic achievement and on and on. He

035aspires to become a cardiologist uh who is driven uh by academic excellence and passion uh giving back to the community. I present to you Wro University High School's saludiatorum Mr. Harsh Menhus. Good evening. Good evening. Miss Murphy, Dr. Smith, board members, we'd like to welcome our valictorians and saloonatorans tonight. Dr. Hillerbrand, we will be presenting young people tonight. And we would like to start off with Jules Hendris, Dollar Victorian, class of 2025. [Applause] Juel has been a driving force behind the peers and success at Woodward, offering guidance, support, and encouragement throughout his high school journey. His leadership, intelligence, compassion sets the tone for the class of 2025 at Woodward. We celebrate Jules and can't wait to see what the future holds. Juel has been dedicated helping his classmates. He was part of the LSDMC, captain

036of the Pier College Collaborative, also a proud recipant of the UC Marian Spencer Award Scholarship, and he will be attending the University of Cincinnati majoring in education. [Music] [Applause] And our future math teacher, he's going to be majoring in math. Okay. So, we looking forward for Jules to come back. They already say you have a contract, young man. We got you. So, let's give it up for Jules Hendricks. Next, we like to spotlight Jawan Jordan. Jawan Jordan. He led He led the student walk out against violence at Woodward full ride. He also has a full ride of Marian Spencer scholarship recipient and he will be attending the University of Cincinnati. He was an active member in multiple sports. He's also a mentor more college peer leadership collaborative community advocate multiple multiple scholarships and accolades. We

037can go on and on but we will not tonight. Juel Jordan embodies leadership, resilience, compassion. Whether through advocacy, athletics, or academics, he has been a beacon of light and a strength in our school and community. As he begins this next chapter of his journey, we know he will continue to be the force in change. Woodward is very proud and we can call him our own. Thank you, Jawan George. And Dr. Hillibbrand will present the next candidate. Good evening. This is uh Griselda whereas Hernandez. She is our saludiatoran graduating with a 4.18 GPA. She is a leader of our CTE program holding six of our construction certificates. She is accepted to the Ohio State University, Rochester Institute of Technology, Central State University, and the University of Cincinnati. She has completed the Next Engineeries Academy with a

038three-year STEM program. She is a scholarship award recipient, including full tuition, merit-based band, and external awards. She has earned the Ohio's governor merit-based scholarship CYC outstanding student scholarship and is the recipient of the US Darwin Tun Turner Scholarship distinction. She will attend UC to major in mechanical engineering. She is a she is a passionate and talented musician, a member of our all city band and Woodward's marching band. She has performed to the Cincinnati Red's opening day parade and will represent Ohio in Atlanta with Woodward's band. Griselda's dedication, talent, and leadership has left a lasting mark on Woodward. We are proud to celebrate her journey and excited for all that lies ahead of her and knows that she will have great success. [Applause] So parents and families, before you leave, because everybody came for this wonderful

039board meeting, we would like to say congratulations on the graduation of your seniors and congrats to you. So, we lost two board members, but I think we're going to keep going. All righty. Do other board members have anything else to say about that? All right, let's move. So, let's begin tonight's meeting with a budget update. We are having an update regarding the CPS foundation. Um, Mike, Mike and I are going to share this. I I wanted to um I gotta get this list on my phone here. Bear with me for a sec because I I took notes on my phone. Um so yes, so we had our first um joint uh board meeting uh last week and uh we uh discussed um we we were we're trying to get the fundraising targets kind of set

040and uh but not too not too specific so that when we receive when the foundation receives donations that they are in line with our strategic plan and in line with our goals but also not so specific that our hands are tied. So the the group and this is not final this is just kind of a in process but we broke it down into five general areas where we might uh consider pursuing uh funds through fundraising. Number one academic excellence. Number two, wellness, which includes a broad, it's a part of a broad category that includes mental health, athletics, music, and art after school activities. Uh, another area is workforce development. Um, the fourth area is they c we kind of called it wider world, but it's basically experiences for CPS students to travel outside of Cincinnati.

041And the last one is safety. So those are just tentatively five big areas that uh we're thinking that might be uh served well for for fundraising for the foundation. So the goal is in the first year their goal is to raise $2 million and um so they are already well on their way with a quiet campaign and they'll probably go uh with a more public campaign sometime in maybe first of the year in January. It's just a quiet campaign right now and um they it's a very collaborative group, very excited group about the future and uh they uh um money that they can raise for for the district. Uh they're looking at a goal over the next uh five years of $20 million. So it's it's it's ambitious, but I I also think it's doable.

042So it was a was a very positive meeting and uh Superintendent Murphy and Assistant Treasurer Mike Gustin were in also on for the district. So that's the update on that meeting. Um I think Mike's going to do a little more filling up on the expense filling information on the expense budget. Um so I I'll I'll let him take over for a minute. How's that sound? I may ask some color commentary regarding that since I was part of the subcommittee. Thank you. Thank you. So um just to remind the public who doesn't know what we're talking about right now, Mr. Cross board member crosset is the appointment appointed person from the board to the um ABC foundation. We converted that position over to the foundation as the foundation um became a foundation because it was just

043an ABC appointment and we look forward to formalized reports moving forward. So, um, we'll put those in the consent agenda, but this was a great update to precursor us going into the budget of the foundation. I do know quite quite a few I think board members have questions around the budget so of the foundation. And really just um I also believe Mr. Ho sent out to board members the original right before the meeting as requested. So that's in your emails as well. So Mr. Gustin, thank you board member Crosset, Mr. Gustin and Superintendent Murphy. I'm going to let you give a CPS foundation budget update. Cool. Thank you. Thank you, President Moffett. Um Rob, you go to the next slide. So, three slides and then we'll take questions. Um so, first slide kind of on

044everyone's mind are the different kind of the I guess the development of the budget. So, so you've seen the board members have there is a value in there. Um and there's a there's a table of I guess annual budget estimates. Um and then we also met with ABC's leadership a couple of times before uh budget finance and growth committee. You can see kind of the middle number there. And then the value on the far right is what was discussed at budget finance and growth. I think that was two Fridays ago maybe trying trying to but yes um ABC was or yeah the ABC group soon to be the CPS foundation was was able to come and present to the budget finance and growth committee. um with their budget. If you go to the next slide,

045next slide is a summary kind of of revenue and expenses. So, so you can see here's Mr. Cross that mentioned, you know, the goal um for fundraising for this first year is $2 million. Um and so that really leaves a net in net return of $658,000 um based on their budget request and the fundraising goal. And then the third and final slide, Rob, if you is a is a more breakdown of their budget. And so one of the requests that I asked is to is to take their um expenses and restate them into CPS categories. You know, so this is these categories are very similar to what we present. We present the budget. Um not generally what a nonprofit would do, but they were nice enough to do that for us. Um so so that

046what you're seeing there is what you would expect to look at um from any budget request from any one of our schools or departments. So a couple of things that came up. I'll get ahead of the get ahead of the questions. Um one of them was about rent. There is a rent expense there. Um they are in their current location until I believe March of 26. And so I know we've talked about um the foundation using um some CPS space um for their offices, but that would not happen till the earliest at March and probably more realistically um probably July of 26. And they did put in some moving expenses in their budget request. You know, that is something we could perhaps do as an inind contribution as well. Do board members have any was

047that? Okay. So, do board members have any questions? Board member Weinberg. Um, can we just go back to the first slide? I wanted to see what the admin I'm sorry, not the first slide. Go again forward. Um, yes, right here. I just wanted to see the breakdown again of the administrative costs because I know that that did go up. So, the total would be the 1 million 332. It's actually 1341. Um there's a there's some bank and loan fees there. There's some what some bank and loan fees that aren't um operating expenses or they're not administrative expenses are operating expenses. So that gives a total of 1,341,587. Okay. I just wanted to make sure on that. Thank you Lendy. Thank you. Um, I had uh one thought for the future and then one question. The

048on the future piece. Um, we're just getting started with this foundation's first time we've done this. I like the way that theou is written so that each party has a way to check year-over-year to make sure that both parties are getting what they need for a productive impactful relationship. Um, I think going forward, one healthy thing for us to look at will be the um just the fundraising overhead cost for the Cincinnati Public Schools Foundation versus other school foundations around the country. Um, the cost going to fundraising relative to the overall budget is higher than I'm used to seeing. I still think this is something we should do. And if we find out over time that maybe this is right in line with other school foundations, great. Uh if it is high, um then I

049think in in future years we should address that. Um but I do think it's something that we should start and I think it's a good thing for us to benchmark. Um I mean usually you can pull this off of a 990 that a that a foundation is is filing and we can we can just look at it. Uh so I think that'll just be an important thing for us to look at going forward. I think my question is about um the I I appreciate the solicitation of uh ideas from board members on what fundraising priorities could be. Um is there a timeline on when we'll hear back on decisions on that front? Um I think uh they're thinking that I think they're a June it's either a June 1 or June 30 year. I think

050it's in line with our school year. It's in line with our school year. So, we probably need to get this finalized fairly soon. So, so by end of June, we'll hear back from the foundation on what the priorities for their fundraising will be. Yes, they are. We we had an initial meeting and those were five categories and I think there's a subcommittee that's being formed to kind of take a look at those and also evaluate not just um our needs but also um some they're going to take some look at u what other foundations have found to be what donors tend to donate for to help to help target that a little bit. So, it's not final, but yes, fairly soon. And I think I may be asking a related, but slightly different question. I

051can't I can't tell. It might be the same thing, but I can imagine um the foundation will have some broad categories they want to fund raise in. We were also asked to submit like pretty specific requests around amounts and just you know like the the the I'm not sure what other board members shared but for my part you know I would like to see teachers who work in hard to staff schools and who work in hard to staff subject areas make more uh and I think this is a great opportunity for the foundation to raise some of that privately uh to make sure that we are we are compensating teachers more. Uh I'd like to start doing that as soon as we can. Uh, but I also know I might I'm one perspective. There are

052seven, six others. Um, but when it comes to the specific proposals that we put in there, when do we hear back on this? Um, I guess we'll get something back from them that we can bounce off of, you know, for our next meeting, I would imagine. Um, I I do think that one of the categories, the top category was academic excellence. So, it's in line with what you're talking about. That's great. Thank you. Yeah, Mr. Lundy, we kind of did the opposite. So we started with sharing all of the ideas that were shared with me for example and then as a group put them in categories. So your um two pieces were shared broadly with the whole group. Thanks. And so we'll get an update on where that lands by the end of June. Great.

053Thanks. Okay. We'll definitely add that to the assignment list as well. Any other questions? Vice President Bolton. Thank you very much. Um, I think this is a long time coming and I think it's great and I I know it's because it's new to us. It it there's a lot that needs to yet be done uh and and discovered and I think the comparative analysis that Mr. Lindy mentions is is is very val excuse me very valid. Um, I still maintain, as I have maintained for a while, that I still think the board as a whole needs to have some sort of conversation uh to outline in our own minds uh in order to advise uh the foundation board as to some of our general sense of what the purpose of this is and how whatever

054monies should be used in whatever ways. so that we do that initially on the front side of this instead of be too intrusive throughout uh with the foundation board. So I do still look forward to that kind of conversation. I also think we have to be very careful in the messaging because as we start this foundation uh we don't uh we we're also as you see on the agenda talking about a renewal uh levy this year and I think we have to be very careful the vocabulary that we use uh regarding the monies and the solicitations and the uh efforts by the foundation and the monies that is gathered and assembled by their great efforts versus the kinds of money that we see as general taxpayer funding. And I think we have to just kind

055of agree on on not only kind of the vision and the mission as the uh as the uh agreement kind of points out, but the board having some sense of uh of the purpose, but also that both the board and the foundation use the same vocabulary to describe what it is that we're trying to do. and and I think the less confusion the more money will be raised. So, thank you for your efforts. Well, member Craig. Um, so again, I think appreciate the hard work we're doing to work on this. Uh, and I think one of the issues was something we talked about at the finance committee, which was the change in amounts. I think it's been explained. Um, I will say and and I put into my communications back of my thoughts, I don't

056love the idea of individual board members submitting individual ideas for projects. And I and I say that because I think that gets to a point where board members are going to be influencing rather than the superintendent in the district deciding what is the priorities of the district. I I really do believe that is fundamentally where that should come from. Um because honestly unless we all sit here and look at all the work that's going on individually and look at all the budgets and see what people need, we're going to be coming with the things that we like and not necessarily the things that the district needs. And so I would maybe offer that instead of us coming up with individual projects and maybe suggesting directions or perspectives is is a better way of doing that

057as opposed to individual projects. Um because I can tell you right now there's a lot of stuff that we would love to be able to do in the district that sounds really great and if someone told me about it, I'd be like, "Oh, that's phenomenal. just go for it. Doesn't mean that that's something that's the best use of the foundation's resources, nor is that the best thing for them to be able to go out and recruit funds for. And so, I think that partnership with the superintendent and her team is maybe the better direction to give that guidance. Um, because again, you know much more than I do what our schools need and what our our directors are. The only thing I would say is that there are definitely a few things we've talked about

058over the years that are things that we have been trying to figure out how we might pay for differently that a foundation could certainly cover. And I would just maybe ask that that be something we look at additionally as a first round of stuff because there are certainly things that we've had concerns with in regards to how the long-term we as a district can continue to pay for it and say that that's something that's a benefit to the district or good public uh good uh public policy. So, um, so from that end of it, I think that's something I would maybe trust more that the superintendent will bring the recommendations or bring suggestions and work with, um, the foundation to kind of structure out. Um, so that was my concern with just giving out specific

059um, projects or ideas or funds is that that really opens up folks to reach out to board members soliciting what they would prefer to have done as opposed to what actually needs to get done. Um, the other thing and I want to maybe kind of at some point we can put this together or put some thoughts to this is kind of more of an expectation of when some of the projects or what the ideas when we start funding certain things or taking a hold of certain things because I think it also would be helpful for the board to understand um kind of a year timeline and then like a three-year timeline as to kind of the hope of growth. So if the goal is, you know, this year while we grow 2 million, we're not

060going to have 2 million at day one, but by year two, year three, we'll have these different things that we've grown up, we were now able to do differently and now be able to start expanding how the foundation might work with uh projects within the schools because I think that that also will give us a better understanding of what are the priorities, what are the needs based on kind of a timeline throughout the year and throughout a kind of a two or three year span. Um, you know, again, I appreciate all the hard work folks are doing and so uh I think it's best for us to use this in the best way we can. Okay. Any any other? So, I um I'll go last. I appreciate the hard work of the foundation. I'm super

061excited for it to begin. I I think I'm going to be the one to speak about the elephant in the room. I am concerned about the cost. I think that we theou had the one can you go back to the previous slide Rob had the 1.1 um the previous one before that one let's see um I think during this time maybe the one before that during this time that we are experiencing having to make budget cuts as a district I think that unfortunately all of our units and now inclusive of the foundation need to assume that same posture as So, so I'm not um necessarily I don't want to get into who should be hired or or anything like that, but I do want us to be cognizant of the increase of 200,000 is to

062hire two more people. Perhaps that can't happen right now. Maybe that needs to happen just with just one person. But the 1.1 is a stretch. God bless you. 1.1 is a stretch and I think that we need to be um mindful of the expectation regarding the fiscal responsibility that we have. Although I am cognizant that the $2 million is the anticipated goal, I don't foresee that the foundation will have a problem reaching that goal. But I do think that um in out of respect for what we have to do for the running of the district, we need to also put some of those same restrictions and restraints on the foundation as well. Absolutely supportive of it. Just recognizing that we may be a we may have a need to um put some sort of uh

063uh restrictions on it for this year. Having said that, I I do want to also know if theou is inclusive of measuring performance of the foundation that to my knowledge hasn't been identified um succinctly enough. Who's going to measure that performance? Who's going to approve the money spent? Um is the board going to have the final say on that? Is that going to be the administration? I think there are some significant fiscal responsibilities that remain unanswered that I would like to see. I don't know if they're in theou because I had that was sent to us prior to the meeting rather than on Friday with time enough to review that. So if those things are there then I think that's great. But if they're not there, I think we have a significant amount more work

064to do so that I feel comfortable signing off on the 1.1, which I think we tentatively signed off on, and then the desired increase um of of $200,000 more, and what does that look like? And um so I I don't know if those things have been answered um for me to feel comfortable. Maybe the other board members are fine with that but I am still a little bit bit um nervous of it but I'm extremely supportive of it absolutely needs to needs to happen but perhaps it cannot happen in the manner at which we intended upon when we first started. So again I don't know do do we need when will we with regard to a timeline with respect to uh board member Lindy's statement when do we need to put dates to this? This

065is proposed for the next year or is this we need to when do we need to vote for this? Mr. This is proposed for fiscal year 26. So that would start in start July 1st like all the other okay pieces of the budget. So we're going to need to be making some decisions around uh we've already can I just ask a clarifying question? We've already finalized theou is that right? We've already signed theou and theou was signed at the 1.12 1,124,963. Is that right? That is the value in theou. Okay. So there's there's language that says and and legal legal council ho can probably help me out with this, but there's language that says, you know, this is the amount um the parties can agree on a different amount. I believe um if the parties

066cannot come to an agreement then the 1,124,963 would be the amount. Okay. And so that needs to I'm I'm guess I'm a little confused around the process. So the board needs to is this is the the suggestion of the 1.3 saying hey we we're desiring that amount and then the board needs to go back and approve that or is that how is that going to just be uh based on theou? So maybe Mr. Horn does need to come up to answer the question based on theou how does that how is that procedurally say this is new for all of us the way I see it the board is going to be approving our budget in totality and this is a part of that ask as we move further and further closer to that ask. So,

067we need to say we are accepting the 1.3 or we're back at the 1.1. Hold on one second. Vice President, I I I think I want to understand, are we going to keep having submissions and then all of a sudden it's in the budget and we've just approved it or do we need to vote to increase the 1.1 to 1.3? I believe we are. We voted to accept theou and in the future soon hopefully June we'll be voting on our school budget for fiscal year 26 as a whole and that will include the line item for the foundation I understand that my question is not that my question is this is a request for 1.3 theou was approved at 1.1 if we don't do does the board need to approve 1.3 or is this 1.3

