001seats so we can begin our me our meeting. PJ. PJ. Okay. Give me give me a walk. Gotcha. We're having a lesson over here. Okay. We got it. We got it. All right. Seeing a quorum, a a voting members, I call the April 16th Cincinnati School Board Committee of the whole student achievement and district instructional performance committee of the whole meeting to order. Treasurer Wagner, please call the attendance role. Mr. Craig, here. Mr. Crosset here. Mr. Lindy here. Miss M here. Mrs. Weinberg. Vice President Bolton present. President Moffett here. The Thank you. The chair will now entertain a motion and a second to approve the April 16th committee of the whole business meeting agenda. So moved. Second. Let's take a vote. I'm sorry. Treasure wagon. Mr. Yes, yes. Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our first presentation.
002Yes, ma'am. I'm happy to. Today we have our chief operations officer, Mr. Chris Burkhard, who is going to give an update on our student dining services. Good afternoon. It also comes with great sadness that I'm not bringing you food for this meeting. Uh as we transition to the first slide, starting the day off with breakfast. Obviously, the most important part of the day, making sure that our students start off with breakfast. As of now, we have served uh and the number up there is as of March 12th. So, I have the new updated number. It's well over two million meals breakfast that we've served within the district this year alone. Um, one of the things that we've really focused on this year and and uh, Director Shelley has done a great job with her team
003on making sure that our students have multiple options every day so that we have them starting off on the foot that they want to start off with, not the foot that we want to give them. So, there's multiple options available every day, including every day we have a protein option. That's and and I say that to let you know that the state and USDA does not require that. That's an extra in their mind that we are really focused on grainbased items in the morning and we go above and beyond to make sure that we have at least a protein option every day and that goes to a lot of our student athletes as well who need that protein um throughout the day. Um with that we have one of the highest participating participation of breakfast
004across the country. At our high school we're about 40% of our students are eating breakfast every single day which doesn't sound like a lot but it is very very very significant in the number of students who we want to make sure have breakfast every day. Uh as you see up on the screen there is a picture of our uh uh breakfast challenge. So every month uh schools compete against each other to make sure that students are eating and those that uh are the highest actually get money to spend on their school how they want. So this is one of those days where um the Bengals had come in and helped us celebrate uh that uh grant funding. As we transition to the next slide, we'll move on to lunch. So our lunch numbers are well
005over three million lunches served this year. Um, one of the items that we've gone above and beyond from a lunch standpoint is ve vegetarian and vegan options every single day for our students. So again, that goes well and beyond well above and beyond the USDA, USDA and ODW requirements for lunch. Some of the initiatives we've been working on um over the past couple years, and this is really ramped up uh both last year and again this year is making sure that we have clean label items. We want to make sure that our items do not have um additional uh added flavors and colors and dyes and nitrates, those things that uh we would consider non-healthful. We want to make sure that our food is healthy, wholesome, and are are free um from those other items.
006Uh as we look for the future, we will continue to move to those items that are um organic in nature and really looking at how do we simplify the menu but give complex flavors. As we move to fresh fruit and vegetable program which is offered at our K8 schools, we allow students to try new new uh items um that they might not have tried before. So what we do here is we marry the new food item with curriculum. And so it's try this new food item, let us tell you a little bit about it, maybe where it came from. So we allow we give the the teachers a a one pager in relation to the items that students are trying. And what this allows us to do is fold in these new items into the
007curriculum. So it might be um some math curriculum, might be uh geography uh just to be able to get these um new items in front of students as we transition to the next slide. And supporting local farmers and companies over $3 million locally. So locally in this context is 250 miles from Cincinnati in any direction. Uh the reason that we utilize that number is because it's the USD number for local. And as we look at the uh growing season for Cincinnati, we know that we have a pretty tight growing season. So, some of our foods will come from Kentucky uh a little bit into Tennessee to make sure that we're uh looking at a much much longer growing season than maybe Cincinnati um andor Columbus. One of the highlights here is 90% of our milk
008comes from Ohio. So local dairy farmers, local cows, processed in Ohio, so never leaves the state. So that's one of those items that we are very, very proud of. As we move to the next slide and looking at our awards and recognitions, I don't have to tell you our student dining is among the best in the country. Um, director Shellyley and her team really do a great job and really it's it's good that they are being recognized for all the hard work that they do every single day. And that really goes to the next slide. In trying new recipes, new food items, um we've added seven new breakfast items and 21 new lunch items this year alone to the menu. And that shows how um we can change our menus to meet the student uh
009um needs and and wants as well as making sure that those items in our schools are the same types of items that they see in the grocery stores. The same brand names, the same high quality foods that they'll see in the grocery stores are also served in our in our schools. We also have a chef on staff, so a certified chef who actually helps develop these meals, which I'm not sure that everyone is aware of. And that really goes to trying to be on the forefront of looking at flavors, looking at trends, looking at the ways that we're able to meet the students where they are and give them the foods they want to eat, not the nutrition that they have to have. So with that, I'm happy to answer questions. Woman Crosset. Thank you.
010I was just curious, do you um ever do like a survey or get feedback from the students as to uh what they really like and then you know what they really did not like. Yeah. So the taste tests happen all the time and that's how we came up with all those 21 items at lunch. So when those surveys happen, we have to have an 85% acceptance rate before it goes on the menu. And as we are looking at items, 85% is a pretty high bar. So, we know that when we put something on the menu, it is something that students want to eat. And sometimes that's just a um a thumbs up or a thumbs down where we tally those and sometimes it's actually a a comment card or getting um real feedback in writing
011from them. Obviously, that happens more at the high schools than at the elementary level. Thank you. Any other board member Matt? Yes, thank you for the presentation. Um I am happy to see the access right that the students are getting with the breakfast and lunch um program. My question is um do we I guess maybe survey the students to identify how um having the breakfast and the lunch throughout the day is impacting their overall wellness or um how it's helping to improve their sense of uh academic success. Yeah, absolutely. So breakfast obviously is is something that we've spent a lot of time on and obviously as as I look at that 40% you know at the high schools that goes to making sure that we not only say that we have breakfast but also provide
012provide real access to breakfast. So that's one thing that I think a lot of districts across the country don't do as well as we do is making sure that we have access to breakfast. And what that means is we have kiosks in the schools. they don't necessarily have to go to the cafeteria to eat. Um so we've we've looked at breakfast in the classroom. We've looked at kiosks. We looked at um some of those other areas. What we haven't done and it's it's I think a growth for us is to tie the breakfast participation to academics and looking at seeing how those marry together. We haven't done a a good job of doing that. But that's obviously something that we know there's a correlation. All the studies across the world have said there's a correlation.
