CPS Board Business Meeting March 17, 2025

001e e e members I call the March 17th Cincinnati school board meeting to order super oh let's call the role Mike believe we need to appoint a treasur protm first oh we don't I'm I'm just thinking you're normally supposed to be sitting there so I need need a motion to appoint a Treasurer protm I appoint member Craig second second all right um Mr G yes take the vote Yes Mr Craig yes Mr Lindy yes M Miss map yes Mrs Weinberg yes vice president Bolton yes president M yes so um Mr Gustin yes please call the attendance RW I I have to go my notes are not not the same so go ahead M Mr Craig here Mr Crossett Mr Lindy here miss math here Mrs Weinberg here vice president Bolton president and president Moffett he

002here superintendent Murphy please introduce our wonderful students and that will be leading Us in the Pledge yes ma'am today uh Madame President leading Us in the pledge are the students from Midway school where Mr hawat Francisco serves as their principal i al to the flag of the United States of America to the for it stands one nation God indivisible withy and Justice all great vice president Bolton please explain the virtual hearing of the public process of course thank you uh members of the public who are are online and wish to speak during our hearing of the public this evening may do so by clicking the chat button now the chat feature will be open for your requests for five minutes if you would like a direct response to your questions please make sure to share

003your name your affiliation to the district your school Community your topic and your contact information thank you thank you the chair will now entertain a motion and a second to approve the March 17th business meeting agenda so move second Mr Greg yes Mr Lindy yes Miss M yes Mrs weberg yes vice president Bolton yes and and president Mett yes tonight's agenda is approved as posted um I believe this is superintendent Murphy we have a discussion around the CPS Foundation can you please update us around the status yes ma'am uh we have our general councel Mr Dan Hoy coming down to talk to everyone as uh we have had uh lots of conversation CPS and activities beyond the classroom uh Dan hoing thank you uh good evening uh pleased to report that uh since our last

004conversation about this topic uh we have reviewed again with uh ABC's Administration as well as our own um and I've sent to the board what I believe to be a recommended final draft of an agreement to um an agreement with with ABC to start a CPS Foundation um some of the last remaining issues that we had to work through with respect to the two parties uh we have um I'm glad to answer any questions uh but I believe that importantly we've worked out the the the hardest issue to work through was the ABC's the foundation's um understandable request for sort of a a period of time uh some some stability in funding uh a known period within which uh they could work to do uh to raise money for the district versus the board's sort

005of interest and need in having some flexibility uh and with none of us really knowing yet uh what costs are going to be involved and what um uh reasonable expectation should be as in terms of money raised we've worked through that issue and I believe that final draft reflects that glad to answer any questions so board members were sent the combined concerns of all of the board members that wish to contribute and I believe the ABC board has in inserted their input Mr Ho is that correct yes yes so the draft that you all received Believe last week was a combined a list of concerns believe it was sent on Wednesday of last week and it's yes being recommended by the administ of CPS to our board as well as uh ABC's Administration to their

006board would anyone like to discuss share one M Craig um so I just want to again start by thanking the hard work you all have done in having those conversations and and really going through to do theou I think this is one of the areas where you know for me from from process purposes I think that's what we should be doing is having the administration make the hard push to do the details and for us as a board to give the direction I think the one thing that I think we will still be figuring out and I don't think it's going to be covered under this mou is ultimately what are the priorities of the district as to what are the things that we would want the foundation to prioritize that's not something we' put

007in a mou because we don't know it right now it something year to year that we'll have to figure out um but I do think that's the the thing for us to kind of work as a board to give direction to superintendent to leadership on um because I do think that is where we're going to have our most important value of having the foundation I would just add that there are structural elements of theou to ensure that the parties are communicating regularly with each other about what the district's priorities are member map had a question um yes so thank you um general counsel uh Administration and ABC for working collaboratively to um receive feedback from the board and implement men in that into the um updated mou one of the things that is um concerned

008for me and I don't know if this is something that can still be fleshed out is the aspect of the governance piece so as we talked about the priorities um of the board wanted to ensure that there's still a little bit more voice from CPS it doesn't necessarily have to be from the board but from um voting members that could represent the district yeah so that was one thing we worked on this week specifically uh a term that we we've added to uh the agreement is to ensure that if the board's representation on the ABC Foundation board uh drops below 25% the board would then have the ability to appoint an additional member to that ABC Board presumably a another board member um so that's I I'm not sure if that completely satisfies your request

009but that's that's the way we addressed that yeah so I appreciate that I did see that doesn't per se satisfy it for me um I still would like to see um just a little bit more representation in terms of voting members I know that we have our ex official members in that um but I appreciate still trying to accommodate that area of concern thanks what weberg yes so thank you again um I just had a couple of questions and just wanted to get some clarification on I think it was section six um I think it's f and g so in terms of the CPS person I just wanted to kind of have a little bit of uh maybe some more information on what does it exactly mean on the use of CPS personnel and then

010in terms of the office space I know that there will be um some type of negotiation but can you elaborate a little bit on that yes thank you so on CPS Personnel um the idea would be that the board could authorize its own employees to help with a fundraising effort but important to that is that the parties are keeping track of how much we're spending on that or how many hours an employee is spending on that otherwise you you tend to not be able to do a very good cost benefit analysis of the money raised if if we raise $100,000 uh at a at a fundraiser but we've spent $95,000 of CPS personnel's time on that that's not a very good return on our investment um so the idea is to to be not not

011to be necessarily charging the foundation with that time but to tracking it so we're we're doing a really good job of of a cost benefit of of our fundraising efforts on the use of space there has been discussions between the parties about uh CPS providing space uh for the foundation to do its work uh that would obviously uh lower their administrative costs and there's a mechanism wherein we would then have a lower administrative fee that we'd be paying to ABC Uh there's specifically been talk about rosson uh those details haven't been worked out whatever the details are about a space agreement they would be subject to a separate lease which they should be um it would involve probably some protections from ABC we can't just decide to um you know end that lease immediately they

012would need some time uh but all those details would be worked out separately in a lease if it were rosson or any other space within the district thank you thank you so I'll just did you go ahead thank you um you mentioned that the administration is is recommending uh that this is theou that uh should be supported by the board uh just wanted to Second what member Craig mentioned uh all the work that's gone into this uh and how historic this is uh at the end of you know 200 and some years it's our first districtwide Foundation that we voted on uh last uh time we met and now with this legal document uh before us I I think I'm comfortable um as we move forward uh with this mou uh at least I've been

013here long enough to know that sometimes M evolve into something else uh like a an additional agreement is there the opportunity as we go through this we let's say we accept this as is as we move through these several years of the foundation is it still possible to create an additional agreement or an addendum to anou does this or is this written in stone and this is what it stays or no in lots of ways this can be an evolving document um I'll give you two examples I think one um and this is in section six it's it's hard to know I think right now what the administrative cost costs are going to be for the foundation as well as the forecasted fundraising goals either party has the opportunity to propose either higher or lower

014administrative fees or different goals each year so that that's possible as we learn more about how our fundraising efforts go the second thing I'd say is we talked about the board having needing some flexibility um the the the mechanism that we've worked into this agreement is that at during any contra contract year by December 31st the board could say we need to renegotiate this agreement and could trigger a renegotiation on De by December 31st the contract would remain in place through June 30 which gives that stability that ABC is requesting but On Any Given year if this contract needs to be renegotiated it could be done so by the board triggering that by December 31st or ABC both parties have the opportunity on December by December 31st to say uh hey we need to relook

015at this so those are two mechanisms that give the parties an ability to uh rethink this in future years and to also second what the member Craig mentioned and I think as did M map U now the kind of the I won't say just the fun stuff but the kind of encouraging and and creative opportunity is to figure out necessarily what are the kinds of things that we would want a foundation to do uh those were the kind of decisions that needed to be made after we had an understanding what this relationship could be and mean and I I would encourage I think obviously uh president Mofford will make sure this happens that that'll be major topic discussion for the board it might also be an interesting opportunity to involve the community to help us

016Envision what a foundation could mean uh Beyond um you know what we might just the seven of us might come up with with the advice of administration so I look forward to that discussion I look forward to us accepting uh this mou and and thank the administration and uh the uh administration of ABC as well as its board uh for agreeing to do this and to continue their almost quarter Century of service to our kids in this manner or member Lindy thank you um I just had two very quick things I wanted to confirm superintendent that this is still a recommendation from you all that you think is the right thing to do absolutely great thank you um and then also just in re reviewing the contract I was going to bring up the provision

017I think Mr H that you were just mentioning uh and you used it in terms of um an option to renegotiate uh if I'm reading it it's also an option to cancel it is like if if because I'm I'm I'm very interested I think in making I think this is a good thing to do and I want to make sure that if we're investing public dollars the organization is raising a significantly larger number of private dollars if after a period of time that's not happening there's no reason this board couldn't say you know we got to go in a different direction and I think it's totally reasonable that we need both parties need to give the other party notice and and time to wind that down in a thoughtful way but there even though this

018is covers five years any given year we could decide we're not seeing the kind of return on this that we expect I'm not saying we will but it just gives me sleep factor to know that that's always an option is that right that's right and that's the purpose of negotiating that provision so I I just want to Echo again for probably the um time at least the sixth time that um I want to thank the administration yourself and admin and ABC for all your hard work and putting this together this has definitely been something that I think is going to benefit the kids but it's been a long time coming I know I've spoken with several former board members and they've definitely discussed this as well I do still have some of the same concerns

019around the number of board members from CPS that are there um I'm I'm willing to support but I I would really like to have that be a little bit more firm that CPS has a large voice in the um the things that will benefit directly benefit CPS students uh I think one board member is is a start but it is defin definitely not where I feel most comfortable I've said that before I'm going to say I'm just saying that publicly right now um part of my other confusion um was I think that on 6G where it says office space you mentioned that that could be a lease and it could be an amended contract I think it needs to say lease in G it it can have a separate addendum but it needs to very

020clearly specify that there is a lease that would be there so I would like for you to add that language there on f i I would also I I'm kind of a little confused if CPS Personnel are using if if the foundation is using CPS Personnel I think it's nice to to have a generalized statement but there needs to be some sort of shity and Clarity that there's reimbursement or or something that there's a capture of time but there's also um um and that's an expense and then my other question back on E is it says I'm going to read this sentence to you and then sh share with you where I'm confused it says the foundation shall make every effort to minimize its administrative costs and to maximize the funding allocated to CPS schools

021here's where my um concern is CPS funds may be used exclusively for the salary and benefits of the foundation staff and other administrative costs associated with fundraising and serving as cps's Foundation because that's under use of CPS funds it it makes me paus because it doesn't clarify that those funds that are being raised are going to go outside of administrative costs as well so I think that that paragraph needs a little bit more clarity for me but maybe it doesn't if you can offer some clarity now uh so so the idea there is to ensure that if there's questions say from an auditor for example about why we're paying funds to a foundation to to clarify that that's what the money is used for that there's a section 6A that talks about that that the

022board is determining that these funds are being expended for a proper public purpose so that's the idea is to establish that there is that it's appropriate for us to spend some money with the idea that this will benefit the district and lots of ways including by raising money um that that's also the idea of of subsection e um well I I I got that but it's very ambiguous that the funds that are raised are going to go to programming for the funds that are raised will be going to programming and and this is this is specific with the check we're handing ABC to as far as administrative costs so I think you can definitely see where the confusion is so I just think that there needs to be a little bit more attention on that

023particular um clarification and the use of CPS personnel and office space it needs to have more definitive language there it's for me but I you know I'm and then the other um piece that I think that I offered was around sharing information information sharing um just to ensure that we're administering or at least adhering to any type of HIPPA laws or what not hi offer because that's health insurance but like any type of privacy concerns for our students and our parents that if we're sharing data that we're definitely making sure that it's um nonidentifiable data and I think it says that but I just want to make sure because it was mentioned a couple times that we're information sharing I just want to make sure that our staff is also protected in addition to our

024students and our families so I don't know what language needs to kind of be there under shared responsibilities Section 8 but I think um I just would feel better if we include just make sure that it's clear but other than that I think it's a great opportunity ready to support anyone else have any other discussion vice president yes Lindy well no I I just thought it was pretty good the way that it was written and I was kind of inclined to move that we had pass it tonight we're still in discussion we have to vote but that was the intention okay I thought you had just suggested some changes I was telling him to sh up that language which I'm ready to support it but I'd like to sh up the language me personally I

025think I'm just trying to ask are we going to we are going to vote on approving the agreement tonight as soon as we get finished with discussion that was the intention great I heard some people say as soon as we get a motion I heard other people say as soon as we finish discussion do you need do we need a motion we're not finished with discussion Ben you have a comment and so does vice president Bolton great I'm going to move as soon as I can that we adopt this this evening thank you president bolon my question was going to be does the president uh feel that the uh General councel can make those changes now or that we can include a motion that says with the changes suggested uh by the board tonight yes

026that was my intention thank you so uh if Mr Lindy would make that motion uh contingent upon the changes that have been suggested this evening I I can't do that because I don't know what all of them are I like the version as it was presented the motion I was going to make is that we adopt the motion that came out to the board last week that is my motion if it doesn't have a second or if it fails that's fine but my motion is that we adopt the one that came out to the board last week I'd like to make a friendly Amendment yes you can make an amendment and with all due respect the motion maker gets to decide if it is friendly or not friendly okay my friendliness is around uh with

027the uh changes suggested by the board this evening the motion to adopt this mou he move forward tonight and in order to secure that if General Council will remind the whole board as to those things that he thinks he has been given direction to look into or didn't explain didn't have any further explanation to those since some of us might not remember all of those I have notes I I I suspect that the issues related to uh 6f and 6E would be non-controversial I I don't think that ABC is going to be willing to reimburse every time a staff member a principal attends a fundraiser and I don't think that's what you had in mind is not what my intention I think you understand very clearly what my intention was because you saw my notes

028I don't think that there's anything adding the word least is not an extensive revision of this cont contract so I think that um I think it's fine what the word lease is already in I think lease is in uh 6G it says the foundation's occupancy of the rosson house will be subject to a separately negotiated lease agreement yes so I think we're good there good there and then um uh your last piece related to ensuring that we follow furpa and again I I do not believe that will be controversial in fact I know it won't be controversial perfectly fine with I I don't think those notes fundamentally alter the agreement in any way and I I think they would be received well received by ABC as well thank you will Mr Lindy accept my friendliness

029I'm G to ask the superintendent if that's okay with her yes then that's friendly thank you Mr Lindy then we have a motion and a second as revised the motion did you get a second I'm second okay well let's take a vote Mr G shall we Mr Craig yes yes Mr Lindy yes M Matt Mrs Weinberg yes vice president Bolton yes and president Moffett yes do board members have any acknowledgements or conratulations congratulations I'm sorry I was trying to move us on congratulations ABC and congratulations uh superintendent Murphy do board members have any acknowledgements for announcements I do former Weinberg all right I am going to start off first with the very first slide here I just wanted to quickly give a huge Kudos and acknowledgement to a graduate of CI Public School Aman Jordan

030who recently made history by winning a 2025 Grammy for his song deliver and the category was for the Harry bellante best song for social change so I wanted to give him a huge big round of applause and then my next thing is um I had the opportunity on March the 4th to participate in EO Taylor school for read Across America day along with some local community members and also mayor afab piral was in attendance and we got the opportunity to not only read to the children but we were also able to promote literacy so I wanted to give them big round of applause for that as well and last but not least I got the opportunity along with uh board member map and board member Craig uh we attended the Fairview German language school as

031they hosted their annual fing and as you see from the pictures it was an amazing opportunity for the kids to make their mask for the celebration there was fun there were games and just lots of fun so I wanted to give them also a huge Kudos as well and that wraps up for me for member lendy thank you very thank you very much uh I just wanted to wish all members of our community uh Irish or not a very happy St Patrick's Day uh Cincinnati uh has a long history uh with the Irish Community um including not only members of my family um but also James gamble of Proctor and Gamble Fame uh Bishop purcel of the school uh down the road uh and many many many students and Educators within cin Public Schools so

032happy St Patrick's Day uh to all who celebrate M Craig uh so I often don't send pictures in because I just don't uh but I wanted to send one in especially for a w Hill Senior who I had the pleasure of being uh serving in a role in a fill in role for her father who had pass away uh Alana Jackson is a senior at w Hills who won the uh Miss excel at the Allen Temple Excel catian this weekend um her mother is a teacher in our district her grandparents were both teachers in our district for more than 40 years um and so I think it's just another again another example of what CPS produces is a history of folks who are Educators who are doing great work but who also go out and

033do a lot of wonderful things uh and Alana will be or Elena I'm sorry Elena Jackson uh will be attending uh I believe Miami boxer this year or next year so again another relationship that the district has been fostering and growing and and keeping folks local but I wanted to it was a great time for me to go out I got dressed up in the tux and had with Tails and had to do the whole uh show and pageantry with him but um it but I was very proud to be able to be there and witness and support uh one of her own um as she did her journey congrat and I'll just add that I didn't forgot to send in my uh photo so shell next next one but I was able to speak