068just going to be up for discussion and then placed in the budget with no further board vote on the 1.3. I I I agree with the superintendent. The the this would be included as a part of the budget for next year. If the board doesn't agree on some kind of a budget for uh ABC, theou would be the default. I mean it would it we have already agreed on theou. Okay. So let me ask my question differently. The suggestion today on this screen is to have a current budget for the foundation of $1,341,587. That is different than the submittedou of 1,124,963 which was approved by the board. If the board does nothing, do we need to vote to have this 1.3 approved in the budget or are we saying that this is what the current

069budget is going to be submitted into the bigger budget from the foundation? My plan is that this is going to be what we submit for the whole plan and my preference would not would be to not do line items individualized. Um, and so the question about should the board vote? Would you vote now? I think that's the pleasure of the board. Or do you wait until the budget is presented? I think that too is the pleasure of the board. Okay. Thank you, Vice President Bolton. Yeah, I I think that the the way to proceed is we have agreed to one and now there is the additional request that's been explained during the finance meeting and uh I my understanding is that with or without the administration's recommendations this will be part of the holistic budget

070but the administration will have to tell us if they recommend this request be adopted. So it the next time we would vote on this is when we vote on the budget itself. Okay. Which which leads me back to my concern because the the budget for the foundation could come back and say, "Oh, we need one we need another $200,000 and then it's just assumed. Where does the board get to say this is the limit?" Regardless of what the administration suggests or the foundation suggests, where is the the pro the process that the board stops and says this is what the the budget is for the foundation? Like everything else when we vote on the budget. So that's going to come as a package rather than So I I think my question is pretty clear. I

071think that there needs to be a point where the board can say this is it for the foundation and there is no more addition. We've already voted on the 1.1. We should have to come back and vote for anything additional to that because that is different than what we voted on. We voted on 1.1. Now it's being amended to 1.3 and there's no vote for that. There's no procedure when we vote for the budget unless somebody wants to have a resolution the next time we meet to specifically talk about this. But it would make sense that this is when you vote is when we vote on the budget. And certainly I know it's not anybody's interest to have a night long line item by line item experience, but I do know that it's not going

072to be possible. We're going to have some sort of hybrid and I would imagine those things that uh are packaged are packaged and big and some of these things that have risen to the interest and the concern of the board probably have to be more itemized and that's when we'll be voting on whether or not this additional uh monies that's been requested and that's all it is is requested uh would be voted on by the board. Okay. I think my question really still maybe it's just a little confusing. So I'll happen to ask I have just have to ask it a little differently and maybe I'll just make a um a note to bring it back when we talk about the full budget to ensure that it stays at the 1.1 and not the 1.3

073because I think that procedurally and I'm going to definitely look at theou I think that that I'm a little confused as to where the board gets to make the decision that this number just remains what it is. But again to your point, I don't want to have a long lengthy discussion, but I do want to provide some clarity not only to myself and other board members, but to the public who we're using the money to um to use. Any other questions? All right. So, our next topic is related to the foundation. We do as a as a part of theou need to have a community member appointment. I asked board members to send in names about a community member. One name did come up. I didn't know if you all like that particular person, but

074uh former board member Moroski came up as a name, but can you all send in does anyone have a preference that they'd like for us to inquire about regarding a name of a community member? Yes, Mr. Crosset. I'm t I'm talking to a few people to see if they would be interested and would be willing to submit their name. So, if I can have a little more time to get that done. Sure. So, can we get that by the next board meeting? Sure. And I believe there may be two, but there's one seat specifically. And in talking to the executive director of the foundation, she said there may be two seats. So, let's submit names and then have our board admin get those uh resumes to all the board members. Uh let's continue our discussion

075of the I'm sorry, board member Matt. Um yes. So as it pertains to um the appointment of a community member, is it possible and I don't know if we did this I can't remember if we did it for um preschool promise but where people may be interested that they are able to submit their names and we consider those. So I wanted to make sure that opens that up opportunity as well. Yes. Do you want that to be published like on the CPS website or I don't know I don't know how you want to get that out. I mean, that would be fine with me as long as we're um listing what the deadline would be for them. I think that would be great. That sounds good, too. Thank you for that. Any other questions, comments,

076concerns? So, let's our next topic. Let's continue on with um the levy discussion from last month's board meeting. This is all under old business. Yes, sir. Well, thank you, Mr. Gustin. Thank you. Appreciate it. Um, so gonna kind of go back over some levy stuff, hopefully answer some questions. I think there were some questions at the end of last board meeting, so hopefully we can kind of clear those up. Um, first slide here, I think we've seen it before. These are just the types of levies that we could could put on the ballot. Want to make sure you know kind of pros and cons. A lot of times with levies, the pros are also the cons. So, for example, an emergency levy will collect the same amount for the entire life of the levy. So,

077early on that might be a pro. You know, as inflation and things get more expensive, it can be a con that you're still collecting the same amount of money. Um, the big things to look at here, I think, are are usage. You know, some of these can only be used for permanent improvements, your bond levy, um your permanent improvement levy. Others are more general so you can use them for anything um that the district needs. And then obviously there's between fixed sum and fixed millage where fixed sum are going to return an amount. Fixed millage are going to be based on a rate which can go up or down based on property values. Next slide please. So so one of the things I tried to do here was look at you know what are revenue

078needs. So I think we've talked about a lot of these before. added a box for preserve existing revenue, which I don't think we've called out before as a thing, but it's definitely a thing that we need to do. And just want to remind folks we have an opportunity um and that our bond leveies and our bonds for the facilities master plan will be paid off in December of 2031. If you go to the next slide, Rob. Um so this is the famous slinky slide kind of put into a grid and and what we're trying to show here is how we can apply our strategies um to the different years that we have here. So so 2025 is looking like a preserve existing revenue um strategy but then we have opportunities in 26 27 and 28

079um to do new operating funds or to do facility maintenance um things. So, one of the things to say is why is new operating funds a question mark. Um, it's simply because we don't know. You know, there's there's the state budget and how much state support we get. There's the federal budget and, you know, how much federal support we may or may not get. Um, there's obviously inflation, you know, and then there are the effects of the growth plan and how that may change our enrollment or change some of our cost. So, it's hard today to estimate what that would look like. Uh, next slide, please. So, another question that came up was about substitute levies and what those do for us. So, there's a couple purposes to a substitute levy. U first one is

080to convert an emergency levy to a continuing levy. I don't think the board is interested in a continuing period at this point, but it's an option. The other thing a substitute levy does is it captures future growth in property values. I'll kind of show an example of that in the next slide. And then it does maintain the tax rate on existing properties. So, so what makes a substitute different than a fixed rate levy is your existing properties are still going to be still going to be fall under that fixed under that fixed sum, right? So, existing properties today for a $48 million levy are still going to generate $48 million, but new values that come into the tax roles are also going to get taxed at that same rate. So, you can see a little

081bit of additional income. If you go to the next slide, Rob, um, we had David Connley, some of you know him from Rockville Financial Consulting. He helped me do an analysis of what this would look like. And so what this is saying is if we have around $63 million of new construction, new values, u, we do see some additional revenue. It goes down every year. Kind of every year's new values become next year's existing values. I I I see the smirk. Yeah. And so and so it happens. it is kind of the diminishing returns. So, so the question, the big question to think about is is this additional amount of money, you know, a maximum of 300,000 and going down, is it worth what we would say the difference in putting a substitute levy on

082the ballot? If you go to the next slide, Rob, you can see the ballot language there. Um, there's different ballot language for substitute. It uses a word substitute versus renewal. It also at the end has some interesting wording about how it's going to apply to new property values that aren't previously taxed. So it is a longer ballot question um than a renewal would be. All right. So next slide. Um we had some questions about school district income tax. So we wanted to kind of go through that. So biggest benefit of this is diversification of your income stream. This is one type of taxation that that is not linked to property tax values. And so I know that's that's a big thing. Um you can use it for operating expenses or permanent improvements. You can do

083it for a number of years or continuing. So it has the same sort of options um that a property tax would. Um about about a third of all districts in the state are doing this now. So it is it has become popular, you know, since the folks in Wyoming started many years ago. Um it continues to grow. One of the interesting things is just here at CPS, our payroll department withholds um school district income tax for eight different school districts that our employees live in. So if you go to the next slide, Rob, you also have the ability to do two different tax bases. And I think this is one of the things that makes it really um really exciting, really interesting to folks. Traditional tax base works very much like your state income tax.

084So it uses the same um gross income. um it had you allowed to have some exemptions, but yeah, it it it feels just like your state income tax. Earned income is going to be just that. It's going to be wages, salaries, tips, and self-employment income. What that really means is an earned income, school income tax is not going to tax for the most part people's retirement income or their investment income. So, so I know a lot of a lot of push back we get from our our things is folks on fixed incomes, you know, you know, and trying to do that. And so this this is obviously something that a lot of schools should look at as as a really good tool to to kind of balance out you know our taxing needs and folks

085income needs. If you go to the third slide on this Rob is just a comparison between our municipal income tax and school district income tax. So a lot of cities also have municipal income tax. Uh the big difference is municipal tax applies to folks who work in the in the city and folks who live in the city whereas a school income tax is only going to apply to residents. Um both of them allow employer withholdings. So employers will take it out of people's checks as they go. Um and kind of a difference in collection. School district income taxes are collected by the Ohio Department of Taxation. Um municipal cities can have their own tax department or there's a couple groups. One of them is called Rita, one of them is called CCA um that do

086collections for them. So, putting it all together, just want to remind people of our deadlines um for this November. So, they're out there. We have a little bit of time, but I think I think the the last discussion wanted to move this forward um and get to a decision. So my final slide for this and then I'm happy to take questions is is is kind of a way to select levies. Rob, if you could Thank you, sir. So, so I tried to put all the options or the options we've talked about on one slide. Um, so in order for us to get to a resolution for a levy, you know, we need to pick a type, need to pick a length, and there needs to be an amount. So the the bold the bold values

087are the ones that have been talked about most frequently uh in the discussions here. Um all the values are possibilities but but I wanted to kind of put it all in one slide. Uh you notice we did cross out replacement as an option um based on past bill passage of House Bill 28. Uh there's a good chance we won't be able to do a replacement levy in the future. So from that I will take questions. Board members, any board member Lindy? Um, Mr. Gustin, uh, did you make these slides? I did. They're very good. And I just wanted to say thank you, and I'm glad that you're going to be our next treasure. Uh, I particularly like this one with the decisions on it. And I like the one that takes the spaghetti slide, keeps

088it on there, but then shows like where we would fit various pieces we need over the next several years. I don't know the answers to those questions. Um, not yet. But, uh, it's really helpful. I'll just say like I' I've shared this before, but I think, um, this fall we should do a renewal and do it for 10 years. Um, I think it is the I'm really worried about putting any of that funding at risk because I don't know what we do without it. Uh, and so I think that just for my part, let's get it locked in. Let's get locked in for a long period of time. Um, and then and then come up with I think these really important questions that need to get answered. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Any other board

089member questions, comments? Board member Cross. U will we be able to assess whether the substitute levy language is um too too negative in terms of public response to that or and it's you said it's $300,000. $300,000 and then kind of goes down every year from there. Year. So would that I guess a question doesn't need to get answered now, but maybe we need to think about it. Would the confusing language of a substitute levy prevent us from uh seeking new money? Would it would it be a hindrance to that in the future? I I don't know because it looks like we're asking for new money now. Just don't you don't need to answer, but I think it's just something that's occurs to me when I hear you say it's a big a lot more language

090on the ballot and then it's, you know, is it worth that much money to risk a a renewal? I mean, that that is the crux of the question. Is it worth the potential confusion for for 300,000 on a you know right now $48 million levy member Craig? Um so you know I think the renewal seems to be one that we all seem to be fine with. I I don't know that there's necessarily I think there's potential some risk with substitute and language and whether or not people read it carefully enough for understand it way and I think that has a lot to do with our own marketing. Um, I would recommend though that we kind of make a decision sooner than later on this and in large part for two reasons. One is I think

091we still need to do uh a true marketing campaign around this that also works with the folks from preschool promise. talks about the great benefits that our district has seen with kindergarten kindergarten readiness, how that prepares students, how the district's functioning and working hard through the challenges that are being put forward before us in a way that really benefits the things that actually are benefited by using this levy. Um, but the second reason really gets into the opportunities to do anything else is I think we need a comprehensive message around what other things we would do longer term. And I don't think we get there by putting off this till July. Um, I think this has got to be part of the conversation from our with our budget as well because I think there are

092things that we are going to eventually need to address through new money that comes also as part of whether or not we as a district can commit to it in our budget for this year even. Are we committing to it with the understanding that we're going to try and do something to address these things next year or the years after um in some form or fashion? That includes repairs to buildings and things like that that we don't we're not going to budget for this year. Um, and I and I think it just sounds and communicates better that we have a plan when we actually have a plan than if we go out to the public and just ask for one year at a time worth of money. So, my only recommendation is really for us

093if we approve this sooner than later. So, then we can get into planning for any additional potential uh opportunities to um whether it's a PI levy, whether it's a bond, whether it's a income tax, whatever it is to plan it out for our future needs. Thank you, Vice President Bolton. Yes. I second everything that everybody has said. I would just add a couple of things. Um, I do believe that um uh I remain um very shocked and and and and comforted at the same time that even the preschool promise folks that came in and talked about the possible renewal recognized the difficulty uh right now to ask for more. The public needs to know that right now this amount of money is not totally funding preschool for either us or the private providers. And one

094of the reasons to try to do this early rather than late is that what the reality is if we're not going to be increasing the amount of money that the voters are going to be asked to give to us, there will be a need to reduce the amount of money in some way, shape, or form that we're spending on preschool or take more money away from K12 to meet the needs of preschool. So this begins to be part of the larger budget package. Uh I was really kind of supportive of the whole um substitute thing and then people started to really talk to me about oh that new that different language. Uh don't risk anything. I think the best we could hope for would be the renewal that we have and uh to add that

09510 years. I think that's critical because that allows us to leapfrog over a number of requests that would start to make it uh just too much of a levy fatigue uh with the voters. So, um I I think the earlier we decide the better. And I I' I've even given up on the whole substitute even though that would mean some additional revenue. It's not enough revenue to risk this thing failing. Thank you, board member Matt. So, I just wanted to say um and echo the sentiment is thank you for um this presentation in the slide deck with the visuals because I was the one that was really advocating and requesting that so I could make sure that I'm understanding clearly as well as the public because this is difficult language and conversation to really just

096kind of conceptualize. So, thank you again. Um just to make certain that I'm clear and I think that um Vice President Bolton mentioned this but on page six we're talking about how much additional re revenue will we um receive. This is for the substitute levy. Correct. Yeah. So this this is analysis where we had had to substitute levy and you can see the cons you can see the assumptions there but you're getting you're getting the bump from the new construction at the millillage right there in the middle. Okay. And so over time it will steadily decrease year after year. So ultimately it may not be um the best decision for us because we could be potentially losing funding in several different spaces in addition to losing revenue here. Yeah. So the the reason it's not

097I don't think it's as you know kind of as appealing is you know this year's new revenue is going to be next year's B or this year sorry this year's new tax values which is how you get your new revenue becomes next year's existing tax values. Then because it's a fixed sum levy, those values get added to the base which then pushes the millage down and the new next year's new values then get multiplied times a lower number. And so yes, it's over time it's diminishing returns. Okay. And so with the uh renewal, it will keep it consistent at the 48 million. Yes, the the renewal will consistently generate 48 million. I mean, there's a little delinquency there. I think we generally get about 47 and a half, but but it will generate 48 million

098regardless of property values. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Any other comments, questions, concerns? Yeah. Board member, just um when are we making a decision? Well, would anyone like to we we we thought about talking about it having a resolution today, but one woman had questions and so went to make certain that we got all these questions out and we weren't we had a we actually have a resolution based off of what we hear. We have one prepared for the next meeting which be the next business meeting. Not the cow but the next business meeting. That's great. Thank you. Yes. Well, member Weinberg, I was just going to ask that same question because I was looking at here at the levy deadlines. Um, wanted to know what are we waiting for. So, we'll possibly do

099that for the next meeting. Correct. On the next business meeting, not the cow, but the business. Yes, the next business meeting. Because we're here, we've already kind of gotten confirmation from about over half of us that it's the renewal, the 10 years, but we wanted to answer the question around substitute and renewal. So, that's why we waited. Yes, ma'am. I just want to say thank you for you all's patience as I'm, you know, receiving the information to make the most informed decision and so thank you for that. Sure. And I just was going to add um I wasn't done quite in the fact of just agreeing with what everyone else has stated. I would be for the renewal in the 10 year. So just wanted to add that piece in. Okay. So we'll prepare the

100res resolution for the next board meeting which would be May the 19th I believe. Um, so that'll come and I'm hearing renewal 10 years 48 million, which is the slide 12, Rob. That's what I'm hearing everyone say. So, we've already got that ready to go. According to um, board member Craig who brings up a great point. If you go to slide 11, we do want to make sure that we're cognizant of our timelines. So, we'll have this done long before our July meetings place. All right. Thank you. Um, let's see. Do board members have any announcements or acknowledgements? Bo member Lindy. Uh, I wanted to say happy teacher appreciation week to all of the teachers who are working in CPS. Uh, thank you for all of your hard work. Um, I know that I park

101is celebrating its teachers this week. I think all schools are celebrating their teachers this week. Um, and if I inadvertently preempted something our superintendent wants to share later on, I apologize, but happy teacher appreciation week. So, happy teacher appreciation week. Let's clap our clap them [Applause] up. Any other board member kudos, announcements? Board member Crosset, thank you. Um Friday we were uh at the Western Hills University High School for the students to launch a billboard campaign to promote pedestrian safety. And this was a they won a pitch comp competition with schoolboard school and they worked in collaboration with a uh an interesting group called Hun United Collective which is a bunch of advertising agencies that have grouped together to uh promote uh students um advancing in the advertising profession. So there there's a picture of

102their billboard that they did. It's across the street from Western Hills High School and it's for pedestrian safety. And then there's a picture of a bunch of the students that uh put it together. So, congrats to them and uh you know, good great for Western Hills University High School. Congrats. [Applause] Next slide. Rob, I have this one. It is school bus driver appreciation day and so um I found this this actually came in my inbox and I was like wow. So I want to say thank you to all of our school bus drivers. Board member Lindy said thank you to all of our teachers but all of us all of our supports uh deserve some recognition and some thanks for all that they do. So thank you to our school bus drivers on this school

