Policy and Equity Committee Meeting April 25, 2025

001Follow the April 25th nursing committee meeting public schools. Uh we're going to start with round of introduction. Phyis, would you get us started? G ser also district lead counselor. Eric Kernney with uh Kernney and Kernney and I do government relations for the district. Libby O'Neal but Libby O'Neal with CSC adviserss. I also do government relations. Mary Weinberg, CPS board member. Ben, board member. Kendra Matt, board member. Dian Ho, general counsel. Stephanie Scott, assistant general counsel. Michael Gustin, assistant treasurer. Isaac Ken, internal audit supervisor. Okay, good morning everybody. Uh, glad you're here. Uh we're going to be using the agenda that is posted to board docs. It is the same stuff but a slightly different order than the printed agenda that you may have with your table. Um and I don't know that we have any

002uh items under two today, but uh we do have some guests. We're going to try to get to them quickly. Um before we do that, we're going to do the uh just a couple housekeeping things. Um because this year our committee meets the last Friday of every month, we have some date conflicts at the end of the year with Thanksgiving and with the winter holidays. Um so, uh I would love it if we could look for just a minute at November. Um and if this is something we can do quickly together, great. Um and if it proves to be really gnarly and complicated, we will do this by email uh after the meeting is over. Um but if we were to look at November, [Music] um we will have met on October 31st. So if

003we were to meet on the 7th, that would be backtoback weeks, which seems not great. Um I would propose maybe we try November 14th, that Friday morning. There's no finance committee meeting that day. Uh it would give us a little bit of a spell after the October one. Um, are there any concerns from board members or from council about meeting the 14th of November? Can we do 9:45? Works for uh Kendra has worked for Mrs. Ward. Um, so I just have a quick question. Is there a reason why we can't do it on the 21st? The finance committee meets that morning. Okay. And we can only do one at a time. That's fine. The 14th is fine. So we'll do 9:45. Dan, Stephanie, is that okay with you guys? It's Kathy's birthday. All right. Yeah.

004Celebration. We'll bring We'll bring candles. There you go. Yeah. All right. Candles. Drinks. Um Okay. So then, u moving on, we have one more to solve in December. Um so now the 5th is my birthday in December. So maybe so I I think I think if we were to do the the fifth or the 12th, either of those would work. Um slight preference for the 12th because it would just give more time between the two. I would say the 12th for me works great. The only thing with the 12th that I would flag is [Music] um let's do the the Yeah. So we can meet the 12th. If we meet the 12th, there will not be a business meeting until the next calendar year. We've run into this issue sometimes in the past where there's

005something we want to try to get through, but then it won't be there and there'll be a new new there'll be an election between then and the next one, right? So I think there could be an entirely new board. I'm I'm fine to keep not entirely new. Uh I'm fine to keep it on the 12th. I just wanted to flag we will not have a board business meeting after the 12th um to pass anything that we pass out of policy that day. When is the um business meeting? It's on the 8th. So we could do the 5th but even that would be like right either way the same. Okay. Uh Phyis I got you what you need or Dan Stephanie. Okay great. So I'm gonna turn it over to Mrs. Weber. I just wanted to

006show you this. Look at that. You're in my calendar. It's birthday. All right. Well, good morning everyone. Um, I am excited to kind of get a amazing presentation from our fine guests that are over here to my right. Um, I know in one of our policy meetings I had brought up some questions to Dan, our lovely, lovely, lovely guy over here to the left. um regarding what are some changes coming from the state that would affect our CPS district and just wanted to get an update and I will turn the mic over to you two to kind of give everybody some information. Uh thank you so much and um thank you to the policy and equity committee. Uh we're very excited to uh present today. My name is Eric Kernney. I'm joined by Libby O'Neal.

007Uh as you know uh George Glover is the lead on uh the lead lobbyist or government relations specialist uh for for this uh matter. You you run a very complex uh organization with a lot of different moving parts and uh it's been been a great relationship. Uh want to make sure that we thank um Miss Phyllis and Miss Pat who have been great uh conduits and and also Mr. um uh Mr. Um you'll notice that there is DSD advisors there and so um George has moved to DSD advisors. Libby is with DSD advisors and so um that is the new um the new relationship. Okay. So Rob has graciously agreed to to drive. I've been told to move through the slides and get to the point. So I will uh Okay. So, we're going to

008cover the strategy that we use, the system, legislative overview view, bills of interest, action steps, and then I'm going to do some introductions virtually. Uh, so your organization, as you know, is impacted not only by the state house, the white house, but also city hall. Just as a note, I do no work for CPS that involves Cincinnati City Hall because my wife is a member of city council and there's a ethics opinion. So I have nothing to do with it. So the great people at uh DSD adviserss handle handle that aspect of your work. So our strategy is four parts. Uh we identify legislative and policy champions that could be inside the legislature or it could be somebody in the administration. We try and build relationships and with these legislative and policy champions. We share

009CPS's areas of expertise. This district is very unique amongst those the big eight in the state of Ohio. And so we emphasize all of the great work that you do. And then we track legislation. We have a systematic approach. We have monthly meetings with the superintendent and general counsel. We provide monthly and sometimes weekly reports with bill tracking, newly introduced um legislation, and we regularly check in with our local and and other state legislators. Um just to give you a quick overview, the legislative branch, as you know, uh Governor DeWine uh is our governor, Lieutenant Governor is Coach Jim Trestle, and then uh these are the other statewide officials. Yos, Sprag, Larose, and Faber. And then in the US Senate, we have um Senator Moreno and Huad. Uh both are are new. Uh Hughstead was

010formerly the Lieutenant Governor. And then for CPS, Greg Lansman uh covers our entire district. Uh then in the Ohio Senate, these are um this is the leadership on the there are 24 Republicans, nine Democrats. George Lang, who is in Butler County, is our our closest person in in leadership. That's here locally. In the House, there's 65 Republicans, 34 Democrats. So, in both chambers, Republicans have super majorities. And then here locally, an Adam Bird is out in um Claremont County. Uh and Dunny Isacson is the minority whip and he is here locally. Uh so in the Senate which is the better chamber obviously uh we concentrate mainly on three different committees. The education committee which we're fortunate to have Senator Blessing as the vice chair and former uh Cincinnati school board member Katherine Ingram who is

011on that committee and she is the ranking member. And then on finance we have Lang who I've mentioned before as well as Ingram. So that's very important. And then on the health committee, we have Senator Ingram. So, we have some some powerful connections. In the House, there are four main committees. Not to say there aren't other committees that impact CPS, but basically Children and Human Services. Um, Representative Oddioso, who coincidentally I went to high school with, is a new representative. He he took uh Bill Sites's place and he's on that committee. Also the education committee, he is vice chair. Health is representative Baker. Um and uh Representative Schmidt is in Claremont County. So she has some connection. And then um Representative Abrams on finance who's local in Hamilton County. Senator uh Representative Baker and Isacson

012are both on finance. So we've got some good friends. Um then next, this is there 24 bills that we um track. This was a color slide and it had beautiful colors on it, but the colors have dropped out. Basically, of those 24 bills, 12 of them are in the House. So, there's a lot of attention there. Nine are in the Senate. Only one has passed the House, one has passed the Senate, and one has been signed into law. Uh then, um, as I mentioned earlier, we track bills. These are the 24 bills that we we track. Uh I'm going to pay some special attention to some of them later, but I just wanted to get them all on the screen for you. And there it also describes the current status of them. So when we

013get a bill, for instance, House Bill 172, and either we note that it's something of importance or Mr. Hoying says something or Superintendent Murphy or one of the board members calls us and says, "Hey, I want you to talk about this." So what we do is we we get a copy of the bill that's in the far leftand corner. We see who the sponsor is and we do a little bit of research about the sponsor. This is Jonathan Newman, representative from the 80th district. So we find out who that person's legislative aid is, what committees they're on and how that could impact uh the bill. Also the contact information for that particular person and a little bit about their background. So he is a pastor entrepreneur starting a new church affiliated with the Southern Baptist