034at the girls to women she leads conference for grades 7 through 12 that was awesome and I'll send in my picture next board meeting so forgive me Shelly um but any other announce vice president Bolton yes I'm assuming that the superintendent is going to be talking about uh athletic achievement uh from uh this last week and weekend so I won't I won't be labor it but I do want to just add a little something to it uh having graduated from achen in 1969 I have to tell you about the first 10 graduating classes I think I've heard from almost all of them uh every single member and C certainly a representative smattering of the first 10 graduating classes uh and the great pride uh that the earliest uh alums have for aen and the Falcons

035and swoop but also uh having U grown up in College Hill I can tell you that this weekend and um in anticipation of a victory uh uh this this past weekend and getting to the semifinals uh on the Avenue so to speak in College Hill him Hamilton Avenue the businesses the neighbors of the aen um School Community are just thrilled and so proud of the young man and the coaching staff and the school itself and the uh important part about all of that is that the aen family actually lived in College Hill and the aen family ain's the only school that we have that's actually named for a family not an individual person and that kind of family that kind of neighborhood ownership and pride is just uh palpable so it isn't just in the

036little suburbs where that can happen it happens in the neighborhoods as well and so uh hats off to the to to the team uh that has reached this very historic High regardless of what happens in the future uh they have brought great pride to their to their neighbors and to the community which is the home of of aen which is K Hill and the many surrounding neighborhoods because originally aen was a high school for eight different neighborhoods wenton Terrace wion Place College Hill Mount AR Clifton milvale north side and so on and so forth that whole heart of the uh north central part of the district is is so proud of of these young men so just wanted to give that a little historical context as well as some neighborhood context so we get a

037history lesson at every meeting wonderful thing wonder I get and I know superintendent Murphy is going to talk about our next big Kudos however I want to add the Ain team has a cumulative GPA of a 3.3 that is CPS so superintendent Murphy please present any an oh I'm sorry okay remember math sorry I just wanted to add to all the great things that's happening in CPS uh so last Monday I had the opportunity to attend the prepared speeches with uh Cincinnati youth collaborative and jcg which is jobs for Cincinnati graduates and I just want you all to know that out of the schools that were represented I believe it was schroer with throw Hughes and tff our students did an amazing job presenting how jcg has really just supported them for through high school

038and their plans Beyond and so I just wanted to share that they are preparing for their Career Development conference on April 3rd so if you all have an opportunity to be present um please attend to support our students um I don't know if you spoke about grad Cincinnati did you not okay so um board member um mafit as well as um board member Crossett we had the opportunity to attend grad Cincinnati breakfast as well another great way to just support the great work that um everyone is doing to help support our students and to pour into our students not just for high school um not just for elementary but beyond high school and so um uh superintendent Murphy had the honor of being recognized at grad Cincinnati so it was a great opportunity to just

039celebrate all of the goodness that's happening in CPS and then lastly I enjoyed attending the CPS International jazz festival with my children and so my daugh she plays the violin so this was like right up her alley um but to just see the amazing work and talent of our students it was an awesome sight to see so those are my Kudos so great job to everyone and we'll have some photos at the next meeting because I forgot to bring that and I just want to say this last thing we had an opportunity this is going to be the end of the meetings for March but happy women's History Month to all the awesome women leaders that work for CPS not just the ones up here the ones that are in the trenches doing the work

040happy women's history month we see you we appreciate you you are so valuable to making CPS what it is so thank you so much for all you do every last one of you now superintendent Murphy yes anybody else please present any announcements and retirements that you may have I have two Civil Service retirements one is Lisa e Norris who is the lunchroom manager at wut Hills High School and then the second is Robert Patterson Mr Patterson is a security assistant too at the school for Creative and Performing Arts congratulations to miss Norris and Mr Patterson okay and then my Kudos have been trying to really streamline these so you can get the emphasis but I can't help so uh first of all I want to say congratulations to 16 Cincinnati public schools who have exited

041the state support list this is starting in 2022 not sure if they had been acknowledged but I want to make sure you see this list I'm going to call them by name Aken dator High School hou stem High School Oiler and Woodward Career Technical High School and then this year we have more schools who are exiting that list cans Chase leap Pleasant Hill Pleasant Ridge Roberts Rockdale Westwood Riverview East Academy ta information technology high school and Withrow High School and then also uh we have 11 schools this year we want to offer congratulations to so proud of the work uh the the deputy Smith is leading all of the curriculum and instruction work so around this uh Ohio Department of Education and Workforce has given the momentum award to Carson College Hill Fairview Clifton Harwell

042hay Porter leap Midway Parker Woods montau Rees e price Roberts and sailor Park congratulations okay all right here we go so uh to the Belmont boys I learned that chant just yesterday uh anyway uh Aken boy basketball team we're super super proud uh they have this is an old announcement I need to update this based on what happened yesterday so they are winners in the state semifinals and now this Friday at 1:00 they'll be going to the University of Dayton for the finals against some team called Louisville high school it's at 1:00 Friday we're so so proud of them and very uh excited and I will say for the cheerleaders um that's the hardest I've seen girls go in a very long time super proud of them uh yesterday congratulations to Aken new Tech High

043School couple of more uh there's a young lady Ashlin trap she is a sophomore at the Spencer center now I saw this in the media first this young lady uh is the winner of the Cincinnati Rotary Club speech contest her topic suicide a call to action regarding mental illness and suicide she was featured on WLWT Channel congratulations I have one picture from the international jazz festival that was absolutely awesome event it was so cool to be on the aof stage as an adult I can only imagine what the young people on that stage felt like so congratulations to them and then my announcement I really there has been a lot uh going on in our school district a lot of promotion um that has been needed in our school district and there have been also

044just uh some hard news that we've had to deliver in a very sensitive way so I really want to take the time and I'm going to ask these people to stand our Communications team who is currently being led by Miss Katherine Robinson our media relations professional Mr Joel Wessel our longtime designer Miss Susan dorer I don't know if you uh everyone knows our web engineer Miss Kim I I do not see uh the person who takes care of our social media and it does a lot of Photography Miss Mary Williams I will shout her out as being a CPS graduate and then our administrator administr rator extraordinaire I just know I'm getting all choked up just don't even really know what to say about Sheila has and all of the hard work that she does

045for us so it's important for me to say to them How Deeply deeply deeply we appreciate I I always tell people communication is the key to any relationship once the communication breaks down the relationship begins to break down so thank you thank you so very much [Applause] all right vice president Bolton it's on you please conduct the hearing of the public thank you very much uh we are now at the item of wait I'm so sorry apologies I'm sorry treasure Wagner has a Kudo oh okay treasure go ahead Mr Gustin yes good evening everyone I'm online hello hear we can hear you okay so Rob is a presentation up yes okay so I just wanted to join in the celebrations so sorry I couldn't be with you tonight I'm still a little bit under the

046weather but um and I didn't want to spread any germs um amongst my friends so um but we wanted to celebrate March 4th was um unite for team financial literacy day and um SP sponsored by Junior Achievement and United Way and um the social studies manager David trober there's a lot of work on on this it was a really fun day so the uh a group of eight of us from the treasur office went to you can go to the next slide went to Robert's Academy and we joined in in the seventh and eighth grade classrooms and learned how to teach financial literacy to them it was a very exciting day we were in Mr Hyatt's classroom and we now have a new appreciation for the hard work that it takes to do with being

047a middle school teacher so um but it was a lot of fun to share our profession and um we got to spend um you know a great time with the kids and the teachers yay thank you Mike you might be getting a little pipeline going on there for next 10 15 years some of your uh predecessors Career Development y Thanks Jen let me let me look to the left and right seriously okay vice president Bolton there you go thank you uh we are now at the item on our agenda for hearing the public each speaker will have two minutes and we'll address all comments to the presiding officer if you're online once a request to um once a request to speak has been granted you'll be invited to enter you should click on the camera

048icon to go interactive provide your name your affiliation to the district your school Community your topic and your cont contact information if you'd like a response to any questions you might have this request is consistent with board protocol and we appreciate your help in the unusual event that someone is not willing to follow this uh protocol we reserve the right to end that person's time again each person will have two minutes to speak when the timer goes off your time is up please refrain from discussing any Personnel matters after speaking if you if you're online you'll briefly use the welcome scream again and your TR transition back so please uh be ready for the live streaming at that point in time finally we ask that your public commentary be respectful of all listeners thank you

049very much okay do we have anyone online Rob to the vice chair we do not okay and we have uh as I understand one uh inperson speaker this evening and that is Lisa Hyde Miller good evening everyone good evening I am Lisa Hy Miller I am the lsmc chair for rooh Hill School I've been the chair of the school since the school opened when they first built the building and so I have a couple questions for you this evening but I want to share a little background that leads up to these question questions real quick I'm here speaking as a service coordinator but for resource coordinators that we have in our school now I know that you're aware of this but I'm going to share a little information about what they do our resource coordinator

050is responsible for effectively managing and allocating the resources to support the delivery of services in all of our schools a resource coordinator identify the needs within a school and the community as a whole and work to find the resources to fill those needs they are very creative professional good listeners to the community leaders and the partners that they serve as well as the staff in the school the resource coordinators build relationships for their schools that they serve and the community and they facilitate many many programs and bring many partners that the children and the families and the community need now my ask for this evening thank you for asking is four questions number one look looking to looking to see exactly what the expectation of the school who will be who will be mixing with

051another school combining with another school let me give you one example Roy Hill Academy and Ela tell is combining together we're doubling in the size of students at that location Ro Hill when it was built 17 years ago was only Built for 575 kids we're going to be over 600 kids in that school so what are the expectation for a larger body of students in and a smaller building number two how does the board feel that resource coordinators are to how important does the board feel that the resource coordinators are to the district number three with all the cuts from the federal and state level where would this lead the students without resource coordinators and last mainly making sure that they playing field is even within the resource coordinators as they pay I Googled it

052the average salary in the state of Ohio for a resource coordinator is between $55 and $58,000 a lot of our resource coordinators are below the average salary thank you thank you very much and I did drw down some of those questions uh do you have those written out somewhere that you can submit to the superintendent that would be great I'm sure it's better looking than what I just wrote so Madam president I think that concludes tonight's uh hearing of the public I just want to knowe we are cooking with grease here let's go we are now at the point for um our audit committee update we're going to have our chief audit executive Miss Lauren Roberts come down there are three direct reports to the board and Miss Roberts is one along with the treasurer

053and and the superintendent well do well yes M Roberts you have the floor thank you good evening everyone good evening board president Moffett vice president Bolton members of the Board of Education treasure Wagner assistant treasur Gustin and superintendent Murphy thank you all for the opportunity to speak with you this evening for the members of the public as I was just so kindly introduced my name is Lauren Roberts and I'm the chief audit executive of Cincinnati public schools and I lead our internal audit department so when I last presented to you it was September so it's been a bit and I'm so excited to be back to speak with you and share some updates so I last spoke and I shared an overview of what internal audit does and uh the purpose we serve within the

054district so the slide before you summarizes a few of those things I shared with you as a reminder internal audit not only supports the goals of the board and admin ation but also serves as a key accountability mechanism reinforcing the district's commitment to using public funds efficiently and effectively Additionally the district has an independent audit committee comprised of community members to further this work today I would like to build upon that discussion by sharing an update of all of the work that we have been completing and working on since we last spoke and I would also like to discuss with you how we can focus on on our fiscal year 2026 which is right around the corner so where are we now this image represents our annual audit cycle so those who may not be

055as familiar each year we enter in to a risk assessment period through the months of May and June in July we receive that approval of the plan by our audit committee and thus the board and then for the remaining months of the year we focus on completing the projects Within that plan so the red box before you highlights where we are at the moment and you can see we're we're pushing hard to our final deadline here in April to wrap up the projects for our year so our next slide will take things a bit further I wanted to introduce to you all our audit committee dashboard this is a tool that we have shared and worked with our audit committee on actually since October 2023 so it's been in use for a bit of time

056but I think this is the first time I've shared it with the full board and certainly with the public in this way so at the top of the audit committee dashboard you'll see there items that we want our audit committee members and our board members and and members of the community to focus on in advance of each of our bonly audit committee meetings so beyond this top summer you'll see uh the status of external audits our internal audit Department partners with management throughout the district to track and report on all of the external audits that are happening throughout the district so this is a One-Stop shop for you as board members to know who is monitoring us and for the community it seems like just about every agency and we are highly audited um and

057also a great opportunity to highlight those good results that we see through our external audits the next chart is a summary of our fiscal year 2025 internal audit plan that period I was just mentioning we're right in the thick of it finishing up the projects within this year's plan so if you scroll through and we'll just move through this rather briskly but you're welcome to and I invite you to to jump into this dashboard and take a look you'll see the status of all of those projects that we're working on as a quick update we did just report on two reports uh at our last audit committee meeting in February our business plus it audit our key financial system as well as records retention so those are linked in the dashboard and available on board

058docs for our community so finally here at the bottom of the dashboard you'll see a history of internal audit recommendations this has been a summary a building and growing summary that is of all of the past recommendations that were issued by internal audit since I began with the district uh just nine day or nine years and about three days ago so just at the anniversary and since that time we have issued 186 recommendations um I also want to note that we are really careful in tracking these recommendations via the partnership with management so that through that joint effort we can provide more insight transparency and accountability to ensuring that all of those recommendations are in fact implemented and those audit results um are addressed so I do want to highlight though of those 186 143

059have been completed by management to date nearly 77% which is quite remarkable so this demonstrates the significant commitment of our Administration and management teams in addressing our audit recommendations as well as their uh dedication to continuous Improvement transitioning back to our slides so where are we headed next so now that I've provided more insight into our current work I want to share what comes next we are about to enter the risk assessment and planning phase of the audit cycle during this time we analyze key risks and strategic priorities and we determine which audit projects should be included in our upcoming year's plan as a part of this process we've also via the encouragement of our finance committee members and our audit committee members uh have been applying this concept of auditability just because we could

060audit should we audit and will we have a meaningful uh return on that project so where we're headed next to gather input uh historically we have worked through planning surveys shared with our audit committee members as well as senior leaders throughout the district last year we received over 30 survey results about areas and projects where people wanted our help and support which again just to highlight that partnership with our management teams is pretty remarkable that people are asking to be audited and asking for us to be involved I think it's pretty neat uh so from there we also hold conversations with our superintendent and our treasure to ensure alignment with the upcoming Year's priorities and which projects are selected so ultimately we take all of that information embed it into our audit method methodology and

061determine which projects should be included for upcoming Year's audit plan and what that looks like practically is once we have that list approved by audit committee come July we break down our audit resources assign our teams to tasks and we get to work for the year uh fulfilling each of those projects and reports so as we prepare for fiscal year 2026 our goal is to ensure strong alignment between internal audit The District administration and the Board of Education over the next few months we want to deepen our engagement with the board to ensure our audit planning encompasses your key priorities strategies and objectives so finally I welcome your input to to see how we can engage throughout the coming months to develop a robust fiscal year 2026 internal audit plan uh and I welcome any

062questions or or additional information I can share with you all this evening thank you Miss Roberts for member Craig uh so let me start by saying in our internal audit team is tremendous they're phenomenally hard workers who have done a lot of work to both look at the work that we're doing in the district but also rethink how they do their work and I wanted to highlight one of the things first is that you mentioned is that you also started looking at the auditability and one of the reasons they did so was because we were having so many things being audited that we were just re auditing again because there was never the process looked at as to well first do we have systems in place that can be audited so that we know that

063they're working and that then we can say whether or not those steps are in place so I appreciate all the hard work your team has done on that the dashboard has been a tremendous key to that um but I thought maybe you could speak just for a moment about and I think this is one of the things that we have you've learned over the year and we talked about this a not committee but how much more effective the different types of reviews you all are doing now where we may have areas where they're not auditable but there's still things you can do to provide assistance so maybe just take a moment to explain a little bit of that as well yes of course thank you Mr Craig so we typically have over the years have

064audited uh or excuse me have offered different audit services so one that we have used historically has been advisory where we come in in service Consultants so it's typically a management Le project and we come in as those independent eyes and ears to provide some guidance the other category is typical assurance and the true audit where we come in with our methodology and we go from A to Z and see the all the way through and have this nice beautiful 20page report that everyone is just on the edge of their seats to read and so the thing that we've adjusted from just those few Services is now we're coming in and applying that thought process do we have a strong process in place do we have a key set of data and do we have

065criteria essentially we come in and compare data to criteria and we give feedback so if we started that first question which we are now calling a test of design and find that there isn't really a process maybe not such strong or set criteria and that the data perhaps isn't uh complete and accurate we stop there we give that feedback and we say we'll come back once it is so then when the time comes we jump right in and we get a really a great return I think on the time of both our our teams as well as management but it provides those initial points of feedback uh at the place people are in their process and I think that's been a really helpful thing that we've been Focus that that the audit committee has been