103bus driver appreciation day. Clap them up. Any member weber? So, I forgot to submit my picture, so I'll have to maybe do it the next board meeting, but I did want to acknowledge we had a couple CPS students who received the Anthony Munoz scholarship award. And so, I wanted to go first with I'm going to mess up the name, but it's Fina an Anasa Assa Assa Fina Asa from Western Hills University High School with a GPA of 5.1 as we saw today. Correct. She was one of our lovely ones today. So, she received the Anthony Anthony Muno's 2025 straight A recipient. And then we also have um one of our students from today again from Oiler School, Alejandra Martinez. She also um received that as well. We have one more student from Oiler School, Notoria

104Maxwell, who also received it. And I think that was it. So, we have three CPS students that are recipients of the Anthony Munoz Scholarship. board member Craig. Um I'm going to uh give a kind of a pre uh kudo because it's a couple days early and no one should tell me these things, but uh Miss Davis's birthday is on Wednesday. So I wanted to send a happy early birthday and we have a board member who has a birthday too on Friday. So board member Oh, when is it? Wait a minute. It's okay. Thank you. I was like, I thought well remember member Craig has a birthday on this week as well. So congratulations or coming up on the 16th and and I do want to say I went to read across Madisonville. I don't have

105any pictures here along with board member map. Uh the the vice mayor was there. The mayor gave a proclamation. They gave out some awesome books. I made some awesome crafts with some kids that hung out hung out with them. Actually Dr. Smith was there as well. And so um congratulations to John P. Parker in their read across Madisonville event as well. All right. Um, Superintendent Murphy, I believe you have some kudos and announcements. Retirements. Yes, ma'am. I have retirements and I have a few announcements. And so, we have several certificated staff. We'll start off on the next slide with a teacher from Rockdale Academy. Jacqueline K. Allen. Yay. A teacher from College Hill Fundamental Academy. Janet L. Baxter. A teach an intervention specialist. A teacher from Reesei Price Academy. Hannah B. Branson. A teacher from

106Midway. Jennifer L. Green. A daily substitute teacher. Judith D. Jameson Florence. an intervention specialist from James in Gamble Montasauri High School. Sheila S. Liebecamp, a teacher from Fairview Clifton German Language School. Jennifer A. Miller, an intervention specialist from auxiliary services. Michelle L. Stoneciper, a teacher from auxili auxiliary services. Karen C. Titworth Titworth a teacher from Whitten Hills Academy Susan M. Willig and a teacher from Dar Monasuri Elementary School. Cynthia L. Yosh a senior support specialist in our civil service academy. uh Clark Monasuri High School. Beth Anderson, a food service helper from Aken High School. Mabel Carter Allen, a lunchroom manager from Rothenberg Preparatory Academy. Michelle Buntton, a pair of professional from South Aenddale School. Adrienne Butler, an HVAC technician from facilities. John Quarter, a digital marketing supervisor in our communications department. Susan Dorancing Kemper, a

107pair professional from Covedale School. Mark Gush, a pair professional from Frederick Douglas School. Rose Howy, a pair professional from Rothenberg Preparatory Academy. Rhonda Jennings, a pair professional from Sans Monastery School. Mary Mer, an early childhood service coordinator. Marlene G. Neighbor, Maggie Neighbor, a security response team member, uh, Kimberly Pearson Smith. And that does it for our retirees. We truly appreciate their service. We do have some additional kudos. The first one for people um to their but did last week through Hamilton County uh Rebecca Beach. She received a celebrate excellence award. Oh, on the next slide I think. But we won't show the video. We'll ask uh if people would watch the video uh at their leisure. Then we also want to acknowledge uh a deep appreciation to the three schools, Pleasant Ridge Monastery, Gamble Monastery

108High School and two schools in the Ed Center for hosting uh our town hall series and our state representatives uh Densen and Isacson as well as our senator Katherine Ingram for uh participating in our town hall series. On the next slide, kudos to all the participants of the citywide student art exhibition. On the next slide, uh, Rock the Block was held in partnership with the city of Cincinnati at Wro University High School. Congratulations. On the next slide, um, we already mentioned Dr. Moffett Read across Madisonville. And then we had our 3E showcase celebration. Thank you so very much to our secondary education department. On the next slide, a early IT graduation with the University of Cincinnati was held last week. And then also held last week, finally the Tri Health School to work graduation. Congratulations

109to all the schools, the programs, the partners and participants. That concludes my kudos. [Applause] Thank you. We're at the We're in the agenda where Vice President Bolton, the chair is yours to please conduct our hearing of the public. Thank you very much. Uh do we have any online guests? Madam Chair, we uh Vice Chair, we have three guests. Okay, we'll start with them, but let me uh read what uh we have to do. And there's some arrangements that are a little bit different this evening as well. We are now at the item on 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 a request to speak has been granted, you'll be invited to enter. You should click on the

110camera icon to go interactive. Provide your name, your affiliation to the district, your school community, your topic, and your contact information if you'd like a response to any questions. This request is consistent with board protocol and we appreciate your help. In the unusual event that someone is not willing to follow this pro protocol, we reserve the right to end that person's time. Again, each person will have two minutes to speak. When the timer goes off, your time is up. Please refrain from discussing any personnel items. After speaking, if you're online, you'll briefly see the welcome screen again as you transition back to the live stream meeting. Finally, we ask that our public uh commentary be respectful of all listeners. Now, this evening, we will continue our tradition of providing extra time to the president of

111the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, Miss uh Julie Sers. But also tonight uh the time frame will be a little bit different for some of our speakers as a number of our speakers are going to be assisted by Mrs. Ree uh in providing the translation that is needed. So we look forward to this evening. Uh we will listen first to our online folks and if the following people will come down to the front uh as those people are uh speaking uh via the the computer. I need to have uh Magdalina Netzel come down front. Mohamad come down front. and um Ma Ella Aaliyah. Sorry about those pronunciations. And then we'll bring down other folks as that proceeds as well. Uh Rob, if you'll put the uh online folks on. Thank you. Our first online speaker today

112is going to be Clayton Adams. Clayton, you can unmute your camera and microphone and you can begin. You all can come down and have a seat. Good evening, members of the board and Superintendent Murphy. I'm speaking tonight due to some concerning behavior by one of the CPS board members. Since I'm not allowed to specifically address this board member directly by name, I'm hopeful you'll be able to deduce which member I'm speaking of. This specific board member sends out a newsletter every six weeks. And in the most recent newsletter, he made some concerning comments that do not have any basis in reality or fact. Within the newsletter, the uh the unnamed board member states, and I quote, "According to data provided by our administration, and only 27% of our ELA classrooms is the highquality curriculum actually

113being implemented this year." First of all, the same data was provided to us at CTF, and it doesn't state this at all. A team of us within CTF leadership reviewed the data and the data says quite the opposite. In reality, CPS teachers are overwhelmingly using the curriculum the district purchases for them. It's extremely irresponsible for a CPS board member to degrade teachers in this manner and spread misinformation. The vast majority of teachers in this district do regularly use the curriculum provided to them. Those of us at CTF will always push back against those who want to spread misinformation about teachers and the meaningful work they are doing every single day in this district. It's also more concerning that this board member considers himself a Democrat, but is bankrolled by school privatization efforts who constantly attack

114teachers and public education. This district needs our board members to go out and stand up to our current iterations of our state and federal governments to protect public education and our funding. Board members should not be disparaging CPS teachers and spreading lies. Uh there are plenty of external attacks already being hurled at the district, our staff and our students. We do not need a so-called leader of this district doing the same. The phrase the call is coming from inside the house seems to be very very relevant here. Thanks for your time. Thank you. Our next online speaker is going to be Mario Duchi. Mario, forgive me if I misspelled your name. You may unmute your camera and microphone. Mario, we're going to bring Mario back. Um, our next online speaker is going to be Wasag

115Wasagby. Wasagby Senogo. Wasagby, you can go ahead and unmute your camera and microphone. There we go. I would like to speak in French if it's possible. Yes, it is. We have a translation person here. Thank you. Good evening everybody. uh concerning the position for the ELLL coordinator. She works in the data school and she helps us a lot. She helps us with a lot of issues with school, with communication, with all things concerning school. We are very upset that you guys are going to eliminate her position in the school. She helps us a lot in schools like the schools here in Cincinnati or in America. We need somebody like her to help us with communication with the schools and therefore her position is very important to us as parents. When you have children with uh

116disabilities and they don't speak the language, they don't speak English and they come from families that don't speak very good English, they need somebody that speaks their language so they can serve them the way they should be served. And without a person like this ELLL coordinator who is helping with these issues, uh I don't see why this position would be eliminated. I don't see personally why this position is going to be eliminated. Personally, she helped us a lot and I don't understand why. um this lady who's doing this position um I don't know why they would be eliminating her and that's why personally I apologize to her. This is it. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. Our last online speaker is going to be Mario Dushi. You can unmute your camera and microphone.

117My camera is not working. Try now. Go ahead. Yes, my camera is Okay, now it's working. Okay. Can I speak in French too, please? Of course. Can I speak in French? Thank you so much. Good evening. I'm a mother of two daughters who go to the school of Montasuri. I speak French and that's my mother tongue. I have been working with M. Bushra uh who helps my children who go to the school or go there. I would like to mention how important her position for these parents, us parents who do not speak English as a first language. We with everything we need school meeting. I would like to stress how important her position is for us us who don't speak any language or our English will be like second but we are not really um

118um fluent in it and I would like to mention again and stress how important her position is for the school to communicate with the parents to link the the parents and the community this specific community to the school in Montisori and she mentioned also the name of the teacher again uh on this discussion and that's why we think that it is very important for us to come on this public meeting and mention this request. Merci. Thank you. That's all I needed to say. Thank you very much. Thank you. Is that all of our guests? Rob, thank you so much and thank you for doing the timer the way you did, Rob. Appreciate it. So, we'll start now with Magdalina English, either Netzel or Wetzel. Netzel, thank you. Board members, good evening everyone. Thank you for

119this opportunity to speak today as a parent and as a foreigner who has made Cincinnati my second home. My name is Magdalena and I come from Poland. H my my my husband is originally from Papu Guini. So we have we are you know two foreigners in America. This is our home here. Um currently we have two kids in D Montesa. We have been with data for seven years and so far have had a wonderful experience. Part of it undeniably is a very important role and help of ELLL coordinator. Why is it so crucial for us forers to keep ELLL coordinator position in dator? Point number one, over one of Dator students, it means over 150 kids are raised in bilingual or triilingual families where at least one parent is a foreigner. Adapting to American reality

120is a process and a challenge with lots of hardships and questions. Uh point number two, ELLL coordinator very professionally help us helps us on many levels to adjust to reality and be a part of data community. Uh we get a lot of support, guidance and a great help. We appreciate uh coordinators, assistance, commitment and collaboration. Point number three, I do not advocate here for a special treatment for us. What I want to see and what I want I'm sorry. What I want to say is that we would like to continue to be an added value to the data community. We with our experiences with different languages and whatever we can bring to data community. We want to be a part of it by contributing the best we can. Point number four. Go ahead. Keeping ELL

121coordinator position is efficient. Questions are answered. Issues are resolved. Parents are informed and kept in data's loop. Point number five, EL ELLL coordinator help us to get to know and understand rules and procedures and it results in students better academic performance performance. Kids feel included and welcome. H point number six, the last one. I look at ELLL coordinator position also as a form of investment in the well-being of our kids and the future of data community as a whole. Taking into consideration above, I would like to ask you distinguished members for your help to keep ELLL coordinator position in data Montasuri. We will be very grateful. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next speaker is Muhammad. Speaking in Arabic. Arabic or French? Arabic. Okay. Arabic. Speaking. Uh, first of

122all, first of all, hello to everyone. Hello to all the teachers and all the coordinators. [Music] Oh well, first I'm sorry. Uh first I want to mention that the coordinator position is very important in the whole academic and educational process. He the coordinator helps the teacher, helps the school. to help the teachers to offer uh diverse learning that is really catered to the students that help with their motivation and their success. And also the coordinator person uh offers the um needed uh assistance and support to the students for their academic success as well. Okay. and he plays also a crucial role in connecting the school and the communication between the school, the teacher and the community and the parents. So I I wish that you guys will accept my support for this position to stay

123uh because of the um importance of this role, because my children uh thanks to this position and thanks to this coordinator, they loved the school and they for more and they performed much better and my wife started actually participating in all the functionalities of the school thanks to this uh person who is involving her in the activities of the school. I would love to have this uh position continue and this service would be continuing in the school specifically to help me and my community. Thank you. Thank you very much. And as Marik uh Alila as help me out there begins to speak uh if Jada Shabig would come down and also Al Iso Zena but you're first. Okay. Yeah. Arabic or French? Arabic. Arabic. Okay. Good evening. My name is Adamar. Thank you for allowing

124us to come and express our fears and our concerns today. We came today because we heard that the position of an ELLL coordinator has been eliminated in the schoolor in the school of Montasauri. I have two kids in the school. I got scared and uh sad because I just got this news and I am new here. I don't have the language and for me at this time with my situation it is almost impossible for me to communicate with the teachers without the help of the coordinator at the school because she had a really big uh important role in helping me with subscribing my students in the school in addition to attending the conferences with the teachers as well and helping me communicate my concerns to the teachers and therefore I came here to speak in

125front of you and tell you how how important this position is for me as a parent. I would like you all to review the decision for eliminating this position uh today. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Arabic. Okay. Different dialect of Arabic. Hello. Hello everyone. I came today to talk about the position of the ELLL coordinator with the parents. This position is really really important for us as parents. because it helps it it helps us uh prepare our students for the school and also it helps us um communicate with the teachers and getting prepared for the conferences actually before we [Music] go and because we don't speak English fluently therefore when we heard this news. We came right away to support the position to not get eliminated. Thank you so much. Thank you

126very much. We have East Egyptian dialect of Arabic. I would like to talk about the same subject, the LL coordinator position that's getting eliminated again. I would like to say that this position is very important for the parents and the kids. experience. When I came here to the United States, my older son did not speak any English. He used to be very scared going to school and he would go at the at the door of the school and he wouldn't want to go in because he's so scared of the school because he don't speak any English. Miss Bushra obviously she was a very big help to help him and support him and when he every time he got to school at the at the door of the school if he wouldn't see Miss Bushra at

127the door he would not accept to go in because he does feel so scared to go in here in there by himself. selfbody to understand him. And me as a mother, she helped me understand the education system in America because it's very very different from my system or my education system in Egypt. I see that this position is very important for the parents, for the school, for the teachers and for the kids, for all the stakeholders pretty much. And she helped also my other son to go to school with his brother and encourage him that school is a good place to go. And the idea of thinking about a school that doesn't have this kind of person in it is really scary for me and for my kids. And my younger kid, the third kid

128I have, he went to a school where he they did not have that position. And for me, I have hard time accepting the idea that I'm sending my my student my kid to a school where he doesn't have such a service. It would be very good for us. She's up. Thank you very much. Next we have Reena Khil. Yeah, that's me. Got it. Okay, good. Uh, next would be Mara Samson. Bless you. Drew Warorfs, Katie Dong, and did I miss anybody uh that does want to speak regarding the uh ELLL coordinator? Okay, same position. So, I'm going to Don't you leave yet. You are indispensable. Let's hear it for Mrs. Ree. Thank you, Mrs. Ree. English. Okay. Mrs. Ree, would you let them? Okay. Good evening and thank you for your time. I'm speaking tonight

129as a parent and PTN co-chair at Dator Monasuri and as someone who has seen firsthand the enormous impact of our ELLL coordinator. This role supports 23% of our students directly and many more indirectly. From translating during school events and family communication to helping organize culturally inclusive events like our annual unity fair to guiding families through attendance and everyday school processes, this role is essential. Without it, vital communication is lost and students and families are left without a clear path forward. And this isn't about just about heart. It's about efficiency. removing a trusted coordinator and replacing her work with things like one-off translation services. Although, thank you um doesn't save money in the long run. It simply shifts the cost to other departments and decreases effectiveness. It's inefficient and short-sighted. What makes this role especially valuable

130is the trust that's already been built. The coordinator has spent years forming relationships with our multilingual families, and those relationships impact everything from enrollment to attendance to family engagement. That trust can't be replaced quickly, and once lost, it takes years to rebuild. Yes, our ILT voted to prioritize math and reading specialists, and those are important, but I'd argue this role belongs in a different category. Language access is foundational. Without it, academic support can't fully reach the families we need most. So, I'm asking you to help us this year find a way to keep this role in place and moving forward to ensure these essential supports are not left out of the equation. Thank you. Thank you very much. Good evening, members of the school board. Um, my name is Drew Warorf and I'm speaking to

131you as a CPS parent and teacher. I'm here to offer a point of consideration as we move through this difficult political and soontobe financial time for all of us. While I understand budget constraints require difficult decisions, I believe that making cuts to school-based student-f facing positions is the wrong decision. As you know, CPS serves over 34,000 children, about 85% of which are from economically disadvantaged families and often come to school for basic needs, food, clothing, medical care, etc. 15% come from families where a language other than English is spoken at home. 20% have an identified disability. These numbers represent real students with real needs that are often met, not met, excuse me, within the traditional general education setting. CPS has recognized this and has done an excellent job creating staffing positions like the L coordinator

132that provide additional supports, ensuring all of our students success. And while these numbers at large might represent percentages that seem insignificant, they're an overwhelming majority of kids at some of our schools. Roberts, Hartwell, Midway, AMI, AWL, Dator Monasuri, Westwood all have percentages well above the district average averages. Our school counselors, social workers, L coordinators, and paras are valued members of our school communities. They are the providers, the nurturers, the listeners to our students and their families. Cutting positions like these will lead to less personal attention for students, less resources distributed to families, more strain on the teaching staff, and an overall diminished learning experience for all. Um, CPS recently took a stand in declining to sign the federal DEI letter because, as President Moffett had stated, the district's policies and programs are supportive and welcoming