014Convention. Also we want to know what part of the state uh the person is from. So Troy is just north of um Dayton as you know. And then we look at the status of the bill. So where is it? What committee was it referred to and where is it along the process. So in this particular instance this bill is to prohibit mental health services to minors without parental consent. It's been sent to the health committee. Uh, Representative Newman does not serve on that committee, but you can see that there are co-sponsors and there are approximately 12 co-sponsors. So, there's a little bit of traction there inside the Republican caucus. Um, so that's one example. And then another example that I use, the bill that we um that we really don't we do not like this

015bill one bit. Um, it passed the House 62 to 30. Uh, those are the sponsors. Matthews and Hall. The bill is to eliminate the authority of polit political subdivisions such as a school board to levy replacement property tax levies, uh, beginning this year. Um, and so, uh, the little chart there shows that it passed the House. It's gone to the Senate and it's gone to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. Um, but this is the good thing about it. in the Ways and Means Committee, Lou Blessing, who um we've had at legislative breakfastes and we've had a number of meetings here in this building as well as um at at um schools is the chair. So, we have somebody we can talk to and then also Senator Wilson who represents the eastern part of Hamilton

016County is also on that committee. So, we have some people that we can talk to to hopefully um steer or quelt or amend that bill. And then this is just a quote from um and that's a quote bubble in case you didn't know what that uh oh it's not up on the screen but anyway there's a quote bubble on the slide. Uh it says the legislative uh services commission analysis suggests that eliminating replacement levies may make it harder for local governments to pass tax increases in the future. across the state in 2024. 91% of renewal levies passed, 75% of replacement levies passed, a smaller yet uh yet 49% of new levies passed. So really for CPS having a replacement levy is very very important. But this is part of the analysis that that we do

017for um bills. We also um monitor and check departments. So the department of uh children and uh education and workforce is one committee. Uh there's a cell phones and schools to toolkit and um a treasurer's newsletter which I I know people are familiar with here. But anyway, that's a good website that we that we visit and monitor. And then the Department of Children and Youth, there's always something that impacts kids that's going on. So we we monitor those. And so that gives you an idea of um some of the departments. And then um some news that we cover uh state house news which is sometimes reported in like the inquirer or the dispatch or the Ohio Capital Journal but we have um particular tools. And so this particular example um Rob next slide is author

018auditor I'm sorry of state Keith Faber next one is still reviewing new budget language that would shorten the forecasting period for Ohio school districts. It would cut from 3 years to I mean from 5 years to 3 years the period over which Ohio school districts must forecast their finances. And so I know I know that the treasurer's office obviously knows about that. But this gives you an example of the news that we um information that we provide in our uh reports monthly and weekly. Okay. Action steps. So from time to time we we recommend letters to the education committee that should be committees and to the governor and to legislators. Uh we provide uh testimony. Uh we do invitations to events that CPS might ho host uh throughout the school year. Uh legislative meetings. and

019we're working on a legislative breakfast. Um, so that kind of gives you an idea. Now, I'd like to do some introductions. You all know George very well, but he's he's joined a new firm, uh, a very accomplished firm. So, Matt Davis, uh, is one of the co-owners of the firm, um, along with the Dinsore firm. Um, Matt has great experience there, and you can see he's worked for a number of chambers of commerce. He's worked for corporations and inside the um the administration. Uh Colleen Reynolds is also uh a partner. She uh does a lot of development work. Uh very well known throughout the city. Um and then we have Libby O'Neal. And Libby, I'm not going to introduce you. You're going to have to say your own. Yeah. Well, good morning everybody. Thanks for

020having me. Look forward to working with you all. My name is Libby O'Neal. I was born and raised in Cincinnati. went to University of Dayton for college and then after college I worked for a couple state senators, worked in the Ohio House of Representatives and most recently worked for Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprag and then um Matt Davis approached me with the opportunity to come back home to Cincinnati which I was really excited about. So I've been at DSD for about two and a half years. Um so look forward to working with you all. Okay. And then uh the next person everybody in here knows a former uh school board member and former state senator and former uh state rep. And so he's part of the um he's part of the DSD team and part of

021uh the people that will be helping spread the great word about CPS. And then you know me. Okay. So, um, that, uh, gives you an overview of, uh, some of the things that we're working on. Um, Mr. Chair, do you want me to continue or do you have questions or what would you like to do at this point? Uh, thank you for the presentation and I think question. All righty. So, I have a couple of questions and this can be for yourself to answer if Libby would like to answer, but could you go a little bit more into detail? Um, it's a couple of bills. I think my first one that I had a question on was this uh SB 113 and also House Bill 165 and then a little bit more into um SB127.

022So SB127 the closure of po poor performance schools um SB13 prohibit DEI and then what was the other one that I said 165 yes implicit bias training. So, just a little bit more into that and how that can possibly um obviously affect our school district. Okay. Um so, um 113 is to prohibit diversity, equity, and inclusion in public schools. Um it was introduced by Senator Briner. Senator Briner is the uh chair of the education committee. So, we require public schools to adopt and enforce a policy that prohibits uh any orientation or training courses regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion. It would prohibit the continuation of existing or establishing or establishment of new DEI offices or departments. It prohibits using DEI and job descriptions. It also prohibits contracting with consultants or third parties whose role is to

023promote admissions, hiring or promotion on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. and it requires each public school to establish a complaint process for alleged violations of the policy that complies uh with standard adoption by the director of education and uh workplace. So currently that um 113 is um Senate Bill 113 is in the House Education Committee. uh last month it had its uh second hearing. You know, my my um I haven't I have not spoken to Senator Briner about this particular bill, but my sense is if it's in his committee and he wants it passed, I think it's going to pass. Um and so, um once it gets out of committee, I'm not sure what the Senate President will do with it. And then if it, let's

024say, it gets through the Senate, um, I think the House would probably be inclined to to pass something like this. So that's my gut. Do you have anything you'd like to share? Yeah, my only add is this seems like pretty similar to Senate Bill one that was recently passed that impacts higher education. And so it seems like the goal is to maybe have this um through K through 12. But again, as you mentioned, Senator Brener is the chair. But kind of just a brief overview. Um the legislature will be working on the state operating budget for the next couple months. So that will be their main focus. And so I wouldn't expect to see too much action on this legislation um until they come back and after the summer break. That's my hunch um because

025right now they're just really focused on the state operating budget. But um we'll certainly keep an eye on it. Okay. Okay. So um let's go to 165. Mhm. which was introduced uh by Miller and Representative Miller and Brewer. Uh that requires each public and charter non-public school to reimburse its employees for the full cost of completing graduate level credit hours or the equivalent number of continuing education union units in implicit bias training. requires the department of ed and workforce to reimburse each school for an employee who does implicit bias training. Uh also applies to higher ed. Requires the state board and chancellor with the department to establish minimum standards for implicit bias training. Appropriate $750,000 for fiscal year 2026 and 27 for reimbursing schools for implicit bias training. Um, I I don't see this going

026very very far because of the um the language with um the language with uh the $750,000, but you may have other other views. It might get rolled into the budget. All depends. No, I agree. As um Eric mentioned before, both chambers have a supermajority of Republicans. And so, usually for legislation and bills to pass, there needs to be a Republican sponsor on them. And um this bill is sponsored by two Democrats, Joe Miller and Darnell Brewer. And so that kind of decreases the odds of it getting far in the legislative process. Okay. Um uh board member, would you would you remind me of Yes. So the last one was the SB127 closure for performance schools. And I think that would be my last uh question that I have. Uh hold on one second. Let me