066focused on for the last year um in large part because we were trying to also think about how does this make us more effective as a district I mean I think we are probably the most audited entity in the city these days uh but there are still things we have to do to get systems better to get efficiency better to get consistency better and those are the areas where you've been able to kind of start to identify and provide and work with the administration to really put things in place and so I applaud all the hard work that you and your team as well as the administration the Treasures Office and everyone else has been doing to really be make our district more efficient and effective with the uh resources that we have member Weinberg

067yes and I just wanted to picky back a little bit off of our lovely board member Craig over there um thank you so much for always being very transparent and I know that I have not been able to attend an audit meeting but I love walking into my office and seeing all of the materials and being able to read through so just thank you for the transparency thank you for you and your team for being um upfront and providing us with that additional information as well so thank you so much oh my pleasure thank you vice president Bolton yes thank you for the presentation and uh again a history lesson she's been here believe it or not that she said nine years that she dates back to an appointment by superintendent Mary Ronin um so

068that's uh she's been here through a number of superintendents and administrations and one of the things that the public public has to kind of understand about this is that actually Miss Roberts for all intents and purposes she provides us information and what have you and is a of great service to the district but technically really she reports to a Community Committee of volunteers with financial background and expertise and that kind of Independence makes her a very very important uh internal uh audit chief for sure I wanted to emphasize that with folks about the audit committee and also um as we look at those recommendations you know as hopefully we'll be able to have more time as a board to give some guidance as to our interest as as long as it kind of is in

069Confluence with what the audit committee also is interested in doing but one of the things uh to to uh member Craig's point about correcting and improving the processes and also managing the risk uh that that we all face uh maybe more and more as we have now gone through these growth phase one growth phase two as well as facing all these Financial issues that we Face from external folks um it it might be good for uh some of the audit work to actually revolve around this new vision of the whole District because just by the rest structuring of the district the processes will change and the accountabilities will diff be different so it it might be a great idea to maybe have even the audit committee start talking about what this kind a new era

070is and in the way that we've reorganized our district uh with much more accountability regarding per student results per School expenditure and results uh in so I I I think maybe we can figure out how to have that kind of discussion uh I think would be would be helpful and I know Bor has any number of ideas too but I think it's it's important to make that change in the perspective of the um audit committee too but thank you for all the work you do and and also the quality of the work you do my pleasure it's due to a great team and the support of the board and administration as well any other board member questions comments so thank you so much this was a great idea to have you present to the full

071board you don't often get an opportunity to hear from people outside of finance and budget and so now this is an opportunity for the full board to see what you do to see the dashboard and all the hard work that you and your team your Mighty team small number of people do for us but then to gather some information about how um the board is thinking in totality so thank you for all you do and I love look forward to the next presentation my pleasure thank you for the invitation to speak absolutely all right um here we go superintendent Murphy please introduce the following presentation the next presentation around Safety and Security yes ma'am so our next presentation Safety and Security is going to be brought to you by Deputy Smith and director Bell good

072evening everyone president mopit for vice president Bolton and superintendent Murphy um Dr B Mr Bill come on where you at over here I told him to sit down I did tell him to sit down I told him to sit down and I was going you know um we are not um going to read through all our sides we're going to give you an overview um so we will not be before you long and if you have any questions and we will answer those questions as you can see this is the organizational chart for us um we have the resource team investigators we do restorative practices trauma informed care basic first aid CPR R AED you can move the slide if you want to um Rob we keep up with all the fire drills um lockdown

073drills tornado drills every every student has to go through the metal detectors we have the pass through wands um we have the individual door alarms um and lock down doors um we do things with student engagement around bullying anti-bullying presentations we do searches random searches searches of the property um we also have been doing what we call Security checks this year where William and I and the rest of the team go to the school we walk with the with the principal we check every area of the building if something's not working properly we note it and we get with facilities as soon as possible William also does another piece of it William would you like to share would you talk to the students so we asked the uh thanks for having us greatly appreciate it

074but one of the things we do is we have a student survey where we ask three questions three questions are do you feel safe in school can you report an incident to a security personnel and do you know who your security people are now what's odd is the the question do you know who your security people are and some people they know that they're trusted adult but they may not recognize them as a security person uh we've actually asked a kindergarten stent student to name her security person and she did not know his real name she called him Mr nephews because someone referred to him as Mr nephews and that's who he is for the rest of his life the good thing is that that um in our surveys that 94% almost 94% of our

075students felt safe uh two of our students indicated that they did not feel safe at school but here's the reason why one person said that they wanted more security that was it the other person said they kind of feel safe and I kind of feel safe is something that we're working on we want people to feel safe but the majority of our students feel safe and feel like they can report anything to the school they've also one of our people also said that uh or one of the people survey said that they feel they can report something to a counselor as well that is our presentation do you have any questions board member Weinberg how did you know I saw your hand I can see thank you so much for the presentation I just have

076a quick question um as a board member I received lots of emails um from families stemming around the random searches and um I guess the issue or concern for some of the families and some of the students obviously you can't announce random searches but they just wanted to make sure that their rights weren't being violated and I know from reading the student code of conduct and also some of the other things that we have in place as uh CPS District I know where to find that information but publicly can you just kind of expand on um the rights of a student when they attend CPS schools in terms of being eligible for random searches and what the purpose of a random search is just because I know it doesn't mean that everyone knows it and

077I want anyone who may be listening to be able to understand that as well okay can we go back to slide um I think that might have been slide two uh slide three so I'd like to speak on slide three and I think there might be a reference on slide seven as well too but yes okay so basically everything we do was is within our board policies so if there's a person other than the procurement process which may be difficult to find our student code of conduct our strategic plan state and local federal laws and labor agreements and our board policies how we make our decisions on how we're going to engage this is the culture that we work within in terms of a student's rights we are not we don't violate a students right

078there is in in truth an expectation of safety through our our schools and as as listen to our board policy a student does doesn't have an expectation of privacy while on school grounds typically if there is someone that makes an announcement or they voice a concern about a student being in possession of something that they shouldn't be in possession of then we're going to act on that information immediately I'm not sure if I'm answering your question am I answering you are a little bit so I'm really talking about random searches because the email that I received um a parent felt offended or felt as if the students rights were not taken into consideration when a random search was done to this particular student or even being done at a particular school so I just want

079to really kind of expand on the importance of why you all do random searches and then also how we are not violating their rights because they I think I don't know if they signed the student code of conduct but I'm pretty sure it outlined Minds all the things that will occur as a student who attends CPS so I just want to make sure that they understand that and that we're verbally and publicly stating that information yes that and you're absolutely right board member Weinberg they do sign the code of conduct and the random searches for all safety of all kids so when we do the random searches it is to make sure that everybody understands that they must follow the code of conduct and if we find something that could harm students at school then

080we deal with that accordingly but the rights were not going in and just everybody it is a conversation we're at a random search we're going to be checking book bags we're going to be whining students down it's a whole class it's very respectable and so but it is to ensure the safety of all of our kids not to disrespect anyone's rights or the young people but we want to make sure that the school is safe for everybody and that's the whole purpose of it and thank you you mentioned something that was just going to bring up young people so the issue um or a concern that came up regarding our young students at elementary schools is just what is being explained to them after they are randomly searched is there a conversation um I think

081there was a concern whether it would bring trauma or just other further questions to our particularly young individuals that attend our schools and so I know there's a difference obviously with high school student students and you know reading that student code of conduct and understanding what to expect but for our younger students how are you all addressing those needs so typically before there's a search there's a conversation with the students involved and we tell them what we're looking for if whatever we're searching for is something that's of concern or in violation of the student code of contact I use the word violation so if it's apples or oranges or cakes and cookies we're not interested in those things it's things that a student is not to have but it is explained uh why we're there

082what the expectations are during the time of the search and if there's anything that is found that is confidential and is there any followup I'm sorry is there any followup after you explain and then once you leave the classroom do the teachers do anything in terms of if students have questions or then if families have questions and then they send maybe the teacher an email or the principal is uh notified you the principal is normally on the search with so we're not usually they're not usually in the classroom without the principal but also we usually not doing in the elementary schools really little really small students it's usually either the fifth or sixth grade kids and like he said there's a conversation with the principal about what classes we're going to go into so they

083they know what classes that they want us to do the random search on and what would you suggest if a student does have an issue after it has occurred or they have a concern do they recommend going and speaking to their teacher or their principal I think they should speak to the teacher and if the teacher doesn't have answers they could go to the principal's office and talk about it but our goal is really not to the C students trauma and if that is happening we definitely want to know the goal is to make sure they understand that the things they bring in the school need to be in line with the code of conduct and if they don't then these are we're going to confiscate it and then your parent can pick it up

084or if it's something that is really not supposed to be a school that's a whole another conversation thank you any other board member questions or member Lindy uh thank you very much for the presentation I think this matters a lot uh as a parent I think number one issue for me is making sure that uh I feel like schools are safe places and I really appreciate the work that you do um could you talk for just a minute about how you all measure success there's a lot of schools there's a lot of kids a lot of different issues like what what how do you all Define what good looks like over the course of a given school year so we will measure our I'm sorry measure our success on our student surveys there are things

085that that kids want to bring to us and uh what their kid feels safe where the kid feels like they can report something is how we will measure our success that's why we asked to survey uh this is relational and if if a student knows who as a trusted adult in the building then a lot of things can be prevented there are things that have been shared with us that have been able to or that we've recovered are been able to address because of those relationships so our surveys is how we measure it I I appreciate that and I think a good survey done well can be a great way to measure things like this I also apologize of some of this you shared earlier because I'm remembering you mentioning a survey does it go

086to Just students students and parents I just took a survey as a parent recently for our school answer those questions already those questions are on there as well but I think for for us as a department um board member Lindy we feel successful when we know when we walk into those schools and schools teach students can identify who their safe person is what's safe about the school when we walk through the school that's why we're doing the safety walks um so after we finish them all we're going to compile that data to see exactly what was said and we're mostly talking to kids when we go in but I believe the survey that you're getting from us in the district asks the kids and the parents do they feel safe uh in our schools and

087that's going to give us a lot of information as well so I think success for us would be that the students feel safe in school that they can identify the person that um is in charge of their safety and they know who they can talk to if they don't feel safe at school and I think all that sounds very reasonable and I appreciate all of it I think one area if if we're not already doing this but maybe one opportunity for the future would be some way to Benchmark our results on whatever those outcomes are against other school districts um so so if is CPS a place that is people feel just as safe people feel even safer um would be great to um yeah there are lots of ways to to to think about

088about this but but I'm trying to look with some rigor and some consistency about how it's how we're doing relative to some meaningful comparison group okay thanks what member CR uh just want to two things I want to Echo the the things for coming to present to us and and providing some of this information I think it's also important that we know who some of the teams of folks are who provide security services in our schools because I think that's a hard part also for I think students generally will know I think it's more often the parents and other folks who might be having questions or having concerns may not always know so it's important for them to be able to reach out within their schools um I do think one thing that is also

089just again because I tend to beat dead horses on this idea it is the difficulty in our district is that it is not just when the kids get to school that presents the safety issues and that a lot of things happen before the school day and after the school day ends that affect how our students perform during the school day and I want to maybe just give you a second to to also describe the connection you all do with like our local law enforcement and other organizations to ensure that if there is a concern that may get carried into the building that you are on top of it that you have relationships built up because I think that's the other part of ensuring safety in our schools is that what happens outside the school can

090come into the building and be something that we uh pay attention to it and work on sorry so there is a uh a unique relationship that we have with law enforcement to other agencies a lot of information is shared with us is is confidential and we move in that that way we're also uh exploring having some of our people placed at some of our Transit centers at the conclusion of school so that we can address some of the things that may go on people that elect to do that they're there as an advocate and situation our goal is not to remove students from school it's not to arrest it's not to do any of that nature it's simply to uh create a a culture and an atmosphere where it's a safe environment for them and

091that anything that they report anything that's of a concern anything that is is uh going to be a a challenge to them coming to school and being at school we can address it many of our law enforcement partners are coaches and they do things within the community and they're just well aware of what our challenges are uh I have a law enforcement background there are many people that have chosen to work at CPS that La foring backgrounds and some of the people that we interview for these positions are also CPS students and understand the culture in the neighborhood as well I think also to um board member Craig we have a great relationship with our SRO so when things are happening in a community and our neighborhood they are quick to reach out to us

092and then then we are also able to call them directly knowing whatever area they take over and say hey we're hearing this is going on in the community for our young people they walking that way do you know what's going on should we should we reach out to our parents and say they should go another route coming to school so I think that relationship is very um cohesive and that we work really um hard with them with the things that are on the outside they may impact the school um but our students are always going to tell us what's happening in the neighborhood so that we can move forward on those things and I think that's the other part too is that our students aren't hiding no what's going on they're letting us know they're

093very informative to the folks within the school and so you know having security working with the principal and working with teachers and working with coaches and everyone else who's working with some of these students to really make sure that if there's an issue we can address it the best way we can as a district or at least get the right Partners to the table to address those issues yes thank you Bolton okay did you have more no okay I don't want to cut off any information no ma'am right uh first of thanks for the presentation and and two areas particularly that I think need to be commended uh one is at least from as board members we do get early quick notifications of those issues that are happening in the school that we need to

094know about and having been here a long time I think that's been uh one of the great improvements uh for us because um and I know we can't can't get all of it and some of it has to be very very secure but and not necessarily always shared but I I'm I'm pleased with that and the other thing to be commended would be the the um results of this these surveys uh I'm not sure um how the survey is done or what have you but I think anything that even remotely is close to whatever those results are would be uh uh headlines uh for uh and not necessarily uh the norm in many Urban uh districts so I think we're to be commended I would also say part of that is the nature of our

095buildings uh you have to really wonder about how safe we all would feel if indeed the taxpayers had not invent you know had invested as much money as they did in rebuilding because much of it was done with the understanding even in an earlier time when there was a a stronger sense of security uh we have built buildings that allow you to to perhaps offer greater safety but I do have a couple of questions because several questions largely because I think this is the top priority for me is that which is uh life and death regarding our kids and our staff the safety the risk to the district is in the safety piece and if we can't provide that you know our people will stop coming to our schools and right now it's what they

096think as one of the top three or four priorities is safety for kids so I I have a question couple of questions um do we need uh more cameras and you can say yes but we won't uh hold any of you how many uh do they are they effective yes cameras are effective uh any technology improvements would be greatly appreciated okay and I think that's important for us to know that's very important it cannot be just an incremental budget uh for for safety another are our metal detectors activated and are they manned or personed at every one of our schools so we have three types of metal detectors we have our walkthrough metal detectors that are at our high schools uh are there at schools where the principal chooses to have them we also have

097ground detectors and we also have hand Hill detectors typically the ground detectors and H Hill detectors are used on request like or if there's something identified uh on on a student so if a student says one student confidentially reports that another student may be in possession of something then H help metal detector maybe used to determine if uh that student is in fact in possession of something thank you um we used to get and I guess we we might still I don't know and I might have not seen it but we used to get uh uh periodic uh and this might be part of uh uh positive School culture we used to get reports because the state unfortunately insisted that there' be reports on the number of bullying events in our school district and of

098course the minute the state said you had to report it people found ways not to report it that which we're still we're still reporting it we still have our bully button that they push and we have all those things still in place and you're right it does fall under the positive School culture and the social workers and that might be something again to to look at again or get periodic uh periodic efforts especially people feeling comfortable about reporting uh you know often that's part of the problem to your point about relationships um this the most important safety feature we have is if our people have the relationships and that's not just security assistance but that's also our teachers and our other staff members whether it's maintenance or whether it's you know the people that provide

099uh Crossing walk safety uh because the kids will tell if they have trust and you mentioned SRO we spent I don't know how many months actually a almost two years hearing about the removal of police from uh our buildings um and fortunately we de decided not to do that even though uh the American civil liberties Union had almost captured our district and some of our kids to make that part of a national theme how you talked about the relationship can you talk a little bit more about the importance of the sro's in the buildings and where they're placed so the sro's sro's uh primary primaries uh assignment is at the high schools and they are responsible for all schools throughout Cincinnati but in that relationship they also talk about things that may happen at bus

100stops or or Rous and things of that nature I will say that some of our estos takes it they take it personal with something happens to one of the students at their schools and they have a network among themselves that spans out to uh other agencies to ensure that all students remain safe and that information is freely communicated so anything that is is of a concern whether it's a parental concern an auto concern a public concern I'm sorry a private concern or individual student may be going through something our sro's uh have the habit of looking into it and and doing the best that they can to try to resolve it thank you I I think um vice president bow I feel like they are partners with us in the work um they will I

101know they're mainly at the high school but they go to the elementary schools I mean they wherever their area is they they're going to come if you call and so I I really believe they're they're important because sometimes they can talk to a parent and share information that will help them calm down and say we're going to take care of it sometimes things are happening in the neighborhood but when they come to the school they want us to help and sometimes we can call the SRO and say hey it didn't happen at school but the parent is really upset how can we support them so I feel like they're partners with us in the work I think they come in and they support us in the way that we need them to um so I