013We just haven't done it here in Cincinnati to be able to show what that correlation looks like. Absolutely. I hope that's something that we can initiate soon. I think that would be interesting data for us to see. And also, I'm curious to know if in tracking that data, would that be something that would apply to the wells uh assessment tool? Yeah, it's actually not a Wellsat question, but I I wouldn't be surprised because the wellsat is updated. um we're required to do it every three years, but it's updated almost every year. Um I'm sure they're going to add that at some point. Uh one of the one of the challenges is um when when we look at that is having that correlation between breakfast and test scores, for example. You know, how do how do
014we look at that? We can look and see that there's less um trips to the to the nurse's office. We can see less behavior problems. we can see some of those things that are anecdotally putting a marker on that becomes a little bit harder to do. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Vice President Bolton. Thank you very much for the presentation. Um on a financial uh angle of this is is it your office or the treasur's office or the superintendent's office that's monitoring the um federal decisions out of the agriculture department which is uh you not just the education department but it's the egg department that has so much to do about our our kids breakfasts and our lunches. or do we have an update as to where uh the federal government is about that? Um
015from my lens, we do not have an update which is positive. Um we would like to keep things as much of a status quo as possible right now. Um we in in student dining and and we're looking at the laws and regulations that that make up what we do. um student dining's laws and regulations are almost equivalent to putting a man on the moon. And when you look at NASA's regulations and those from USDA, um USDA is the second most regulated federal program next to NASA. So when you look at all those regulations, it is very very tough for a a um school district much less school districts across the country to change every time um there is a new regulation that comes in. So from that standpoint right now we are happy that there
016have not been changes although the make uh America healthy again um um regulations that are have been proposed um are just that right now proposals. We haven't seen anything really meaningful come out. Um but we are looking at it every single day. The school nutrition association um uh is is one entity that gives us daily updates as well as USDA will send out updates as well. So we get those. Uh obviously Director Shelley is is well in tune to it as well as myself. That's great. I appreciate you following that and I hope too that there won't be changes. U but uh I assume there will be um much of what we do here we made decisions over a number of years actually cost us more money doing it the right way uh and and
017the CPS way and I think I think that's best dollar spent. So I would hope that we don't think that reducing this as a financial piece uh which would save some money uh even the local piece is is more costly than kind of doing. You wouldn't think it would be, but it it a lot of that stuff we knew that you you were Jessica was very good about sharing this will cost this much more money to do it this way, but the boards previously had determined this was worth that those dollars spent. Um and and thank you for that and it's a great time to bring up that uh student dining is self-sufficient. We re, you know, student dining doesn't receive any money from the general fund. Um, they fund themselves and to your point,
018they every year are looking to how do you reinvest the money back into the program and back into the students. So, I thank the board um uh and superintendent and treasure Wagner for working together to make sure that we can do that every single year. That's great. Super. The last two are just totally soft on the question, but very difficult vote several many years ago was the vote the board had to take on closing the CPS bake shop. [Laughter] It was relatively famous regionally and probably made more baking than uh uh any number of uh private concerns around but we had to make that decision. that's decked more than a decade ago. But the other piece is uh appreciate the chef piece and um it it is I think a little tiny project with food
019folks uh to start to put together a CPS, believe it or not, cookbook of historic recipes that have been served generation after generation. So appreciate their their uh creativity and and team spirit. Thanks, Thank you. So, I just have um two quick things to ask a question about. Um thank you for the presentation. I I will say we always get fed with Jessica. So, uh that's a that's a that's a that's a downer right about now. We always get some really good food. I'm just kidding. Um is there Yeah, that was she was coming up with some good stuff, too. So, our food is really good. to that point, is there any connectivity between our culinary departments at the schools and dining services? And I asked that question because we had a really good presentate
020uh actually the day I think it was Dater was it Dator um culinary department and we'll hear about that at the meeting I'm sure had light bites at the 22nd century event that the students prepared and it was really really good and I'm wondering is there any connectivity between what's grown in the schools because we have many schools that grow their own food and the usage in the buildings. Yeah. So, I'll answer that with a yes and a no. So, there are some connectivities. For example, our school gardens. We are looking at ways to make sure that that garden is certified so that we can not only utilize have students try those those foods from the garden, but also for student dining to purchase those so that they can use them in the cafeteria. So,
021that's the yes part of it. the part for growth is looking at those areas like what what you're saying with with some of those culinary areas and really having that be more seamless than what it is right now. It's really two different entities operating two different programs. Uh and director Shelley and I have talked about how we how can we start bringing that closer together and having some shared resources and having some areas where those students can get real life experience in our cafeterias. So we have had those discussions. We're not there yet, but it's definitely on the radar. Thank you for that because I'm really interested to see if there was any possibility for like um workforce development, career tech, um the seal usage, and then I had an opportunity to go through with
022Green umbrella, visit a school in California that they grew almost all of their stuff for the district and had an outside kitchen and then they used it as a community space with regard to a curriculum. So I'm wondering is there are we able to do some of that with our students that are already in the culinary. So it sounds like you guys are are on that track. So that's what I wanted to put out. And the other thing is there any discussion around educating the parents and the community on what we are what the kids are eating or what we're doing with regard to dining services. And and I asked that question in part because Kentucky talked about banning soda um and sugary uh snacks, but I think there's a parental engagement piece that might
023be um is I just have a question about it. So, do we do that with um with regard to educating the community and our parents around the dining services program and what their kids are eating? So, the answer to that is an emphatic yes. So, student dining um is is a little different from most of the operations within the district is they have their own marketing department within student dining. And that marketing is not only to students and making sure that they are aware of what they're eating and making sure that they know that there's clean label options, there's vegetarian, vegan options, but also to the parents to your point is making sure that they are telling parents about all the great work that's being done as well as trying to get that outreach to
024say, "Yes, look at our foods and yes, we are winning awards for it and yes, this is restaurant quality food that you're getting in a K12 school um in Cincinnati." So, um, they they pride themselves in making sure that they're hitting everyone, the district, uh, as a whole, the Cincinnati community, as well as students and their families. Okay, great. Thank you. Those are my questions. I appreciate all the work you all are doing. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Um, Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our second presentation. Yes, ma'am. At this time, we'll have a presentation on our uh guard rails one and two by uh interim assistant superintendent Chambers. Good afternoon everyone. Good afternoon. Um we're um presenting on guardrails one and two. So um I'll go through them uh relatively quickly, but I want
025to make sure that um all the information that you get tonight answers um you know questions and concerns you may have. So, Guo one, the superintendent will not ignore the needs and talents of the whole child by providing for students mental and physical well-being through academics, the arts, athletics, civic engage engagement, career opportunities, and leadership development. Next slide, please. So, guard 1A um looks at the percentage of um high school students participating in artsbased arts and um athletics based activities and extracurriculars. we were saying it will increase from 56.8% um to 60%. Um just want to remind you that when we looked at that original number um in the fall of 23 it included all of the students that were enrolled in a fine arts course and the um after school clubs and activities along