027pull up my report on that. And as you're looking up um information on that, I know that we've had some discussions um in our full complete board meeting. And so just wanted to kind of get an update on exactly what is uh SB127, how will it affect us, you know, is it something that we need to be nervous or afraid of, etc. Oh, I did. Okay. I looked up the wrong bill. I apologize. Thank you, Libby. See, that's what Libby is working together. See? Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. I was getting ready to say um House Bill 127 was um SB. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, this is another bill that is, uh, by, uh, Senator Briner and, uh, as as we noted before, he's chair of the education committee and surprise surprise, it's in

028the education committee. Uh, earlier this month, it had its third, uh, hearing. Um, so it would revise public school closure laws to require any school district operated building, community school, or STEM school that meets criteria for the three most recent school years uh to uh close or take other remedial action. prohibits the Department of Education and Workforce from considering report cards issued prior to 2425 school year and determining whether a school is subject to closure or remedial action requirement and makes the bill effective July 1, 2025. So, um I I don't think this bill will get passed before um the general assembly breaks. Typically, that'll be June 30th because they'll have the budget completed. Um, but I think this is one of those bills that we've run into before that sends a signal and so

029we need to be uh prepared because there's obviously some um you know they're trying to to send a message to public education. Thank you. Those are all the questions that I have. So uh so thank you for the presentation. Um, I do have uh a question around House Bill 172 um requiring parental consent uh for minors with mental health service, which is something that's already expected, but I really want to uh bring this up because we are talking about uh a mental health and wellness policy that's actually on our agenda for today. So, just wanted to um be clear if there's anything that we um need to know pertaining to this particular House bill. You know what? I keep going I keep doing it the wrong way, don't I, Libby? I keep getting the chambers

030confused. Okay, so um we we talked a little bit about um about this um bill earlier uh today. I I don't really see it moving uh before I mean it might move after the break. So that we might want to come back to in the fall. Uh this was in introduced by Representative Newman. There were about 12 co-sponsors, so it's got a little bit of uh momentum. I haven't heard anybody talking about it. It was referred to the House committee and it has not had its first hearing. That's that's not uh health committee. That's not necessarily unusual because um as Libby mentioned, the House has been focused on the budget. Mhm. Um, so I I think for now this is kind of dormant, but it could re uh emerge in the fall. Okay. So I

031don't know if you have any No, I agree with that. Um I took a look at the co-sponsors and a lot of them are the more conservative um members of the House and so sometimes these bills are just introduced to kind of raise a point as Eric mentioned before. Um but I would agree. I don't think we would see much action on this until the fall. Okay. Thank you. And then lastly, could you just expound on um the uh pertaining to uh the the difference between moving from the 5-year forecast to the three-year forecast and having to submit, I guess, um that information within that three-year window. Um can you share what some of those challenges uh or disadvantages may be ideally that you think mayor occur? I know Treasurer Wagner spoke on it maybe

032um at a a recent meeting, but just to hear from your perspective um what this actually would entail. So, this is part of the um budget that the House passed. This is policy language. So, not a lot of people think that the budget only includes finance, but no, there's some policy that is wrapped into the budget. And so, um, Senator, he was, uh, he was Senate President when I was minority leader, but now he's auditor. So, Auditor Faber, um, wants it moved from 5 years to 3 years. And the reason that he asked the general assembly to do that is because he, in his mind, he would like to determine whether a district is financially unstable earlier rather than later with a 5-year reporting period. Now, I I do not ever want to speak for

033the treasurer's office because I know that their job is super complex. Um, but I I think that is his reasoning with I think that it puts an extra burden on school districts in terms of their budgeting and forecasting. Okay. So, I don't if I may, thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think I think part of it is a couple things to know. One is that there's kind of a two-prong thing the auditor state that we'll we'll talk about probably next f next finance committee. Um there's a new thing called the school financial health indicators that they're putting out. So that's another tool um which is which is what they've been doing for state and local governments. So I think part of it is they like that tool maybe a little more than the forecast. Uh

034the concern for us is generally we use a forecast to certify contracts, certify collective bargaining agreements. And so having a forecast that says we have cash out for, you know, the next four years in the future, you know, makes it makes it able for the treasur to certify, hey, we're can pay for these things. Um there is from just talking to some of my colleagues, you know, part of the other context is it's a 30% cap that's in the budget and that we've talked about. Um, and with that cap, a lot of schools are going to look really negative in years four and five of their forecast. So, cutting two years out of the forecast is a way to to kind of not see all those negatives. So, take it take it for what it's

035worth. Okay. Thank you for that, both of you. I appreciate that insight. Thanks. Um, thanks for all the hard work um from our partners at DSD, which I'm uh good to know. Um, uh, and I apologize if I missed that move earlier. Uh, Mr. Ky, that was it's a recent transition. January 1, I believe. Yeah, not that recent, but I'm sorry that I'm late, not not anybody else. I think um um I have a I have a question that I'm thinking about and I don't have an answer to it and I think it's a question for um Mrs. Weinberg and for uh for Kendra too which is just it's about um what is the ideal role of the school board members with this particular body of work. Um, I think there's and I I have

036um thoughts that just point in a lot of conflicting different directions and and my my my proposal was let me just raise this and plant the seed and then we can talk about it at a future meeting because I certainly don't have an answer. I think the things that point me in different directions is there's so much going on in Columbus. Uh, and I am I am uh admittedly very skeptical of our ability in this room to get Republican leadership at the state house to change what they are doing on anything. I could be wrong. I would be happy to be wrong, but like my estimation that they are going to listen to what we have to say about this is real low. Uh, and so part of me um just wants to be honest

037about that fact, you know, like I think I think I think being honest with each other, being honest with the administration, being honest with voters really matters. Uh, and some of these things drive me crazy. Um, and I think they're terrible. Uh, and I don't think anything I say is going to change any of that. Um, and so I think like I just I'm trying to figure out a one if that's wrong, tell me. That'd be great news. if it is right, I just want to find a way of infusing that into how we talk about these things. Um, the other thing is, and I I promise I'll come back in one second, uh, even if I'm right, um, and there is absolutely no way for us to change what the Republican leadership in Columbus

038is going to do, uh, I still think there's a role to play in being clear about what our values are. Um, and I'm all in to do that. Um, if we're going to do that, I think we need something other than just a policy committee meeting. uh and these things happen uh on such a rolling basis over the course of the year. I think we need some guidelines about how many times a year and under what circumstances like is our board going to say something and who are we saying it to and how are we getting that message out? um because um as much as I appreciate the hard work that our um team does, I don't know that millions of people watch the policy committee meeting, you know. Um and so I I feel

039like if if we're going to do work in this space as a board, I want us to be clear on what our role is and I want to have a strategy that really does something. Um and so uh I think um again this is why I was saying these things point in different directions and I don't know where to take them but I wanted to to raise this and then uh if we don't have a solution today that's okay but I would like us to I'd like us to have a kind of coherent approach to all of this um soon. So I'm actually brought up. I think our role as board members definitely revitalizes our voices and you maybe experience that you may not be able to change you know certain individual to but I

040think if we're silent so it is good for us to figure out for you all and this is going to be one of my questions. What is the schedule or timeline of how board members or even community members could know how to advocate? Whether it's going to the state house, whether it is writing those particular letters, how do we know when to start that process and uh being able to be kind of upfront? And if we're able to be there in person, um what would you recommend? And so that goes along with the process question of what is the process? I know you shared those three things, but how do we then take that into action? Okay. Um, through the chair, I I would say a couple of things. One, one is um I I

041think that CPS, you you underestimate the influence that you have. Now, it's not power, but it's influence. And so CPS is unique amongst the districts in the state of Ohio because we we offer school choice. We offer different types of schools, uh different learning methods, different strategies and that's that's not found everywhere. And so I think uh CPS has a unique voice in the state house. Now um you know public education is under attack. There are those who want to uh change the funding of public education, the regulation of public education, um the type of education that's provided. That's that's all true. Uh but you you have to have a voice in Columbus that says, "Hey, think about this differently." So, um, George is is the lead and George has, uh, developed a strategy where