102I think they're very important I'm so glad you mentioned that because they are at our high schools but you're right it's Geographic it is they each have for the little people too and the smaller yes I appreciate that one last question is uh just my own interest and I'm not speaking about the transit centers I would like I would like to just real quick and it just came to my attention because we talked about the the elementary I'm sorry we talked about the elementary schools and I want to just uh to share that there was a six-year-old that got off the bus because she was a big girl and she decided that she didn't need to go home and the SR and police communication and our own CPS uh um Transit Transportation Center literally track

103that that young lady down within a half hour it was fantastic and I don't think that we could have did that without our transportation having uh the uh the I guess the bus route for that student and also the police Communications talking directly to each other to locate that that young lady so I just wanted to share that with you since you brought it up and that's a good example of how our sro's and our police department and our school security and they how they all work together just for the safety and benefit of our students thank you it's a good segue for this last question because my interest is that relationship that we have with our transportation vendors both Metro and also our private uh vendors because as Mr Craig mentioned it's really also

104what's happening to and from school that impacts what's happening not just in the neighborhood and in the school but it you know if there's an altercation on at the bus stop or if uh uh you know there's a problem on the bus how is that reported to us and is that does that go through the principal and then to you or how does that work if there's a problem with Transportation it starts with the principal and so and um then the principal usually lets us know what's going on and then i' like the superintendent know especially if it's something that it's a grievous that we need to deal with but that's how it works they they go through the principle great thank you and one last thing is Mr Lindy said maybe some it might

105be good to kind of find ways to measure the success whether it's numbers or types of events that are uh and that's you probably all have that I just don't know if the board has seen some of that stuff but I appreciate the report and and I'm I feel much better able to look at the budget now based upon your presentation thank you so I'm gonna you went already I have something quick but I I can go after you War up a map and then I'm GNA go and then you can go one sounds great it'll be very quick because uh vice president Bolton already covered a lot of the questions that I had around the sro's and so I do remember that it was really a contentious Point um before I joined the board

106but I wanted to also know the impact and the um positive things that our Sr were doing and so just to add value it may be helpful if we were able to capture that data and reframe The Narrative about what our sro's are doing and how our students and our parents are experiencing that relationship um the the question that I do have um is pertaining to uh House Bill 206 where it is discussing or is proposing School exposion for students and so I'm wondering if there's conversation around this particular bill to make sure that we're taking preventative actions where our students and our um our families are informed about um their be making sure that their behavior is not leading into anything that would Pro you know um their behavior is not leading to anything

107that would pose imminent danger or threat to anyone else because we don't want to see any of our students expelled for 180 days or longer so I'm wondering if there's any convers ation that the uh department is doing to ensure that our students are informed about what appropriate behavior is and how to conduct themselves at school so that we don't you know end up in this position so trying to make sure that we're taking proactive and preventive measures yeah I would that would fall under our positive School culture and where we are doing a lot of work around um how we behave in school um setting those expectations but also creating a schedule where we actually teach those expectations um the expectations should be posted all over the building in the classroom but also doing

108some training with our security around restorative track um practice and Trauma informed care so that they know how to navigate and work with our young people that are experiencing all these things so it doesn't escalate to something like that but definitely with the house bill 206 Miss house and her team are really making sure that and we're digging in with the principles on what that looks like what does your PBIS plan look like how do students know what they're rewarded for what are the consequences what steps are there to contact parents um what's next on the list when do I finally get to a referral or am I going to the office do I need to go speak to a counselor first so knowing the kids and creating a system that's what we're doing with

109our PBIS and our positive School culture so that they we teach them the expectations so that we don't have lots of students that are um being expelled from St school thank you so I'm going to just be brief because much of my my um my comments have already been shared but I do think that I know that the board members have been getting quite a bit of concerns around uh random searches and parents and particularly the Yonder bags being confiscated by by the searches so I appreciate you answering these questions and I think that's where a lot of our questions are coming from is because parents want to know so I'm really grateful that much of this is public we are have kind of disbanded our health and safety which is where we got a

110lot of information or health and safety committee sorry which is where we would get a lot of information around bullying around um Building Safety so maybe this would be great to have we were getting data around this so I maybe we could have you all come back um you know on a somewhat regular basis and provide the data that we were getting before because we have been getting data around bullying um in in an attempt to answer the questions from that we've been getting on emails I did do some research with the superintendent and learn that you all do um walking to and from school bullying prevention all of those things are underneath safety and you do them with making nice safe Maps or routes for kids to get on the buses if they're taking

111the yellow buses or the Metro so it's really Beyond just simply the building it is the route to the building the route home um what I shared because I learned this is that some of these things come in Anonymous reporting someone might say say to parents or parents may call in maybe it's even a social media post to say hey this was posted and then they let you all know so sometimes it is not advantageous for us to alert the students that they're going to be a random search because maybe that was what the tip was about and so I in speaking with the superintendent suggested that to the parent you know start with your principal because the principles know exactly what the random search is for as you mentioned oftentimes they're they're in attendance

112they're participating and so they can be the first line of defense to be able to say this is what this was about to that parent um we did uh our SRO you mentioned the sro's in our buildings I do want to also note for the public SRO are also in private schools as well they're not just Public Schools they also go to private schools elementary schools and um we did lose one of our SRO so out of respect um just acknowledging that we did lose an srl so some of our students may be experiencing that loss as well because as you mentioned it is about relationship building and so um that just wanted to acknowledge that as well to our community W Weinberg oh that was um so I just wanted to add one more

113question to what I asked about regarding the code of conduct I know parents obviously receive it students receive it but this will be a question for the superintendent as as well are we doing anything intentionally in terms of making sure that our parents understand obviously they get that they get the code of conduct I'm not going to say that every parent reads it but hopefully they are reading it what is being done or what has been done in the past to be informative or to engage our families and parents so at the start of every school year all of the students have open houses Meet the Teacher Night welcome back to school and go over the expectations broadly even uh the sro's will speak in front of the parents and let them know what the

114purpose of their presence in the buildings and on the grounds are the positive School culture committees often show up at PTO meetings to explain what is going on notifications may go home to parents if the child is being recognized for the monthly positive School cultural award or appreciation or field trip uh you get to go skating because you behaved in such a way um there are signs in our school too that talk about the random searches the purpose of them uh the uh fact that they are done on a basis where we don't notify people very early in the school year the response team will reach out to the principls to schedule searches and they'll say hey we'll have time for about five classrooms today they the principal May select what area of the building

115what grade level they want to cover uh I have seen it that the response team will come in with the principal They will announce their purpose for the day um and the principles will also tell the families uh broadly not at all specifically when these searches will happen because we want to keep them random we want to keep them uh quiet so to speak and not make that big of a deal out of it and I do hear the uh response team members explain in to Children explaining to teenagers what the purpose is and at the end of the day it's done to keep everyone safe and sometimes kids do get things confiscated and they do get upset about the things that are confiscated and then sometimes the parents have to come to the building

116to retrieve whatever confiscated item there may have been and that may upset them as well and they express those frustrations to us and then we walk them through through why we do what we do what things are um okay to have in school and what things are not okay to have in school thank you yes ma'am any other questions thank you and I appreciate you keeping your slides brief and for summarizing that was I'm trying to follow the instructions the superintendent told us you have five minutes she didn't say that but she did tell us to make it brief precise and clear thank thank you thank you so much superintendent Murphy please introduce your and the treasurers presentation around resource coordination awesome uh also joining me today to talk about resource coordination is our director

117of school Community Partnerships uh Mr Sierra badge is going to come down front uh we were tasked with um talking to you all today about resource coordination I think everyone has a form in front of them that talks about Our Community Learning Center the model the board policy around Community Learning Centers and resource coordination and what the purposes why we have them what we expect of the resource coordinators and then we get into today in this presentation some uh possible uh adjustments that we can make to the work moving forward Mr badet good evening school board members good evening superintendent Murphy and assistant treasure Mr gusta um this evening we're going to talk about several proposals around the CLC Community Learning Center model uh but more so the community center learning model um hand inand

118works with the resource coordinator with that model so with that being said District policy board policy 7500 says that our schools will serve as Community Learning Centers and with that they will serve as the hub for the neighborhood and an important role with that is resource coordination resource coordinator next slide please so one of the things with the lsdmc they pick the lead agency so if you look on our screen you'll see that we have a total of six 16 lead agencies that serve several of our sites um the cost for resource coordination is um 72,000 it's a reimbursement model so re lead agencies can build the district up to 72,000 per re per resource coordinator or per site so if you see on our sheet um for an example Miami University they have one

119resource coordinator and you'll see the total CPS investment is 72,000 and then give you another example CRC they have two so their total investment or PO is for 144,000 So currently our budget um we're currently around 4.1 mil um in resource coordination throughout the district okay um I think it's also important to say that we have a organization called clicki clicky has been around for many years in the district um they actually help start the Community Learning Center model and they're known throughout the state um and with that being said they are self-funded so we do not pay for any of the resource coordinators from clicki and they are at six of our schools so that's why you see no dollar amount there next slide please okay and then these are the sites that the

120lead agencies are currently serving for schools okay next slide please okay and this just gives you a visual of all of our schools across the district all right next slide so proposal 1A is to keep our lead agency model to keep lead agencies in the school with that being said you'll see the first line is to maintain resource coordinators at the high schools line two maintain one resource coordinator for elementary schools middle schools and junior high schools with a projected student enrollment of 350 or higher for the 2526 school year you can see the dollar amount it breaks down to nine resource coordinators in the east eight resource coordinator Central 11 resource coordinators on the west and three districtwide coordinators um districtwide is students that um schools that are Citywide schools example uh Fair viiew

121okay so with that you'll see the dollar amount there and then schools with under 350 we would have three resource coordinators assigned to those six schools so it be one resource coordinator for two schools okay and then you'll see the co um cost associated with our clicky schools we we use the 72 base I know um clicky pays resource coordinators differently I know they have French benefits but this was just to give you an idea of what it would cost us if we had to cover those six resource coordinators so potential savings 432 and then with um proposal 1A you can see currently our resource coordinators they work 12 months so if we um took it down to 11 months um we could save $282,000 and so you'll see the to total amount for this

122um proposal is 3.1 which again today we're paying 4.1 in resource coordination next slide please so with proposal one we would have a total of 47 resource coordinators which is down from where we are almost every site has a resource coordination um on this sheet here it gives you what it would cost us for 12 months which is currently what they're under right now so 12 months would be at 3384 which is still a cost reduction from where we are today and then 11 months 3.1 still down and then we have a 10mon option as well should be 2.8 God bless you bless you okay right next slide please right proposal 2A insource um so this is insource versus Outsource so this would be CPS as the employer for resource coordination versus lead agency um

123so we would employ the resource coordinators so I do want to note that we go from 47 to 42 resource coordinators um and it would be one resource coordinator for two schools for the elementary and the high schools would still have a resource coordinator so this is you can see there for an example 60k base salary with fringes we did the fringes off of 35 Cent 35% not Cent 35% and that gave us what the the cost would be to run this model insource versus Outsource okay next slide please and then we break it down for you so you can see if we hired someone at 60k what it would cost us 81k and then if they were at 50k it would cost the district 675 okay I'll turn it over to superintendent Murphy well

124board member questions comments board member Craig um as always thank you for this presentation I think one of the things we've been trying to figure out with regards to Resource coordination is what are those needs in some ways that our schools have um and so maybe could you speak a little bit to the difference in needs or resource coordinators or really the the different use of a resource coordinator at our High School versus what their need and use is at an elementary school or in our middle schools as we're going to have in junior high sure I'll just say we have the resource coordinators complete A needs assessment every year because the needs can change from year over year um so with that being said your high school resource coordinators they're meeting with those principles

125they're meeting with the LSD MC's um because the LSD MC's uh they rate the they do the evaluation a midyear and an end year evaluation on the lead agency um so with that being said the work of the resource coordinator High School might be a little bit different than Elementary because we're get getting those students ready for postsecondary um and then I know the need for elementary they're trying to make sure that they have testing incentives tutoring barcat buddies those needs and and again I think that's important to note because I think that goes in a little bit to why we have this somewhat difference in how many resource coordinators are serving our high school where there may be a lot more resources and a lot more intensity needed to ensure that students get their

126opportunities post grad um and especially some of the schools where there is this need for the district to play a little bit bigger role than than maybe in some other spaces in that process whereas in the elementary and lower grades it's really about getting resources to the students to continue their journey to keep them on track to find out ways to kind of supplement what they're learning and how they're learning right so like there may be needs that that it's not as much promotional need as much as it is continuing their education continuing their growth within that level right um with each of these plans and I think again I I probably have some ways that I would lean on on the proposal I I think it's nice to bring them in house but I

127think it also is Administrative challenge still with doing so in some ways because of the quickness of change and how do you recruit and these other aspects that also go into bringing things in house that might be more trans transitional than overnight feel but with proposal one is the expectation also um that you would still look to identify those uh providers that that meet with what the lsmc needs but also try to coordinate a little bit more um I know that's something you've already been you've presented to us before about us trying to coordinate what the resource coordinators resources they're utilizing and and tools to are using so that you get a little bit more consistency or a little least more communication among resource coordinators even if there are different lead agencies or different programs

128because I think there's a lot of folks who may not always know to go to which lead agency to provide assistance to a school if they wanted to do so so can you yeah so so like is is can you maybe give us a little bit of a description of of the expectations for what a lead agency under this plan what additional things would a lead agencies be expected to of do to bridge some of maybe the commonalities of resources that are needed or those of things because again I could imagine there would be still some spaces where if we're going down a number of resource coordinators there may be a need to have a lot more efficiency and how those resources are brought in and how those resources are utilized by the resource coordinators

129so I think that everyone is probably very clear on the resource coordinator having to take cues not only from the agency which we value very very much those Partnerships uh but the other part is then also what are the expectations of the school so all of the groups have M us per their individual school that's based on what the LSD mmc's have identified as needs for the school every lead agency May function a little differently because of whatever goals they may have established for themselves which then could create create some challenges resource coordinator to Resource coordinator organization to organizations what we do here at CPS is bring the resource coordinators together on a monthly basis to a provide training remind them of expectations uh train them on how we are collecting data and ensuring that

130that data is being collected with Fidelity so are there more opportunities to be able to do work like that I believe yes okay and then the last question I had was really again the 11th month versus 12mth contract and I guess maybe what is the expectation for a resource coordinator when school is not in session and I know some schools have summer programming and that type of deal but not all will have that yeah I think a couple of years ago when we had um summer Scholars and we did the instructional piece and the enrichment piece the resource coordinators worked extremely hard and accepted a lot of the responsibility for completing that work um I while it would be challenging because many schools still offer programming a lot of the lead agencies still support programming

131in the summer we have over the past year last summer seen a less of that uh this year we have so far said if there's a lead agency that is interested in providing summer opportunities that is something that we would talk to them about just as if there were any other organization that wanted to utilize our buildings for summer or weekend enrichment and uh opportunities so we're still open to that but I think the work lessons during the month of July which while a pain Point might be easier to work through uh if that need is arises I think for me then that that tells me that there's a there's a benefit to potentially utilizing the resources within the time frame that they're needed and maybe that additional month is not necessarily the best use

132of that role if it's not something that they have a proposal have a plan for how to maximize and I think that make it to the lead agency providing that information to go to that cost benefit analysis that we've been talking about a lot more which is for every dollar we spend we need to know what's that benefit we're going to see from it so I appreciate the uh presentation Weinberg yes so thank you again for the presentation I just have two quick questions um if you go back to the slide where it says proposal 1 a I just want to make sure that I am reading this correctly so if we are keeping our lead agencies you're stating that we would have how many what would be the total this slide really probably talks

133less about the number of lead agencies excuse me and more about the number of resource coordinators so it is what would be the number for the resource coordinators for there are total 31 in proposal 1 a so can I can I add total all for all schools would be in this slide would be 47 sorry I'm sorry he has it broken down 31 on that uh Second he does and that's why I was a little confused but I wanted to ask for clarification so proposal 1 a the total number would be 47 47 but then when we go to proposal 1B it's still the 47 but it's just breaking it down um 12 month 11 month 10 month yes Ma and if you go back up to the original slide there it says savings from

134a 11th month contract so this would be technically in 1A the 47 with an 11-month contract correct yes ma'am okay can you go to next slide please and I then comparing it to the 1B it's still 47 but now it's giving us three choices 10 11 and 12 yes ma' correct correct I just wanted to make sure I was following along thank you different prices yes with different pricing I did see that part thank you all savings thank you oh and I wanted to add sorry I'm so thankful for our resource coordinators thank you board members vice president Bolton yeah thank you very much thanks for the presentation um I think it's I think it's an achievement to think in terms of what looks like uh what kind of percentage saving savings would this be