133to all students. I commend this decision. It's the and the reasoning behind it. It's what made me choose CPS when deciding where to live and where to educate my children. It's also what keeps me motivated as an employee in the district. But without action, these values are just words. Thank you. Thank you very much, Katie Dong. Hello, my name is Katie Dong and I'm speaking as a parent and FODM board member at Dator Monasuri. Currently 23% of Dator student population are English language learners. Eliminating the alll coordinator rule would leave these students and their families without the essential support they need to succeed academically, socially and emotionally. The current ELLL coordinator has cultivated strong trusted relationships with these families. Her work has been fundament has been foundational has been foundational to building a sense of

134connection and inclusion for students who face unique language and cultural barriers. Removing her from this role risks disrupting the trust and engagement she has worked so hard to establish jeopardizing student participation, attendance, and overall school climate. Beyond academic support, she has been instrumental in organizing inclusive community building initiatives like Unity Fair fashion show and coordinating translation for schoolwide events. Her efforts ensure that ELLL families fully included in the school life and decisionmaking. The ELLL coordinator role is not just an academic service. It is a cornerstone of equity and belonging at Dator. We respectfully urge CPS to find a solution to restore this essential position immediately. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other folks that required translation that I've missed? Sudani. Sudan. I can try. Okay. Hi everyone. Please introduce yourself. Yes. My name is

135Al Husini Isa. I have a daughter at D minor. Um what I had in mind is already said by those who intervene. I just uh since you guys are the one um deciding on this LLC. Yes. Please, I'm begging you. I'm begging you. Think about us. We need help. So, please let the program continue. Please, I'm begging you. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much. Our next speakers are uh Marcia Futel, Ryan Shear, and Brad Smith. Uh I I know uh I don't usually get to speak for the board, but I know that the president and I are and other members of the board have been actually moved by this tonight. Um this is what CPS is all about. So, thank you all for coming uh to express your concerns. Uh and

136thank again Mrs. Ree. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you. And here she is, Miss Boutell. Welcome to the presiding officer, Vice President Bolton, and the entire board. Good evening. First of all, I want to applaud your courage for not signing the letter from the US Department of Education that requires Ohio school districts to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. Your stand so far has demonstrated an appreciation for the long hard fight over the decades, beginning with the landmark Supreme Court decision, Brown versus the Board of Education in 1954 and the local Bronson civil lawsuit in 1973. So tonight, I ask you to make one more bold move. If you haven't already put this in motion, please draft and pass a board resolution in support of fully funding Ohio's public schools as outlined in the fair school

137funding plan passed in 2019. CPS has asked for the community to support in reaching out to our state- elected officials so that we don't lose any funding that our children so richly need and deserve. With your official resolution, the district and the community will publicly be in lock step demanding that our elected officials in the state house keep their commitment to public education. Note, I will not refer to all of them as our representatives because those that do not consider the will and the best interests of the people, especially children, do not represent the people and do not deserve the title. So, the community continues to watch your response to this as well as all your leadership decisions. I proudly wear my product of public education shirt tonight and I thank you for your time.

138Thank you, Mr. Patel. Ryan Shear. Good evening. My name is Ryan Shear. I'm a teacher at AWL. I'm vice president of CTF and I'm here to talk about the CPS budget. Uh in a recent newsletter which we've already heard about earlier today, a board member claimed that implementing highquality curriculum is budget priority number one. Um the same board member then said according quote according to data provided by our administration and only 27% of ELA classrooms is high quality curriculum actually being implemented this year. And while I agree that if we're spending money on something, we should be using it, the district data that we've already heard referenced before from the instructional rounds, which I'm not sure where else we would be getting the data that is quoted in the newsletter, says that 186 ELA classrooms

139were visited in round one and 75.27% were using that curriculum. In round two, it was 193 classrooms, 83.42% were using the curriculum. And in round three, only 16 classrooms, but 93% were using it. So, not only are the majority using it, they have actually improved from round one to round two to round three. Upon further review, I will be the first to admit that maybe those numbers I just gave you are not correct because the data actually makes no sense at all when you dive into it. Bond Hill had six out of six classrooms using the curriculum and received a two out of three on the overall rating, which is an approaching score. Six out of six to me seems like a majority. Taft Elementary, same thing. Roberts had a four out of four, but

140they got a three, the highest rating. I agree with their rating. However, I find it very interesting to say the least. The point of this is to say that our teachers should not be being attacked based on data that one shows that teachers are in fact doing what you claim they are not doing and two the data is so clearly flawed that you cannot really take it into consideration and use it as any sort of attack on anybody and definitely does not take into consideration what teachers do on a daily that does not include the curriculum to make sure their kids are improving. Thank you very much. Brad Smith. Good evening, Board of Education. My name is Brad Smith. I'm a resident and a taxpayer. And I want to speak about that same email, except

141I want to speak about the research that was cited. If you look at the research, um it's really research about how curriculum is aligned with the common core. And I want to just focus on two. One was a study from Harvard that seemed to show some uh difference in math achievement but no change in math or sorry English achievement. Um however if you really look at the research what matters in it was the teachers were given more professional development. They were given more classroom observations with explicit feedback about the common core standards and they were given feedback that also related to their evaluation and their growth as a professional. Um if you look at another study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, there were kind of three groups. There was a uh you know

142full treatment where they got professional development of the access to curriculum, another group that just had curriculum access and one that had neither. Well, what matters in that research was that the group that had the full treatment that had the biggest gains, they were invited to an in-person kickoff where they were shown the curriculum by the curriculum reps. They were uh provided a schedule of supports for the year and um they assisted teachers with accessing the curriculum. Uh the teachers received regular email reminders. They offered professional development webinar uh webinars and recordings of that all that teachers could access throughout the year. Um they had a space to discuss with their peers and the curriculum reps about the implementation of it. Um and they were able to reflect on their practice and most importantly it

143says importantly participation in all components of the treatment was entirely voluntary. Teachers have enough to do. Teachers have a lot to do in this district and sending out misleading information that attacks them isn't helpful. We're trying to move this district forward. Please work with us. Thank you very much. Our next speakers are Michelle and Michael Dillingham and then President Sers. Hello. We're going to stand right here. accessible. Hello, my name is Michelle Dunn. This is my son, Michael Dillingham. We are here to thank the board of education and district for standing up for our students and our beautiful diversity, which was so clear tonight, right? It's amazing. The Trump administration issued a letter asking schools to certify their compliance that the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion is impermissible. Well, thanks to the National Education

144Unions, AFT and NEA for challenging these attacks on our values in the courts, saying that these letters and threats to funding cuts over DEI is vague, exceeds Trump's authority, and violates our First and Fifth Amendments. CPS, thank you for standing with our students, reaffirming that our values of diversity, equity, inclusion are in compliance with state and federal law. Michael, my son here, is a CPS grad from Gamble, class of 2014. It's already been 11 years. He is an artist at his own studio gallery on Main Street. Um, many students uh that this has affected don't have a voice, are our most vulnerable, and we thought it was really important today to come down and just thank you. And he has um something to say as well. There's your button, Michael. Thank you. Thank you, Cincinnati

145public schools and the board of education for protecting diversity, equity, and inclusion. It is because of inclusion services I am the successful artist and business owner I am today. Thank you. One last reminder, tomorrow evening right here 6 p.m. a community town hall on the state budget. Everyone is invited. We hope to see you here tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you and thank you Michael. President Sers reminding the uh public as we mentioned earlier, President Sers has longer extended time to speak as president. Good evening. I would also um I would also like to remind everyone tomorrow evening is the community town hall to save our schools. We will be learning about all of the current attacks on public education and how everyone can help to make your voices heard at the state house. Um that

146begins at 6:00 and the doors open at 5:30. And I think that it's going to be a great event. I would also like to say that um thank all of the parents and teachers who had the courage to come here this evening and speak up for the family, students and teachers and provide the supports for those students to be successful. Um, many of you know Chip Canudson who was a teacher at Woodward High School, the valet Victorian who he had um just two years ago did not speak any English and she is now this evening was on the stage as the valet Victorian. The students who need help with um translations, that's all they need. They have the brains to do it and they will be successful. Um, I want to, um, make sure every

147one of the board members are aware of this. House Bill 96, the budget bill, it includes language about high school transportation that states that students cannot have transfers once they get on the bus. This is going to be a drastic change for many of the high schools across the state of Ohio, especially here in Cincinnati and in other urban areas where the students are riding metro. Um, I would suggest that you have a special meeting with Metro and also talk with some of the state legislators on so we can begin to figure out some workarounds so that our students will be able to have transportation even if they don't live just one um route away. Um, for the past few weeks, I have been hearing a board member publicly say only 27% of the teachers

148are using the curriculum. This is patently false information. This board member has also been widely disseminating this information through emails across the city. This has been causing a kurfuffle within the community and within our district. I've heard from community members. I've heard from teachers. And I've heard from um family and friends saying, "Why are they attacking the teachers?" As you can see in this chart right in front of me, more than 75% of teachers are implementing this curriculum curriculum as the district visits their classrooms. These statements are very disparaging and they're against the teachers in our district and the schools. They did not even attend and do walkthroughs at all 65 locations. It was a limited number of schools and within those schools a limited number of teachers. The actual walkthrough data tells a very

149different story. Remember, a walkthrough is supposed to be just a snapshot in time. Teachers were told at the beginning of the year that the walkthroughs would be happening, but they were there to be supportive in nature and all information would be confidential. Now, we're seeing charts and graphs being sent out to community members and voters across our entire city. We have many new teachers in our district. We have many teachers new to their grade level and they were still waiting, some of them in the first quarter for their curriculum to be delivered during that first round of walkthroughs. This attack on teachers has broken trust with teachers across the district. As um Ryan suggested earlier in his um um statement, I have many of the same data points he had. But what I want to

150say is for the first round for ELA, there were only 186 classrooms visited at 44 schools. That's a very very small sample size. Some teachers said that they changed grade levels and they didn't have all of their curriculum and it was during this round where they were able to report some of this. Sec round two 193 classrooms were visited. This is still a small sample size but at this time 83.42 of the classrooms were being using the adopted curriculum. Round three, ELA. This is interesting. Only 16 classrooms were visited, two elementaryaries, two high schools with 93.75% of the them using the curriculum. Remember, many classrooms in the third quarter were probably doing the highly recommended or mandated test prep. Many classrooms using the curriculum were marked as approaching because teachers were not on the right

151lesson on the right day. Some teachers have told us that they were lessons ahead and they were like, "Why are you 10 lessons ahead?" while others were asked and questioned why they were behind. Every classroom's pacing should be somewhat different depending on the makeup of their class. that doesn't mean that they are not implementing. There are many variables to account for some of these um different makeups. This is a far cry from the graph that I shared with you. If this graph was accurate and really only 27% of ELA teachers were using the adopted curriculum, I think that I know that I do know for a fact that when the board adopted Witten Wisdom, it was not the recommended curriculum. It was not the one that was selected by the textbook um committee. It was

152decided at the last minute to switch because the one that they had recommended, they didn't like the the graphics in that textbook. The the Witten Wisdom has just eight paperback textbooks per year, per ch per grade level. Some of those are probably not even in the buildings any longer. Tech paperback books don't last as long as a regular textbook. Until this particular board member begins respecting teachers and not making negative blanket statements against them, it will be difficult to retain highquality teachers within our district. There is an art to teaching. That's why teachers have made it a career because that is an art and it is not just turning the page. Turning the page of a curriculum is not the art of teaching. Something that we do need to be talking about is how are

153we going to get to um addressing issues around chronically absent students. Maybe the pacing is off because they have high chronic absenteeism like many of our schools are showing. We need to have an initiative to make sure that we are getting kids to school on a regular basis. If kids are not in school, they're not learning. But the most important thing I think that all of us in this room and across the district, we all have to know that in order for our kids to be successful academically, we need to have strong contentrich instruction that includes science and social studies because all of the vocabulary that is used on the ELA test is coming from the vocabulary that was introduced and taught in science and social studies. When they do the walkthroughs, those are very

154low numbers of the number of classrooms that are visited. And even some administration have said we're not worrying about that because it is an attested grade. But if you don't learn that curriculum and that the content year after year after year, you're not going to be highly engaged with the process of learning. So seeing the long line of valid Victorians and saludiatorans tonight proves that our teachers understand the art of teaching. Thank you. Thank you, President Sers. And that concludes tonight's hearing of the public. Madam President, thank you. Dr. Moffet, woman, as several of those were addressing a board member who sent out a newsletter last week, I might just share a brief 30 second thought. Go ahead. Thank you. I appreciate it. First of all, I am I'm delighted that this many people read

155my newsletters. Uh it is a real surprise to me and I'm very happy about it. Um I'm also glad we're talking about it in research and data. I'll just share that the 27% number that's been called into question this evening is one that I received and doublech checked with our administration and I'm going to stand by the numbers they share with me. If it's wrong and the adoption is much higher and the implementation is much stronger fabulous concern withdrawn but I'm going to stick with the number that our administration gave us until they tell us that it's wrong. I'm also going to share that um there is zero disparagement on my end. I think implementing high quality curriculum is really hard and I think it's our job as a board and a district to figure

156out how we can help. So there is no allegation from me whatsoever. I think this is the work. I think we got to figure it out. Uh and I'm excited to do that together. So thank you. All right. Um Superintendent Murphy and Assistant Treasurer Mike Gustin will be presenting the fiscal year 2026 budget update. All right. Yes, we are going to tag team this and Mike will get us started with the first slide. All right, here we go. So, first slide is a bring back from I think the April 21st meeting the um famous or infamous pyramid. And if you go to the next slide, we have a new version that hopefully hopefully is a little more representative what we're doing here. So, so we tried to break out um strategy from compliance efforts. So

157just just kind of give you idea give an idea of how we're thinking about about things um from a very high level. And so just to be a little bit more specific about the strategy and our thinking and rationale around on the next slide Rob building this budget out uh there are probably seven tiles on this sheet to help us lead and formulate the discussion and some of the decisions that we're making. Um, our priority is to prioritize instruction, core instruction with our students in the classroom. The second piece we did was evaluate our current staffing, our current vacancies. The third piece was we streamlined operations and administrative costs. And I'll get into a little bit more specifics about what I mean by that shortly. Uh, the fourth tile talks about exploring partnerships and alternative

158funding. Um those are examples of making the request of the city around whether they can help us with uh four or five items that we shared with them. Those are around crossing guards. Um that includes parking cost. It includes nursing cost and um the cost of uh our school not our school resource officers but our detail officers that have increased tremendously this year. and our newly formed uh forming foundation. The fifth tile talks about engaging stakeholders in the process. I remain super proud to uh invite our union leadership to the table and they have once again agreed uh to come to the table to discuss this with us um as they did this time last year. And then six uh focused on our district adopted strategic plan. And then seventh, you'll see a little bit

159later on in terms of our next steps aligning the budget request and needs with our goals, guardrails, and growth plan. And on the next slide, next slide, Rob. Um, so just to remind people how we how we started this out. Um, this is the summary of five-year forecast from November. This is kind of where we this is where we set the original budget target of 624 million. So, so people will know where that came from. Um, just as a reminder, you know, the five-year forecast is required documents. It's required for us to have positive cash balances in the current fiscal year and the next two fiscal years um in order to stay out of trouble with the state. If you go to the next slide, Rob, it is time for us to update our five-year

160forecast. That's something we do every year um in the month of May. So that'll be coming to budget finance and growth on the 16th and then coming to this board on the 19th. Just a reminder, we have to the board needs to approve that via vote and we have to file it with the Otter state and OD ODU by the end of May. Um couple things to talk about in the five-year forecast meetings we'll be looking at specifically. Um state budget proposals obviously are a big one. So we have the House proposal. Not sure we'll get a lot from the Senate before it's time to time to present, but we'll see what we have. Um, also, you know, we'll have our final property tax collections and settlement from first half of the year. So, that

161gets baked in. Um, tiff and CRA payments are coming in. So, we'll look at those. And then obviously our current year spending. Next slide. So, again, as I mentioned, the budget target is 624 million. Um, we did we did as part of our early work put in some negative contingencies. Um, so these are things where we know we're going to underspend. Talk a little bit about those more, but it's it's $10 million of known under spends. And we also as a group looked at potential reductions in budget considerations. So the list of 100, which I think Superna is going to talk more about, we started analyzing those. We've investigated about 51.5 million dollars of potential impacts and we've realized 13.7 million. So, uh, Mike referenced, um, a couple of things. Uh, on the next slide,

162you'll see a sampling of a list of 100. So, this list came from the senior leadership team as a brainstorming and brain dumping of potential ideas that we could uh look into in terms of uh saving dollars um including things like pausing any curriculum adoptions. You're fully aware of restructuring resource coordination uh which we have done. We have reviewed our current vacancies. We're going through our vendor contracts uh yet again. And so you see just a sampling there of some of the possibilities that we've talked about to um realize savings in our budget for the upcoming school year. And then on the next slide, um we did the uh brainstorming and norming. We have put in uh the very basic needs that we would have to have to function which is extremely challenging for every

163department to do. Uh all of this has been done so far without um impacting school budgets that have already been shared out. And then um the the last thing we did last week was as Mike said, reconcile the list of uh items members of the senior leadership team have said. This is where we can make a change to what we are seeing in Aliv, which is where the 13 million came from. So right now, we believe that we're looking at um a little over $35 million. And then oh do I have the next slide too? Yes. Okay great I have the next slide as well. So this is where the budget task force came in and through conversation um we've had two meetings so far and uh we have categorized things in the following ways.

164One is it possible to take a look at creating a central office pool. So for example, maybe instead of someone serving one um administrator or one department, maybe there could be a greater alignment with the level of work that is required. The second is taking a look at a retire rehire possibility. And while we do see that there could be some potential savings, we've been uh cautioned about um the payout for uh sick leave conversion around that. And so we continue that conversation because we understand that it is maybe possible to create an opportunity to have that payout done over a period of time as opposed to one lump sum. We looked at um some school-based personnel changes. Um but we are looking at what the CBA for example is requiring at those uh schools.

165looking at our title spending, how we're actually utilizing our title dollars and whether or not there are opportunities, and we believe that there are to restructure some of the ways we're using our title dollars. And I mentioned a little bit earlier um looking at contracts. Initially, we said a 10% reduction, but we're looking to go even deeper, a 20% reduction. There has been a review of those contracts over um $200,000. And we we do think that maybe there's a million dollars that we could save there. And then we're currently in the process of looking at those contracts that are under $200,000. All right. So, so one thing we wanted to talk about is kind of a broader brush. I know most of everything we've talked about to this point has been about the general fund.