042we talk to people a lot and so we spend a lot of time on the phone. Um, I'm generally in Columbus on a weekly basis and we just talk to people and spread the gospel about uh, CPS. Um, Libby, you you may want to add to that part of it. Um, if you if you choose to, you can. Libby uh tracks all of the education committee meetings and she provides um notes on those which are which are shared um with uh with the administration. Um also I I would say the the second part of the question is that uh I I think that uh injecting yourselves into the discussion at Columbus in Columbus is something that's strategic. So if everything happens and we're against everything, you kind of get tuned out. But I think um

043Mr. Hoy has done a good job in strategically saying, "Hey, this is really important to us. We need to uh really fire get people fired up about it and send letters in and develop a strategy around advocating." Um and other times it's been more subtle. So um they're different they're different ways to do it but I think the key thing is constant communication um and talking with people regularly. So uh I think that that strategy will bode well for for CPS. Did you? So I appreciate uh the feedback that both of you all shared because that's the same way that I would pretty much have answered that question. You know, I think one is most important that we are informed about what these um legislations entail and also being able to be knowledgeable about what

044it it entails so that we can effectively communicate that to the public so that then we can say what is important for us to advocate for and not only just communicating that to the public but making sure that there's momentum and consistency around it. And so I think that that is a strategic one of the strategic ways of addressing these uh you know concerns. And so yes, we have to be clear on what our position is and being a united front in that and communicating that out and not just one time but consistently communicating that message. And again, I think it's something that we can continue to discuss in terms of what approach and what strategy we take. But I do think the general public as well as the board, we have to be knowledgeable

045um and clear about what the legislation entails. And so I think, you know, being consistent helps to move things forward. Thank you. Yeah. Um I thank you for all the information um in in the presentation and the time. Um uh anything else for our guests before we keep moving? Are there any short-term next steps you'd like to see us take? Breakfast. So, we're we're we're planning a legislative breakfast. Uh board member Weineberg has taken the lead on that. And, you know, it's been a little bit tough because the legislature has been out of session the past two weeks. They're on uh spring break, holiday break, and so they return on Monday, and so their offices will be kind of re-energized, and we're going to have one soon. Thank you. Appreciate it. Um uh you all

046are welcome to stay. You also will not offend us if you head out. Um we're going to move to item, um uh so so we're in kind of our standard agenda. We're in the section on topics submitted by board members. Um we have two here from um uh Dr. Moffett and uh made a couple of notes. So on the uh I had sent an email to her a couple weeks ago trying to make sure that we gave um attention to the issues that motivated her to put these on the list. uh her response on immigration policies was that the resolution we'd passed as a board some weeks ago addressed the reason why she wanted it on the agenda. So I think we can move that one off uh because it's been addressed. Um the second

047one um the transgender student protection under parent bill of rights from governor. Um, the note she sent me was that anything that is pending with our new DEI guard rails, and I have to be honest, I wasn't totally sure what that meant. And I was ask council, does that uh is there anything under this topic that comes to mind for you or from her response? No, I I DEI guardrails I I would think and and wouldn't wouldn't relate to the transgender kind of laws that are coming out. So I I'm if anybody else has any other aspect of either of these two bullets that they would like to make sure get discussed today, we do have time for them. Is there anything else on either of those two? So So one point on the transgender

048policy is House Bill 8, which uh is has been passed, signed, and and becomes law this year, requires the board to pass requires a new policy. This is the parents bill of rights policy. um with our our office we've done a lot of discussion about this. We've even done some uh sort of preparation or or in training to different employee groups about what the parents bill of rights involves. Uh we've talked to school social workers, psychologists, psychologists this week, counselors. uh we have drafted a a policy that is I'm going to describe as unoriginal uh verbatim t taking verbatim kind of what is in the statute and plugging it into a policy um that at least encompasses everything that the statute requires. Um and so if if the policy if it's there if the policy

049committee agrees, we'd like to send that out for you to look at. Um, so you'll have plenty of time before next meeting to take a look at it, review it. Um, if if the policy committee wants us to send it to the full board, we can, but as I said, it is simply sort of a cutting and pasting of what is required to be in this new parents bill of rights policy. And there's some crossover with transgender there because of one of the requirements of the parents bill of rights. Um, thank you. The I if if this sorry other other qu I have some questions but you see on record I don't have any questions um but just to add so Dan and Stephanie and I have had conversations around this as well especially pertaining

050to the um policy that we are um drafting for the mental health but this is something that has been discussed um regularly throughout OSBA I've had conversation with the um ethics and legal team there and so many districts are doing that just copy and paste um just to make sure that the statues are communicated specifically and if there are any concerns which we've talked about there's no concerns in any other policies we wouldn't have to make any updates there correct I I don't think so no this is no just to add the policy must be passed by July 1 so we have we have several policy committee meetings hopefully I I don't have anything extra to add. Thank you. Could Could you give this is if you don't know this today, no problem because this

051was not part of like what we were knew we were going to talk about for sure, but is it possible to give like a uh here are five things that are required in the parent bill of rights? Yes. And and this is sort of consistent with the the information we've been providing to these other groups. So part one relates to sexuality content which is defined as oral or written instruction, presentation, image or description of sexual concepts or gender ideology undefined provided in the classroom setting does not mean instruction in STI, child sex abuse prevention, sexual violence prevention, all of which by the way is required by other sections of the revised code says that uh no sexuality content may be delivered to students in grades K to three and that before it's delivered in uh

052grades uh above third grade, there has to be notice to a parent an opportunity to opt out, an opportunity for the parent to review that material. With respect to sexed, I I don't think this is a thunderous change to current policy. I think most sexed classes, teachers, schools are already sending out something to parents in advance. work coming up on this lesson. My materials are available for you to review if you if you are interested in opting out. I mean, that's long kind of been a part of sexed curriculum. Um whether the legislature or state further defines sexuality content to go further than that I think is the is the question with respect to that piece. Second is authorization for all health care services. I think this is no change at all. health care services

053require parent authorization. We have I mean CPS has health clinics in its uh many of its schools but those agencies or or you know the health department Cincinnati Children's Hospital who operate those clinics have their own requirements to get authorization from parents before providing health services. Don't think that's a big change. Uh the the piece that is probably getting the most um attention relates to the requirement to notify parents of substantial changes to students. Substantial changes includes u changes in a student's academic performance, changes uh of a significant sickness or physical injury, psychological trauma suffered by the student, any harassment, intimidation or bullying experienced by the student. Any request by a student to identify as a gender that does not align with the students biological sex. exhibition of suicidal ideiation, persistent symptoms of depression, severe

054anxiety or other mental health issues. Four of those five I think are already if we have a kid who's experienced significant changes in their academic performance, I think it is a standard practice that we would be communicating with the parent. a significant sickness, physical injury, uh bullying. These are all things that we absolutely are communicating with parents with many many of our students who are transgender, their parents are fully aware and supportive of the students. So there's not a an issue there. I think this issue, the concern raised here is that there are some students who um identify as a gender that does not align with their biological sex and their parents are not supportive. Um and they may have concerns about their parents knowing about this. And so that I think is probably getting

055the most attention in this bill as to whether or not and and there are um so that that's probably the biggest issue. Important exceptions, however, to this um requirement to notify parents of a substantial change. HIPPA, FURPA, the family educational rights and privacy. This is expressly not an exception to FURPA, not not a change to FURPA. uh Ohio HIPPA and then all the privileges and communications related to school guidance counselors, licensed professional clinical counselors, licensed uh professional counselors, social workers, independent social workers, confidential communications with like licensed psychologists or school psychologists expressly um and 5122.04, 4, which Eric mentioned earlier, which is the law allowing a minor to receive outpatient services from a mental health professional for up to six sessions or 30 days without consent of a parent. Now, that's the bill that there