135uh on on proposal one is that a 20 some per savings 25 we one million was 1 million out of or 1 point something million we going to our assistant Treasurer he said 4 million it's about a 25% savings I I think achieving a 25% savings and not necessarily changing the volume of service but indeed maybe the manner of service I think that's an achievement um and as a person that was here when that policy was written um and also some years a few years ago when I think we saved the policy uh from from destruction um I I'm still very supportive of having lead agencies uh not because I'm just old school or a purist but and I think it would be easier if we just said we'll do it but I also think

136that that is easy is not what I'm looking for I'm looking to maintain the initial philosophy and creativity of the plan that even even though it's hard to get the kind of consistency that we may want across the district I think that additional energy and that those additional perspectives because the concept is that it's not a wraparound service provider this is what the nation keeps trying to make Community Learning Centers B it's not about wraparound service it's about making the the School the center of the community uh that's what it's supposed to be whether it's roll Hill or whether it is Kilgore it and without the lead agency piece and I think we can do an even better job I appreciate the fact the Administration has literally had lead agencies at every one of our

137building you've finally been true to the policy um and I so I my interest would be there and with a 25% savings I think that's remarkable I also know again and again and again it's impossible to decide or to measure the actual return on investment of having somebody in each of the buildings be a resource coordinators because I will guarantee you they are providing far more resources whether it's in dollars or quality of service or even the love of the school from the community um then then we're spending these are among just like I think extracurricular activities these are the best dollars we spend and and because they're directly helping not only the students but also building uh building the community so I I'm interested in in one I do think a a shorter year

138so to speak but not 10 I could I could see where it's 11 month instead of 12 month if we needed it but uh you know 25% savings I also like the fact that you're using the 350 because we already paid in Blood Sweat and Tears to get us to where we were thinking in terms of 350 when we were talking about whether or not you get an AP you know I mean so at least there's that consistency uh I think that's good so I do think we get the return on investment I'm interested in keeping the lead agencies I'm I'm interested in what whatever the administration's going to ultimately suggest but I would really hope that uh we also work hard on getting less of a a gap between the most successful Community Learning

139Center resource coordinators and the ones that are the most struggling and figure out how we can make things a little bit more even that way but uh I I appreciate this and I if if if the treasurer and and and other folks superintendent present us buck the 25% savings is would be a remarkable achievement if we weren't reducing uh if if we don't reduce the service so significantly so um appreciate the presentation thank you thank you I'm going to go with my suggestions um I think I've shared this with you because I'm pretty opinionated but I'm going to share them publicly here I I I kind of like one maybe a little bit of two but I'm going to offer some creative thinking I think this is an opportunity for us to just blow it

140up and redo it it is very very clear that the board is not interested in getting rid rid of resource coordinate Nation they absolutely pay play a significant and integral role in our um in our kids and in the school and in the support so that to get rid of them is not an option I wish that we had a proposal that had all 66 of our buildings with with one which kind of confuses me because even the 47 plus 6 from clicki it's only 53 schools so there are still some schools that are missing which is a concern because there in lies an equitable problem to me because every building is not getting them so how do we determine what 13 buildings aren't getting them which is problematic to me so um I'm just

141I got through two of my questions so I I think that there's value in lead agencies but I think that it should be different I shared with you before that I just have a concern that some schools get the benefit of some leading agencies and other schools don't get the benefit of some lead agencies where I think that that should be more uniform I'll give you an example as a a lead agency that specializes in art May focus at one or two schools but there could be benefit to other schools that would never touch that lead agency because they're not tied to that school so I think that there should be um some continuity in having the lead agencies we we contract with the lead agencies all of them that have a benefit that offer

142some things and then the resource coordination the resource coordinators can utilize those agencies regardless of what schools they're in um again um that this would be for you all to kind of pick that through but if there is a desire to keep lead agencies why would we not allow the lead agencies to impact more schools and then we contract with those lead agencies um directly rather than have the lead agencies hire the the school the resource coordination um we got a presentation earlier and I did a little bit of research that the the average salary for resource coordinators is around 55 between like 50 and 60 so I'm kind of confused how we're getting to be 70 up here I think that there would be a cost savings if we were to keep that salary

143at around between 50 and 55 and then allow for in incremental increases so that they got like a cost of living increase they got other benefits um I'm not interested in having their pay be 10 months but maybe they could get paid for the whole year so that I just think we're running into that with as me where askme is not paid in the summer and they're not paid for breaks I'm not interested in that for our resource coordinators I wish we could kind of keep them paid all year if we could and maybe they don't work in the summer but some something kind of like our teachers um or whatever the salary is the salary could be 60,000 I I don't know I just know that the disparity in the pay of resource coordination

144resource coordinators across agencies bothers me I don't I'm not married to 50 to 60 but I do think it's unfair that some agencies get more money and other agencies get less money so for me whatever the number is I think it should be consistent I think they should be paid all year even though they don't work in the in the buildings there's still things that they could do in the corridors in the summer and maybe we don't have all of them but I just I would like to see some some consistency across their pay um I I particularly like the corridor model and keeping resource coordinate resource coordinators within corridors that are tied to schools we have the corridor so maybe if you have to share resource coordinators then they get a junior high and

145a high school so that there's consistency there again um as I Shar with you I did that at gear up where we actually had a cohort we had two elementary schools and a high school and then I was able to give my two high uh junior uh elementary schools the same thing that their High School got so there's consistency there um I I would like to see the ability to do that so keep the lead agencies but make them maybe we contract with them so every lead agency gets I don't know I'm just giving an example gets money so that we can you all of their all of our resource coordinators can use the benefit of all of the agencies in some capacity and I don't know that's for you all to figure out but

146um I just know some re agent lead agencies offer really good programming and schools don't get that because that's not their lead agency so consistency utilizing all of the lead agencies having them be paid across the year um 12 months I'm not exactly sure how we got to the 47 schools and and what schools are excluded even when we add the six clicky schools it's still not all of them so that's that's kind of confusing to me so just to add so we went from six schools that were 350 are under so you have savings so of 72,000 time three schools and then we have a couple other schools um that will blend out so they don't have a resource coordinator they would not so that's part of the 13 that are missing cuz the

14747 youing the high school well in the 1A this entire proposal for 1A is 47 schools right and then clicky has six six schools which is the Community Learning Center Institute for people that are asking um so we're still missing schools those schools are tied do am I missing them I'm sorry I was going to say we can bring a breakdown for you at the next one that would which will give you um the schools in the corridor and the current lead agency that they have so how many resource coordinators do we have currently are are we covering all of our schools we have four vacancies currently so we have some schools with some vacancies so we got like 62 yes yes ma'am so we're going from 62 to 47 well7 I'm counting the six

148yes ma'am yep and the other schools that are missing are under the 350 is that I'm I'm confused so all of our schools so for an ex so all of our schools would be hid under this model right here all 60 oh yes ma'am every every school will be HD under here but it's it would be done with 47 correct okay that is correct I got you I understand okay the other thing Dr MAF everybody there should not be any school that has identified a need through their needs assessment that the resource coordinator is not able to go out and find of someone something to come back and provide that need and that should be regardless of what the lead agency is so the lead agency selection is not simply because you're the why and

149you can provide after school programming what if the school says hey we want more stem opportunities that resource coordinator regardless of the expertise of the lead agency goes out to find someone some organization who can bring stem programming to the school so the equity with programming should not be an issue regardless of the lead agency I do I do understand I just let me just share what my personal experience has been and in in that's in theory I love it but in application I know there's some programming at some schools that is not at other schools because they don't have the same lead agency so that's that's and it's not it's great programming it's not to say that the lead agency that the the other school has doesn't benefit it's just there seems to be

150um it just seems un so that lead that resource coordinator is reporting out to the lsdmc every month and if there's something that the lsdmc has identified as a want for the school that resource coordinator should be held accountable for bringing that to the school at the same time how we get feedback about what is working what's not working is twice a year we ask one for the lead agency to give us feedback and two for the lsdmc to give us feedback so if there is some Gap along the way with with Services we should be able to identify that along the way understand I I just wanted to share that I think there's benefit in the resource coordinators having a cohort that work together to have the same pool of resources um that are

151available but that's just meard member Matt so yes so I just wanted to go on record stating that I value all of our resource coordinators um in our schools I know the countless hours that you spend ensuring that you're are advocating on behalf of our students and our families and really helping to create that culture and climate of our schools and make every school special so I really just wanted to go on record saying that while I have to abstain from the conversation I just wanted to make you all aware that I really support the efforts that you all do vice president Bolton yeah uh raise an issue for me um I can see where there would be some schools that would not have resource coordinators uh that currently May uh based upon size or

152based upon whether or not those schools are going to exist uh but um what what about the the uh three what I call Junior Highs but I know we're going to call all six middle schools but the three Junior highs that are the feeders for uh Withrow and West High and Schroeder um what will determine whether or not those Junior highs have a um uh dedicated resource coordinator what What will what will decide that is it the 350 number or what are our thoughts I mean that if there's not 350 there then will they be sharing a resource coordinator from the high school is that um so we have uh used the model where uh uh schroer middle school and the lighthouse were going to share a resource coordinator because of the sheer number of

153students um and so we could follow through with that type of model okay uh We've we've done that in the past as well when um The Promise Center was separated out we shared resource coordinators so that's so that helps me and if our our our three buildings that end up being middle schools whether it's at the Harwell site or uh South Avendale or Pleasant Hill will the number of students enrolled determine whether or not they'll have a resource coordinator that is one of the things this proposal is suggesting okay as long as that so that consistency helps me uh uh a bit and um that that's what I need to know thanks well M correct so I just want to maybe clarify a couple of things because I think it's you know we get a

154little muddy in some of the discussion here we currently have schools now who share resource coordinators do we not if I'm not mistaken I believe we have at least one preschool preschoolers share at this time and so and and the way they do that is that there's a resource coordinator provides certain resources and and kind of monitors the needs of the school and because our preschools in large part are smaller in size they're able to provide resources and connections and that type of deal without it necessarily being something you have to be there every day to do so and I think what you all are proposing in proposal one at least and I think probably a little more likely also in proposal two is that some of our schools that are smaller that may not

155have the same number of students ensure volume that have the same necessary needs there may be a way to coordinate the allocation of resources to both of those schools and within a pocket area so whether it's within the corridor or close proximity or whatever the case may be um to ensure that the students also get their resources so there wouldn't be like a school that would have no one providing any resources that they were requesting through their lsmc or through the the needs expressed um through the principles and staff but that there may not be one person per that one school is that right it's kind of the understanding there that we would still be covering every school who expresses a need through the lsdmc for resource coordination would still get it it's a manner

156in which it's a smaller school with less than 350 students they may be sharing one person as opposed to having their own dedicated that's correct um the other thing that I and I think this is worth saying out loud in some ways we have contracts if we're if we're using this as external lead agencies I think it's still worth pointing out that that's a contract with an organization to provide a service right and I have a very strong objection and I get I get other folks who have a different thought process and whatever I don't care how they decide to pay the person whether they pay them 12 months or pay them 10 months or whatever I don't think we should pay more than 11 months if they're not working 11 months more than 11

157months for us and I think there's a point to that to me is that it's that's the contract that's how they decide to pay that person and I think it's the same way we do at other things at times where we have contracts with folks who we say for these nine months these 10 months out of a year we pay for these Services now if you want to pay that person because most folks won't work nine months and then not work the next three over a 12- month plan that's on you the lead Agency on like how you pay your person on ensuring that the person's paid in that manner right like that's not something we typically dictate we would dictate what our contract would pay for right if I'm understand that correctly correct currently

158we we contract out of 72,000 okay and so then and then I think also just one last clarification point when we were talking about before that's Contracting because we also have to contract benefits in into or or pay into I'm sorry pay into whatever we do for these organizations so there's an administrative thought that they would have a cost that Associated which is why if you brought them back inh housee the idea is that you would lose some of the administrative cost you would gain and sometimes benefits or other things that would be part of bringing them back in so it would be somewhat of the difference between proposal one which is the amount we pay an agency to pay a person to do a job versus proposal two which is the amount we pay

159the person to do that work is that correct correct all right I just wanted to make sure I was clear on that because again I think sometimes we we we talk around a lot of the things and I think it's helpful for for us to kind of understand better I think it's still we have to think about this in a different way we have to be recognizing and appreciating that yes resource coordinators are a necessity in our schools because we have Community Learning Centers and because we have students who have needs and we need to make sure those needs are taken care of and and dealt with but we also have to be thinking about how do we do stuff in a way that's most effective to ensure that everybody gets the benefit and I

160think that's the struggle that we are still facing right now because we do not have unlimited dollars to do so thank you Bo member Lindy thank you very much I appreciate the presentation um and I wanted I know I had to step out for a second I apologize the um what is most helpful from us this evening is responses to the four proposals yes sir I think I think my response will be the same across the whole budget process which is superintendent of the four what is your recommendation I was counting 1 a 1B 2 a 2B so uh because I think it's critically important that we hold on to the Partnerships that we have and I think that sometimes we don't always recognize what the lead agencies do behind closed doors that aren't so

161public if we didn't have them there are there are some who write grants for programming and if we didn't have that resource we may not have the opportunity the ability to receive those grants so a I would like to do whatever we can to hold on to as many lead agencies as we can selfishly uh I have seen being in elementary schools and high schools as a principal the value and the importance of the connects that the resource coordinator makes I don't think anybody here is saying anything different uh if because I understand our financial situation proposal one at 11 months might be the most palatable um um it is really hard for us to get into how any organization actually spends their dollars after we have a particular agreement with them so to answer

162board member Lindy's question I think the first proposal uh proposal 1A that's being shared uh is what I would um recommend if that's the time to do that I I appreciate that I think that makes a ton of sense um I think um I'm going to try to come back to the same questions throughout the whole budget processes which which is what's the recommendation of the administration and that certainly seems to to make sense to me I happen to like resource coordinators I think this is a good thing um the last question was just how um can you remind me how in the last presentation we saw from Treasurer Wagner she had sized and and um Mr Gus I'm sure you know this too like like the size of the Gap we're trying to close

163in our budget this year is it 60 million roughly yeah 6 60 million 6 6 great and so this is what we've been talking about for the last 30 minutes or so that's 4 million of the 60 million I wouldn't I wouldn't categorize it that way I mean the potential savings I think of 1A would be 1 million of 60 million okay but the resource coordinators themselves are 4 million out of 624 that we're going to spend does that make does that make sense on S milon yeah here like the the the bigger picture thought I'm just trying to have is how we spend our time as a board and like if if if we if we spend this much time on a decision that closes blank amount of the budget Gap will we hit

164where we need to be by the time we need to pass a budget by the end of June I think that's that that's that's I don't need an answer but I just I want us to pay attention to like what's the level of altitude we're engaging in how much difference are we showing to the administration's recommendations and how much runway do we have between now and when we need to pass an approved budget um I get more and more concern the closer we get to June that's all thanks any other board member questions I think you got a little bit of information Mr Augustin did you have a question okay all right thank you um let's see superintendent Murphy we are back on you please introduce you and treasure Wagner's presentation regarding Athletics update and

165recommendations I think our uh future treasur sorry is going to cover the waiting right there you go yeah we really need to standardize on a term I know right sorry about that Mike I just I'm reading my script no you're you're you're fine um but I I think I'll go ahead and go through the slides quickly um and then I think superintendent and treasure Wagner and myself can answer any questions you have um so first question is how much do we spend on Athletics and extracurriculars um what you have in front of you is just a general fund spend um for this year the budget for this year biggest chunk of that spend right now is Schedule E stiens and so those are the stiens that we pay for coaches for Club advisors for Fine

166Arts kind of coordinators directors so you know think think using the aan example think about you know the Akon basketball coach the assistant coach you know swoop swoop exactly um so that's that's the biggest chunk the second biggest chunk is our contract with activities beyond the classroom um so that is your athletic directors it's also security um management of starel Stadium there are a bunch of other services inside that contract and then you know next third third largest one about half a million dollars as athletic trainers um keeping all of our kids you know healthy and providing those services and then next from there is just supplies you know equipment supplies so all that together is right around $6.8 million for this year if you go to the next slide we have some participation numbers

167so thank you um director Harden for providing these we appreciate it you can see you know we have about 8,600 kids who participate in um Athletics across the different buckets there um multisport athletes do count more than once it's not a perfect number but you know that's about a quarter of our students overall if you think about it we're participating in it um we do not yet have the same data for clubs and for some of the fine art stuff we're trying to get that so to put a full picture together um and then obviously once we have that we can start doing you know cost per pupil analysis as well and then Rob we'll go to the final slide in our presentation here I think this has been shared before this was just analysis

168we were asked to do about um bringing the athletic directors back into CPS as an example um just a quick High Lev analysis between the two there's there's a slight cost savings um for next year it does it is kind of apples to oranges you know we are looking at one less athletic coordinator on the CPS proposal um you know obviously you can see that our Fringe rate is higher I think this kind of informs the conversation around resource coordinators as well so you know our Fringe rate is going to be be higher probably than any contracted provider um but now we're kind of eating those admin costs that ABC would charge as part of the already the athletic department we have sorry it's just a little hard to hear you such a soft voice