166And most times when we talk about the budget, we're specifically focused on the general fund. Um, but I think what's important to have a little bit of an all funds perspective. Uh, if you go to the next slide, Rob. Um, trivia question here for folks. I know obviously the board members and anyone who's seen this on board docs knows the answers, but but how much is our fiscal year 2025 budget? There's four options there. Um, and quite a range. If you go to the next slide, it is a bit of a trick question as all of these are correct. It's how you look at them. So 628 million is our general fund revenue budget. So there's just revenues for the general fund. Uh the 644067906 number that is burned into my head is the U

167general fund original appropriations. So that's a number that we do that. Um there's a thing we have called the working budget where it carries over prior year incumbrances. That's a 664. And that that bottom number there um you know the one billion dollar um is all funds with prior year incumbrances. So so we could say we are a billion dollar organization in some ways. Um if anyone wants to see real a lot of the more details there's a report we publish every month as part of the um budget finance and growth committee called the fund activity report. It shows each individual fund the revenues the expenses the incumbrances and those sorts of things. Um, another way to look at this is this map of funds. So, so at the top is the general fund. And

168one of the reasons it's called the general fund is because you can use it on generally most things. Um, and as you go down on the graph, you can see the funds get more restrictive in use. I also want to point out the arrows there. You can they are intentionally one-way arrows. So, a lot of the things that we do go one direction. Um a great example is our internal service funds. So those are like our payroll liabilities. So so money can go from general fund into those and then we pay out um but money doesn't come back the other way. So the other thing in that billion dollar number is a lot of times revenue in one fund is an expense in another fund. So when we make transfers from general fund um for

169debt service, you know that's an expense from general fund, it's revenue to another fund. So we don't have a billion dollars in new dollars coming in um every year. So I want to make that important. Um a couple other things, you know, like I said, everything gets as you go down, it gets harder harder to spend. They're more limited. You know, capital improvements have to be things of a five-year life. Um student dining services very much student dining services. If you'll hit the next slide, Rob, you kind of see here a little bit more uh a little bit more details. Like I mentioned, capital improvements are five years. State and federal grants, as we know, have a lot of rules. You know, there's a you need to match the purpose of the grant. The items

170have to be supplemental. A lot of times the allocations are school-based. You know, a lot of title one is school-based. So, every school gets based on their population and amount of dollars to spend at that school. Um, and they have admin and carry restrictions. Our other local funds as well. So our fund 19s, our trust funds, our endowments, those as well have a purpose behind them. So they're they're given for a purpose. Um they're also a lot of times restricted by location. You know, I mean I mean a good example of that, for example, this year um Clickie, the Community Learning Center Institute, is funding um some renovations for the health center at Roberts. And so that money is very specifically dedicated to Robert's Academy and to the health clinic. you know, we can't we

171can't use that money for any other purpose, nor do we want to. And then Rob, on the next slide, uh so then we get into our conversations with senior leadership team about how to build the budget. And so the approach uh we are taking is looking at our strategic plan, our goals, our guard rails, um using the strategies as a base and then having subcategories with the goals, guardrails and the district's performance redesign, sustainability and growth plan. And so um that is where uh we are right now. I will say that this is very challenging. I did spend uh much of the weekend looking over staffing, looking over organizational the organizational chart of the district as a whole, looking at where uh position work could be combined. Um it is really hard to tell someone

172that we can't do this right now. I do think based on all of the budget conversations we've had just this school year, next two years are going to be extremely challenging for us and probably the next couple of conversations administration brings to the board will be very difficult. Thank you board members. Any have any questions? Bo member uh Craig. Um so again thank you for doing the presentation. I agree with you uh with regard to the last statement you made there which is our next two budgets last year that those were the easy budgets the hardest because those we could count the little things and you know no one necessarily felt like we're going to make that difficult a challenge we were doing a lot of the maneuvering of stuff. Now it's legit things have

173to end and I think we need to be prepared to make some of those hard decisions to say something ends. Um what we continue to keep doing is adding things in to say something new is going to start and so it's adding more to the budget that's already strapped pretty tight. Um I really wanted to just kind of raise two thoughts that I have in addition to that which is first I I just I think it's going to be harder and harder to keep trying to balance the budget off of central office. And I have a distinct fear that that is what we're going to try to do again. And what we're going to do is cut out the ability for central office to operate and function in a well-mannered way and really increase the

174budget cost because of it. And it just it worries me because we've already seen this with other departments now that are smaller in size this year than they were last year and their struggles to try and keep up with our demands on them even though there's shorter fewer people doing the work. So I just I think it comes to some point it becomes unreasonable to keep asking for those things to be done in the manner that are being done with the team that's there to support them. Um the other part and I really hope that we can get more information on this is really around that idea of combining certain roles and things within some of the schools or even utilizing more like regional roles or things where multiple schools share certain positions. Um, and

175I and I say that because I think that there is just we we don't have the capacity in some ways to do some of these things that are again not necessarily collectively bargained, but are things that we've as a board been unwilling to not do anymore even though we don't we no longer have the funds to support it. And so I mean a great example of that is is the is how we've man how we've managed the needs for nursing in our schools. We are far above where we were even before COVID. Um, and so I mean even if we're thinking about things like that that we're doing, you know, they're not a huge dollar amounts, but I think it's just recognizing what those resources can be allocated differently, especially if we're looking at now

176pathways within the schools. How do we utilize resources that may attach to two or three schools that connect together? Uh, may may be better use. Um, the only question I have really from all of this is just kind of what's the expectation of us um, getting a budget proposal because I will say I I can't vote again for us to do a 90-day appropriation for the third year in a row. I think it's unreasonable for us to do that. I think it's unfair to the folks who are out there working for us to do it. And I and I want to know is there an expectation of a timeline in which we would see you know kind of a budget proposal for us to vote on. The goal is June. I think we have is

177June. Yeah. We have three board meetings I think between now and the end of June. Yeah. I mean I would just hope that we can get something at least by the early June meeting that we would be able to assess and review and and pass by the end of the June. Again, I just think it's irresponsible for us to keep doing 90-day appropriations because we can't do our jobs on time. Thank you. Go to the side board member Lindy. Yeah, I'm just going to just build off what member Craig was saying uh with with addition of thank you for all the really difficult and challenging work that this is. Um my preference would be that we receive the meeting before the last meeting in June. the administration's proposal that would get us to a balanced

178budget. Um uh and that that would give us then the that meeting to ask questions. It would give the administration time to do something with those question with with that feedback. Um and then come back and pass the budget on time by the end of June. Um and that I I'm I'm kind of um just thinking through these dates and where we are right now. Um that's not a lot of time. Um and so just again gratitude and and appreciation but my my is that a feasible timeline. Yes. Yes. Great. Thank you. I'm going to go this. Well, go ahead. Board member two of I was just going to Vice President Bolton. I was going back and forth. Okay. Thank you. Um [Music] uh I think it is is possible that we can pass a

179budget by the time that we need to. And I think it's only right that we do it um and not have a 90-day extension. And it it may have been the last three years, but we've done it before even those last three years. So this is been unfortunate. And I and I'm I'm sure part of the responsibility is the board and part of the responsibility is the administration, but a heck of a lot of the responsibility goes with the state of Ohio uh that can't seem to pass its budget and also throws all kinds of wrenches in whatever anybody's planning. Um so there's plenty of lame to go around. I'm happy to assume as much as we need to. if we could go to the uh the new pyramid. Um slide three. Thank you. Um

180on the base of this of the pyramid, you have a you have to have a uh at least a ballpark raw dollar amount for that base because you do have the obligated costs figured out. You do have the state minimums kind of loosey goosey in there and there's also a list of those things that are as a result of the CBA the collective bargaining agreement. Uh it would be interesting for me to know certainly by the uh next finance meeting this month or before or tonight what is that base of the uh pyramid uh so that we are looking at the reality of what the next several layers are. I think that would be helpful and I would like to see much more building of the budget with purpose and intent. I know we're still

181in the cutting period because that's what we're used to doing. Talk about doing stuff for the last three years. We've the last six years that's how we've built a budget we've cut. We haven't built. And so I'm excited to see this effort that that the treasurer and the superintendent and the assistant treasurer are trying to do. Help me out with the question that uh I ask oftent times the treasurer has to be able to certify that we have the monies. What's the what's the rule the regulation for that to to occur? Mr. Assistant treasurer. So the treasur has to be able to certify that we that we have enough. So basically the five-year forecast. So look at the you know look at the five-year forecast and we can't put ourselves into a negative in the

182five-year forecast period anywhere in the fiveyear or within the within the three years that are monitored. Okay. And then there's some law that we're worried that they might adopt that would make us have to certify for three years instead of five. Yes. One of the one of the interesting quirks of the House budget bill is that they're trying to replace the five-year forecast with the three-year forecast, right? One of the the danger of that is, you know, a lot of our contracts are three years that we just and so including our collective bargaining agreements. And so it's the question is if you only have two years into the future in your forecast, can you can you legally certify a three-year into the future collective art agreement or a three-year service contract? And so that's one

183of the things that will have to work its way out through the budget process. But we don't know when that's going to be decided. Well, state state unlike unlike us, the state can't do a temporary appropriation. So, so by July 1st, the state will the state will have a budget approved. All right. And then on slide eight, there's like 50 ideas here regarding cuts that you're investigating. Do we just choose those randomly out of the hundred or is there any significance to these 48? The uh the only significance is the sensitivity of the other 52 or so. Gotcha. Okay. Uh the other uh last couple of questions if I could. Um we on on slide nine you have 35 million or so 35 and a half million yet to cut. Is that assuming that the

184100 suggestions uh all work or is that the suggest is that because we think that some of those 100 suggestions will work or does that not include the 100 suggestions? We have included many of the 48 or so suggestions. uh some uh of that is already in aliv and as we mentioned last week was the reconciliation um and so uh that does not include everything that you're seeing there um or on the additional ones that we have not sh shared yet as we're still um researching the ability to do those things. Thank you. And then my my last question or my last request is and I think I mentioned this before um that we've we've been complimented on our courageous vote uh regarding the the um DEI piece but we also have taken great risk

185and I think it's very important for the public to actually know the risk and know what kind of money you're talking about. The press has talked about 50 million. We think it could be a little bit more than that because of carryover or something or whatever. I'm not sure. But definitely what are the what are the items and I would have hoped for a slide tonight of the items that are at risk financially with that vote. So I would say the amount is between 50 and 60 million carryover. um that's really looking at all of our title all of our title dollars. Um there is some there is some discrepancy on how on how not complying with the letter or not signing the letter how how that would affect you. Whether that would be you

186know someone only looking for DEI programs inside your budget and not funding those or whether it would be a complete kind of stop of all funds coming your way. Well, granted, but we and we know that we do not believe that we're doing anything even the way the federal government defined it as being illegal. And that's based upon our understanding. Um, in those four pages, we found a couple of sentences that were about as declaratory as they get. But the world thinks that it's total DEI and certainly the politicians have been saying that. So, it it's very important to know the $50 million that might be at risk, specifically what programs are those that would be at risk if indeed those monies are withheld. And we know that on the federal budget already proposal, there

187are things that have already gone to zero. Do we do we know which things have already gone to zero just on the federal budget, let alone the whatever they're threatening us with? Yeah. So, so this is kind of an evolving thing and I think um President Moff and I talked about putting the presentation on for the for the Cal meeting. Um you know, still still working on but just I know like a great example very timely for today would be the ELLL coordinators, you know, and I know folks spoke very eloquently about the ELLL coordinators and the impact that that one that that one person has. I mean that that is a title funded expense. That's a title funded thing that would potentially go away if we lost our federal dollars. Um, as far as

188your specific question about what what changes um, in the president's budget proposal, and I think people are still unpacking it, it looked like funding for title one and for IDEIDA would stay the same. So they they would be preserved at current year levels, which in in federal parliament is a cut, right? because because most because you know because keep preserving the federal level and that pertains to the monies we get because of the students economic standings. Title one would be your economically disadvantaged students. IDA would be the funds specifically for students with disabilities. So typically for students disabilities um title three which would be the funding um for for English language learners and immigrants that is proposed to be um cut completely. It's a zero, isn't it? Just in their budget. Yes. And then the

189other thing in the proposal is it appears that title two, which is our teacher quality teacher education, um, and title four, which is supplemental support, um, kind of like well-rounded education stuff would be combine combined into a block grant. And then that block those block grants would be given to the schools or given to the states to administer as a state fit. And how is that in any way shaping the budget that we're being that we're developing at this point? At this point, we haven't done any we haven't really made any any changes to that. The federal budget by the time it would hit us would most likely be the 26 27 school year for us. So, so this year's budget and the advice we've been getting from our from our parts of the state

190has been to kind of business as usual but be conservative. So, they gave us that caution like be conservative but do business as usual. Um, and a lot of the things in the federal budget would not hit until the 2627 school year and we think that that would also pertain to this risk regarding DEI. Not sure about that one. That is that is an unknown at this point. Thank you. And we're you've arranged a presentation about some of that he said for so I did speak to the treasurer and the assistant treasurer about having a financial talk at the cow. Typically the cow is going to be all academics. I felt like it was a little bit too much to dump it at the next board meeting in addition to another budget presentation. So we're

191going to have a little bit of information around what Mr. Best and treasure Wagner are talking about um at the Cal and then again we're going to talk about this at the um again at the next board meeting as well, but I'll save my my rest of my commentary for after board member Wyber. Yes. So I will be really really really brief. I just wanted to have slide 10 pulled up and um as you can see here with the budget task force the different uh subcommittees. I just wanted to hear a little bit of the rationale. I know we heard today from all of the families regarding the EL ELLL and basically I guess it being eliminated and within this budget here I see that you're talking about title spending. You're also going to be

192looking at the contracts which I highly agree definitely looking at those over 200 and also under. But as we're going back into the title spending, can you just give the rationale, superintendent, and just informing the public as well on um a little bit more on that particular role and why it is being eliminated? Well, when I saw the initial email this weekend and and then eventually saw several um we did reach out to the principal and apparently their instructional leadership team had a conversation about how to spend their title dollars. And so their instructional leadership team determined with the amount of money they had in title, they wanted to have a reading specialist and a math specialist, which then meant there wasn't enough money allocated to them um to have an ELLL coordinator. And so

193that is where that decision lies. none of this has come down from um central office as a result of the specific budget conversation that we're talking about. And do you know if there's any way to um have that conversation or with the ILT that has decided on that? Because as I'm thinking and hearing the stories and they're talking about the student outcomes and just how well it's been so helpful to the families and to the students, I just wish that there was some way that they could have everything, you know, in the perfect world. But um I was just curious about that and I just wanted you to kind of explain a little bit more so that everybody could be on the same page. And me too. Uh if I could give the world um

194and I also want everybody to know I value every single employee that we have and so this is not from Shauna about what is valued or not valued. But I will say my understanding and I do want to get a little bit more concrete information around this was um we mentioned earlier that we're trying to avoid as as many things that touched the kids immediately. And so my understanding in this particular role is this maybe is not necessarily um specific to being studentf facing. Um, and I say that with caution because again, I want to make sure I get from the school very specifically um, what the role entails. And so, um, I I think that kind of was their rationale for making their decision. They saw the reading and math specialist positions as being

195more forward- facing with the young people and this particular position not so much. My understanding is that there are two other positions uh working with our multil- language learners that are a part of the school staff that work more directly uh with the students. But I will get this concretely um in a message to you um as soon as possible. Thank you. Greatly appreciate. And I just wanted to kind of end um that I appreciate this whole entire presentation and we do have some very hard and difficult decisions to make and we're going to have to make those. So, thank you. Thank you, board member Crosset. Yeah, I just wanted to um thank you for all the hard work that you're doing on this budget process. Uh very difficult times, but I I really appreciate

196the uh work that you're putting in and how you're going about it. So, I just wanted to say thanks. Thank you. Appreciate that. I think we should if we haven't thanked our union um leads as well as part of the task force. I mean, this is this is timeconsuming kind of painstaking work. Um and sometimes sometimes people have some strong dis strong differences of opinion and so appreciate everyone's time going through these things. No, I do strongly believe we've been through very very challenging situations, not necessarily focused on the budget, but um Cincinnati public schools is almost 200 years old and so we we can solve this and um I am very hopeful about how this will turn out uh for the future of our children. Thank you. Any other board member comments? Board member

197Matt. Yeah. So, thank you for um the presentation and mostly for providing kind of a um a list of ideas for consideration um with the budget. Um I am curious um just as an estimate, you all may be able to give a rough figure, but what are we looking at in terms of the applied savings for phase one, phase 2, and the monatory training? and how would that um help to decrease our overall gap? So, the monastery training um so you may recall this year we budgeted about $100,000 um to send teachers to be trained through the Xavier Lab School. Well, moving forward, we won't have that anymore because there won't be a Xavier Lab school. uh assistant superintendent Deb Klene is working uh with the staff, our current staff to create what will be

198our own training. And so because we won't have to pay someone else, um we will save that money. But then moving forward, uh maybe not next year, but the ne following year, um it could be a revenue stream for Cincinnati public schools as others may want to engage in the training that we have to offer that we provide our own teachers. So instead of spending that money somewhere else to train teachers, our goal is to do it in-house. Um that's the the lab school. Um you also asked about phase one and phase two. So we talked about um a savings of a little over 600,000 at one time. Mike, help me. Yeah, I'm trying to think this. So really phase one savings would would hit this year. So it's not really I don't know that

199we really talk about those in next year's budget for phase one, you know, because we implement it this year. So whatever whatever savings we took would be or cost either way would be incorporated in this year's budget for phase two I think. So I guess let me just interject for just a second. So I mean it's listed here as a um as an option or something to consider. So apply the savings from phase one. So you're saying that phase one savings would not be applicable to next year's budget only if only if there are things that were kind of onetime cost. So, as we're going through like line by line, if there are things that were that were part of phase one that we can say, okay, you know, that was last year's, we don't