026with athletics. So the um the actual number for um that we were looking at was for the baseline was 25.8% 8% and that was the spring of 23 24. Um and if you look at where we are um we were in the winter of uh 2425 we're at 43.5% of our students participating in um either um you know athletics or um our space extracurriculars and just to um you know look at that a little bit uh deeper. Next slide. This gives an outline of the number of students per grade level and it is actually a true number of students that participated in athletics um and uh students uh participated in the fine arts and clubs that are after school extracurricular based. And um when when we say true when you look at athletics the um
027the number that you'll pull will have um it'll be a lot bigger because it counts the number of kids who participates in multiple um activities multiple um athletics um sports as far as um like football kid will play basketball that kid will be counted multiple times. So when we pull the true number this only counts the kids that participated once right. So, um I just wanted to give you um those numbers. And if you um look, we had um over 10,000 kids um participate in um athletics or extracurriculars. So, guard rail 1B um I'm going to ask your indulgence. We've given the um the schools um an extension on the uh Qualric survey because of um testing and the you know teachers preparing for testing. So, we wanted to give those schools the time to
028um to complete the testing and give the survey so we can have, you know, more accurate numbers with a larger um sampling of kids. So, our key takeaways, you know, um with athletics, we we did see a um increase in the winter um with um wrestling and bowling um adding to that number and um you know, athletics and um fine arts have uh done a real collaboration on um with the data um getting it into final forms. and our next steps. Um we're um continuing to work with the um the athletic directors to um push participation in the um extracurriculars and um the girls flag football which is um a new initiative um and we had over a hundred um uh young ladies participate in the flag football program. And I would also like to
029add that um our fine arts um program will continue to um look to increase the extracurricular offerings by um partnering with um you know our partners as in um ABC as well as other community partners. Any questions on guard one? Board members. Any questions? Let's move on to guard two. All right. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Um, so going back to participation, I know last time we talked about this, we also talked about there were programs and stuff that were extracurricular elements to something that wasn't otherwise a class uh program. So for instance, being in band and having to do concerts or theater, you didn't do performances. And so I don't know, are we counting those in the number? Are we not counting those number in the number? We are not only because
030that of the in-class element. it's hard to delineate which ones are. So we just we didn't include them in the number. Okay. And then I think and I you know again I think some of that is an aspect of it's a class part and we're thinking about these strictly as stuff that is after school or outside of school. The other one was clubs and organizations um that might be you know for some schools those are competitive clubs that do a lot of those uh activities that take them in competition with other schools. Are those in these numbers? They are. Okay. Yes. I know we were having trouble with trying to track who participated in which club for a while there and so yeah strides we're really looking um uh we're working with the um the
031school's athletic directors and the um the club advisors to make sure that they upload their rosters and their um the student information in the final forms so we can have that accurate count. And I think that's again one of those great things that would be helpful once we bring athletic directors back in to be more of an activities director is that they have a little bit more of an authority within the school to be able to create a system track the information better know who's doing what schedule things. So I think it's a again another win that comes with having those brought back in house. Absolutely. Well member Matt uh yes so I have a question for uh guardrail 1B and I know that there's not much information um as of right now because of
032the extension. But I am curious to know with the um question about having a favorable response and sense of well-being at the school, is this one targeted question on the Qualric survey or is it more qualifying questions that you all kind of have a um cumulative response of determining that sense of wellbeing? There are multiple questions and we look at the questions that um address that particular this particular issue and pull them out and look at the numbers the average response rate or not average response response rate but the the average response from the um from the students on those particular questions. Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? All right, Mr. Chambers. Guard wheel two. All right. In Garwell 2, um the superintendent will not allow discrimin uh discriminatory or culturally insensitive disciplinary
033treatment that results in disproportionate um punishment among students to go unressed. In guard 2A, this um looks at the percent of um K12 black, Hispanic, and multi-racial students with a category 2 infraction compared to white students. And we say that will decrease from 15.4% 4% or 15% um to 12.5%. Um we have um if you look at the spring of 22 23 we are at 15 u with the combined delta and we are currently at 11 now. So we had that four or four point um drop in uh the student infractions of a category 2 nature. um the number of uh the com combined students of color, we've gone from 20% to uh 16%. And um you know, and that's compared to um white students who um their number has gone from 6% to 5%.
034So the gap is closing. Um we've we had a um you know, 4% um change in our combined students of color compared to a 1% change, you know, in our white students. And guardrail 2B looks at the percent of K12 black male students with a category 2 infraction compared to white students, white male students. We said it will decrease from 20% in May uh 23 to 13 in um May of 25. That um that particular um uh combined delta has also um gone down. If you looked at from 23 um we were at 17 and currently we are at 10. Um we had a significant um drop in the um combined delta. And then if you look at the uh black male students and the white male students we were in 23 um 24 we
035had um in the winter we're at 24 uh percent black males and 7% white males. And then to the to the current day we are at 23% um black males and 13% white males. So the there was a um you know from you know now there's a 10point gap where before we were looking at um a much larger gap between our uh white male students and our black male students. Um in the final and the spring uh data we had um we did have a 4 point or 4% increase with the black males. Um but we had a a 7% increase with our white males. So even though both groups had um an increase over um winter to spring, we did have um slightly less um percentage on our black male students than we did
036our white male students. And board member map, this may look a little bit like the um answer the question that you asked. Um, Guardwell 2C looks at the percentage of students in grades 7 through 12 who have a favorable response um for a teacher student relationship on the Qualre survey will increase um from 48 on Panorama um in 23 to um 52% by May of 25. you know, we we're now using Qualrix and what we've done to get this particular information, we looked at the student the questions that addressed student teacher relationships in the Qualric survey. So these questions are um directly taken from the survey and our um our fall average for that uh those particular questions was uh 58.42% um favorable and our target was um 52%. And our key uh takeaways, you
037know, uh we we see that the equity gap it um continues to improve and our tier fidelity inventory data has um um provided um PBIS um implementation uh strengths and um growth opportunities. So, we're really looking at data to make sure that um we are um given the proper interventions that the school needs versus any one prescriptive program. Um and our next steps is um you know to continue to provide support um to school teams and um the adoption of the SEAL uh curriculum to address the classroom supports for teachers and um you our continued partnership with uh Cincinnati Children's on data analysis and um strategy development. Thank you board members. Any questions? I have a question. Um I'm sorry. Maybe you could go back to the screen. Um the um comparison between black males
038and white males and the delta is now at 10 points, but I'm just curious. That's a it's for both categories, white male, black male, a pretty big jump here in the spring for both categories. Do we have any insight as to why or is it a particular type of incident or we are working with uh with children's to disagregate that um data to look at the the type of offense and if it was a particular you increase in one particular type of infraction that would have made that number jump. So we are looking at that a little more in depth it so I have a question. I'm sorry. Do you want to go? My apologies. Okay. Board member M. Um, so as it relates to the disciplinary data, I know uh several uh meetings back
