001e e e this is seeing a quorum of voting members I call the March 3rd Cincinnati public Cincinnati school board meeting to order treasure Wagner call the roll Mr Craig here Mr Mr Lindy M Mrs Linberg here vice president Bolton pres president Moffett here superintendent Murphy please introduce our wonderful students absolutely tonight to say the Pledge we have students from Pleasant Ridge montauri where the principal is Miss Amber Simpson please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for religious stand one nation under God and indivisible with liy and justice for thank you vice president Bolton please explain the virtual hearing the P of the public process thank you um members of the public who are online and wish to
002speak during our hearing of the public this evening may do so by clicking the chat button now the chat feature will be open for your requests for five minutes if you would like a direct response to your questions please make sure to share your name your affiliation your District your school Community your topic and your contact information thank you thank you um the chair will now entertain a motion and a second to approve the March 3rd business meeting agenda G to say it again the chair will now take a motion and a second second thank you treasure Wagner please call the voting I'm sorry who was the discussion Weinberg discuss on the I'm sorry discussion um thank you very much uh I I appreciated the conversation we had in the last two meetings about getting
003this final piece of the evaluation tool approved by the board board I appreciate Mr CR and sending that out as followup from our last meeting I know we have a number of guests this evening maybe after hearing of the rep hearing of the public but early on in the meeting we could I hope quickly approve that so that the superintendent has as much time as possible before our year is over I was going to offer that as a an addition to our agenda tonight after a hearing of the public or or before if people want whenever so board member Lindy would you mind if that went under old business do you anticipate that being a long discussion I hope a very short one okay so let's just amend the agenda to under old business number
004four superintendent evaluation um review yeah wherever folks want to do it I just hope we can get the superintendent some clarity on that this evening okay is there approval to amend the existing motion by the mo motion yes all right any other discussion treasure Wagner so are you amending the agenda yes to include a 3B or a four so Mr Lindy made the motion it was there a second there was a friendly amendment that was accepted by the motion maker got it Mr Craig yes Mr Crosset yes Mr Lindy yes M mat Mrs Weinberg yes vice president Bolton yes president mofin yes all right tonight's agenda is approved as revised um let's see we have I I submitted a resolution um to update the board about affirming the board's commitment to provide a safe and
005supportive environment for all of our students regardless of immigration status the board members have an opportunity to read it this one around we've been kind of going through this for a few meetings everyone has had an opportunity to submit their input would anyone like to read it other than myself yes board member Lindy I mean can we take turns I can start us off we sure can okay so a resolution affirming the board's commitment to provide a safe and supportive environment for all students regardless of immigration status whereas as the Board of Education recognizes that federal law guarantees a free public education to all students regardless of their immigration status and remember Weinberg number two second paragraph whereas the board Embraces the diversity that results from educating students with diverse backgrounds including students from other
006countries whose families have migrated to Cincinnati to make this city their home students who have come to Cincinnati for the purpose of receiving medical care for themselves or family members and students whose families are refugees and whereas the board recognizes its responsibility to ensure that every student feels welcomed valued and secure regardless of their background or identity and whereas the Board of Education recognizes its policies to provide equity and excellence in education to provide discri to Prov to prohibit discrimination and harassment to ensure safe learning environment and all other policies of the Board of Education apply and benefit all students no matter the students immigration status and now therefore be resolved that the Board of Education reaffirms his commitment to ensuring high quality education for every student regardless of the students's legal immigration status the
007board directs the administration to take all necessary steps to ensure that the district's immigrant and Refugee students are educated in a safe and secure environment just read just read it again a resolution affirming the board's commitment to provide a safe and supportive environment for all students regardless of immigration status so I need a motion to approve the resolution so moved there second second any further discussion vice president Bol um my my addition is is is quite uh uh personal uh from a standpoint of uh as an Alum of U aen new Tech High School and also as a long-term board member um the value that immigrants and uh migrants and refugees have provided this district is long-term it passes many many many decades uh whether they're coming home from or finding a new home after
008World War II and you can go to the Holocaust and Humanity Museum here in Cincinnati and see that history or whether it's the newest folks that we've gotten as part of our new enrollment uh over the last certainly 12 years that I can think of uh has these uh indiv individual young people have been an asset to the district and an asset to their schools and very frankly if any of you saw last year uh the Sals and vs as we call it uh very proportionate uh to those valid atorian and salutatorians many were with long names that maybe some of us might not recognize so they've been an absolute addition and they like all of our kids as the superintendent very well said a couple of weeks ago have a safe harbor here any
009other board members well I want to thank all the board members for their contribution this was a collective effort so that everyone is aware every board member submitted something to this we are definitely committed to ensuring this the um that all of our students are welcome president treas Treasurer Wagner would you call for vote Mr Craig yes Mr Crossett yes Mr Lindy yes Mrs weberg yes vice president Bolton yes president mofin yes for member Lindy I'm going to call on you now for the superintendent evaluation review great this has the potential I hope to be quite Swift uh Mr Mr Crosset I appreciate you sharing that tool with everybody um just the very quick recap is two board meetings ago um Mr Crossett myself and the superintendent were charged with meeting to figure out whether
010there was a version of that that we could all recommend together this is something that we all recommend together people have had a week with it now to ask any questions Mr crossa did you receive any questions I did not receive any questions either do people have any questions tonight is it possible that you all could kind of give a summation of what you reviewed and what the what I know this was with the superintendent I I would ask I Mr Crossett created this tool which I think is lovely for its Simplicity uh we also did make some changes and if you want to share any or or superintendent I I know we've shared the tool before but basically it's it's just a a calculator for putting the U evaluations scoring into a a spreadsheet