056there is a bill to overturn that, but so there are recognized exceptions even to this notification requirement. Last two pieces of the bill relate to prohibitions against encouraging students to withhold information from parents. I think this is already current practice which looks like prohibition against it. It the law says that no school district personnel shall directly or indirectly encourage a student to withhold from a parent information concerning the students mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being. I I don't think I think that's already standard practice. School professionals are not encouraging kids to keep information from their parents. There may be kids asking school professionals not to say something to their parents. That's where that other law or that other piece comes up about an affirmative requirement to tell parents. But I don't think school professionals

057are ever in a position of telling a kid or encouraging a kid not to talk to their parents. changed. So I don't think uh limits of to confidentiality and and breach of confidentiality which every provider or you know uh professional that works with students discuss that with the students as well. And so we do have uh lead counselor Miss Bianca Gay if she wants to add anything to that as well. No exactly it's already Yeah. Hi friend. Yeah. Um, exactly what you said. It's always it's all something we already do of practice. We have to do our confidentiality statement. Um, every time just because we know that some things come up and we got to make sure the students are aware that we have a responsibility to your parents because we want to make sure

058that you're safe and that's just the main thing. So, it's already in practice like Dan said. So, that's that's the statute. The last piece is you have to put an appeals process in place. So, we've we've put that into the policy as well. So those are the elements much of which again is is not a change to current practice but some con there are folks concerned about certain aspects of this as well. Thank you. Um colleagues any I um I had just a couple of quick thoughts. Um uh I think just a substance thought and a process thought on on the substance this feels [Music] um it it feels so easy to um react to things coming out of Columbus uh and like oh this is some Orwellian you know uh trick we're calling it

059a parents bill of rights and it's really out to kind of destroy And when you read through the things, a number of those things are pretty reasonable. Uh, and as a parent, you know, like, uh, I would appreciate and also is in line with what. So, just I think like trying to sort it's it's it's easy to have a negative knee-jerk and sometimes it's warranted, you know, and other times it isn't. And so, I just really appreciate the chance to go through these things really slowly and figure it out. I'm glad we'll have time to to do that together. Um, I think the other thing part of why I was asking was I've just there were all these um I sent this to the board uh yesterday, but uh and apparently so did the superintendent,

060but the the um Times article about the districts who um uh were winning in court against some of the Trump requirements. Um, I was really inspired by districts that um weren't um you know uh um who were, you know, proactively suing the administration saying that this is unconstitutional. Uh, and so part of why I was asking about some of the details was I was wondering could we do some of those things, you know, like and could there and maybe it's not on this one, but just I don't think this will be the last time we have a conversation like this, you know, and and are there opportunities um not not to um not to wait and see if somebody comes after us, but instead to proactively say, you know, this is uh in addition to

061being wrong, this is unconstitutional, uh, and we're going to prove it. Um, and I I don't I'm not saying we do that here. I'm just saying that I'm not sure what the next couple years are going to be like. Uh, and um, yeah, I mean I like I don't I think I think um, yeah, so so I that's all I have to say. Um, okay, great. So then um, I think we're good with with section four. We'll go to section five. Um and um if you are not regular attendees or visitors, uh every three years we have we have this schedule whereby every three years we will review every policy that CPS has. Um and so each month we have a set to get through. Um and this month um we're going to hear from

062council about the ones listed. Yeah. So, um, a couple of these policies I believe are on based on earlier requests to review policies that might affect immigration, uh, or students who are immigrants or refugees. Um, and so those will be the first two and I'll talk through those quickly. We haven't asked for any changes in those, but I wanted to highlight important points of those first two policies. So, policy 5111, we've gotten a lot of questions about how what the district's policies say about enrollment of immigrant and refugee students. Policy 5111, which you have uh in front of you today, is our uh policy that describes the eligibility of resident and non-resident students. And importantly within that policy uh there's a sentence which is underlined which says to quote that uh CPS enroll students regardless

063of their immigration status. It is not a uh it is not a qualification of uh attending or enrolling in public schools to be of any particular immigration status. uh that is frankly an irrelevant um uh characteristic when a kid is enrolling in schools. We don't ask about it and we uh avoid keeping records about it. Um it it's uh and so I just that that's I think there was several requests about policies that relate to immigration and that was one that I wanted to point out. Glad to take any questions on 5111 or I can move on to 5540. You said no recommendated penalties. No. Correct. And we've talked about this in some full board meetings uh a couple of times. Yeah. Um but but thank you for sharing. Yep. Um anything else from others?

064Okay, we can keep going. Yeah. 5540 is similar. No recommended changes, but this relates to interrogation of students. We've gotten lots of questions from the board and and community about what would happen in the event that there was any kind of ICE uh immigration customs enforcement activity that occurred at a CPS school. And what we've been training and and it it's honestly been a good opportunity for us to remind schools uh about the the requirements of board policy 5540 which relates to interrogation of students by any kind of law enforcement agency. And our rule is that for any law enforcement, including ICE, that would want to question our students, we are required to contact parents. And unless there is some reason that the the interrogation must take place at school, in in that case, we

065have an adult that must sit in the meeting with the student and the questioner. So there's really not a reason for the most part for our students to be questioned at school. I I would put the one exception where students are sometimes questioned at school is when there's a question about the child being safe at home and the investigators typically this would be JFS uh using the school as sort of a place of last resort uh and that's that's how we describe it to JFS investigators a place of last resort to interview a student and even in those circumstances we have to have an adult in the room uh from the school so from either the principal assistant principal or some other trusted adult from the school. That's our policy. We've done a lot of

066training on this in the last 3 months, principles, assistant principles, uh front-end clerks and front office staff, uh I think we did social workers, um lots and lots of groups that we've trained on these policies. Again, no recommended changes, but just wanted to I think that's why the policy remained on on for review. Thank you very much. Y any questions? Okay. Uh going to move on to 6835. Turn it over to our audit committee. I think there's some audit reps here that will uh Isaac will describe the changes proposed for the audit committee. Charter. Hello everyone. Um so one of the responsibilities of the audit committee which is an extension of the finance committee is to um annually review the adequ ad adequacy of the audit committee charter. And so at a recent audit committee

067meeting they reviewed the charter and they had a few proposed changes and so those are outlined in the document attached. There were only a few minor changes. Um, and I think the last time they made changes were was back in 2021, I believe. So, it's been a little while since I'm open to any questions. Thank you. Would you just give a quick voice over of the uh changes that are in here? Sure. So, I know that one of the main changes related to um committee members must reside within the school district boundaries. And so that actually um was kind of keeping out a lot of the prospective um applicants from joining the audit committee. And so after discussion with um the finance committee uh members as well as the audit committee members, they decide to

068kind of adjust that um the verbiage in there. I believe it's on the first page and Rob's got it up for you. So he's he's doing a great job of Perfect. Yeah. So they've just adjusted it to say and or work within this um the district sensei public school district and then I think it's would be preferred does that it's saying would be preferred so it leaves open I think that I was on audit last year when you all were talking about this I think it's like the uh you know if there are no applicants for a position who live or work in CPS but would otherwise be qualified prior to this change they would be excluded after this change they are eligible correct and I believe they were using the term like having an

069interest in the success of the school district and so this is what they kind of ended up creating um a few of the other changes related to the number of audit committee members that must be um on the committee I believe it was a really narrow number of people and so they expanded that verbiage I think it's on the page two. Yes. Um and so they just brought in the number of people that are allowed to be on the committee. And then a small a few other changes related to um kind of obsolete functions of the committee as well that um is not really standard or best practice was changed as well. Could you give us one example of this? Yes. So, under the financial statements um piece, I believe it's on page three, there