039we talked about the challenge that it was to implement this data and to focus and so I'm curious to know what um what things were put in place to help us have a actualized picture of the data. Now I think it was a a better understanding of focus and how um you know to pull that particular data and working with children's to make sure that the data is being pulled properly. Um and that was you know an an IT thing and they figured out um how that data is um you know to be pulled and to get the proper numbers that we need. Okay. Um the other question that I have I'm looking at the uh key takeaways and the next steps. I'm curious to know what uh percentage of work do the counselors have
040in supporting um you know our students uh well-being as well as the PBIS um framework. And the reason why I asked that question is because going back to the conversation about the reduction that we have in counselors. So I'm curious to know if there's been conversations about how this could maybe impact the data um with having limited resources and what the plan will be to ensure that we're not creating further uh inequities. I'm not sure of um a a particular percentage, but I know that the counselors are integral to the um the implementation of PBIS in any of our intervention programs with um behavior. Okay. Um so with that being said and knowing that there's a reduction, are we accounting for how we still ensure that this work is being done? And this may be
041a question for Superintendent Murphy. So all of our staff members are trained in our PBS model, PBIS I'm sorry, model, our restorative practices model. So I would say every staff member is critical to playing a role in supporting kids in this work and their attitudes and how they feel um about school and their sense of belonging. All of our all of our um children. Would I go to a counselor first to discuss this data? Maybe not. I may go to a school social worker first or a school psychologist first or second to get support around the why or how we can improve uh this data. I'm curious to know why there's a separation in terms of who you would go to first. They all do pretty much the same work. So in terms of I
042think ensuring that there's conversations I would think that there should be um you know equal voice amongst that discussion. Um but just feedback just thought I definitely agree they every staff member in our buildings play a part in children being successful in terms of their behaviors and sense of well-being. If I had to look at ownership in buildings, I don't know that I would go to u an academic counselor first, a guidance counselor first about student behaviors. Would I invite them to the table? Would I respect their opinion about it? Absolutely. Okay. So, academic counselors are able to do all of that work. So, I think that they are equally important to the conversation as well. But just just question about it just noticing um the data and knowing that these are the interventions that's
043been put in place. Remember Lindy, thank you. Uh I had some follow-up questions from the presentation last month. I'm happy to wait if you had questions about this here or I'm happy to go now, whatever you prefer. So, I'm going to just ask my question about this one and then we can open it up to your to his uh presentation previously just because we're here. Does anyone else have any questions? So, go ahead. So, I'm not sure if it was already brought up, but I had a question about the SEAL curriculum. Do we talk about that? It was um was just mentioned in the with the adoption and how that will um just one of our next steps to um impact and I was just curious about it um in terms of can we be
044provided with a little bit more information in regards to what does it offer um what is the curriculum specifically and what is the goal and what is it trying to address and we'll get that information for So my question is um if we go back to the next to the previous slide, Rob, I think it one more. So that while I think that um you know it's great that it's going down 10 points. That's not not the number that really interests me and I'm sure everybody's like, "Okay, here we go." But I'm wondering why the white male students is increasing. And what that makes me ask a question about is is there consistency about how there's how it is being reported. So we've been asking I've asked this question probably for the past few years
045around is there with regard to discipline and category 2 infractions. How are we measuring to ensure that there is consistency across the district on how that is being um captured? Because because what that makes me think is that there probably isn't consistency and it's not a dig, but it's like okay, we got to get that number down. So that number went down, but the other ones are going up. And so if that that trend's completely out of the norm of what it has been, and it's almost an outlier for me. So because it's an outlier, it's it's not even 10, which the other one in 2022 was nine. It's it's double what it was. So how are we how are we capturing that? So I'm very interested in how consistent is the capturing of the
046data and that goes back to um how are teachers being trained or taught to capture that? And then are we sure that a category 2 infraction at one school is consistent at another school? And I don't know exactly how that needs to be measured, but that data doesn't it makes me pause on the validity because I'm just wondering, and I'm not saying you all are doing anything wrong. I'm just wondering, we've been asking before about how is it captured? Is it consistent? is is teacher. I know some some students are like, well, I know I can do this in Miss Jones class, but I can't do that in another class because she's going to count it against it. And so, we need to have almost an inventory around the capturing of the data to ensure
047that the validity of the data is um accurate, accurate, and consistent. So, that's what makes me wonder um and ask that question. I'm not saying that that's something you can ask right now. you can answer right now. But that is something that I'm very interested in around all of our data, but particularly with regard to this cate this particular guardrail in that the number doubled for the population that we're trying to normalize against. That doesn't make sense to me. So um the other well that's just going to be that's just going to be my question. So I I guess I'm looking for that maybe some sort of measurement um for that for the next one. So that's my that's my question. Board member Lindy, you had a question previously. Yeah, thank you very much. Um,
048we had a a good discussion last month, I think, about the guard rail that is around algebra 1 and the um interim targets that were set in uh particular cohorts around I Ready uh and on and being on grade level. And I really appreciated that conversation. Um, I also really appreciate the emails that I uh I um received some followup from the administration, which I really appreciate, uh, including a chance to ask some follow-up questions and clarify, and I I appreciate all of those things. Um, I do have some, um, questions about that that I think are worth spending a minute on. Um, but I will try to be as as as brief as possible. Um, I know this was um, the superintendent and I have been uh, emailing about this. I know it's top
049of mind for us or for at least fresh for us. Um, but for people who may not have thought about this in a month, a month ago, we were here. We were looking at the math scores and there was a pretty big drop in the cohort we're tracking around their first time algebra one success rate and we were talking about what explains that drop off. Um, and I think we had a we had a good conversation about, you know, could this be explained by the students who are moving out of that cohort and into an advanced math cohorts that their scores are no longer reflected in there. Um, again, really do appreciate the followup from the administration. Um, it's uh, one piece there there are two big things thoughts I want to share, but I
050just want to ask a question first. Uh, in the followup that I received by email, which I really appreciate, the um it sounds like the transition to advanced math happens between seventh and eighth grade. In the meeting last month, the conversation was about the transition happening between sixth and seventh grade. Uh, I they just heard two different things and I just wanted to understand which when does the transition to advanced math h happen? Is that a six to seven move? Is that a seven to eight move? The Go ahead, Superintendent Murray. What I focused on would be the eighth graders who um the seventh graders moving to eighth grade who instead of taking eighth grade math may be assigned to take algebra. Um now I it it could be that there are some seventh graders
051who are also taking advanced math. Yes. But what I focused on in terms of our response to you, Mr. Lindy was the algebra changes and so we went back to eighth grade looking at that change from seventh going into eighth. So is it so um in the meeting was change happens between six and seven. In the email it was change happens between seven and eight. And I think what I'm hearing now is change can actually happen in either case. Some kids move into advanced math going into seventh grade and some different kids move into advanced math going into eighth grade. I have no preference, by the way, about which of these is true. Uh any of them could be great. I just want to make sure I understand which one is the one that happens.