169you can you can almost holler in there it' be okay all right so those are the slides um we have so happy to take any questions do board members have any questions board member Weinberg I have a couple of questions thank you so much for the presentation if you are looking at slide four um I'm just kind of curious um as to where some of the numbers came from so my first question for the salary range and I know that we're discussing a uh possible bringing back athletic directors um you know taking them from the Reigns of ABC possibly bringing them back to the district so for the salary range you have for for a CPS employee you have 435 to 71586 my question would just be um how did you get to the 71586

170sure sure so that's my first of maybe four questions go ahead um so so what ABC was really generous in sharing their information with us so they shared the athlet the current um salaries of the athletic directors their employment um as this first proposal we just copied those over um and just and just said we would bring those employees over to CPS at the same at the same salary range um and then just did the estimates from there so do we know how the salaries were determined to get to those particular numbers we just used ABC's salaries do they know how they got those salary numbers did they share any of that information with you all they shared just they shared just high level salaries that we didn't put names with it so it was

171just just kind of a list they provided that sense so we just basically took their data and can I maybe ask Mr Harden I'm just I'm curious in terms of where did that base come from or the maximum yeah I think um when they started the ABC contract there was a a set range for the athletic director's salaries and those numbers have increased over the time of the contract with colas as well as experience U but there there was no said um range on school size or student participation I think it was initial base and then Cole is from there okay um and then when you look at the notes section it has here that ABC salaries included 16 FTE but then with the CPS proposal we're including 15 ft so I just wanted to

172know where's the one missing ft yeah so there was there was an adjustment uh with Riverview East there had had been a full-time employee uh at Riverview East um and as it stands now uh there is a staff member at that building with Riverview East and Spencer and that staff member is receiving an additional stien to support both the schools with the transition and So based off of the uh slide here it's saying that we would have a 141 259 um basically it would be a reduction of currently what we would be paying ABC that is correct and then my last question I may have more um but have we uh thought about and this is for superintendent Murphy as well have we thought about now with the new creation of our Junior highs what

173would be our plan in terms of our athletic directors or Junior High athletic directors or assistant athletic directors and are they incorporated into this summary or is this just based off of what we have currently we were not going to do separate uh athletic directors at the junior highs or middle schools uh are uh because of uh the work that has been done with our athletic team Department um for example the elementary Athletics how they were able to do a fantastic job building that up we would continue the work at the central office at uh athletic department level and then my second question if we go to slide one um I see here on line five where we have the ABC it says ads in security and then it gives the amount so with the

174proposal of removing the ads from the ABC what would that mean for security so that security level uh covers games matches Etc we would still need a budget uh for security and then I just have a comment um as someone who participated in athletics I appreciate seeing the participation that's listed you know from the elementary aspect all the way to the junior high and high school so it was nice to see that the female participation was pretty close to the male and I'm excited to see that so uh we're getting up there definitely I know that uh Mr Harden has over the last couple of years specifically had one of his three goals around uh female athletes and stronger participation I may have some other questions thank you so much absolutely one M Craig uh

175so again I always want to start by saying thank you thank you all for putting together this information for us I think one of the things that I um recognize in this is that we have to make sure that we're getting this budget process done quicker each year as we go along and I say that in part because I know some of these costs are going to continue to keep going up and unfortunately they're going up for for reasons that are beyond our control reasons that reality is is that other folks have their higher budgets higher costs and higher needs um but I did want to ask a little bit and I think this is maybe part of the coordination of Athletics as we go forward there are certain things that potentially we just need

176to get better about getting on a consistent basis getting it to be where we going to be um and so there are a couple things in the budget that I thought like we're just going to potentially see these things coming up sooner than later and making these decisions sooner than later and I don't know if there are any areas that you felt uh superintendent or um that that we needed to be able to make definitive decisions on sooner than later because I think this is part of the problem that we're having with this budget process is that there are a lot of things that we would like to make decisions on but we can't because we don't know what the rest of our decisions are going to look like that's true so for example today

177in the past and the Athletics budget um being able to make a decision about athletic trainers has been a challenge as just as one example because the vendors need to know sooner as opposed to later so they know what their Workforce looks like and so it's hard for them to answer and prepare to provide for us if we're not able to answer to prepare to provide for them so that's a good example and I know that's another one of those things that has evolved over the last few years that I've been on the board even where we went from uh where we used to get some of those Services provided and in some ways to then also having to scrouge around to do Lift Every crumb and every Rock to find the re the the

178folks who can provide those resources and it's just an area that's a challenge um I think the other thing that I thought is really impressive or really important about the idea of bringing an athletic uh directors back within CPS is that there is also the additional expectations of other things that having them as a full-time employee of the district can provide resources and assistance with and I think that some of that is very difficult when you're coordinating with an Outside Agency because technically by law we're not allowed to manage that employee they have a supervisor we manage the work not the employee so we say this is the work that we need done this is the employee they they've hired they dictate they decide we don't have a lot of control in that sense and

179having them back within us allows us a little bit more of the ability to control the employee to really work with determine if there other there's some schools that have ton of Athletics where they need somebody to manage that all the time and there are other schools where the athletic director can be an assist in doing some of the other things within the building and some of the other things that are going on U because as we heard from security from uh presentation on security the coaches the the all the other things athletic directors will know what's going on with our students because they're there with our students they're the ones who will be able to say you know what we need to figure out a plan for this student to get home safe from

180from football practice or basketball practice or track practice or softball practice or whatever and I so I think there's a way to incorporate some of those folks into conversations that we can't always do right now because of the nature of that relationship that could be a great addon or great benefit to make ourselves more efficient in some of the resources that we're doing so I I wanted to just kind of also highlight there's benefits to bringing folks in and these are things that we've talked about in budget and finance several years ago we talked about insourcing versus Outsourcing right and some of the benefits that come with insourcing is you're better able to control the employee and the work that the employee does um so I don't want us to miss out on that benefit

181as well in addition to the financial benefits that might come from from taking on the task yeah I appreciate that I think when I've done the research on the athletic directors across the state and the country and met with other District ads and and state ads and local ads the athletic directors across Southwest District and Beyond are recognized as administrators uh they are part of the administrative team at the school um most notably reporting Direct to their School principles um I know when I was at walet Hills for four years in the ad capacity I was a school Community coordinator uh but I also know that besides Jeff brokamp I was the first person in the door and I was the last person out of the door I was a part of uh many highlevel

182administrative conversations and when those needed to happen with compliance liability um eligibility uh the homecoming the proms all those different things I was brought in and I know that that's happening with our athletic directors now um and so I I strongly believe that they are administrators vice president Bolton yes thank you for the presentation I have a just a couple of questions I too am thrilled with the um equal numbers so to speak between male and female athletes um especially now we have a federal Administration trying to rethink Title Nine um but um question the the the amount of 6,700 some thousand that's supposedly the extracurricular including Athletics but so that's that's Schedule E schedule e is a large number in there yeah that that would have been that Top Line on that g the

183Personnel that's but we don't have the specific number for anything but Athletics yes so I presented when we did the Strategic plan on an updated process to capture those uh Club participation numbers uh to get more clean and and updated data and so we are going in partnership with final forms which is how we track the athletic data to track the club data as well um we do capture it somewhat through the resource coordinators uh and and the programs that they utilize to track clubs but this has been split up in many different ways and so um when I presented on the Strategic plan with uh John Chambers we we shared that we were updating that moving forward right and so and we we need to obviously do more work and actually again a history

184lesson the the uh when this transferred from uh the ads transferred from the district to ABC the ad was not athletic director it was activities director which actually never actually happened in the full whatever because the athletic piece is so big so important so high-profile but it would really it be fascinating to the the only low number here is the is the number of kids doing let's say uh Athletics think of what that would actually be if we showed all the kids doing activities uh in and not just Athletics is you're going to probably double those numbers and as we Face a renewal in all likelihood on in November these are the kinds of things we have to really uh be proud about and have good numbers so I'm interested in and you all working

185on that uh uh and getting us some numbers about that as well as the accountability for all those activities who's actually getting paid and what kids are actually showing up and what's the result on their their uh achievement or their growth or what have you so this is this is a great report as it is but I again I wait to see what the activities piece looks like we've got numbers but uh would be it' be great about participation uh the other last piece of that is that um again I believe these are best dollars spent and we know the results uh of participation extracurricular on a on a Young Person's growth and development and the more dollars we can spend then be accountable for those dollars the better last thing if the superintendent needs

186any direction or anything I think I'm very supportive of having athletic trainers because all the BBS do and uh it's a priority and I know it's expensive but again when it's life and death or there's an emergency or there's risk uh we better have atic trainers uh available for our kids thank you thank you woman Weinberg no I'll let you go first and then I'll go after you no actually all my questions are pretty much answered I just know I had three sons you've coached two of them and the benefit of Athletics is just tremendous on the mental health the social emotional just even academics as something to kind of help help bolster that so I'm all for supporting Athletics I I want it to make sense financially it feels like it makes sense for

187us to take athletic uh um directors back in house but I do want to ask superintendent Murphy to kind of go with what B Lindy does ask what would your recommendation be would you suggest that we take trainers back I mean uh director's back I wasn't trying to make it a trick question I was just trying to so uh prior to the foundation conversation it would have been uh a little more challenging for me um and then we did have a conversation about perhaps there's a need for an offramp over time so I would maybe ask for a little bit more time to really think it through a little bit more since today you um voted to fully support the the foundation piece we need a little more time well so when you said okay

188hold on did you I still have the question on the floor so you said there's time needed for an off-ramp can you explain that because do we need time for that or does ABC need time for that or whomever is doing our a no at one point uh when we're talking about the foundation we um talked about about uh the possibility of an offramp over a certain period of time to begin to take the athletic directors back versus all at one time so I just want to think that through um not completely certain they have a contract upcoming right where the the ABC is going to be negotiating a contract what would you say a deadline would be that we need to make a decision if we want to have them back and not have

189a contract negotiation app well uh I don't think their contract expires till June so I think we're all along the same timeline um with what we're trying to do for the budget as a whole so I think where I am with all of this is being a hold aart person versus these pieces I really want to be able to bring you the whole picture as opposed to any particular groups feeling like they're being they may feel a little uncomfortable being talked about in isolation if that makes sense so what do you need from the board today with regard to Direction what what are you needing from us we got the presentation what do you need from us today I'm open to you telling me what your preference is um I I definitely um heard board

190member Craig and his uh methodology around thinking about this so anybody who might want to share uh that with me that's helpful okay vice president B I think help me out I think the I think the thrust of the foundation discussion in in these last months or so the the thrust has been that in all likelihood the ads would be returning is the question how fast that would happen rather than whether or not now that we've supposedly it's uh it's it's either cost neutral or less at least at least for this coming budget how I'm reading those numbers uh so it's not a financial piece as much as it's uh whether or not we're bringing them back but how we're bringing them back over a period of time or that was one piece that we

191talked about I'm not I'm not at a point right now where I I feel like that must happen because I think we're a lot more settled on having the foundation so I feel really great about that thanks okay so I see I've been privy to some board members conversations so I think that I would like to know what a timeline is so I would like to know when do you need the board to make some decisions with regard to the budget and we can kind of look at that too um outlining the bigger picture so that we can give you appropriate Direction on what next step should be do board members have any other questions I don't have another question I just wanted to say something yep so um thank you superintendent for giving your

192opinion on what you think that we should do moving forward I know that when treasure Wagner this topic came up in an earlier board meeting we discussed was it in the budget is it possible and I know that we wanted to get through the ABC conversation I wanted to put out there I wanted to make a motion that I wanted to ask that CPS take athletic DEC directors back as employees depending on a date that you would feel would be sufficient for us to do it appropriately and correctly um especially in the fact that they are under con um I just had a blink sorry um contract negotiation piece here for June um we are in the mon month of March moving into April I would like my motion to be that CPS takes back

193athletic directors as their CPS employees in your recommendation in terms of a time frame so there's a motion on the floor is there a second I can second your motion okay vice president B I can second that further discussion board member Craig so I I will say this I think I'm a v supporter of the fact that we need to bring folks back in I think there is a time frame to do so also because I do think it is not as easy as simple saying tomorrow guess what Josh you got you know so many new employees whatever um and so I would would say I think maybe at the next board meeting to have an answer as to what a time frame might look like could be a little bit more reasonable thing to

194vote on tonight and then from that be able to make the decision as to what we give as a direction um in part because this is not something that has to be decided today I will still say I'm very much in support of bringing the athletic directors back into um back into CPS and largely because I do believe as we've evolved in the district I think the needs of being able to directly manage those folks and directly manage that work and to maybe even point that vice president made of changing that role more to activities director within a school as opposed to being just Athletics director gives more resources we can use them for I just don't know if today is when we make that decision as may be directing as an assignment to bring

195back a timeline for which we would then be able to implement them back because I also don't know that we can do that this like now so I think the motion on the floor was open-ended that the board wants athletic the motion on the floor is that athletic directors be brought back in house to CPS it doesn't have a date as an assignment we could make that a directive to the administration to provide us with the timeline but I think the motion on the floor um that's under discussion right now is that athletic directors be brought back into the district at a also based upon the timing yes that is true the time frame suggested by the superintendent um Bo member Lindy thank you I think um based on what I heard from the superintendent

196earlier uh around um her recommendation was that she wanted some more time to think about it did I hear that correctly so I got to vote no on this motion tonight because our superintendent has asked for more time to think about it and I'm going to support that thank you okay thank you I think I'm going to repeat it one more time that the motion on the floor did not have a timeline it said there was a motion to bring athletic directors back into the district pending the timeline from the administration did I get that right yes okay so if the superintendent says hey it's going to be in 5 years then it's going to be in five years that does not necessarily change the fact that the motion is whatever the administration says is

197the timeline the desire is to have the athletic directors back into the district so is that the end of discussion board member map did you have anything um so yes I I I'm in support of the athletic directors coming back into the district but I would like to receive uh superintendent Murphy's um timeline and feedback before actually voting on what the motion is board member Weinberg so I love how you sum that up because that is what I'm asking but if you all are stating that you rather me make an assignment even though I'm making the motion to then make an assignment I just want to make sure that motion is understood in the fact that I'm asking for CPS to bring back athletic trainers I mean excuse me athletic directors who who said that

198uh based on your recommendation I didn't want to say whether it's one years two years three years of course then the assignment would have been made for you to then bring back that information for us I just wanted to make it clear that that was the motion that I was bringing forward for today based off of the information that has been provided today and in the past what thanks I I what I heard the superintendent say was was not I want to do this I just don't know when it was I'd like some time to think about it that's different from a motion that says we want to do this you just decide when and so again I'm going to stick to my position and we just call a vote if you want but I

199I I will support bringing athletic directors back when it comes from the superintendent and I'm I'm not going to vote to get out in front of the superintendent on this or another issue thank you okay so for fear of being redundant again and just calling on a vote I think that we've we've all heard the superintendent say prior to the foundation discussion she was for them to come back she didn't have um definitive information at the time but she needed some time the motion on the floor I'm going to repeat it one more time which was offered by board member Weinberg seconded by vice president Von feel free to vote however you like but was that the um athletic directors be brought back into the district at a time let me just finish this part

200at a time um that the superintendent comes back uh with that is with more information superintendent Murphy I I think maybe if I share my why it might be a little helpful why why my team and I have not talked about this internally um and so I would like to have a moment to hash out what does this mean because my expectations might be different than what their current expectations are and I just want to make sure our internal team is on the same page um with this so of course whatever your pleasure is but since I was asked I would like to just have a little more time to work through some things okay so board M wber would you like to withdraw your motion or would you like to amend it I can

201withdraw my MO motion but I do want to just go on record as stating that this question was asked of the superintendent at a prior meeting and I had asked for you to bring some information back and I did think that today with this presentation that we would have had a little bit more so if you are asking that you need more time to further go back and discuss with your team even though it was asked previously I can back down and I can go with that but I will bring it up next month for April does that sound like a plan okay motions withdrawn thank you I think that's that's the end of the discussion we're tired talking about that's it oh good thank you swoop we're done swoop all right let's see um

202so I moved assignments up so that we could have them directly after presentation so this would be an appropriate time do board members have any assignments I know does yes I would oh did you I'm sorry I would like to assign the superintendent and her team to come up with some information to be able to bring back to us regarding bringing back the athletic directors to the just to the district as employees and that information can include anywhere between cost what what what other what other concerns might be um lingering or any additional information that you feel would be important for us to be able to um I guess make a decision regarding what you might suggest are there any other assignments oh oh I'm sorry and could we possibly have that at the what's

203what April 7th and April 21st uh or um we could do may if needed do you need more time if you need more time at the next board meeting APR 7 any other assignments vice president Bolton yes I have an assignment and it actually the a number of them pertain to the uh items we've yet to discuss um for example the request from uh Carthage uh and also I have an assignment regarding the Hy Park Square development and the uh moving from Iowa to I so so um how do you want me to do that well then let's let's I was trying to make it helpful what you're doing makes perfect sense I just feel kind of stupid that my stuff is got right talked about it so let's let's kind of table the assignments