070are there are a lot of responsibilities relating to working with the external auditor such as reviewing the annual financial statements and considering whe whether they are accurate. the annual financial statements are very very complex and the audit committee does not really have the bandwidth to ensure that they're correct. And so um that was one of the changes where realistically that's not taking place. So they wanted to remove that piece. That's helpful. And and and correct me if I'm wrong, but having an audit committee at all is an elective decision that CPS makes. Correct. So, in theory, I'm not advocating this, but we could strike the entire charter, strike the entire committee, and not violate any state or federal rules. I'm not sure about that, but um possibly Dan would know that. Or Mike, I don't

071mean like I just I'm what I'm trying to say is I think these are fine because everything we're doing here is above what the minimum requirement is. I just wanted to check to make sure that that's accurate. I believe the I believe there are three or four school districts in Ohio that have an internal audit department and an audit committee. Um the three big districts and I believe Dayton and Toledo also have one. Thank you. Anything else that's worth talking about as a group from your perspective, Isaac? I don't believe so. That was it. Any questions or concerns from board members? Okay. So, as just as the next step, so we're going to recommend out of policy committee that these um changes go through at the next relevant business meeting. Um and I think uh

072Phyllis, what's the next one that we could do that? Well, I'm sorry. Great. And then that works okay with with the schedule of other things that the board office has going on. Great. Um, and then we uh I would I like for us to decide in the meeting whether something is um substantive enough that it should be pulled out of the consent agenda. Um I mean any board member could ask for it to be removed if they would like from our perspective. Does this feel like this is a substantive thing we should talk about or does this feel like something that can just go through on the consent agenda? I was going to say consent too. I don't think it needs to go. I'm all for shorter meetings. Let's put it on the consent agenda.

073Thank you. Um uh any anything else otherwise we'll keep on moving. Okay, on to mental health. All right, so thank you for allowing us to bring this back to the policy uh committee. Uh the mental health and wellness policy has been um such a great experience and drafting has been uh truly evolving and it's been a collaborative effort. Um and so I'm happy that I have been able to work with um a full team of of professionals and I just want to call those individuals out. So u Miss Stephanie Scott who's our assistant general counsel um Miss Manisha House who is our director of positive school culture. Um Miss Sarah English who's our lead psychologist, Miss Bianca Gay who's our lead counselor, Miss Chrissy Reeves who is our direct director of DSS. Um, we've had

074the opportunity to work with Miss Naomi Madurus, who's our lead social worker, and our mind piece partners, Miss Nicole Ferman and Miss Susan Shelton. And we also have Miss Sarah Hayes, and you are part of the positive school culture as well. And so, this has really been a body of work that has been very intentional. Uh, the last meeting we've talked about the different goals and those goals have still remained the same. Some of the things that I do want to call out is for goal one, we had the opportunity to allow each uh professional to define what their role of practice is and their scope of practice is. And so you will see that there's so many similarities and also some um some differences, but the work that every professional um does here is

075all working collaboratively to support the overall wellness of our students. And so I think this is a great point to identify that level of awareness because a lot of people don't really know what each professional does. And so this is really bringing that attention to how we service our students, right? Um and so just wanted to bring that to your attention. In addition to goal one, we have added the conversation around confidentiality. And so, um, we really discussed a lot of it with, um, what we talked about earlier with House Bill 8, but wanted to highlight for this confidentiality piece. We wanted it to be a collaborative effort with our parents. We welcome parent engagement because we know that in working collaboratively, that helps to create that safe and supportive environment for our students while

076also making sure that we're protecting um, the students as well. So, anything that is shared, there obviously has to be an authorization of release and we're making sure that we're upholding what each professional ethical obligations are for the different scopes of practice as well as what the law requires. So, those are some things that I just wanted to bring to your attention. Um, another area that we've um expounded on was talking about the employee um assistance benefits program because we want to focus on our employees health as well. we know that um they do so much right and so we want to make sure that they are supported and they have access to resources as well. So really expounded on that area. And then another area that we discussed was goal seven and that's identifying

077critical incidents. And this wasn't in there before, but we do know that we have some unforeseen or traumatic events that come up. And so we want to have um a process and a strategic plan in place to make sure that we're u responding to those situations um adequately. And then lastly, goal A, making it fully comprehensive, making sure that we are um highlighting our community learning center model. And so those were some of the additions um to the policy. Um I again I think it's extremely comprehensive. I appreciated being able to consult with uh the American school counseling association, uh OSBA, as well as um the counselor, social work, uh marriage and family therapist board, and they all have agreed in just me sharing what this policy draft looks like. Uh agreed that it was

078very comprehensive and that we touched upon everything that was really important to our student wellness. Um I do have some bless you. I do have some guests here. um just to speak on what the work entailed for them and the experience as well as we have um Dr. Manisha House here to talk about the SEO curriculum because I do know that that was some um some of those questions came up at our last meeting about what did this entail, what is this pilot about. So just wanted to allow our guests to be able to speak on this policy as well. Well, we are so excited um to talk about this policy um and to be able to share it with you. I think I've been bragging on this policy as it's been in draft um

079since the fall. Uh mine piece had a forum and I was able to speak about it um because I wanted to make sure that people knew we were doing great work in Cincinnati. And there's a commitment to the whole child. When we say here for kids, it's not just certain aspects and kids are not just a number. We care about all of our people, whether they're students, staff, um the colloccated community, um partners that we uh that support us in this work. And so um just wanted to acknowledge that and just the leadership of um board member map. It really means a lot to the entire team, whether it's counselors, psychologists, social workers, teachers that know that there's an investment and there's a commitment to this work. And so, um, we thought that we did

080a good job, but when we shared with other entities, I shared, uh, just to receive feedback, um, the day before yesterday from beach anchors and families forward that they really appreciated how thoughtful and how comprehensive, um, this policy was. So, we just wanted to call out and be able to answer some of your questions about theCCL pilot um just to uh provide some information regarding that and uh next steps with that because that's a big part of our work to be able to ensure that students at the tier one level can receive um some support and what that can look like in our schools and classrooms. So, I will share uh the mic with Sarah Hayes, our psychologist in our P PSC department, just to be able to share the um some aspects and to

081be able to answer some of the questions you had about the pilot and then we'll share with Vera about continuing on um with the policy. Thank you. So, you know, we all know a lot about the benefits of SEAL. you know, everything from imp improved climate and safety, relationships, belonging, mental wellness, um less teacher burnout and discipline, increased graduation rates, achievement, um and job prospects after school. So, there's a lot of great things. Uh but not every program provides those same benefits. And that market right now, as you may well know, is in overdrive. I think we get how many requests every day nugget to look at this new program or this group and and it it's great um but we really need to pick something that is evidence-based and that also meets the specific

082needs of our community. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about how we picked the four programs that we did and then you know get into some of the specifics of the pilot and some of our initial feedback from some of the teachers who are testing it out in the field right now. So um next slide and next slide. Okay thank you. So um one new study that came out recently it was a metaanalysis of over 400 studies over 50 countries looking at you know what are those specific components of SEAL instruction that makes it effective and the first is being that it's sequenced. So just like academics we we want to build from those small discrete skills to more comprehensive skills. So it really needs to be thoughtful just like reading, math

083or anything else. Active learning is always best for students. Um that it's really focused on SEAL and not just kind of that incidental teaching which is also important, but we really need to be focused when we're teaching these skills and with that that it's explicit. So we're modeling those skills with students. We're having them practice and then we're giving them that explicit feedback. Um having a focus on skills and school climate is really important. Um multicomponent approach. So we're looking at programs that include not just that explicit skill instruction, but also family components, community components, um schoolwide components, teaching interpersonal skills first because we need to be able to identify and manage our emotions and make decisions um in order to get along better with others. Um integrating into academic content. So this is something