052Yeah, it sounds like it's both. What I will tell you in our recent emails, I looked at algebra and then went back to think about that eighth grade response and why there was a difference. Yeah, I think this is this I think is a great illustration of why I think this is worth talking about and I really appreciate the chance to to dialogue about this and in in a meeting like this. Uh and I'm again really glad we have meetings that are focused on student outcomes. Um those differences I think matter a lot in terms of whether or not we have a good explanation for why the numbers go down. Um if all those kids moved and you shared the numbers and it's 20% of the class, so it's a big much bigger the number
053than we were tossing around last week. so that it's almost twice as large. Um, so if if it's the case that that all happens between seventh and eighth grade, that actually could explain what the drop is. Now, if it's half and half, I'm just I'm even more confused because we didn't see a drop last year, but we did see a drop this year. Um and and again I think that the the bigger picture is less this particular instance and just do we or do we not have really good visibility into I mean this is one of the most important outcomes we set goals around as a district. Do we really understand where we're headed and whether we're on track to hit our goals or not? Um I think the um yeah I I think um
054I I am of growing concern that um our our visibility into whether or not we can set goals and meet them is not as strong as it needs to be. And there's there's a related reason. The purpose of all of this I'm trying to zoom out of the weeds and and be bigger picture for a second. The purpose of all of this is to help tell the board whether or not we're on track to the goals that the board set. If the goal that we really care about is the is the one about algebra 1-Time test takers. And if in this cohort we lose some students to advanced math, shouldn't they also pick up kids from the previous cohort who are now quote unquote in this cohort because they're in advanced math from the next
055year? And if that's true, shouldn't those numbers come through here? And again, the reason all of that matters isn't so much whether it's this decimal point or that decimal point. It's can we as a board with our administrative team accurately get visibility into where we're going to land at the end of the year ahead of time so that we can make adjustments and be responsible stewards of public money. Um and so I I think with all of this um I'm just uh of increasingly concerned about our ability to forecast accurately whether the things that we're doing are working or not. So I'll just share that. We don't have to dwell on this longer, but I think just to br some of the conversations we're having about budget, um I think that, you know, regardless of
056which kids we're counting and who is in which math class, if barely 17 or not even 17% of these eighth graders are on grade level, we have an enormous amount of work that we need to do. We are going to be working in a budget context we are where we are severely constrained by the dollars that we have to invest. And as I've been looking at about these numbers and thinking about our most recent budget conversations, for me it's becoming clearer and clearer and clearer like what at least one board member thinks we should really put front and center when we allocate resources in that budget. And I just want to name two things. We can talk about that in a future meeting. But I think the very best way to help move these numbers
057is to make sure that teachers are using the curriculum that is very high in quality that we have spent millions of dollars on in this district. And from what I understand only about 40%, excuse me, six 40% of math classrooms are not using the curriculum that we have purchased. And 75% 75% of ELA classrooms are not using the curriculum that we purchased. So whatever we're going to prior whatever that whatever it takes to make a difference on those numbers, that's what's going to change this from 16.8% of eighth graders on grade level to something that's much higher. So I hope I hope we can talk more about this in future meetings, but I appreciate the time spent on this topic. Um care a lot about forecasting. I think we can get stronger there. uh and
058want us to focus on how we can make sure the curriculum we have purchased and that will work is being used faithfully in classrooms. Thank you. So, thank you board member Lindy. I think also to be fair to the administration, Mr. Chambers, you you stood there and we send out the request for board matters, inquiries, and updates asking board members to put via email what it is that they want to see. So, so that our administration is prepared and can provide us with the information timely. I think it would have been better to have the data as a presentation here that we could see and it would have been a little fairer for everyone to know what we're talk what we're talking about rather than just via email. So, I'm going to ask the board
059members if you do have the need for presentations or the need for data to just send that email so that we can get the administration to provide us with the information via presentation and slides and so that the public can know what we're talking about and we're not just having administration stand here and speak about things that the public hasn't seen and maybe some board members haven't even seen as well. So, Mr. Lindy, if would you like more information around what you've requested via email and um brought up previously because it's an academic topic. We can talk about it at a board meeting, the next one at old business, or we can talk about it at the next Saka for sure. But I would I want them to be prepared so that we can see
060what what it is because you brought you bring up very valid points, but everybody doesn't know what we're talking about with regard to the public. So would you like them to come back and put that on um either the 21st or the next Saka meeting? I have no strong preference. The thing I care strongly about is that as we talk about the budget, we talk about what is our strategy to make sure that we are getting the curriculum used across all or almost all the classrooms. Um that's the only request I have at the moment. Okay. Any other board member questions, comments, or concerns? All right, Superintendent Murphy, thank you, Mr. Chambers. Superintendent Murphy, please introduce our final presentation. Absolutely. So, we will have our deputy deputy uh Dr. Alicia Smith talk to us again
061about uh moving from Iowa to I Ready, which was a recommendation that uh came forth a couple meetings ago. Did I mess up? No. Turn around. You got Mrs. Vargo, this is Fargo. Hi everybody. Good afternoon, superintendent, treasurer, members of the board. Um, so I am very pleased to be able to talk to you all today about um a recommendation from the testing review committee um that we have put together this year. Um hit the next slide. Um so the testing review committee is actually uh part of the collective bargaining agreement with CFT. So myself and um Kendra who I saw back there uh co-f facilitated this year. Um so we had 37 members of the committee that volunteered to take a look at a variety of topics related to testing this year. We had
062teachers, intervention specialists, reading specialists, um ELLL teachers, counselors, and principles. Uh we conducted um three 90minute meetings and then had some additional communications via email. And we looked at um four key areas um and one of which I'm going to talk to you all about today. the next slide. So, we weren't just talking about this topic. This is we knew we're going to kind of be the hot topic, but um we looked at um four topics and all of these kind of came out of either questions or concerns from the field um related to testing. We looked at um our superior cognitive uh giftedness screening assessment. We looked at um the alignment between giving uh PSAT uh as kind of like a pretest in 10th and 11th grade to giving ACT as our state sponsored