204take the rest of them and then we'll come back to that be great thank you does any other board members have assignments so let's move into our board matters inquiries and updates let's start oh I'm going to start yep Rising Stars carth Carthage lsdmc this was sent to All board members they would like to request a name change for their school I'm going to read the email so that the public knows what we're talking about there's been some confusion with the other Rising Star locations such as Vine aser Charles cheviet Westwood and achen the designation of rising stars does not fit our community now or going forward as we move away from a pre kindergarten and towards a kindergarten to a fourth grade building we would like to be known as Carthage elementary school and

205they're requesting the following name change from their lsdmc of Carthage I'll read the names just in case for the record Laura Glassman chairperson Dr Ruth ruthenia Jackson CIA canel Bonita Abrams and I hope I did that right um hadara Israel Anna Miller Cronin Linda leth Monica Garcia Osman sevilia Zamora Laura Moes and Gloria Walker so this is up for discussion as you know the board does do name naming of schools so that's why I send it to all board members for your review board member Craig I just I mean I had more of a process question with this because I thought in the past we've sent this to policy as the starting point to name changes and that policy would then recommend through that Pro but I I know we've had this discussion a couple

206times s when it came to names of whether or not it actually had to go through for any real reason or if it was just something we've had in our procedures so I didn't know if if either policy chair or Dan might know a little Clarity on if there anything that requires it to go through didn't know either so that's the reason why I brought it here and I sent it the policy meeting is going to be in April come on Dan is it's going to be in April so I wanted to they would like to get this addressed quickly so I just put it on here so that we can get this addressed as Dan is coming up if I may as policy chair sure is I would just say I don't unless there's

207something in our policies that requires policy to do this this does not feel like a matter of policy and I think we could skip some steps by just having our do it as a full board but there may be a no the board approves all name changes that's it it's gone to policy I think when there's needed to be discussion and things like that I mean if if we thank you if we can play a role here happy to do so to me it feels like add it we're going to need to bring it back to you all anyway um and we might just save some time by not taking that sta would be my recommendation vice president Bolton I have a question I think it's a I think it's a reasonable uh request but

208I have a question does this mean there's no preschools any longer at uh Carthage the preschool uh for 2526 will be at Harwell in a separate wing of the building and then uh they will have just for next year fourth through 8th grade creating the Middle School the fourth grade will only be there one year 25 26 so there'll be a preschool section of the building completely separate from the rest of the children and then after next school year it'll be grades five through 8 and the preschool will still remain at har the preschool will remain okay in a again a separate Wing area of the schoolhouse thank you so their desire is to take the rising stars off and just be Carthage Elementary School which makes sense I I would make that motion is

209there a second second second got a second and a third uh do we need to do a vote any other discussion oh any other discussion I'm sorry just Craig I just think um I think this is a helpful thing for folks as they're trying to clarify what the N what the nature of the school is that we do at times revisit these types of things as a board because I think there probably a couple other schools where maybe the naming that we have had for them in their old capacity may need to also be adjusted in their new capacity so um and whether that's something we send to those LS dmc's to come back with suggestions or come back with thoughts on on naming me or nomenclatures for those schools U but I think this

210is fine want to think it's something we should be thinking about as some of the other schools are changing as well so maybe that's a great assignment for when we come back to it to kind of review with lsdmc have the administration review with lsdmc any other potential name changes um let's take a vote Mr C Mr Craig yes Mr lendy yes Miss map yes Mrs Weinberg yes vice president Bolton yes President Ma yes vice president Bolton please present your following three topics okay and fortunately on the next page and the first one uh some of you uh received a letter uh from some community members I believe uh regarding a um issue that's been in the press for quite some time and that is hide Park Square development uh I'm not sure if uh

211all of us received the uh letter I do believe we did and I just wanted to have a discussion about that uh here um and most particularly to get some sort of uh sense of of uh what the community members were concerned about is would it have an impact on uh particularly Hy Park School uh whether it's about the school school or the campus or the uh Transportation or uh traffic engineering around uh so I just wanted to bring this so that we could have a discussion so that the community would know and I don't know if it's ultimately an assignment to the administration to address some of the concerns I'm not necessarily suggesting everybody take a position on this yet but I I do think the community is looking to have some sort of

212input from the school district any board members have questions or discussions I'm looking the email was sent March the 5th yes War Lindy I mean most of you know this I live a couple of blocks from where this goes and I'm a hi Park parent you know and so I think this this this is quite literally in my backyard very close to my backyard um uh I'm I'm rereading this email is there request like a resolution from us like opposed to or in favor of the um development no there their their email was in summation of what the traffic impact study uh was released and what they said which was actually kind of concerning is that the study does mention for a paid um security guard there so it was kind of like who's going

213to pay for that some of their concerns they wanted CPS to look at and and I definitely thought we could share this with our city council friends and discuss this at our upcoming April 16th Joint City Council CPS meeting but it's um it's before it was before the Planning Commission on March the 7th and they said that it will be heading to city council for a possible vote ear late March early April and so they would like for us to kind of share our thoughts um I thought well I don't know where we're going to get money to pay for a paid security guard to help with traffic maintenance so um I think it would be a perfect opportunity for the administration to do some more research as well as an assignment but it was

214sent on the 5th yes remember yeah just to add their ask was basically just to voice any of our concerns to the City Planning Commission to the city council to the mayor and so you're absolutely right in terms of our next upcoming joint meeting this can be something that we could bring up as a topic as well miss Phyllis would you add this to the list well my sorry yes my only concern is timing um I mean the if if this is going to be voted on like for possible approval late May March early April we may not have a meeting between now and then we don't we don't know we would probably have to reach out to city council and ask them um if if they plan on voting when and if it is

215possible to even delay a vote I think that would be great um and I was going to say I I um there are there are a lot of signs all over our neighborhood opposing this development it is really hard to know what the average opinion is and I can't I can't speak I don't know what that is but I do know that in the 10 years I've lived on this block I haven't seen a campaign this organized and this focused before so I do think it is fair to say that there is some pretty significant Community concern about it I would be very open to the idea of us passing a resolution one way or the other but I would really want to hear from the school principal um and so that my question was

216going to be do either do we have the time or could we create the time and maybe maybe it's not from maybe it's just from um from our Administration but but I think we're to hear from the relevant person who whose job it is to think through these things to inform what our perspective might be if I had magic wand that's what I would want to do sure I will say I sent this to just a few city council members on March the 5th they have not responded so it would probably be in our best interest to reach out to them the city manager we can reach out reach out to some City Council Members to see a timeline I will share that via email with board members um then we'll we'll be able to

217take it from there at the very least it could be on our April 7th board meeting for an update date vice president Bolton yeah I think it would be great for you to reach out to the uh city council folks and for my assignment would be to the superintendent to reach out to the city manager uh and and then also direct uh uh our chief operating officer to look at that uh report uh regarding uh traffic engineering uh and I I would be great to be able to have a delay my concern is that Community brought this to us and I don't really recall anybody sending us a formal request as to how we felt as a board about how it would impact the school or the safety of the children or whatever and so

218I think we've kind of been left out of that Loop especially since they've done it now at the Planning Commission uh already and in a moving to city council so I would make that be an assignment for the U superintend and and the president to reach out um to their Associates and if Mr uh rart do a some sort of effort and a memo to us as to what we find out but most particularly the city hallwood delay I can't believe they're rushing into wanting to vote on something as controversial as this is knowing about the voter turnout in Wards four and five which is about the highest in the state of Ohio second only to Wyoming G Precinct well remember correct I I have no problem with us uh having the administration and having

219you reach out to I think maybe for the narrow purposes of understanding how it would affect our potential students I do think we might want to avoid being a part of whether or not the project as a whole is a good idea conversation in large part because that is not the thing that we necessarily need to get ourselves involved in as to whether or not it's too big a building and these other aspects of it are things that I think you know truly if we get into those type of discussions we don't do that with anywhere else when we're buying in but if it has an effect on abity for our students to travel to and safe to and from school if it will um impede the safety of our students who may need to

220walk to and from school those types of things are are important and then again if the need for security or police officer managing traffic who's bearing the cost of that is is again is a fair question to ask typically the constructure project does but uh it's a fair question to ask but I think I want maybe to make sure we're narrowly at least focusing that on to how it affects the school and then also potential traffic towards Clark as well which is further down the road there um if there are some potential challenges or bus traffic changes that may affect how students get to and from school those type of things are all things that things viable or important for us to ask but I was just going to maybe suggest us clarifying A little

221bit limiting to the how it affects our schools and our students thank you vice president Bolton yes to that point there is as you say precedent uh particularly as it pertains to uh pedestrian safety and traffic engineering we've often and very frankly people have usually reached out to us uh for some input and I don't see that that's happened this time so I think that that narrow it to that makes perfect sense uh as as member Craig suggests all right so you got an assignment you and I both have an assignment all right uh vice president bton we're still on you yes this one uh I've heard through the grape vine uh that uh I don't know if it's the is it educational issues panel that's part of the CFT contract not negotiating uh uh

222has had a topic come before it uh very recently and I know that the board has uh uh in previous times uh weighed in on some of this so I was hoping for the superintendent to give us an update as to what's been discussed in the education issues panel thank you so I can this for me goes back to the testing committee uh taking a look at how our students Fair uh when taking the Iowa which is the test that we now take for placement into Walnut Hills High School and I missed EIP um because I was out of the city but the deputy did participate in the meeting so it wasn't a part of the uh final conversation but there is the testing committee recommended to EIP that we begin to look at our

223I ready data as it relates to how well students can do taking and preparing for the wed Hills exam uh some of the data that they brought back and I'm I just received this so I'm happy to share broadly with the entire board um but if we were to Pivot and use IR ready um we would see an increase in the number of students who we feel would do uh equally as well if not better than what we have been showing on the Iowa and I'm going to ask the deputy if she wants to say anything more since I missed the meeting I'm catching her totally off guard sorry uh but in in essence what their proposal is is that we shift to I ready can I ask a question for clarification shift to I

224ready specifically for the wed Hills test is that what you're asking for yes in this case um yes for the uh wed Hills test the scores that children would receive for the IR ready would replace what they've been doing the past I want to say four years maybe with Iowa could you share so they saying when um the academic and uh testing committee looked at the data and the norm reference testing I was comparable to the Iowa assessment and so then when we looked at it and the number of students there were about a hundred more students that would have been eligible to go to Wana Hills that are Cincinnati public school students based on our I ready assessment um we also because we're in a budg budget crunch we looked at how much we

225would save and we would save about $40,000 because we already used the I ready assessment that was our looking our reasoning and looking at why we do this Jeremy you coming down too okay yeah yes yes yes so they they did a detailed study they had a whole committee um a testing committee that looked at all of our assessments from kindergarten in 12th grade and when they looked at the I at Norm assessment compared to the Iowa because the Iowa has not um reassessed rored and we don't know when they're going to rorm we look at our I data and um Norm reference it was comparable to the Iowa so the committee brought to EIP um that we would switch to the I ready assessment um it would be less assessing for our students they

226would take the IR ready assessment and it would get the student score for the W Hills test okay I I I see every wanted hills alumni with their hand up so I'm going to start which which we I'm going to start plus I have questions I'm going to just start hold on I'm G to start at the end do you have questions start I did I believe you kind of answered it uh Deputy superintendent uh Smith so if we're saying that um I ready is comparable to Iowa what are the I guess the challenges in terms of performance that and why our students are not fairing out well on the Iowa in comparison to the I ready I'm sorry I was trying to look at the chart so I could give you the numbers um

227here so what it looks like is the students that took the Iowa um we would have 356 students eligible to go to Wana Hills if they took the I ready we would have 493 students that were were eligible uh to go to Wana Hills and so they were looking at it also from an equity issue so um at the Ia that would be 68 um African-American students and then with i that looked like 139 African-American students that would be eligible to go to w Hills um I'm trying to find both the Iowa and the I assessment are nationally normed assessments that measure achievement in the subject areas of reading and math so the Iowa assessment has not been normed since 2017 so her point is if it's normed we would be at the same rating

228as the I ready and they really need to rorm their assessment and it hasn't been done from 2017 so the testing committee believes that when they rorm it would be at the same level as the IR which is why they feel like going to the IR would be necessary okay so and that's what I was thinking about in terms of the equity piece so I guess from the lens that I'm hearing it currently as it stands with Iowa not being um rorm is creating kind of a testing bias for or imbalance according to the testing committee okay now you guys I wasn't on the testing committee but I'm giving you everything I got I would add just a couple okay a couple of the other um positives that they noted and looking at the recommendation

229was to the point that the deputy superintendent was making around overall testing testing fatigue our sixth graders currently take the I ready test twice a year so with this it would not be an additional test um like we've had to take in the past with the Iowa so it reduces the overall testing time that students would be having to dedicate for the testing uh away from academics and instruction okay War rendy thank you and I apologize I'm going to need to head out here in a minute but I wanted to say um uh with all gratitude for the work that's being done um and for the desire to be responsive to questions from board members 9:00 at the end of a long meeting without even noticing this as having to do with the Walnut Hills

230test I think is a terrible idea I think it's a great discussion I think we should put it on an agenda for a future meeting I think it should come with a presentation from the administration if the administration even wants to change anything um this is in board matters and not in a presentation section so I just think great issue wrong time uh excited to dig into it from my perspective at a later point when it comes to the administration thank you so let me let me respond to that it's it wasn't a presentation so it wasn't in presentations it was brought up by a board member that's why it's under board matters because a board member brought that up the administration didn't bring that up and so if that's what you'd like to make

231as an assignment to the administration to do a presentation you're happy you're welcome to do that but just to clarify why it was where it is and it was originally noticed for Walnut Hills test so that's what I anticipated when I saw that when I put it on there so I'm not exactly sure um how that got changed in in regardless it doesn't matter but the the bottom line is do you have any questions or comments for this team um we we can make it an assignment to the to the administration but do you have any comments around what they've presented I I think it's it's it's makes great sense to put it on the agenda if it's a request or a question from a board member I think that's totally fair I think what

232I'm saying from my perspective is this is not a great time to make a decision about anything and I would welcome the chance to to engage in a different presentation to Future Point thanks I don't think this was for decision this was for information but I'm going to let the person who put it on the agenda address the topic that she put on there we're going out of order hold on but hold on but something was brought up so this is something that I had heard and I know that we two years ago this was quite an extensive discussion regarding Walnut so and the and what have you so I I hadn't heard anything and maybe I jumped the gun but I knew that others were talking about it and I didn't want us to

233be laid on it and I appreciate the we've got the three experts sharing I have one question I think putting it on the agenda and I don't think anybody wanted to make it into a decision tonight but just so that we were not too far behind on it when when was uh uh I rored I'm thinking it's it's been brand new for us so it has to be in the last few years that it was rored so um okay new Norm will be that's close enough it's it's less than eight years yeah it's been um there's were release it looks like in 2020 was 2023 2223 is what they're saying in our information and we knew there would be lots of discussion around this but the testing committee brought it up and we had lots

234of they've been working on it for some months um and they shared it with us in EIP and talked about the possibility of uh switching over TI ready thank you board member weberg yes I have so much to say regarding this um not only as someone who not not to say that I took this particular test but um I have a lot of comments I have a lot of questions I have a lot of things that I also researched um as a former teacher of the district having to um I guess give the students both the Iowa and to give the students the I ready I would like to make this a an assignment um asking for there to be a presentation made with those particulars so then we can have an even more robust

235conversation regarding what is it that you need from us um but I'm going to save my two pages of comments and questions like I said I had a lot um I will save that for when a presentation can be done so that will be my assignment that I will make and we have a full presentation from the testing committee with all the data what they looked at why they presenting it the charts everything that you would need to see and read and we'll share that with the superintendent and get that out to you guys and just really quick for clarification I heard um when this first was brought up it is referencing wed Hills so with the test will this also apply to Spencer as well or is this just gearing towards Bon Hills because

236the test technically goes for both schools so just wanted to make sure theyed they used the gifted test for Spencer the cognet yeah so so it's not the Iowa so it's the Kat okay y let me take that y Craig um so I'll just give two really quick thoughts because we're not voting on it so um there nothing to necessarily uh approve today I do think we should be very cautious in some ways about and this is where I would like to see the information that comes from testing part of what we did last time we had this discussion around even using Iowa test was the fact that I was more more recently standardized in the previous version and so like those these normalizing in some ways in the assessments are are fine the thing

237that I am concerned about though is that we do recognize and appreciate that there are challenges to the rigor of the school that also comes with are the students prepared to go through and do the work and this has been one of the struggling conversations we've had with the assessments is because we've had a lot of folks come to the board even and say my child was two points away yeah and we did a whole thing around covid when we said we would allow folks in at the lower scored covid and then we came back up to the normal scored everybody said well why are we going back to the normal for and these things that we do all the time to get more and more people in I don't think wet has a shortage