200need this this year. You know, we you can line that out. Board member map. I can give you one example. Again, these are sensitive conversations, but this year we did pay for a principal at Riverview East Academy. Next year, we won't be paying for a principal at Riverview East Academy, just for example. Okay. You can keep going. So then phase two, I don't have the number on top of my head. There was a number around 600 and some thousand [Music] um but I don't have it off top of my head either. I'm sorry. Okay. So I it would be helpful if maybe moving forward I know that you have it categorized but maybe having those figures there so that we can still have that running list of what ideally we may be saving as it

201applies to reducing that budget gap. Um and then my other uh question is around um the um the vacancies. Are we are we considering with the vacancies is that maybe a recommendation to not fill potential vacancies in this particular area? Okay. Yes, ma'am. Exactly. Okay. And then um just lastly, just to board member Craig's point, I know that you spoke about not um you know, cutting deep in central office. I also think that it's important to make sure that we're not um continually promoting in central office as well as we're all considering how to make effective changes um um with our budget. I think we need to be mindful of how we're spending our dollars. So, I'm I'm going to go board member cross before I quick thing. Hold on. I'm going to go before

202I I call on you. Um I'm just going to share my thought as the last person. Um, I think that this presentation is great. Much of this we've already seen before and so I'm as one board member getting a little exhausted at hearing the same information. It's time for us to put some figures down with specifics. I think that the administration should come back um at before at before the last board meeting with the numerical values particularly what Vice President Bolton has asked for in that bottom of the pyramid. We've talked, we've seen slide four before around evaluating staffing, um, exploring partnerships. We've seen these slides before and there's yet no financial information plugged in to see where there will be a cost savings. What has the research shown us? Um, where is the administration

203thinking? We we keep getting that it's 35 million now. We keep getting numbers now, but those are numbers in totality, but those are not behind the numbers of what those things look like. And I think it's time going to slide eight, Rob, if you could. Um, it's it's actually time to start putting some thoughts and going from budget task force. I think that's great. I appreciate the union for working with us with regard to this, but I also would respect the fact that we've seen this list before. Now there are no numbers attached to this. there needs to be no longer lists and ideas, but what has the research shown us? Where are the savings or potential savings um with regard to restructure specialized classrooms? We lowered class sizes and found that there is a

204um a potential increase there. So, um it's it's just time to see more numbers. Pause new curriculum adoptions. What's the f what's the financials there? Restore resource coordination. what there there needs to be a number there. Restructured nursing services, there needs to be a number there. I just am getting a little frustrated and I think it's time for the administration not to wait until June, but it's time for you all to put these numbers here. If you I think it's also time for us to flat out say and I was expecting a slide today along with Vice President Bolton. I think we specifically asked for some realization to the community and to our staff of where we are and not speak in ide you know ideologies but speak in specifics um which it didn't happen

205today and and it's unfortunate but I think it is time for us to get some numbers. I hate waiting until June because I don't think that we need to do that. I think the administration is thinking of things. I want to know what is the cost of vacancies? what is the cost of some of these things that are being considered? If you are talking about merging positions, if you are speaking about um consolidating positions, then what is the cost savings? What are those departments that are going to be potentially impacted there? You all are not you all may not have made definitive decisions, but you all are speaking a little bit more definitively than just throwing a list of a hundred out here where we can't really get any definitive information about. So, I'm a

206little frustrated and I think that the administration um can do a little bit better on giving us an idea of what's being discussed more succinctly and then also not presenting promotions. I would like to say I think to all of our staff and to the public recognizing that this is a really hard time. the if you go to slide number nine, Rob, the additional reductions required of $35 million, that's a reality, but I haven't heard the administration say where they're thinking of that coming from. No, no ideologies about that. But we've seen this slide similarly presented multiple times for the past month. I think I'd like to get get us to some real live discussions so that we can be respectful of our staff, respectful of the public, and let them know that we're not

207just having a list of a hundred. We may have to make some very tough decisions, but being respectful when doing that. So for me, um, if you go to slide 10, Rob, how do we go from budget task force? For me, it's like how do we go from the task force to being balanced? What is the what is the process that is being used by the administration to do that? Give us a glimpse into the mind of what you all are thinking and where we need to brace for impact and where our staff need to potentially brace for impact. You all have an idea of where you're talking about cutting. And I think it's very nice to say we don't really know. We don't we haven't made any decisions, but that's not transparent. And I

208want us to be there. There there's there are discussions and it needs to to be relayed on potentially what it is. And I don't want to wait until June and then we have one meeting to decide. I don't want a block budget to have to pull out something because you all have made some decisions and then we see just just one number and then you're the suggestion is well we don't want to go line item by line item. I need to be able to trust that the what we are talking about as a board has been represented very transparently and the only way that that happens is if we are able to see some figures timely and not in a rushed environment where things are just presented to us with the desire and the description

209to not want to have to go line item by line item. So I think my expectation is by the end of this month there's two more meetings. there's a cow and then there's also a business meeting. The the administration needs to come back with figures. You need to come back with some data because this is this that will give us time to ask questions, to get succinct answers, to be responsible, and to do our due diligence to the staff that we that we represent. So that's that's my expectation is and I think board member Bolton, Vice President Bolton said, you know, on slide three, come up come back with some numbers, but you we've seen this slide before. We've seen this new pyramid before. The request was, can we be transparent with the people? Can

210and we still don't have it. So it's time for some hard discussions and some real transparent um decisions to be made, but we need to get the data. And my expectation would be that we get the data before the end of the month to start moving in the right direction so that we don't have to file a 90-day appropriation. We don't have to do that if we have the information timely. If we have to file it, it can be that we're moving towards some decisions, not we're trying to not be courageous and stand up and lack transparency and authenticity. Any other board member Crosset, you had a comment. Um, I appreciate your u uh comments to be sure we have time to evaluate the budget properly, but uh I also understand that timing is everything

211and when you're dealing with personnel, there's t the timing of those discussions is important. So, uh that that does uh lend itself to um giving you know giving you guys some more time I think to to get that right. Other thing I wanted to make a comment was it looks like we're get the budget done on time this year and it's my first year on the board. I wonder if there's like a correlation today. I'm I'm down to celebrate if and when we get that across the finish line on by June 30. party. I I know I said to to Member Crosset's point, I'm all in to celebrate, you know, and even associate causation like if and if and when we in fact pass something that is balanced. We're not there yet. I'm just saying

212like we got got some ways to go. Member Craig. So, I just want to point out a couple things because I think it is fair to say we need more information. But at the last presentation they gave us at the last board meeting, they told us the exact dollar amount for the state obligated state formula and the fixed obligated things which is 3 350 million 350.7 million is in the presentation they gave us. That number likely is not changing in any of the work they're doing now. I think again it's on us in some level too to own the fact that when the board when the superintendent and the treasurer came to us and asked for what are our priorities, what do we want done, we didn't give them answers. And I and I this

213is why I say this is not going to be simply we need to see all these things and be able no we just need at some point to say there are going to be a lot of stuff in here I don't like, I don't want, I wouldn't agree to, I never would do. We got to do it because we've obligated to do other things. We keep adding to the budget as a board on the votes that we've made in the last year and not a single vote outside of the resource coordinator vote has taken anything out of our budget. And that's the thing I I I am frustrated about because I feel like we keep asking them for information and that's great but at some point we also have a responsibility to give information back

214when they ask. And so I do want us to to own up to that. The only other thing I will say also and I I forgot to say it in the first time around talking about this. I think there's certain things also that are listed in here like the sale of property that just the reality is that the accumulated savings from sale of property don't really come at any real reasonable time and are not really reliable because of the process in which the state dictates how we sell property. Um I think it's a stupid process. It's been a stupid process for years and I feel like we can say it up here because we are the political arm of the district that the state makes everything more difficult for public school district to do. Um

215but I I really want to reiterate I think there are things that that yes will have to be explained out have to give more detail on have to be further clarified as we go forward. But I I also am very cognizant of the fact that we're not here by accident. We're not sitting at this meeting by accident because we gave all this clear direction and they were able to follow it. It's because we gave them lack of direction and they're doing their they're trying to do stuff now. I mean the the budget task force was something they they set up last meeting. We talked about this. That was the next step they were going to do. So I mean I think it's also for us to really stress that we will do our homework as

216well to come to the table prepared to address anything they bring forward. Well, I'm just going to say one caveat to what you've shared and invite all the board members to look at the assignments list because I don't think you all do. There are some unfinished assignments which have questions that have remained unanswered just like what that and some of them are budget questions. So, it's not my my statement to let's get to the point is also about answering some of the very questions that board members have asked that pertain to budget items. I'll give you an example. We asked about the middle school's cost with regard to transportation savings, if any. We've not yet received that information. So that is an example where I'm saying and I'm suggesting and I'm going to give you

217one more. Vice President Bolton and I specifically asked for presentation to be a little bit more succinct today on some things. So when I'm telling you that I'm asking for something, I'm speaking for what I'm asking for that has not been answered. I'm also inviting the completion of assignments that board members have asked for that have a monetary con constraint. So, I'm not speaking in generalities. I'm saying let's make some decisions based on information that we have. How do we go from budget task force, which is doing all this work, to actually informing the board around things that we've asked for since January and February? All I'm saying is that the reason the budget task force was created last board meeting was because when the superintendent and the treasur came to us in January asking

218us for priorities, we gave them zero. When the superintendent and the treasur came to us in February asking for priorities, we gave them zero. And then they came and came with a plan. They said, "I have three different ways we can do this." We said the third way was to do it. And then they came back with the presentation and we said we didn't like the third way anymore. So I mean I think there is some obligation for us as a board to stop saying do it over and start saying you know what if this is the best we can do then we don't like this and just say no or this is the best we can do we don't like this part and just say no I rather than this back and forth all

219the time that's my only point. Okay I got it has been documented. Thank you board member Matt. Um so board member Craig to your point I think you bring up an interesting um topic about how we are working through the budget. So some of the recommendations that have been presented um that have received approval from the board in fact has created greater impact to closing or or more challenges to closing our budget gap. And so if we're talking about the accountability because I'm believing that's the theme that I'm hearing that as a board we have to be accountable with our decision making. We we have to stand on that because there has been decisions that's been made where we had no type of financial statement any type of outline of how this would negatively impact

220us. And so to hear that, hey, the administration has um asked us about our priorities. Well, we've reflected our priorities in our decisions and now we're in this position and but people have voted right to approve certain um uh recommendations from the administration or whether it was from the board. So I think we need to stand on that as well and not just um expect certain people to just you know own how they have impacted decisions pertaining to the budget but I think you also have to recognize everyone's vote in this right and and and maybe even your own vote in certain decisions. I'm sorry Vice President Bton I'm sorry I'm coming. I'm coming. Oh, okay. Well, hold on. Vice President B, let me go to Vice President I mean um board member Weinberg. I

221just wanted to know from the superintendent and from the treasurer treasurer's office. What do you need from us? What else do you need? Do you need anything else? If you have non-negotiables, that would be helpful. Non-negotiables. Anything else? ideas for reductions and non-negotiables, I think, are the two. Yeah. Is that it? Okay. Vice President Bolton. Yeah. And I and I I I like that they're using the term non-negotiables instead of uh you know, the sacred cow thing and and what have you. Uh, I I think the best thing we could do for transparency and to move the budget is for the administration to come back and be able to tell us besides these minimums and and the first base and the CBA requirements and uh the U obligations, we need this to reach this goal

222that we have given guidance on for the last two years. the goals, the guardrails, the strategic plan, the forecast. That's that I really that's what I'm saying about building a budget. I'd like the budget to look like here is what we need dollar-wise and positionwise to reach these particular goals. That's building a budget. We have not used the brain muscle uh as a board about building a budget because we've spent these years cutting and cutting and having a flat budget for six years. We've cut and cut and cut and we've had to and now I think from for all of us to work together I think it will be very helpful for the administration the experts to say instructionally we need this in order to do something about the third grade reading to close this

223gap uh on this issue to help the career plans of these kids whatever I it would really help us and I think it will be transparent and proactive and give support to the board to be able to react to it. And I I look forward to it because I see a hint of this and I know we've done away with as many formulas as I can remember ever doing. So we're we're at the threshold of being able to do that and I have confidence we can do that and I think that will I don't think anybody has to take the blame about anything at this point in time. Uh it's the world that we're living in and there's people throughout this country and this state that are trying to dismantle us as we speak. So

224we've got that dealing with. But build the budget. Tell us what you need about third grade reading. Do we need this? Do we need that? And you guys are the experts on that. And maybe we'll get out of the weeds to a certain extent when you are telling us what you need. Any other board member questions, comments? Okay. Um, we have a policy 8516 discussion, mental health wellness discussion and that was brought, let's see, let me look at my committee. Let's do it this way. Committee chair Lindy, would you like to introduce the mental health policy discussion? Uh I am going to pass that to my colleague who has spearheaded this effort, board member map. Okay. All right. So thank you. So I'm excited to present to you all for your um full review and

225discussion about the mental health and wellness policy. Um this is something that we've been working on quite extensively um in the policy committee since last year and had an opportunity to um really work collaboratively with a team of individuals that have um really work to ensure that this has a comprehensive focus. And so I want to first highlight those individuals that have been working on uh the policy with me which is assistant general counsel Stephanie Scott, director of positive school culture u Mrs. Manisha House, uh, lead school counselor, Bianca Gay, lead school psychologist, uh, Sarah English, lead school social worker, Naomi Maderas, and director of student services, Miss Christine Reese, and lastly, our community partners, um, Mindpiece, Miss Nicole Ferman, as well as Susan Shelton. And so the overall objective to this policy is to

226provide a comprehensive framework that is promoting mental health, social and emotional well-being and that holistic uh learning environment that really values and affirms all of our students and as well as affirms our employees and their overall wellness. And so if you look at the policy draft, um we wanted to ensure that it was aligned to our guardrail one, making sure that we are honoring the needs and the talents of the whole child. And so as you look throughout this policy draft, we have several goal uh targets to help accomplish and achieve that. And in addition to this um policy, we want to make sure that we are, as we talked about, accountability, holding ourselves accountable to regularly and routinely um monitoring that quantitative and qual qualitative data to ensure our student wellness outcomes as well

227as academic outcomes. And so for goal area one, and I'll just give a synopsis of each goal and open up for questions if you have, and you can feel free to interject at a particular goal, that's okay. So for goal one, remember Matt? Yes. Can you tell uh Rob to scroll when you want us to scroll? You can scroll down. So for goal one, the focus is ensuring that we have all of our schools staffed with a trained licensed mental health professional as well as school counseling professionals. And so with this particular goal area, we have differentiated what each professional entails that's located within our school. So we have our school counselors, our school social workers, our school psychologists. And so each of these individuals were able to specifically provide that definition of what their

228scope of practice entails. And I think this is so important is because it provides that level of awareness as well as advocacy for each um profession and because that's what this policy is about as well. It's about ensuring awareness, advocacy, prevention, and collaborative uh work amongst our schools for our students in addition to making sure that there's a continuum of care. So with these particular um professions, we wanted to also highlight that it's just not incumbent upon each of these professionals to do the work, but that this is an expectation for all of our uh staff to wrap around our students to remove any type of barrier um from accessing the general curriculum. And so you'll find in here that there's language speaking about making sure that students that qualify have access to a 504

229uh plan as well as individualized education plans. And that's why we had uh Miss Christine Reeves a part of the conversation because we know that there's a lot of mental health um work or concerns that could be embedded in um students with disabilities. And then lastly, a major focus within this particular goal area is just really discussing the confidentiality piece. And there's language that's addressing making sure that we're following all board policies. We're making sure that each professional is focusing on their um ethical obligations as well as making sure that we are adhering to um state and federal law. And another important piece in terms of this confidentiality um section is ensuring that we do have parent involvement and parent collaboration to help ensure the success of our students. So I'll stop right there for

230that particular section to see if there's any questions or concerns or feedback because that's what this conversation is about. One member questions. One member cross. Does this change um it's maybe a question for the administration. Does it change uh what we can afford, what we're spending in these areas now? That's very possible. I mean, a lot of the a lot of the staff mentioned are already existing. I mean, I don't the last time I looked through this, I didn't see like specific numbers, so I think there's still some flexibility to how those things happen. Yeah, thank you for that question. Um, that has been a part of our conversation. Pretty much everything with this policy already aligns to what we are doing or how we can strengthen maybe some things that we're doing. So, we

231really wanted to make sure that um we were being costefficient and considerate with what our um recommendations are for the policy. board member Lindy. I just wanted to to commend the um committee last year, this year, the administration, board member map. I think one of the questions that came up a number of times in committee was cost impact of of of of various pieces of this and I think that um my my understanding the reports from the administration was there after a lot of due diligence this was not a driver of additional costs. But am I wrong about that? No. No. You know, I thought that was there. There are many parts about this process I thought were great. I think that was one of them. All right. Good. So, for goal two, so goal

232two is about making sure that we have designated calming spaces um for our students to be able to deescalate, de-stress, regulate not only their emotions, but also regulate bodily, right? um um you know, experiences and just to help regain that control for self and to be able to cons to continue to engage in that um productive and engaging learning environment. And so within this uh target goal, wanting to ensure that our classrooms are furnished with different sensory tools, whether it's a visual aid, whether it's soft furnishings, because again, we want to make sure that we are able to accommodate and support our students in um deescalating. A lot of schools already have that within their classrooms, right? That may be a reading corner, that may be just a calming space, but again, encouraging that all

233of our um our classroom have access to that. And so as we talked about the financial obligation, again, this is not something that has to be extreme, but wanting to ensure that there is a designated area. And in the event that a student may need additional support, we wanted to highlight that there would be individuals in place to help support that. Um, so if a student needs to maybe step out for a moment, a student will be supported with um having a trained individual to help them deescalate. So for the next goal area and this may be where we do talk a little bit about cost. So incorporating uh social and emotional skills and uh strategies throughout our school day and that can be implemented from not only our teachers but that should be implemented

234with our food services individuals with our security and I know that there's been a lot of work around providing training um for those individuals because our students interface with everyone on a regular so helping them um become more equipped with those skills and strategies and then again making sure that we're being intentional about where we designate our attention. And so we talked about incorporating a board approved um and adopted um social and emotional learning curriculum that all students will have access to. Um this will help to again um connected to not only our guard rail but also connected to our academics and help in closing those achievement, attendance, discipline and resource gaps. So also to add to this piece, I know that there is a pilot that has already been conducted by um uh Miss