063assessment. um we looked at our early literacy assessments and then lastly we looked at the topic we're going to talk about today um which is the one at Hills entrance exam but I just want to kind of couch it in that context for you all um kind of the purpose behind the the committee and the things that we looked at this particular year okay um go ahead and hit the next slide um so our current practice as most of you know is that all of our CPS sixth graders are administered the Iowa assessments um and then we use their national percentile rank in their reading and math math uh to determine their eligibility for Walnut Hills in their seventh grade year. Um and our sixth grade students also take nationally normed reading and math assessments
064in the I Ready assessments. So the purpose of the evaluation was to look at whether or not I Ready could be our diagnostic assessment, be our achievement and growth assessment and also kind of fill this need of um serving as our walnut hills entrance exam as well to try to reduce testing. And so after we had a variety of awesome discussions um and looked at a lot of data around this, the committee does uh does recommend switching from using the Iowa assessments um to using the I Ready Diagnostic Assessments um as the what we call the Wii affectionately Wana Hills entrance exam uh for our CPS sixth graders. Um at this time we're not making any recommendations to changing kind of our Saturday paper pencil tests for our um non CPS students or our students
065in grade seven and above. So, um, we looked at the data. We actually have two years of data. Uh, Rob, if you could actually just click the link for the full data set, if you wouldn't mind. So, we sliced and diceed this a lot of ways. Um, I'm a big data nerd and so I we really wanted to see, you know, kind of the the overall effect of of doing a side-by-side comparison. And this is a pretty unique situation in which we have full data, two full data set years of data sets of the same kids taking these two different assessments. It was kind of a cool opportunity to look at the data in this way because we don't often get to do that when we're evaluating a new product or a new assessment. Um
066so I I want to put these two years side by side in this particular view. Um so in both years both the 2324 school year and the 2425 school year we see more students um eligible using the same criteria uh with our I Ready assessments. We see it all the subgroups benefit. Um the reason I wanted to put these two side by side is because this year I ready released their um postpandemic norms and so we see a bigger increase and the number of kids that qualified I'm using qualified loosely but on the same criteria um with I Ready this year. Um Iowa is going to release their post-pandemic norms next year. So we anticipate that the number of kids qualifying with Iowa will come up as well. The reason for this is because nationally
067we're seeing achievement go down. And so when we're talking about national percentile ranks to get to the 65th percentile, lower scale scores are getting there. And so there were more kids that qualified in the 23 24 year both using prepandemic norms. And I have I think there's a variety of reasons for that. We see a much bigger jump this year, but that was due to the release of the the post-pandemic norms. So, I just kind of wanted to call out those differences that that it's not as dramatic as it looks in just looking at the one year of data. Um, okay. Can you go back to the deck if you don't mind? Okay. So, just kind of a summary of the reasoning um for the recommendation. Um, using I Ready instead of the Iowa for
068our CPS sixth graders yields a higher and more diverse population of eligible students. Um, using I Ready benefits all subgroups of students. Um it using I already this is a big one. It allows two uh opportunities for students to qualify for um Walnut Hills without doing anything. Uh right now uh families have to sign their students up for their sec the second opportunity. Those kids are pulled out of class. You know schools have to find a proctor or proctors depending on the size of kids. Um so this just everybody gets two opportunities. Um all school models had more kids qualify using um I Ready versus the Iowa. Um, the another really big one is that I Ready is reormed every four to five years. The Iowa test has not had new norms since 2017. So,
069currently that's based on the 1516 school year. Um, they're planning to release new norms this fall, but that would be eight years between norming periods, which is longer than what what we would want to see. Um, and then another big one is that, um, if we eliminate Iowa testing, it'll save us over $40,000 as a district, um, and well over 2.5 hours of testing time for those kids who just test that one time. Questions to board member Craig. Um, so thank you for bringing this presentation to us. Um, I know, you know, we had a little bit of this conversation uh I think it's either the last meeting or the meeting before but uh get to get some of this information. I want to maybe dive into two parts and so one is the number
070of folks who get in and we've had this conversation before when we talked about when we moved to Iowa and other situations. Um it's not always about the number of students who get in, but it's the number of students who have the skill sets that once they're there, they stay. And so I just wanted to kind of dive into how we're thinking about that or how we're looking at the performance expectations on those students who would not have gotten in otherwise but now would kind of how we're preparing that how we're addressing students who may certainly have performed on the I Ready assessments well but are we able to better understand how those students might perform while at uh the school because I I think that's another part of the, you know, assessment process and
071that was something we talked about before. So, I don't know if there's any thoughts you all have had around that aspect. So, I don't know that I have a an answer or a thought around that. I think soft skills are hard to measure, right? I think you can have a kid who scores incredibly high on whether it's Iowa or I Ready and still will not be successful at Walnut. Um, so I don't know that I think, you know, kind of our charge as a testing review committee was to look at our current practices around assessment and make recommendations that made sense for children and for equity. Um, so I do think that that is something that's worth looking at, but I think we're going to have that same discussion whether or not we move to
072Iowa. I do think it's a valid conversation to have. Yeah. And again, I think about this in part because I know students who've taken Iowa test. And part of the the issue they raised was I wasn't taught the materials prior to me getting that second opportunity to take the Iowa test. And so if we're having folks who were assessing who may not have still learned the information that is kind of expected, that's something we should know certainly and something we we be able to deal with, but I I don't know that we'll know that until we know it really. Um the second part is that we also are comparing you know we also have the this is only for students who are CPS students. Correct. So every other student who would be uh wanting to
073make that trip into they would be on a different scale or a different standard because they would be using the Iowa test still right or so the tests would be different the scale and the criteria would be the same which is the 65th percentile. And I think that's the whole point of kind of norming is any differences in the test largely kind of wash themselves out in the norming process if it is a large rigorous nationally normed which both of these tests in both of these companies are. If one test were say easier than the other, you would have to have get a higher score to get that same percentile. So um it's not something I who lives in the assessment world am concerned about necessarily. It's not something that the testing review committee was