084to build to because SEAL we wouldn't want it to be seen as this place you go to or this person who teaches but really it is part of everything that we do. Um and then focusing on the the implementation. A lot of times we jump to outcomes. Um and what we really have to focus on in the beginning is making sure that our our staff and teachers are supported and implementing it well. Next slide please. Um so we in the spring had kind of an ad hoc last spring committee that came together different roles across the district to look at um a large list of programs. I think there were over 20. And so we use this tool. It's um a published tool out of the national implementation research network. Um what's really nice about

085it is each one of these components provides some guided questions for the team looking at these programs because um you know teaching is really personal and a lot of people came to this committee familiar with certain programs and loving certain programs and so in order to come to consensus we needed to have something to help guide us. So we were looking at things like not only the evidence of the program itself but is it usable for us? Do we have the capacity to implement it? Does it fit our specific needs? So that's kind of how and then you know is it align with some of our current initiatives. So MTSS, PBIS, um restoative practices, trauma-informed care, is it going to help us implement these things or is it going to hinder us? So we so

086we need needed to focus on that as well. Um go ahead. So from that we came to these four programs and they're all digital. So we have character strong second step um character effect which is local and then wayfinder. Okay. And then getting into the specifics of the pilot. So you can kind of see all the different roles that are represented up here. Teachers, social workers, psychologists, um intervention specialists, world language teachers, um years of experience there as well as all grade levels, preK to even young adults. And we have, as you can see from this picture, a nice wide footprint. So we have over 60 people who volunteered to be part of this um across the district. And this is just our general timeline. Sorry, I'm so sorry to interrupt, but can you go

087back to the slide with the four names? Just hold it. Yes. Very briefly the slide with the four. Write them down. Sorry. Here we go. Okay, thank you. Sure. Can we make sure it's emailed to the Yes, I was going to ask. Thank you. And there is I should have mentioned in the beginning of the slide deck, there's um a QR code to a Padlet that has lots more information about each one. Thank you. And then on the timeline, so you'll see where we are is kind of that January to May. So we're piloting those four programs. So it's a month um for each program. The members give us weekly feedback on each program. Um we're looking at different grant opportunities to fund it. Um we've done a community seal fair. So which we're going

088to now travel to different buildings to make sure that we get get that understanding get um feedback from from a large number of people in our community um with hope the hope is to meet in May and give the final recommendations at that time. Okay. And then I'm not going to read all these to you, but this is just kind of a a snapshot of the weekly feedback that we get from people piloting. Um really looking at student engagement, the relevance um to the skills that our students need. Is it appropriate for them developmentally? Do we feel that it's having a positive impact? And then from the adult aspect, how easy is it for you to facilitate and prep? Um so you can see some of the highlights here around um student engagement that they

089it easily connects to students um really enjoying asking these type of questions to kids. One person noted we don't ask them enough about this and students enjoy being asked these type of questions. Um you know it's very specific and short and connect um connects to other areas of their content and um little prep really organized easy to use. So, lots of lots of great feedback. It's going to be hard to pick to be honest. Okay. Are there any questions about the presentation? Before um Miss Kay speaks, I also wanted to mention that um Naomi and Sarah online, so if they wanted to jump into the chat to let us know if there's something they wanted to add. Thank you. Yes. Um thank you. I I um was just curious if one of the programs you

090all looked at uh or was a program called Ruler. You heard of Ruler? Yes. Um I would love to just hear kind of how you was was recommended to me by somebody recently. Uh you all know more about this than I do. Um but I was interested in kind of how you saw that one versus some of the others. Right. And so that was one that had really great outcomes. Uh what I think the the decision point on that one was the the capacity to train teachers and sustain it. So it seemed like a lot heavier lift than some of these other programs that are just more scripted and they can kind of just go with it. It was going to take a lot of days of training and support and coaching and which is

091great. It's just the feasibility of that right now um was why we didn't go with it right now. Yeah, it'd be interesting to see [Music] um over time what kind of impact you get. You know, the argument for for ruler work that the guy was making to me was um I told him this was not my decision. The argument was that that you only get the lift from good SEAL programming when the teachers know what they're doing. And and that was his I may be mischaracterizing. I don't mean to imply teachers don't know but that that that there is a there is a skill set to develop around this that can have some overlap with other types of teaching but not 100% overlap and so uh if we get great results from this great like

092if we don't would love to revisit longer term whether we should invest in something that picks up the professional development component. I think you bring up a really great question in terms of the implementation process and and teachers being trained and educated on the material. I would like uh Miss House to speak about like the rollout plan of what this curriculum would entail. Can I say one just one last thing and I promise um on the co if it's a cost front. We recently approved a new foundation and my understanding is that they're going to raise a million dollars for us uh and $2 million for us. we should spend it on things that matter and things we can't afford otherwise. This might be one of I got a couple ideas, you know, but but

093Well, that is definitely good to know. Um I know that we have been along with this just committed to uh exhaust every resource to be able to support because we're just that committed to the work. Um with regarding this roll out, one of the biggest things that I have learned throughout supporting with implementation of deployment of new curriculum is that our growth opportunity is just how we support our teachers and what that professional development looks like and our expectations of what does this look like for the first six months? What does this look like for the first year? What does this look like for year two? I think um a lot of times especially with teachers, it's like an all or nothing. like we have to do it all and everything well and and not

094allowing people to grow and people to just learn within themselves. And so we're partnering with schools and really looking at um the schools that were really heavily have expressed heavily interest incluses and teams in place that are maybe ready to jog or run into just going with the curriculum. They have things already in place. They are tired of creating things on their own. They're tired of peacemail milling because they are just that invested. They are ready to run. And then there are some schools that we really need to sloww walk this to be able to support them with the embedded structures that they need. For example, that's as as complicated as master scheduling. Where is this going to fit in the schedule? How does this when is this going to occur? Who's teaching what? How

095do we follow through? How are we monitoring? What are our goals? what are our expectations? How do we support leadership? And how do we support teachers, especially if they're struggling? So, we we want to be able to differentiate the support that schools are going to receive. So, it's not going to say, you know, and some of the feedback teachers like, well, you know what, on Wednesday should be day and that's the day we're going to do it. And I said, as much as I would like to see that, what we don't want is we don't want compliance. This is not compliance work. We want people invested. We want people that believe in this work and we want them to feel safe that they have the support to be able to do it at the rate

096and the pace that they need in order to be successful. Um because if they're more invested if they're working collaboratively as teams and they're making it their own in their school, they're going to do a better job and their kids are going to see their interest in it and they're going to be more interested like we're going to have better outcomes as a result. So that's kind of what our vision of what the implementation will look like. So if we need to slow walk it in some schools, we will definitely do that and work on structures and scheduling and maybe even getting them the understanding of what SEAL is and how that impacts overall instruction while other other schools are, hey, we're ready to implement. We've been talking about this. We've been piloting. We're ready

097to go. So that's kind of what we foresee it looking like, but being able to get everybody at the point of saying, "Okay, here we are, year two, like now everybody should be at a certain point where we're continuing to grow and then looking at the impact of outcomes." I just had a couple of comments. So I um originally had brought up a question of what exactly would this be and how would it look in our schools. So thank you so much for the presentation. I am looking forward to um obviously you said in May you'll have some type of report to give us some data and just kind of seeing are you able to share the schools that you're piloting in currently? Yes, we can definitely do you want the long list now? I'm

098I'm just curious just a couple that you can just do you have the list? We don't I have to look in all those little circles. So every circle that you saw is where we see the pilot conducting but we can put that in a formal list for you. Yeah. I'm just curious. So thank you. That was one of um the thing that I continued to push is that it is all over. Uh I just did not want it concentrated to say we're just going to try one elementary school. I want you know do we have monastery representation? Do we have prek representation? Um we've also included um some levels to to look at as far as um what does tier 2 look like and does this resource not only provide tier one support but also

099tier 2 support. um if we have strides classrooms, how can they utilize this same curriculum and resource, you know, and other, you know, is it how do we ensure that it's developmentally appropriate regardless of the space that students are in? And so, um that's one of the things we're that's why it was so important for us to be all over all grade levels and years of experience. If I've only been teaching two years versus more, you know, how does that play out as well? Well, thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, can you hear me? Oh, I got to put something. Make sure it's three. It's green. All right. Um, I'm excited about this policy because I love how we keep saying commitment because it's a commitment to our students and also staff of just

100overall mental wellness and just working in the building also being the lead counselor, but in the building every day, it's needed. Our kids need to be seen. Our staff need to be seen as far as just making sure that they're they're burned out, making sure we're being intentional. So, I love that everything about this policy is being intentional and I think that is how we get to everything else. We we we have to take care of this part before we can get to the academics and anything else because I seen it firsthand. A student can't concentrate if it's too much going on. So, it's needed. It needs to be prioritized. Um and I love that this district is um going this way and building a culture of, you know, mental wellness. That's all I have.