235Manisha House and her team from uh positive school culture. So they have been implementing a few um different curriculums and several of the schools just to get an idea of what um curriculum would work best. And so four of those curriculums are character strong, wayfinder, second step and the character effect. So I know at our next meeting as a cow they will have a full presentation to share out um with the board and also to answer any of those questions around how much it would be in terms of the um economic um costs associated with it and also what that roll out could potentially look like. Any questions about that section? Oh, Vice President Bolton, one question, a little concern regarding financially or the budget piece. Um, I notice here and when I was reading

236through this, you just mentioned it now, the social emotional curriculum adoption or something. Is that something that would have to happen uh in this coming budget year? I know we're looking in terms of curriculum uh suspension as one of the things uh to be doing our new adoptions. Can it can it wait? I don't want to I don't want to stifle what you've been working on, but it it'd be great if we didn't have to do that this year. So, I will uh definitely well, I will always advocate for it, right? that is something that we we should have in place um as soon as possible. But given the fact that they will be pre um presenting what is that May 14th um and the pilot actually won't end until the end of May. So

237we will need you know that additional time um I think before we able to actually put it in the budget but I can uh have uh Miss Manisha House speak more to that in terms of timeline and what that would look like in terms of the budget. And then one last question is is the work that you've been doing has that been embedded in uh the uh um what do we call it the building character uh or school? Yeah. The school posit not positive school culture the thing we're getting ready to endorse or uh code of conduct. Yes. So you said has it been embedded within the code of absolutely. So again they've already presented on you know severations they're talking about how they're applying the restorative practices how they're talking about SEO um different

238strategies and interventions. So they are already doing the work. Again this is an opportunity for us to really streamline that work and again make sure that as a district we are encouraging um and and being accountable to this work. You're welcome. Uh so for goal area four again Dr. House has already spoken um extensively on this but schools shall adopt a positive behavior intervention supports comprehensive framework and this doesn't only benefit the students but this also really benefits the teachers as well right and it helps to again work towards um you know ensuring that we have that tiered intervention approach to supporting all of our students whether it's academically behaviorally socially and emotionally or mentally those tiered approaches are already in place and then a thing to call out in this particular section is ensuring

239that each school has that multidisciplinary PBIS team that meets regularly to again have those comprehensive discussions about how to support our students and what intervention should be in place. Uh goal area five schools will have a colllocated mental health partner that provides access to a continuum of mental health supports. And so this really aligns with goal area one but again this is talking about that continuum of care. And so we know that every student won't need this level of care, right? But we want to make sure that the the um access is there in the event that they do. And so talking about the care coordinators and case managers, um medication management services and licensed school-based therapists. And one important area to discuss here is that students have to have um informed consents and referrals

240to be able to engage in the supports that's provided here. And another thing that I wanted to just really stress is making sure that with our mental health professionals, our school staff, that we will honor, right, the referral process and that we won't refrain, excuse me, from referring students based on our personal beliefs, values uh or biases. And so because we don't want to get into a space of over referring and over diagnosing. Um, goal six, this is speaking specifically to our employees, which is so critical because they are helping to support our students. So, as a district, we want to make sure that we are supporting them. And so, this is really elevating the work um for the employee assistance program, making sure again that there's knowledge, awareness, and access to uh the services

241that are provided. It's a free confidential service that's extended to all of our uh educators within the district uh and staff within the district. And again, making sure that there's regular and routine monitoring of the services that's provided so that we are able to ensure that they're getting the needs and also make sure that we're improving um as necessary after evaluation of the services. And then goal seven is the district will implement a structured approach to addressing critical incidents. So a critical incident, a crit, excuse me, a critical incident is an unforeseen event or a traumatic event that can happen at school or that can happen within the school community. And so we want to make sure that there is a systematic approach as well as a responsive and sensitive approach to addressing uh the

242needs and the concerns here um not only with um making supports available but how we are actively allocating um our resources. Okay. So wanted to make sure that that was noted and that training um to these situations or to these incidents will be um critical to doing this work. Um continual uh debriefing and evaluation of um the work so that we are ensuring an effective response. And then lastly um making sure that we're maintaining our commitment to um the overall wellness of our community learning center model. Right. So I I did not feel that we could have a comprehensive uh mental health and wellness plan without having our community learning center model um embedded in that. And so really this is really just outlining that comprehensive work. I've received uh significant feedback as well as

243the team has received significant feedback from um like Beach Acres or from the American School Counseling Association. Um I've even reached out to OSBA in terms of ethics to make sure that we are um really looking at the whole child from every aspect. But I wanted to bring it to you all to u receive any feedback to receive any questions or concerns because again I know that effective policy is um based off of having the feedback and the input of those that we're serving. Thank you board member Weinberg. I was just going to say board member map I just wanted to thank you so much for taking the initiative on this. I do not have any feedback. I think you covered everything completely and thoroughly and thank you so much. Thank you. I'll be brief

244because we had but um so again thank you for the hard work you are doing this. I know this is something that's really important to you but it's also something that we valued as a we made it a priority as our district to do. Um the the two things that I really wanted to maybe just throw in there is is one is the utilization of like virtual um services I think that's another way to also provide connections when there may not be someone who's physically able to be present and so that just may be like another thing that we would add into the mix as a supplement if this is not available in these dates or in spaces where there may be someone who needs something very individualized that that's another way to provide that

245service would maybe we we can't do it. Um I think the other one that I would say also with the employee assistance programs I think there is a value to that but I think there also maybe a need to have um additional ways of kind of that like leadership within a school or leadership within a department will pay attention to andor provide time for this the employee to utilize those services because I think that's The other part is that there's there's a mentality sometimes of if I need mental health, if I need something as an employee, I I still need to do my work and I don't want to like burden my other folks, right? Right. And it's almost that commitment that as if someone braces a concern or there's a behavioral pattern, I don't

246know how you put that into the policy, but almost incre like creating an obligation for management who observes concerns or observes a employee in need of care to at least offer those resources out. Um because I think that also at least my experience has been that when you don't offer it and employees are not performing or may be having other issues that are concerned connected to some of those mental health needs, they won't take advantage of the resources in fear of losing their position or their job. Absolutely. Um and I think what I'm hearing you say is I think it's something that we kind of address. Um so I know this is a lot of work that would fall under our human resource department. and I know they already regularly communicate out those supports. I've

247even received some of those emails. So, that's great to see. And also making sure that our our administration within the building are also actively promoting um having access to those supports in place. And I forgot to call out in this area making sure that our staff have a wellness space that they are able to benefit from as well. So, that could be a student lounge, that could be a designated space that the uh school decides upon. Um but also having those supports and those uh pamphlets and resources available as well. So it's regularly available and communicated out in different ways. Vice President Bolton. Yeah. Real quickly uh for me uh one of the things that is particularly interesting on this is there this would seem to be an increased reliance on our partnersh. Uh and

248one of the things that I think we we don't necessarily do well enough is that when we have an increased reliance on our partners, we shouldn't have such duplication of our own people. There has to be it has to be seamless uh between our professionals inhouse and also our partners because much of our mental health services are provided by our partners as well as our own people. So, I just think that as we look at this, I would be watching for those things where you might have too much of a kind of a compounding effect or making sure that it's spread throughout all schools rather than so heavily in some. I just I I think we don't make use or we don't we don't on the tally sheet say, okay, we got these partners doing

249this, but we're still going to be doing this. And I think we should try to find a balance there. And I I and I think there's some opportunities there. And I worry too that as we reduce perhaps nursing and what have you, some of these other medical uh uh kinds of provisions that we're going to have to be doing, I would assume uh we have to figure out how we're going to if it's teleaalth or or virtual or what have you or better use of all of our school-based health centers even to help guide some of this work. So it's kind of a watch that interfacing. Yeah, absolutely. So um with the different um roles that are listed some of the uh services are duplicative to some degree. The difference is when you get into

250those colloccated partners again that has to be based on those referrals that have to be based on you know that informed consent that is signed by the parent. So that helps to create that delineation there where it's not too much of a duplication. But we do want to, as we talked about that prevention piece, we do want to make sure that our school counselors, our school social workers, our school psychologists, right, are engaging in those conversations about, you know, um, how we can ensure wellness. Um, and so they are able to provide that social and emotional regulation, right? And so just helping to kind of differentiate there, I think, is to the point that you're making. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. I have just one question. If you can go up a little bit,

251Rob, on goal seven, that sounds like the crisis intervention team. Do we have a policy for crisis intervention team already? I was going to say this could replace that. I don't think that we do. I'm going defer to uh general counsel. Do I don't think we have a policy in place about the crisis intervention team. Do we? Yeah. Okay. Well, I was thinking like maybe this could critical incidents could be like how it could be just defined as crisis intervention in some way. So, I didn't know if if we had a policy if we could tie it to that, but if we don't have a policy, maybe just say that that's what this is. So because we do have things that go on in our buildings and it would be nice to have a process

252in place so that once it's defined as critical incident, death of a student, a teacher or you know traumatic event, there's a process in place. So this formalizes it to me. And so you know as we were talking about this because obviously this is a very sensitive area that can occur, right? And so, um, I do know that the team discussed putting something in a procedure, um, versus us having it kind of outlined in that in a policy space, but wanting to make sure we're bringing mission to it because that we, you know, experience. Okay. Well, good work. Any other questions? Board member questions for me. Just just from a process perspective, um, uh, hope is that this would come up at the next board meeting for adoption. Yes. So what I wanted to do

253and the team as well, we wanted to bring it to you all um for your feedback um and and and to incorporate any um you know input that you all have shared. And so just the questions that have come up or some of the things that you've talked about um I'll make sure that I share that out with the committee. And then we also wanted to have parents, we also wanted to have teachers uh you know students to interface with this and get their feedback. And so the hope is by the next board meeting we could have those um if there's any modifications that's needed we we'll be able to do that and present it the full the prepared draft at the next board meeting. So you all um are going to have the pilot

254at the cow. Just so you know we all we've already worked this out. The pilot will be presented at the cow and then the next board meeting will be more discussion or a vote. We're looking for a vote. Okay. So that's the May 19th meeting I believe. Yeah, we I think we'll be prepar prepared for a vote. Do did you want us to have a policy committee meeting between now and when it comes back or not? I guess it probably depends on what the feedback is. Yeah. So, you know, if you all feel that it would be best to take it back to um policy. Um but I was hoping to just bring the discussion back to you all and see what your what your thoughts were for approval. That's great. I we certainly don't

255need to talk about it again. Faster is better from my perspective. Thanks. So the anticipation was that you all would provide feedback today. It will be incorporated. We'll see the pilot on the whatever the date is the cow and then if the revisions will be presented under old business and then which I think are minimal and then um we'll just vote on it. All right. Thank you. You're welcome. Great job. first policy you'd got done and uh you can testify that it takes a while for policies to go from idea to generation but you did it. Absolutely. And again this is this was a collaborative effort and so I really want to just highlight um and stress the the great work that the team has done um in developing this as well as general counsel

256Dan Hoy. All righty. Uh, Vice President Bolton, you have the next two topics. Yes. Brevity is the key today and we can uh I think uh I think these can go fairly qu Swift swiftly. Uh the first one is uh an issue uh regarding the naming of schools as we prepare and are in the midst of marketing for our uh grade bands of six through uh eight. um that I think we have to come up with names uh perhaps for the six schools that are now either 678 or uh 78 and I I would and maybe this can be an assignment too to the administration that are they all six going to be called middle schools uh will they or will some of them be called junior highs will they adopt the same building where

257they are I know we've had a request uh and I and I think it's totally justifiable for the Ethel Taylor uh community to maintain that name uh because of Miss Taylor uh and indeed it isn't necessarily associated with only one neighborhood but uh regarding the Schroeder middle school is that going to be are we going to do the same for Wro? Are we going to do the same uh where uh we have another um you know the west highs. So uh I think it would be great to have the administration come back and tell us what the probability would be regarding the names uh of these places uh because some of the marketing might be dependent upon whether or not people are uh aware of the names the places and what have you. So that's

258an interest of mine and and I think we we need to do that relatively soon. I think that's time-sensitive especially with the marketing. The uh other piece is the um uh issue of IRNs and I know the administration's explained this to us before but the IRN number stays with the building. I have an interest in knowing whether or not the report card uh of the school that is merging with another school which report card does the report card follow is it do we get to choose let's say a merging like Douglas and um um Evston uh that is that merger uh do we get to choose which of the uh report cards follow that or does it stay with the building? So there's a I understand IRN you've explained to us stays with the building

259but I do have an interest moving forward for the report card in the coming year as well as to whether or not how we take care of the report card. Does the report card of Spencer assume the report card of of Riverview or just the IRN of Riverview or is the IRN connected with the report card uh uh uh record uh and uh achievement or scale achievement. So I do want to just before I I call on everyone thank you for this update. the superintendent did send board members an email with regard to what you're talking about. So you would need to look at your email. It's um the very first part she sent it today uh it says IR related to reorganization. So look at that. She she sent it today at hold on

260uh um 4:25. So that was sent to all board members around the information that she received about the IRS of the building from the state. So you have that context to put this particular appreciate that context today. Um just two questions for clarity sake. Are we talking about change when we talk about name changes? Are we talking about changing like elementary school to middle school or elementary school to junior high or we actually talking about changing the name of the building itself like the full name? because I think I would have more concerns with changing the full name if we're not going through the LSCMC and that the whole process is outlined in our policy if we're going from whether it's elementary to middle school. I mean, we took off Padilla from schools that didn't

261have Padilla anymore. We've done stuff like that before. So, I don't have as big a concern. And then the uh second question would also be just from a consistency standpoint, not all six of the schools are the same type of school. So like for instance, Sher is really a junior high versus like um South Aenddale is more of a middle school or you know there's a couple of schools where it's like five through eight versus being seven and eight. And so I just you know thinking about the the nomenclature part maybe that's more tied to what they actually are operating as than per se one for all kind of deal. So that was the two questions I had. So, board member Bolton, are you made this as an assignment? Are you can you put a

262date to it? I think we need to start putting timelines to things. When do you want this to be? Okay. Yes. So, before you make an assignment, I actually have a question on that. And thank you um board member Craig for bringing um up the naming of schools in the question. So, according to our policy that's listed here in 7250, if we are truly renaming it, which I don't think we are, um, it is the duty of the board to come up with a name. So, if we are deciding, I think you had asked if the superintendent could do that. In actuality, we are to do that. So, if we're wanting to say Evston Middle School, Evston Junior High, whatever, that would be for us to come and then to give her those names. So,

263I think we need to decide if that's what we're doing versus if we're coming up with a whole entirely new name. As board member Craig said, we would have to follow 7250. But I think when you're saying an assignment and asking for assignment, technically that's going to be the discussion among the board members to come up with that information to then give to her. So, I just want to make sure that we follow those the process correctly. Thank you, board member Weinberg. I I heard your assignment to be for the superintendent to come back and see if that's the desire. I I'm sorry. I may have misunderstood that. No, no. I I think that they should come back with a recommendation because they've already made some plans, I'm sure, regarding marketing or whatever, but it

264board member Weinberg is right. It does fall to us and actually it's supposed to go I think initially through policy committee and then come back to us. Uh but I don't know that we have all that time or that it's that important based upon what Mr. Craig is saying. How how far along are we in this thing and how big is the big change? Uh and uh so I I would like to send it to the administration to at least put together some parameters, but it does fall to us to agree with that or come up with different ideas or give them direction uh as to what to do. Um, but I I think I' I'd prefer the administration come back with what their best thinking is in the midst of their marketing and and

265in their planning. Yeah. And just to comment on that, um, obviously that would be your opinion. Um, I would like to also suggest, can we also just come up with a name right now? Can we come up with some suggestions to be able to give to her so that she can then move forward with the marketing aspect. So for example, each of the schools are different. Each of them have a different grades span. Can we suggest keeping the name of the school but changing it to that particular grade span instead of changing the name completely? I'm sure we could do anything we want to. I just don't know what their marketing plan is or how they're selling these schools. I mean, of course, it's to me it's a junior high, but I think that junior

266high is much more associated with, for example, it makes it easier to have it be associated with the high school that it's associated with, but that doesn't work either except at Schroeder. So, right. Yeah. I and I my only suggestion is that we maintain the Eth Taylor because the community has asked that, but maybe in the marketing it's is something else. But if people have ideas, I'm sure the superintendent would be happy to hear ideas. And I guess my next question would have been to the superintendent. Um, in terms of marketing, do you have a plan in place? And if so, what would that plan be? And obviously being open to hearing from board members as well, maybe sending that information to you to give those suggestions. Absolutely open um to any suggestions at all.