074concerned about because we're using the same criteria and we actually have a precedent for the you know kids who get into dispenser and chevia they can come with outside tests using the same types of criteria. So we do actually have a precedent for doing something like this in the district. I just think it would be uh something we would want to monitor though you know again comparative expectations and results. So like again while they are normative we know that there's difference in what the results would be given um the two different tests even within our own CPS students right so we know that there's a greater number of students who would qualify and it may be for various reasons that using the I already processes there are other things that I offers that might provide
075more students comfort and their ability to take the test there's a lot of other factors might be a part of that but I think it'd be worth us monitoring this though because I do have the concern that if we are strictly changing the num changing the testing simply to get a more folks to qualify to get in. I just I mean I think there's an aspect of what you do once you're there that has to be something we keep an eye on in that in that vein. Um the only other point that I would make I think again I appreciate the fact that there is a cost savings to this process. So again I think that is something we have to be thinking about in a year where we are going to have to make
076cuts and changes and everything else. um what again what's the expectation for how we would communicate this out to parents going forward um about their understanding of the process of getting their kid into on it because I think that's the other part that is still part of the difficulty is that I don't know that parents always understand what they have to do or what that process looks like. I I think that's a very valid point and I think whatever the decision is around this, it is something that a communication plan around making sure particularly our CPS sixth grade families have the information they need to advocate for their kid um is definitely something that's on the radar. Let's just go down the line. Member Weinberg. All right. How are you today? I'm well. So, I
077had lots of questions from the last time and so I kind of eliminated some of the questions based off of what um was provided in this lovely lovely presentation. Um I did a little bit of research myself and I kind of wanted to kind of see your thoughts or just hear also from the administration as well. There are some pros and cons to both of the tests obviously the Iowa versus the I Ready. I'll start with my questions first and then I'll go to the pros and cons and then kind of hear what you think. Um the one thing that I know you said that there was a cost savings. How much does it officially cost to administer the Iowa? What is the cost? I believe it is $16.90 per license. So uh we would
078we would maintain some licenses. Um and we would maintain some licenses because we do uh IAS are given um for referral uh for science and social studies gifted testing. Um and then we also do some lamos testing which is a Spanish trans adapted test. And so we would not want our ELLL students to not have that opportunity um to participate in that test. So I believe when I did the math, I'm going off top of my head. I think it was just under $41,000 if we maintain some of our license. So not maintaining. My question is how much did it cost for us to do it in general? What was the cost? So not if we maintain some of it some of it. What's the cost to uh the the contract? But that included also
079our superior cognitive assessment. That's fine. Just everything in general. What was the cost? I don't want to say the wrong number. I think and if you don't have it, that's I think it was 96, but I can get an exact number for you. Possibly 96,000. Is that what you're uh Yes, but some of that went to our superior cog screen, which is state mandated. So, if it's about 96,000, you're saying that we would have a cost saving of about 40,000. That's what you're thinking. Okay, that's fine. And then in terms of with the Saturday noncps students, um you don't want to have a change for that. You want to stick with the paper and pencil for those particular students. And what's the rationale for that? Uh simply the logistics of testing on a Saturday. Um
080so I Ready is adaptive. It cannot be given paper pencil. It can only be given on the computer. Bringing in 300 nonCPS students having devices getting them logged in. Tech support if anything goes down, Wi-Fi goes down. Okay. Yeah. And then on a portion of the slideshow, you showed an increased number of students who would now be eligible. How will that equate to the capacity at Walnut Hills? Currently they are So that is Oh, sorry. currently they are overcrowded and so what would be the plan moving forward and let's say we do go forth with this suggestion which you know I'm open to seeing it either way it goes but what would be the plan moving forward so so I think that's absolutely a conversation that needs to be had um like we were we
081were simply looking at testing equity and practices u aware that there are obviously implications for this so I think that's a little beyond the scope of what we looked at there but definitely a conversation that absolutely needs to be had. Okay. And then in terms of you were talking about a little bit of the um makeup of the test. So when I did the little research or whatever um Iowa is a standard national norm test and then with the I Ready it's a diagnostic in which it adapts. So did you all take into consideration I'm assuming with the committee to think about that when they answer the questions wrong it gets a little easier so forth. Can you kind of go a little bit into that? Yeah. So, um, I, so because they're nationally normed,
082that's where a lot of the differences in the test wash out. So, a kid that scores at the 65th percentile on, uh, an I Ready is getting the level of questions where this, you know, they're scoring better than 65% of same age peers who took that test nationally versus a kid and I ready, the norming process is the same. Um, it's just the questions that they're getting are going to be different, but the score that is generated is then looked at on the scale of norming. and you know we're saying they scored better than 65% of their same age peers. And just as a reminder for the public and I'm asking a lot of these questions because parents reached out and they had concerns and what would be the score that you would suggest that
083we would go with? Is it the 140? So what we looked at did not take into consideration any changes in the criteria. Okay. Um, so it would be a minimum score of the 65th percentile in reading, minimum score of the 65th percentile in math and then when you add those two together, it's a composite score of 140. So 65 and 65 together, you know, alone is not enough. One of those at least has to be high enough to um get the 140. So we we didn't have a discussion about changing the criteria and it would be compared to originally taking the 95th percentile in the last test. Uh this is the same criteria for I Ready or I'm sorry for the Iowa 6565 and a composite of 140. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other member
084Lindy? Uh, thank you very much. I think Mrs. Weinberg asked the capacity question, which is one of the ones I wanted to ask, but um I I think I just um two things. One is uh in five and a half years, I don't know that I can remember a presentation that says this will improve uh the diversity of the student body, get us more accurate, better normed information, cost us less, reduce the amount of testing that we do with children. This is a shockingly high number of wins in the proposal and presentation, which I'm not used to. Uh and that's great. So, thank you very much. Um and there's no butt at the end of this. Uh just great. Um, I think my my only question was what um what's helpful from the board tonight?