101Thank you. Rob, did you say something? Oh, yeah. Uh, a comment from Naomi Maderas. Um, she says she has nothing to add, just very excited about the initiatives approach um, our district is taking to implement SEAL and mental health supports uh, that are truly making a difference for students for academic success. So, she was part of your committee. Also, while I'm on mic, I also um, if you want to speak during the speaking of the public session uh, that'll be coming up at the end. Please click the hand icon and we'll invite you to come over at the end of the meeting. So that is all that I have for our uh presentation on the mental health and wellness policy. Again, this is rooted and anchored in our guardrail to honor the whole child. And

102so this is really creating that framework of what that will look like. Um again with intentionality. Um, we want to make sure that we're promoting um educational equity and to Miss uh Gay's point, this is how we do it because we're this is going to help us see the results academically, behaviorally, social, and emotionally and create that culture of wellness within our district. And I think that's something that we want to advocate for and promote. So, uh, thank you. And as we move to next steps, so we can put this on the business agenda for the next board meeting. Correct. Now, I do want this to go on the business agenda for May 5th. I do want this to be an opportunity for board members to give their feedback before anything is approved because I

103think that's important. And so then we as a team will be able to take it back and have deliberation about it in addition to we want to have feedback from community members. We want to have feedback from parents, from teachers. So I think that will give us time to prepare to present it again for approval and adoption at that May 19th meeting. That's great. So, um, Phyllis, does that give you everything you need in terms of next steps? Great, Mr. Yeah. So, not for approval, but for like a Yeah. So, we're not doing a resolution, for example. Correct. Correct. Review. Yeah. If if that is I can talk to uh Dr. Moffett uh to see if it can go on the agenda for the SEO uh curriculum. Okay. Yeah. Yes. So, great. I would definitely

104ask her and again a huge thank you to the team and I think correct me if I'm incor if I'm wrong here but whether or not there's a presentation we definitely want it listed on the posted agenda. We definitely want it listed without a resolution so we can Okay, great. Great. Great. Um okay, thank you very much. Uh it's exciting. Thank you. Um uh you are welcome to stay for the last part of our meeting. Um you also will not offend us if you head out. Um, we have just a few last things before we adjourn for this month. Um, we've gotten through everything on item five. Um, I have a couple, um, when we get to other business, a couple very short things. I don't have anything under six, continued discussion or new assignments.

105Anybody have anything else? Yeah, we have uh, three assignments that I'm not sure we'll get to today, but glad to. One is I think 7510. There was an ask to look at the use of facilities uh policy especially with respect to our alcohol waiver. That's the note I had here. Oh, good. Okay. That same note. Yeah. Uh but that's um so one thing I think is simple. One was to change uh it says that alcohol waiverss need to be reviewed by the public and partnership engagement uh committee which doesn't exist. I think there was a request to change that to the policy committee to update to current practice. Yeah, we could do that easily and move it forward. The second piece was the harder whether there's any interest in reviewing or revising the sort of

106process for getting an alcohol waiver. We can let's not do that today. We can put that on the agenda more next time. Um uh I do not have an interest in changing our current process, but yeah, I'm one person. We can certainly talk about it as a group next time. Yeah. Um so then that will give us uh anything you others do? Yeah. And then two policies that came from finance student fees. Uh I believe that's just to make the uh that permanent. Remember last year we stopped the districtwide school fee the 26 bucks or whatever and and is that to make that permanent? I mean that's the big that's the big discussion topic. Um the current policy specifically calls out this school year and doesn't call out any other school years. So in absence

107I guess of action it would revert back to collecting fees right it reads effective 2425 so you could four okay yes I agree there's maybe four yeah there's so that's probably the biggest piece there's some other like just cleanup language that we put in um as well but but it's really about whether the board wants to continue or wants to resume collecting fees or make that um permanent and then the second is on the cash balance polic policy that's been proposed I think by the treasur's office and discussed in finance. We can put both those on next months if you'd like. Yeah, that sounds fine. And just I think when when come with that next month, I don't think this committee has special powers on finance like what's a good idea or what is not

108a good idea. I think what we can do is make sure that we are following the process for updating policies correctly. So I think I just would want to ask like what's the recommendation from finance? what's the recommendation from the treasur's office not um so that so that we're responding to really careful thinking that has happened from experts ahead of time um is that in line with what you were thinking okay great um uh great do we have Rob any speakers this morning we do okay any other business from board members council yeah I just have one more and No rush. Sorry. I don't mean to rush you. No, I think um please take your time. I it's it's a note. Um it's it's not actually in policy, but HB27, which was passed earlier this

109year and is actually now effective and was titled to authorize certain public bodies to meet virtually and I think was intended to allow certain public bodies to meet virtually has an unfortunate I think everything I've read an unintended um like change to the law which says that public bodies no no member of a public body may meet virtually if they are uh if if they were elected to that position which means that our sort of long-standing practice and honestly almost all boards I think uh uh practice time for a quorum but you can at least listen in that you could listen in that you could exactly participate in discussion a challenge because I'm going to be gone for the June policy meeting so we So let me let me revi refine there. The OSBA has

110taken the position that because committees are appointed and not elected that it may still be possible for uh committees to again there need to be an in-person quorum but that somebody could participate virtually on the phone or whatever. So we could just recast a business meeting as a committee of the whole and a business meeting. So that's part of its off the second half go around. The question becomes whether you're elected to that body or not. So if you're elected to the board of education, you know, a board of education meeting technically is the committee of the whole. Yeah. I mean, it is just it it seems to be that's not their intent or anything, but this has been sort of talked about. I I there there is nothing in our current board policies that

111relates to this sort of attending virtually. I checked. Um I I I think I'd maybe wait to add anything to see if this gets sorted out at some point. Um, but I wanted to bring it to your attention at least. Um, never a dull moment. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Thank you. Um, uh, great. So, I think any I don't I don't or Mrs. Weinberg, do you have anything you want to ask about this? No. No, not at this time. I would look forward to obviously discussion um at our next meeting. Yeah, I don't have anything to add. I did see it come down through OSBA. Um but we can discuss it at the next meeting. I may have one more thing too. Um which is they got this email from Dr. Moffett. Um it's

112about House Bill 8. Is that one of the ones that we talked about? That's the one we talked about at length. That's the parents bill of rights. We we have talked about it. Um and my response was going to be I'd like to hear from the administration what their take is. He gave us a very good take on what you said. I appreciate it. Thank you. Does it make sense for us to send that draft to the full board at this point or just the policy committee? I'm not I'm open to either. The what was the the draft of the parents bill of rights policy? I think you could share it. You can share it. I don't see why we wouldn't share it. The deadline for that for us back is July. July. It'll be

113on next month's policy agenda. It's ready in case people want to look at it. At least I have no reason not to share it. We should share it. Thanks. Thank you. Um, anything else for the good of the order? Thanks everybody for being here and have a good weekend.