238of folks in there I think the thing we have to be careful about is making sure that we have prepared the students even through whether what the assessment we're doing if we use I ready or we use Iowa whatever those students are prepared to do the work and to go in with the understanding because I think that's been you know at least the experiences we've seen is the numbers that come in seventh grade and eighth grade don't always match up to the numbers who leave in 12 grade that's from when I was in school to probably before and and onward um and then my second thought is really the movement to me should not be about the number of students as much as whether or not I already performs the task in a more effective

239and efficient way based on the resources um and again I again that goes largely to my point of if we're doing it to put more kids into the walnet that are in the district kind of using the test to justify a change as opposed to we have an effective measure that we're utilizing that it's incorporated into the entire experience of a student in the district such as I ready which may be the best reason actually probably to use it is that we've already Incorporated it so much into how we're measuring student achievement results how we're measuring uh sixth grade or we're measuring third grade all these other things that we're doing there's prescriptive parts to it that really worked with the students all throughout so so why not use the assessment tool they already have

240makes a lot of sense to me if it's an effective tool I just am very always afraid if we if we jusy a test change which is a little bit of the conversation we had around the Iowa Test when we did it before was well how many more black kids do we get into the school if we do this part or how many more kids are this within a district or not or outside the district um and then I would Li i' said too but there's a third part which is also right now we still have the ability for folks who are outside the district to test into Walnut and I just want to make sure as we had that conversation later it's not something needs to be answered today that we also are having

241that explanation as well as those parts to test into if that if that's still something we would be U making available to those folks who are because that's Again part of what we've already had done and been doing so unless we're going to change that policy um I think that's something we need to be also in consideration of yes I would like to say that this is definitely a proposal um the testing committee got together um they knew that we had to bring it to the superintendent then we were going to take it to SLT and then come um to the board after we had looked through the proposal and I want to say that because I don't we I don't want anybody from W Hills to start saying that we're saying we're changing the

242test so be clear if you're watching this is a proposal there will be much conversation and we will do what's best for the students so thank you I that was what I was going to say is please make it very clear this was this was what a board member was inquiring about is under board matters inquiries and updates it wasn't about a presentation it was about hey give us more information on what I have heard and expand on it so that is what it was I do have some questions um for them perhaps or maybe you all can answer I have a problem with um when they when they spe specify oh it's going to increase it for African-American students as the reason um that that bothers me and um if there's is there going

243to be an enrollment cap um what are the Staffing concerns for overcrowding w Hills is pretty crowded right now um is there an INT intention to for additional Staffing and support what are their thoughts around that um if a student comes from out of the district that uses irti what you know will we use their scores What what is the plan for out of District students versus in District students um and what if an out of District student has low I ready scores can they still take the Iowa and then be at an advantage having the ability to choose which scores to use those that's unfair that's Equity to me um I don't know if they've thought about that but again when you talk about justifying it to increase the scores for um black students

244that's that those are things to consider out of District versus in District um is there an equity issue for the non CPS students using a different assessment and then when are they talking about this taking taking effect is this talking about for next year um and I I just need to understand a contingency plan yeah Dr M I'm sorry just real real real quick on the um african- American students thank you I I don't think they're going to be proposing when you see the full picture they were uh talking about the increase in students but then they broke down um all kinds of groups and I I think you were just heard today African-American cuz a was at the top of the list but they've looked at multiple racial groups thank you for saying that

245I just had him pull the chart back up because I was going to go through it and say I just that was at the top and then I started asking questions sure but it's it's looking at every group and they do um have a plan about what will happen with the students that are outside the district so I think the presentation is going to a answer a lot of your questions there will still be more um because Mr Chambers had lots of conversation we had conversation with him so he has questions too so it's not it's a proposal but we looked at all students and every every group and looked at how it would affect every group of our students yeah most importantly rather than the racial breakdown is the out of District in District

246um compliment for me because I think that there that that just screams the potential to be um unfair to our students and have more out of District seats available or at least you know qualify than in District so but again I I'm I just have a lot a lot of questions around that and I also that lends me to go down another Rabbit Hole how many of our students are qualifying to get in and what's their preparation look like for them to be able to get in so if could we tweak things on our end with what we currently utilize in order to get more students to qualify from a variety of schools so that you know we're talking about we could talk about that from an internal standpoint or in ncps standpoint as well

247so I just have a lot of questions about that not only how have we prepared them for the assessment but what kind of support we put in place when they do pass the assessment like what do we need to to do um Mr chamers and I were talking about that so what is that as as board member Craig said the number of students that are lost from sth to 12th grade is it is there some data that shows that what are we doing at that seventh and eighth grade that we maybe can support the school with and um making sure that our students get the support they need to be successful there yeah board member Weinberg had one more question board member Weinberg goe um I would also like to ask um I know last

248year board members were able to see the test score results um from the different schools and so we were able to see what were some of the top schools that were you know having students pass and I know we've had conversation in the past about some of our students are passing but they're also choosing not to go so I think it would be important to show those data pieces because I know there was a time when I looked at some of the schools and I was completely shocked that our students were getting like fives and T and 15s and to me that's horrible we should be doing better than that so that stems with what are we doing to prepare our kids five out of usually you can get like a 70 or 80 or

24960 that to me is an issue and a problem yes we have that data as well and we also have the data that shows how many kids from each School pass it by year so can see where those schools are we can share that we'll share that data with you guys as well thank you yes okay if there's no more thank you you're welcome there's no more um discussion around that vice president Bolton I think you have the next one but I don't know if we're going to keep that one upd they on unless unless unless the superintendent thinks that something necessarily needs to be shared more than what we've done uh I think that that Topic's been taken care of okay moving right along long thank you Dr Williams for waiting we have our

250Hughes mascot request this was mine um we got a request from Hughes under Dr Williams to um talk about their desire for a mascot I sent this to all board members via email so you have an had an opportunity to um read it superintendent Murphy thought it we we had a couple questions and we thought let's just bring in the principal so she can talk about how they started in 20124 around this journey and got here and then this the picture is um at the bottom Dr Williams absolutely so this actually started probably my first week uh coming in as principal of Hughes students consistently asking why don't we have a mascot sometimes I take them through the history of why our board before even professional uh teams decided that ethnicity and race should never

251be in a mascot and why that is no longer a mascot uh I jokingly told a student I'm big red and that is why I wear red every day St Patrick's the lipstick only but uh our students have wanted a masot for decades um and to be more than just the color red many do not know uh the historic uh background of our mascot and I told them well if you want it let's come up with a plan and they did our students have learned to lift their voice through our Student Government through other programs like speak up speak out and they came up with a plan to engage our partners to engage alumni and they worked really um the last two years but forly last spring in getting feedback we started out with I

252think like 20 different suggestions uh we had penny wars uh the alumni got deeply involved on social media and we came back with The Big Red Bulls I know somebody has a lot of interest in this CU this is her Alma Moder remember Matt absolutely so I am excited that we are um proposing a mascot because yes I am an Alum and I do recall just the history of not being able to have a mascot and I know how that just really helps to elevate the school spirit and pride and so I am just super excited to just hear the students work in this effort and how was it sounds like it was really student Le for them to exercise their voice and to really bring in that big red Spirit but have a mascot

253connected to it so I'm excited about it great work for uh you all as a school and I think that just overall we can continue to celebrate and Champion all the great things that Big R is doing wber I think B M map said it all vice president Bolton yeah I'm going to be completely contrary to that um not surprisingly uh largely because uh my parents graduated from Hughes and and my uncle graduated matter of fact my uncle was was known as Big Red because he was in 63 and whatever my dad was 61 and he was little red so this red thing goes back a long time I I'm also um I know that there's at least two universities that are known as Big Red um um Cornell which is I think the hardest

254University in the country uh and uh here locally uh Western Kentucky I think is a big red they have mascots that want uh somehow uh one of them is this kind of big monster red person and another one is is a kind of a happy sweet silly looking Mr red or something my my other concern is uh this is serious business uh over time um and the you know if you were big red uh cow because cows are smart uh Bulls are not known to be intellectually uh one wonderful but I understand why the Chicago Bulls are called that because of the Stockyards uh but here this just looks like it's it's the Red Bull is the um um overpriced and unhealthy uh energy drink and I can see where that's going that can of

255that of Red Bull is going to become more prevalent than the horns uh around the eight so I I I'm I'm not supportive of it uh right now um and I still think it's it's it's a bigger issue than we think it is your stem make a robot uh and and and call it a uh a mascot but I I know this means a lot to people and I'm glad the kids have taken the initiative to do something about it I just am not happy of calling it an energy drink well M Craig so let me start by thanking you for staying all these wonderful hours that you stayed here today you are a trooper for doing so um I again these types of things if if the students in the community and the alumni

256and the folks supported I who am I to say not to do it and I and I honestly just believe that that's not my role to tell them no um so I mean as long as it's gone through the appropriate steps of whatever process we need to do to to make it happen I would be fully support I recognize and appreciate there's a lot of value in the the folks who still carry and hold on to being big red and and that will likely still STI around and will not change I think we see this a lot with a lot of other mascot changes that have happened at schools where folks still call themselves by the whether or not those original mascots were always the most appropriate or or not I think that's that's something

257to to live through and and whether or not the Big Red Bull is now called Big Red makes you know makes people feel better about it I have no idea I have no clue I'm not about to figure it out uh because I leave that up to you all to kind of decide where that path may take you but if this is something students alumni Folks at the school support I don't see myself as being someone who will stand in the way of that so I'll go um I I have family members that are um Hugh Alum and um I showed to them and they were just like I like that so again I'm not going to go in front of any of the work that you all have done you all spent um almost

258two years on this the students the alumni staff everybody has spoken about it I will say that and and I want to respect the fact and please tell them thank you for going through the process because they they're using their voice appropriately that is something that we should absolutely applaud and C Cate I am not going to stand in the way and vote down something that they worked hard to do and to get and they they've done it um it doesn't we we we call that a bull but the red bull logo I just pulled it up it says Red Bull it's in red is not the same it has a picture of a bull that's not the same some people might call it a steer so it could be big red steer um I'm

259not going to put my own projections there um say says big red and it has a h I'm going to go with that they thought that through because kids are far more receptive on Logo and marketing um especially if it's something that they want to wear that they want to be proud of they've looked at it they've researched it um it does not say bull it says big red H yeah and that's what they've been known for for some some time now so again I'm going to support the work that you all have done with regard to the students staff and the alumni particularly well especially when I asked an alumni that was in my own family I just say what you think about this she was like oh that's hot I like that well

260there you go so I'm going to be in support of you all and but I want to really make sure that you share with the community of Hughes that I think they did a great job and I'm very very very very proud of them for going through the process and doing their dilcy and um standing up for what what they believe in so I'm in support yes vice president B yes thank you um um you know my opinions of it but I don't believe that the board votes on mascots well they submitted it to the board so I think they out of respect and deference submitted it to the board for awareness I'm not exactly sure Dan what's the process they could have it if they wanted well then I think that could take a

261vote on it um you're going to start an interesting presedent though well I tell you what think you want that business tell the um the Hughes Community we are in support of their new logo and congratulations there you go thank you very much oh and yeah and Dr Williams you need to make sure only contingency we need a shirt we need a shirt absolutely all right congratulations oh wait I'm sorry Dr Williams I just want to thank you for ensuring that Hughes have a culture um where they are a able to identify um and be proud of who they are so thank you for all the work that you are doing I know that you went in and did a lot of turnaround work at Hughes um and so thank you for just ensuring that

262they have pride and that it is a culture where they all feel safe and feel welcome and that they are able to advocate for the things that are important to them so thank you thank you so much thank you all for your time thank you uh let's see uh a proposed consent agenda has been distributed do board members the superintendent or the treasurer have any exception items to the consent agenda board Weber yes so for the superintendent recommendation I have page 10 section g line 8 and2 page 13 section D Line 6 and 7 page 14 section g line 2 and 3 and then I'll have a question for the treasurer's report but I'll do that a little bit later board member Matt uh yes so I have exceptions for the superintendent report um which

263is on page one for promotion C I would uh my exception is a no there um and then for the treasurer's report on page eight for the then and nouns um I would like to abstain from Line 6 through n page nine uh line item two page 10 line item 10 and just because it's a lot on the resource coordinations I would just like to abstain from that so I don't have to go through through the Litany of the ones that I'm staining from yeah Bo member Weinberg sorry so I do have a question on the treasurer's report on page five line one um I did send uh an email over to the superintendent regarding the curriculum um it stated that there was a purchase of uh curriculum resources being used for summer school and

264I know that we had a presentation on summer school wasn't quite sure if we approved summer school but it was pending on uh Administration coming back with some more data regarding um the ROI or we just asked you know for some more information trying to understand the improvements of what summer school does for us and so with that I'm just curious as to where this particular line item um is it a new curriculum or just I guess giving some more information on it so board member Weinberg I did have a chance to talk to Miss Campbell our curriculum director about it and this does Focus just on third grade uh we did hear the feedback um and I do understand that you expect us to bring back the ROI information she did send me an

265email after we spoke but it was a little late after 4:30 so I'm happy to share that broadly uh with the board sharing it now or so I guess my question is just for this particular curriculum that she's purchasing she's purchas she's purchasing the curriculum even though we've not approved summer school just want to make sure that is you're correct she's seeking permission to purchase this curriculum for third grade but I understand what you're saying that the board did not approve summer school at this by at this point and I was just curious to as what the curriculum what is the curriculum is it something we've already used or is that something that would have been presented to us as well to see uh I think it's something we have already used in the past

266um again she sent this to me around 4:30 I didn't get to read it thoroughly yet so but um we can make that correction thank you and that's all the questions that I had for vice president Bolton I don't have any exceptions but the on the summer school I'm glad that um member Weber brought that up that we haven't determined the summer school but I do recall that the discussion was that whatever summer school there would be it would be pretty because of financial issues and the return on investment unless it would be limited maybe to something only like third grade reading or credit recovery but but that's not been determined so I think it's good to bring it up well is also important to note too I think I had asked about maybe doing

267something for junior high students in preparation of middle schools and we were going to get some more information about that too so I do think that's a responsible question to ask about if we why we're buying what is it $40,000 worth of preparation materials for something determined yet so we'll have that as an assignment are you asking that as an assignment you want the superintendent to withdraw um you want her to withdraw it do you want what do you want I would like to have some more information so the assignment that I was going to make is can we get those questions um answered that we had asked regarding summer school so that we can make a decision so that moving forward we can start in preparation because April will be right here around the

268corner so in terms of this line item yes I would like to know if that can be pulled until we have a definite definition or conclusion on what are we doing for summer school yes and I have a question on the treasur report um there's Pages 12 through 27 of resource coordinator donations what is that yeah so this is U this is kind of a new thing we've done I think we discussed it in finance committee but it is just you know we normally do all the donations there's a section for donations um we've been collecting um through director bagot team they've been collecting think all the donations of the resource coordinators have brought into the district but it's kind of in a separate system so we want to bring all those into the treasures

269report to recognize all the donations that have been made these are all things that the resource coordinators have brought into the district so how would that impact us um with the with any potential Foundation like the change in the foundation that would that would that be impacted by our current policy regarding donations like how do how does that work how would that potentially work that's really I think more of a tracking thing you know like like we we have a process for cash donations at the schools um and we just kind of were made aware that hey resource coordinators and we knew it they've been doing these things but we finally have a system to track all those pieces and put them into the treasures report okay but I think high level the foundation is

270kind of at a different level than either the resource coordinations or the small donations that schools get okay I kind of wanted to understand that and then there's a significant number of then and now certificates on here that's kind of been my thing is that why do we keep having all these then Nows and so I saw one on there from um Dr Odell Owens Center and I'm just wondering how are we doing with managing our then and Nows because then and Nows tell us what then and now we'll start start here okay so so state law requires us to have a purchase order in place before a purchase is made or before goods are ordered when that doesn't happen the situation is what we call it then and now um and it really what

271it means is it's a legal thing that says back then when the purchase was made the district had the funds to pay for it and now that we're paying the invoice the district still has the funds to pay for it this is a highly audited thing that we do um the state Auditors look at this every every year as part of our part of our annual audit um state requirement is that any then and now over $33,000 has to be approved by the board and so that's why these are in your um that's way these are in the treasures report for approval okay okay approve the items of the consent agenda so moved second second um uh yes Mr Gustin would you call for a vote Mr Craig yes Miss MAF yes Mrs Weinberg yes

272minus the removal of the line number that I had asked is that correct yes okay so yes vice president Bolton yes president Mo yes uh the chair will entertain a motion for adjournment so move is there a second hold on hold on hold on no no I'm sorry yes ma'am did we get all of our assignments because I know you were asking throughout the whole process but yes I believe so we got the assignment about summer school and then the assignment about the athletic directors yes on record okay thank you I'll I'll move that back around so we come back to it as well so I apologize I was trying to make it a little bit easier but maybe not um sounds