085Um, I mean, I don't know. I think we would love some direction to be able to move forward and continue the conversation. Um, because there are logistical things that need to be decided if we're going to move forward next year. Yes. And so what or maybe the superintendent, so what what can I share that would be helpful? Yeah, absolutely. um your um your where you are with this uh your your support uh the direction move forward, don't move forward. Uh there are more questions we would like to have answered. We would like to be able to begin to move forward. We want to see what your pulse is. Um one more thing I just want to throw out there that I didn't really talk about. The reason this kind of got on the radar to
086start looking at initially is because the platform that the Iowa test is administered on um for years has been awful. It's it's incredibly unuser friendly. It's terrible for kids to log into. It crashes constantly. We had to suspend testing like right in the middle of the window for a week. Um so we kind of started the wheels turning of, you know, is there something better out there? And then we were like, wait a minute, we're already giving a test that that does these same things. So, um, we it's 2 and 1/2 hours of testing time for kids, but the actual time that is lost trying to administer this test is significantly higher than that. So, I did want to kind of throw that out there because that is kind of how this came to be
087something we explored is because it's a really just straight up bad experience in the schools for our teachers and our students. Thank you. I know I know Mrs. Weinberg has one followup because she asked me to ask it. really quickly. What did I ask you? I forgot. When do you want that to go into effect? And then one more. You you mentioned about crashing. So I Ready crashes too. So do we have a plan for that as well? Uh so yes, we do. And we have some more flexibility with I Ready because it's not a timed test also. And I will tell you, so I've been sitting in the seat for five years. Riverside data manager platform has crashed significantly more times than I Ready has uh in the five years I've been sitting in
088the seat. So thanks. Everything's going to crash at some point. This one consistently crashes. Superintendent Murphy, when were you wanting this to be in effect? The upcoming school year if possible. Well, member Matt, I just want to say thank you for the presentation. I love the fact that you're highlighting the equity and access piece um for all of our students and um just thank you again for the presentation. Very detailed information. Vice President Weinberg, Vice President Bolton. Thank you. No, you don't. It's an upgrade for me. Uh, I appreciate the the uh presentation. I I particularly appreciated the the memo that was out there circulating in the district about why to do this. I'm also very predisposed to, and I think people will remember this from a couple years ago, I'm not an Iowa fan
089at all. Uh, and so, but that's not a reason not to to do it unless there's something actually better. And have the actual professionals who are the experts do the research tell us what is needed and what you think is best helps me uh I like to I like to be able to defer where the expertise is on these particular matters and I I appreciate it. So, I I'm very much in favor of moving along as to what you all are suggesting and recommending. And I wasn't necessarily predisposed to do so until I I read that kind of circulated essay or or memo out there that someone gave me. But the presentation's great, but that the memo was even clearer for my way of processing information. So, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for
090your presentation. the data the analysis it's great I just want to reiterate and this is more for maybe superintendent but capac school capacity is got to be addressed well one last question so as we're moving forward and I know board member Craig brought this up in terms of communic communication to parents um one thing that I did like about the slide is where you showed the total number of eligible students and then you broke it downvious obviously by race and just seeing that there was a rise with our African-American students and then also seeing that there was a rise uh with everything else. What would be or how would the plan go moving forward as students are introduced to this test? Would there be a letter going out? Would there be something really big explaining
091we have something new that we're starting? Like what would be the communication plan? because this would be obviously something exciting and different and new and I want to make sure that parents understand and students. Well, we will definitely create a very robust uh communication plan and uh it really fits well with the excitement we're building in momentum around a new era of being able to provide uh the best services for our kids and so we we would really make this a big deal. We're open to suggestions. Thank you. I think this is a great presentation. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And the data was very succinct. I am concerned about um naturally I'm concerned about just overcrowding. However, I'm reminded just as I'm listening to everyone else's questions that we have a large
092number of students that qualify to get into Walnut but don't choose to go. Yeah. And so I know of two students at Whitten Hill. I was just there uh with a book club and two of their um sixth graders just chose not to go but they qualified and their teachers were heartbroken that they wouldn't choose it. So that may end up working itself out but I am very concerned around engagement. I'm concerned about metriculation. I think it's very great to have the ability to say oh we we have this many students that qualify to get in. But I do know we need to do a different and better job with regard to engaging parents. Um and that's One thing that they have said is that they feel like they need a little bit more information
093and a little bit more engagement around that. So I would invite the administration to take this opportunity to work on metriculation of students that that since we're liking to uh give the nod to this to do some different things around getting parents informed and engaged around um the new innovativeness of the ability to attend. Do board members have any other questions? member grade. I would just uh add I again I think it's great to do so that is definitely certainly innovative and and helps. I just what I would stress is that we make sure that as we're doing that we think about the entirety of that strategy, right? And so that strategy can't just stop at what the test is. strategies to think about how our students are performing, how our students are being supported,
094but then also things like overcrowding and other factors of how we would uh align because if we do have a an change in in how people view walnut or change in how some parents view walnut that they would want to send their kid where they may not have the past done or changes in how people decide to test take with their kid or those type of things, we could see a higher influence. So, I just think those are things that we have to be prepared for and have a plan for and to address. Again, same thing with regards to um communicating it out because I think that is I I mean, I remember several meetings where we've had parents reach out and ask questions about the whether or not their kid gets into walnut at
095a at a committee meeting even and it didn't always make sense that they're reaching out to us when we have little to no effect on that process whatsoever. Um, so I just think as much as we can get a clearer picture that's bigger than just the test, uh, that would be helpful. All righty. The Button, sorry. Did you all just kind of gave me an idea concerned about the capacity piece is true. We did significantly re uh reduce some years ago the number of students that were at Walnut in part when we switched over to Iowa. I think it was in the hundreds that we uh lost in those couple of years in part. So it's overcrowded now, but it took even more kids several years ago than it is taking now. This is a
096I hate to say it, a product that the district is a walnut education and I think it's important for the district to be able to to offer that product uh to people that qualify to participate in that product and to the idea of growth and capacity. There are some things that have changed. Spencer is on the move and has room to grow that can impact the Walnut Hills experience for many kids. The fact that we are committed to expanding the monastery piece also begins to help reduce some of the pressures that would be there for walnut because maybe 10 years ago it was walnut or it was walnut. So I think that I think there's just we've packaged and created a different environment, different competitive environment for it. But I think the data that you've
097presented again is is outstanding. Thank you. the I'm gonna remind board members it's 5:29. Yes. I'm just gonna say it's it's just a comment um just in listening to um everyone's feedback or or questions. You know, I think in terms of what board member um Bolton stated that this is a good product to have, but I just wanted to highlight that I think this should be the standard for all of our high schools, right? And so we're talking about strategy and preparation, thinking through how we're preparing all of our students to be successful at any high school that they attend. But they don't all have to be walnuts. I agree. Thank God. I agree. The chair will entertain a motion for German. Before that, um Rob, I do have a question around the link to
098the joint meeting. Is it going to be the same link for people to log in for the joint meeting? Okay. Okay. So, thank you. We are going to um adjourn for I need a motion to adjurnn. Well, it said do we I think we have to do the motion, Jen. We have to do the motion to adjurnn and then the motion to adjurnn in exact session separately. Okay. Motion. No, just a motion to um recess into executive session for the purpose of pending litigation and a motion and a second. Second. Thank you. Um roll call. Mr. Craig? Yes. Mr. Crossson? Yes. Mr. Lindy? Yes. Miss M? Yes. Mrs. Weinberg? Yes, Vice President Bolton, President Moffett. Yes. And then we will adjourn out of that meeting and recess into the CPS and City of Cincinnati Healthy
099Neighborhoods joint committee meeting. I do need to know how many board members are attending that meeting so Rob can set it up. One.