267I will say that uh they are all thinking about their names. Um and I would say that if you just give me I'd say a couple of days I can get something to you in writing in terms of their interest. I I feel confident in saying tomorrow, but just in case somebody's out or whatever, but um and you might be surprised since they've been in their training um a lot of the things that they've learned and what they would like to uh be known as. Um so if you give me a couple days, I can bring that to the whole board. Okay, great. So then maybe by the next board meeting, we can be discussing it if that I just think we need to put timelines on things. I also do have a question to

268board member Craig's point. We may Does the policy since you have it up board member Wineberg call for LSDMC recommendations? Any recommendations or engagement from the community around what the name should be? Yes. If we were actually changing the complete name, requests for namechanging facilities shall include a written recommendation from the schools LSDMC, a written recommendation from the community, and a written recommendation from public private partnerships. and then the board should approve it. Okay. I think it's great to get the admin the building administration's opinion, but I also do wonder about community engagement and what does the Ethel Taylor was very clear, but what are some of the what are some of the other stakeholders interests in what their name is going to be? So, um definitely come back with some suggestions by the next

269board meeting and we'll talk about it for sure. Board member, Vice President Bolton, you have the next topic as well. The second part of that was trying to find out, we know about the IRNs and the buildings, but the report card piece. So, I did have a chance to talk with um Kathy Spellelman um because the report card piece, that's a great question. Uh because of the grade levels um changing and whether that report card will continue to follow the current school. Based on what has been shared with me, it seems like the state is saying it would follow, but it really doesn't make a lot of sense that that report card would follow because those children aren't necessarily still in the school to be able to make instructional decisions about. So Kathy and I

270um are going to be talking more about that just to be crystal clear. I just remember when we eliminated one elementary that was so wonderful and heavily into the arts um and we kind of said because we have SCPA we can eliminate this one building and this one school. I I remember a discussion taking place as to who's IRN because at the time that elementary school IRN and the associated report card was even higher than SCPA's uh uh report card. So it was like oh we should have kept that but it's it it it begins to be important when we are looking at the overall report card next year and the following year. uh very very important as well as how many of our kids are in uh particular schools versus other schools or higher

271performing schools which is a point that the Urban League has has brought out as well as the Forom Foundation. So I' it'd be great to find out what what the ruling is. Is there an assignment there or you just are that's just I want that to be part of whatever with the IRN because I already said that about the report card names and again to the board members I think that the administration did summarize a little bit of that in that email if you have a chance to review that today. And your next topic is my last my last thing uh just as very very quickly is that um when we have the community you know uh what we call the CRAS uh I know that some years ago and this came up with the

272Hide Park uh issue uh recently. I know some years ago the school board decided uh that it was not interested in exercising its authority that it might have regarding being able to get an okay or not or a denial of certain developments and maybe general counsel can tell us something quickly. I I just think that it's something this board because it's been six boards since then that we made that decision as to whether or not we should have a discussion if we still have that authority if we chose to use it. And I'm not suggesting we use it if we've got it. But I would like to know if we have it. And I think the board needs to have a discussion not tonight but later on as to whether or not there's an interest

273in exercising that authority as we seem to always be the last man out. uh regarding the CRAAS and we've just been rubber stamping as we go. So given the agreement that the board agreed to in 2020, the city actually has the ability to put in place CRAAS and and the board doesn't vote individually on those. It's a 5-year agreement that ends in December of this year that gives the city the authority to put in place CRAAS without asking the board for individual approval for those per an agreement that we have with the city. Correct. But what does state law say? It it would give us that ability to the CRAAS still require the board of education's approval, but we've we've foregone that in this ag per this agreement. Perfect. Thank you. future discussion. Okay. And

274just to clarify, um are you suggesting that after the expiration we resume our responsibilities? I think this board, since we're six boards into this, uh I think it's something we should reconsider. Okay. Uh and and if we still have the authority through the state, it also could impact the relationship and the negotiations with the city. Okay, thank you. Any other question? Board member Lendy, I I we should talk about this another night. I disagree and I like the idea that we play to our expertise, but I do think we should negotiate for a number um that gets CPS what we deserve and I'm open to renegotiating that. But again, topic for the night. Okay. Board member Craig, I was just gonna say I think part of the benefit of what we were when we negotiated

275was that it was set a set a dollar amount that we were guaranteed to kind of get or percentage percentage amount that we were guaranteed to get. I think that would present that's the question we may have to ask is what are we giving up by not having agreements? Is that mean that we then have to have more those discussions, more walkthroughs, whatever and whether or not that's the best use of the time. So when do you when do we need to have this discussion? I'm just thinking of you said before December. Okay. So that's great. It doesn't have to be done in conjunction with this board. I mean the budget stuff. So that's great. Any other board member questions, comments, and concerns? Let's move on. Um do board members are there any assignments that

276you'd like to state that have not already been stated or you'd like to clarify? Well member Vice President Bolton, you shared yours. I shared mine. Any other assignments? I think we we said this earlier, but and I think this is the administration's plan anyway, but just that we come the board meeting before the last board meeting in June with the administration's recommended budget or early or I know people want early is fine like I for me, but I honestly I don't know that we need an assignment because I feel like we're all on the same page. I agree. I did hear an assignment around the foundation report of the goals by June 2025. I heard that one. Um that we we find out what the goals of the foundation are. So I did hear that

277one. Anything else? All right. We are cooking with grease, guys. We're almost there. Uh, do board members, the superintendent, I'm sorry, a proposed consent agenda has been distributed. Do board members, the superintendent or the assistant treasurer have any exception items to the consent agenda? Yes, ma'am. Mr. Wineberg, can you repeat the very first thing you said before what you just said? Everybody, wake up. We need to do some jumping jacks. Say, so I said a proposed consent agenda has been distributed. Oh, okay. Do board members, the superintendent, or the assistant treasurer have any exception items to the consent agenda? Yes, I do. I'll go with those. Are you ready? Yeah. Go ahead. All right. On the superintendent report on page 12, section F, line nine, and then do you want me to give you the

278treasurer report as well? treasure treasures report on page 15 1-7 and page 16 7- 8 these are extensions um yes on on those particular pages page 15 and 16 yes so page 15 1- 7 page 16 7-8 thank Any other exceptions? Well, remember Matt, you ready? Uh so for so for the treasurer's report um I would like to abstain from page seven line items 4 and five page 12 line items 5 11 and 17 page 13 line item 13- 16. And for [Music] the superintendence report, uh page two under section D. Uh no for uh line items one and two for the promotion. Okay. I'm sorry. I I have a concern about the superintendent's recommendations on page two, promotions. Yeah, I'm just pulling that up. I'd like to make an exception to to those to

279section D page two under promotions. Well, I'm not making an exception. I want to I'm requesting Well, how would I do that? Cuz I'm wanting So, I need to make an exception and then up for discussion. Are we ready? So, I I have a concern. I've shared my concern with the other board members and the superintendent. Do you need those repeated the exceptions? I didn't think you good. Okay. I have a concern around the promotions at this time. Um I think that um with the exception of the principal for that's that's listed because I think by law we have to have a principal. The other two positions um I do not think we need to have at this time to be considered and I would like those positions to be pulled for disc consideration at

280a later date if so. Um these are two promotion positions that are not set to start until August the 1st. Um with the exception again of the principal. I just have concerns about until this budget is finalized. what message are we sending to our staff um to be promoting people? I I think that there may be um some other considerations that we have not been explored. So with regard to the assistant superintendent district performance redesign sustainability and growth position and the director career and technical education and goals and guard rails position, I'm asking that those I'm requesting that those are pulled member. Is this the time for questions? Discussion. Okay. Discussion. Um I just had a discussion in terms of on that particular section. So it was page two under promotion and this is for

281the superintendent. In terms of what is the cost or what is it saving us? There is a savings of about 357,000. Um we share the number Friday. I don't have it off the top of my head, but if you give me a second, I can look in my email. I believe I believe it's about $357,000 in savings. I'm sorry, superintendent, I didn't hear you. I believe it's about $357,000 in savings. Okay. And so there's no there's no cost extra cost. It would be a savings currently for those two promotions. Yes, ma'am. Do you remember? Vice President B. Yeah, I continue to uh be concerned about um the size of the of the senior leadership piece and looking back uh with Superintendent Wright, I know we'd already reduced by some positions the size of that leadership

282uh team, senior leadership. Um and so what we're working with now is somewhat smaller than that was. Does this while it I think the savings in dollars is great, but is this are you adding positions to the senior leadership because that's my concern uh in these difficult times? There's a savings, but are you adding positions? No, ma'am. Um not adding, consolidating. So this is four this current year it's four separate positions and the proposal is that then next year this would be two positions. So it's time it's a so it's a reduction in positions and it's a reduction in positions savings is the is the treasurer said is the treasurer said that those are the savings or is the yes we we calculated the savings was in the email um from Friday but it's basically

283the savings from the unfilled positions and then the um director of what's it strategic planning goals and guard rails that would be um funded by a grant. Okay. Thank you. So, so I just have a concern around he said it will be funded by grant, right? But vacancy. Okay. So, I just have a concern around we're saying that we're having a hiring freeze. We're saying that we're having a contract freeze, yet we're promoting this positions. These positions, I love the people, are not set to start until August the 1st. I believe it is responsible for us to fix the finish the budget and then if these positions are needed, we can move forward. Then I don't understand why we need to have these promotion positions. We're asking people to do more with less. this particular

284position assistant superintendent we are we have one position that's leaving this would be moving this person up this will be a raise in salary and I understand that but that's a raise in salary so then the other position is a created position so I am a little confused on filling a vacancy that didn't exist before that's a created position there are no vacancies they're all currently filled with a CPS employee. So, we have a he's going from a manager to a director. There was a director position already. The D there was a director position already in the goals and guard rail position. Yes, but that was okay. I get it. I think that this should be pulled and tabled until there is more finalization of the budget. I think that is very respectful of our

285staff. that is possibly facing some detrimental decisions financially. I don't understand why this has to be done at this moment in time. Or member Crosset, I called on you. What member Crosset? Well, uh, in my business experience, um, I see this as a very positive move to consolidate work and to eliminate positions that are maybe not as efficient. I so I commend the administration for finding these savings of 3577,000. I think it's huge. It's important. I also think that my experience is when you have u some folks maybe uh are going to be in a difficult spot with employment here at the district, the folks that you retain, you want to treat them as well as you can. So, I I I think this is a good move and I I I commend it because

286I based on my business experience where I've been through situations like this before, it's valuable to if you're going to consolidate some jobs, you got to make sure that the people that are going to take on that work are are compensated for taking on extra work. I think that's important. So, for whatever that's worth. Thank you. But the pos just to remind you that the position doesn't start until August the 1st. So, what my suggestion was is that it be tabled until a later date. Well, board member Matt, I got you. I I didn't relate to that, but okay. I understand. Well, member Matt, um I agree with your recommendation, and I'm I'm also, I guess, having just a challenge in processing. Um we know that there's been other roles that have been possibly consolidated.

287Has has there been an increase in salary or pay for those other positions that may have been consolidated? because we're making the recommendation in this particular um you know role here or these particular roles. Has that been the same for other positions that are in the space of being consolidated now? I don't believe that this administration has done any other consolidation. Maybe there's something I'm forgetting about, but I I cannot recall any other consolidation. So, when we're talking about you said the recommendation in your list of 100s, reooking or looking at the work in terms of like vacancies, what that would entail, and the recommendation for consolidating central office as well as schools. So, maybe it has not been done now, but would there be the expectation to increase the salary for those particular recommendations.

288Well, no. So, in that case, so the vacancies is in my mind if there's a position that um will not be filled. So that vacancy will just essentially go away. In the conversation about consolidating, that was a conversation that came out of the budget task force to look at our uh clerical pool to see if if you have an individual who's possibly serving one person, could they serve two people? So it's the same work versus in this case, these are two different pockets of work. So, we're making the recommendation for the assistant superintendent. We currently have three uh where two assistant superintendents and a deputy superintendent. Could this work not fall under the work that they are currently doing? My thought around uh one of the assistant superintendent is they currently have 25 schools. I

289find it challenging to add more schools to that person. The other uh assistant superintendent has all of the high schools. I think that would be a challenge as well to add more schools. The performance redesign sustainability person will be taking on our middle schools. And it is my true belief that we need to have someone to be able to focus on all of that new work. Okay. And then lastly for the goals and the guard rails, does there need to be a designated position for this? Because just my thinking around it, while this is definitely something that we want to be attentive to and um you know this is a priority for the board, my thinking is and just based off my experience, this was work that the superintendent did. So I'm I'm just curious

290about this recommendation here. Well, so since the strategic plan and the goals and guard rails have been created that we are currently operating under, there's been a person assigned to focus on that. And because that to me is the priority of the district. It's important critical work. The other piece in terms of making that go away that is funded by um dollars afforded to us by children's hospital. So really essentially in a lot of different ways these current four positions I don't know Mike will correct me if not even today but in many ways this is almost one salary compared to the four different salaries we have in place right now and it's important to be able to move forward now for a few different reasons the the the work has already started around the

291middle schools as you know the second thing is making this move will help us with our budget. Um, we haven't applied those dollars um to helping us with our our our gap yet, but I would like to. So, thank you for that. I I think for me my recommendation still stands as to not believing that this is an ideal time um to advocate for promoting um individuals again knowing that we've just talked about having to have the hard conversations around cuts. Um so my recommendation would still stand and my vote is still a no for those positions. So I I just have another question from the one position as a promotion to assistant superintendent. Is there a plan to fill the position that he currently holds? Um so he's currently serving as the director of

292school community partnerships that would be absorbed into the role as assistant superintendent and not filled by another person. Um, and therefore that's why I'm saying this is almost like four administrative positions rolled into one single salary essentially. Thank you. I I just I question the timing. I'm not saying that that there's not validity to the position to the need of the position. I just really think that this doesn't send a message of valuing our staff at this present time. Um, when we're talking about a hiring freeze, we're talking about which was inclusive of promotions, we're talking about contract freezes, we're talking about looking for areas to save money. I I just questioned whether or not the timing of this is appropriate. Um, I thought that we had had some significant discussion at the previous board

293meeting around stating that there was a hiring freeze, making sure that people understood that there we needed to halt things um, respectfully to be able to get a handle on the budget. I thought that was very very clear by board members that that was kind of the intention unspokenly and to see a promotion here um while I think that's not even starting until August 1st is just concerning to me because I just don't know what type of message that that sends. I understand what you're saying. I just think that the timing is just kind of a slap in the face. So for me, I don't know. I think that it should be tabled rather than just taken out. I think it should be tabled for a later date. Um, but I'm happy to vote no

294against on that as well, whichever is easiest. Yes, ma'am. Vote member Matt, I just had one additional question just in thinking about this. Um, one would become a vacancy um and the other is I guess creating a position in a sense. Were those positions posted for other individuals to apply? The assistant superintendent position was posted. The combination of career and technical education and the goals and guard rails was not because I'm not I was not interested in looking for another person to do career and technical education when we have some a strong person doing that. These are additional responsibilities. Okay. Go back. You said which you said the assistant superintendent. So the assistant superintendent was posted. Okay. Yes, the um combination of career and technical education and goals and guardrails was not because was not

295looking to get rid of the career and technical education person in that role. Therefore, taking on additional responsibilities means um an elevation in um the work that's currently being done. Okay. So, for the uh the assistant superintendent position, can I inquire about why that uh or excuse me, you said it was posted. Were there applicants that applied? There were applicants who applied. Yes. Okay. They weren't interviewed. They were interviewed. I don't know if they were interviewed. They were Okay. Were they interviewed? No. Can you expound on why they were not interviewed? Yes. Um, internally, there's one person who um applied for the position before when it was initially posted last summer who when I called them, they didn't respond to take an interview. Another internal person I believe is a um person in a field

296within the district who um does not have the proper credentials to do the work. Another person um has not been a principal and one of the pieces that are needed would be to be a principal. The other applicants were external to the district. Okay. And so even the external individuals, they were not presented with opportunity to interview at all? No. Okay. So I guess my concern is if we're talking about the need for this position, if we're talking about um you know, promotion, I I always believe in having an equitable and fair process. And so I don't think that we can or we should pick and choose who we interview and who we decide not to interview. But that's just my thoughts about it. member Wineberg and I just wanted to add on that. Thank

297you board member map for asking that question as well. So I just want to make sure that there is a process that is being followed. So if we're being very transparent and making sure that we're allowing individuals to have the same um opportunity as well. I would definitely agree with board member map on that in this case. So we we did follow the process in in terms of what's required in the cast agreement and that is that the position is posted. We did post that position. It's not a part of the cast agreement that we have to interview um candidates. I can do a review of their resume and application to make a determination of who I might want to move forward with. And since you brought up the cast, the director position is the

298current cast president that you're promoting. Correct. That's correct. Okay, that sounds conflict of interest. Board member Craig, can we just either vote on whether or not we're going to put this on there or not? Because I think this is a waste of time to be quite honest. If we don't like the position, it's not going to change tomorrow. It's not going to change next month. It's not going to change the next month after that. So, we can vote to table it, which is fine. That's what we as a board can do. But I think rubber like I think getting too far into the weeds of what was done and why it was done and all those other parts of it is not a productive use of time at 10:30 p.m. Um so if we want

299to just do a vote as to whether or not to table that particular part and vote on the rest of it, I think that's fine. Um but I think just trying to dive into this on the that's it gets into things that are personnel matters that we really shouldn't be tackling anyway in in the conversation we're having on the floor. So, I mean, I just again, if folks want to make a motion to to amend the proposed consent agenda to to table those things till another date, feel free to do so. But I just think going back and forth over why and all this other stuff is just not going to it's not really the best use of our time on the on the floor here. Well, thank you, board member Craig. I think it

300fell under discussion, but I'm sure that we can definitely stop that discussion. So, I will make a motion to table to amend the superintendent's recommendations to table those two particular positions um and and approve the rest of it. If that's what your suggestion was, we'll just take I'm making a motion to take those out. Those two particular second we need to vote. I'm sorry. Did you get a second? Discussion. She got a second map. Second, I think discussion discuss discussion around that. I think we had the discussion. We're tired about that. Please God. Fair enough. All right. The motion is to table superintendent rack sections D. Um the two positions we discussed. Mr. Craig. No. Mr. Crosset. Do I to table it? I vote no. Right. If you if you would like it to be

301tabled for a later to take this part out and you say yes. If you I'll vote yes. Table it. Okay. Mr. Lendy. No. No. Miss map. Yes. You screwed up. Mrs. Weinberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. No. President Moffett. Yes. I think there's a way I can change my vote, right? Sure. Sure. It's just taking it out. It's 10 o'clock. We're just You're It's not going away. It's just going to a later time. So, I changed my vote to no. It's been done. And the public gets to see exactly who voted for it and who didn't. Okay. So, we are going to now call for a vote on the motion to table. If you changed your vote would have failed. Okay. Yes. So, we can just vote independently on that table. Everybody voted independently on that.

302He was confused about tableing. No. What I said, what I said is people can vote when they're going to vote and then they can say no to a specific section if they want to. They can vote independently on that. Absolutely. Let's take a vote. So, it's for the whole thing now. Yes. And if you have a specific section, you can vote no on the section. Motion for the So, I Motion for the consent agenda. Motion for the consent agenda. Second. Second vote. All right, Mr. Craig. Yes, Mr. Cross. Yes, Miss M. So, I have my abstensions that I had before and then the rest of the recommendation will be Yes. Okay. Yes. Lindy left. Mrs. Wineberg. Yes. Vice President Bolton. Yes. President Moffett. Yes. Except for D. No on that. Mr. Lindy is absent. He's

303absent. So what did that vote? Oh, we done. Okay, motion pass. Consent agenda passes. You have to get you have to do that. So people get to people can just now look and see the votes. All right, we are now we got the assignments already done. The chair will entertain a motion for adjournment. So moved. Is there a second?