011so that we can come up with a a total average score for the performance of the uh superintendent it it has a mathematical component based on the report card but also there's a section that is subjective and we have a way of quantifying that and putting that into the score it also relates to the goals and guard rails of the district and uh I think what we tweaked from last time was we uh we actually amended the goal the first goal for third grade reading to be uh a 2025 goal was had been the original goal in the in the Strategic PL strategic plan was a 2027 goal we adjusted that to be for 2025 and we actually uh reduced the Target because of course it wasn't a three-year goal it's a one-year goal so
012that was the primary thing that we changed I think we also agreed to have one check-in meeting this uh last half of the Year rather than two during a full year is that pretty pretty good Ben yeah I I think the thing that I just superintendent anything you want to share I would say I appreciate everybody's input and uh Mr Cross and Mr Lindy's leadership in this work not only are there goals around uh the instructional aspect of the house but the Ohio standards for superintendence is also able to be considered thank you great do any board members have questions comments concerns all right now moving along to our new business um just real quick president m i I'm okay if we don't take a vote vote I just want to check we're going to
013deem this approved and we're going to move on is that do you want to vote for it I don't need one unless folks want one I just didn't want there to be confusion later on about whether this was when we were approving it or not I say close it up with a ribbon and vote let's just vote great makes it easier treasure I move that we adopt Mr Crossett tool there a second okay she there she beat you treasure Wagner Mr Craig yes Mr Crossett yes Mr Lindy yes Mrs Weinberg yes vice president Bolton yes president M yes so let's just switch the orders superintendent Murphy go first please pres oh let's see please present um any announcements and retirements that you may have yes ma'am so we do have a few retirements to share
014uh this time one we do have in our certificated Personnel a teacher Miss Linda lynchin come please forgive me I know I am not pronouncing your name properly much respect a teacher from College Hill fundamental Academy and then in addition we have two Civil Service employees Miss Lillian T Calhoun the assistant supervisor of cleaning in the facilities department and then secondly Amy J Forester from wed Hills High School of Fine Arts liaison thank you all for your service and then I have uh a Kudos in an announcement kudos to we have two schools with uh final boys basketball teams continuing in tournament play and those two teams are Aken High School congrats and and Clark monory high school and then the announcement that I wanted to share uh comes out of our human resources and
015talent department where Miss Julia indalo is our director so this coming weekend it is finally here on Friday March the 7th we'll be having School tours for those who may be interested in joining Cincinnati public schools or at least applying to join Cincinnati public schools and then this coming Saturday March the 8th 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock 10 o'clock at Woodward Career Technical High School uh we will have our annual job fair good job thank you do board members have questions I did just see a commercial about the job fair on Saturday so make sure if you have any interest even just a little if you're curious attend the job fair on Saturday um do borers have any acknowledgements or announcements Mr Crosset I about Kudos okay I I got to attend the um city
016of Cincinnati office of human relations and Cincinnati public schools Dr Martin Luther King Jr 2025 oratorial contest it was fantastic great great speeches high energy a lot of great kids and uh an amazing group of Judges who volunteered it was it was just a really great great event and a great celebration so kudos to everybody who was there for [Applause] that so this is this is mine I had an opportunity to attend the elll foundation breakfast that was being held at Northern Kentucky University just a couple of shout outs and I Pro please forgive me if I mispronounce people's names I don't mean to but I do want to recognize that we had some amazing Educators um who are CPS employees and were acknowledged and we had three students receive uh scholarships from Western Hills
017High School but I want to acknowledge Angela Campos who was the ESL teacher at car who is an ESL teacher at Carson Elementary she's in the middle um she what was said about her is that she began teaching in California came here and has been here 22 years and she strives to make a make her students and their families feel welcome and safe she was recognized um let's see we've got um Sarah madugal who is on the left and she is a school social worker for CPS she supports our newly arrived students and advocates for their well-being and I was told that she's very very opinion ated she's going to always advocate for students so she is um was recognized as well and what it says is that she was passionate about immigrants rights and
018addressing the mental health needs of our students so congratulations to her as well and last but not least I want to try to find My Notes this young man apparently is very well known around central office he started as a s student and now works for our district best example we can ever have Mr yordi cabera Garcia he was born and raised in Guatemala he was a previous ellf scholarship awarde and student of the year and he is passionate about supporting English English language learner families and is now working for our district and he is on the right so thank you to each of them for all the work that they do congratulations to our students and thank you for inviting uh the board to the breakfast the next thing that I have is that
019I um did not have an opportunity to present this the last time iort invited to learn from our ad AI club and this picture on the left is the picture that we took after they taught me all about Ai and told me to come back because I didn't know enough so they gave me a picture in my office it's hanging in my office and I want to say thank you to um the principal and Mr Beck and Miss Simpson all of them at at North Avendale for inviting me and I will be back thank you so much any other acknowledgements Kudos that's it so vice president Bolton the chair is now yours to please conduct our hearing of the public thank you very much uh first of all rob do we have anyone online tonight
020three speakers we will start with them after we get through this and then we will have a little bit of a change in order uh we are blessed uh and honored tonight to have three presidents here uh we have uh and we'll start with one president uh in person and then we will conclude with two more great presidents of our Union brothers and sisters we are now at the item of our agenda for hearing the public each speaker will have two minutes and will address all comments to the presiding officer if you're online once a request to speak has been granted you'll be invited to enter you should click on the camera icon to go interactive provide your name your affiliation to the district your school Community your topic and your contact information if you
021want a response or have any questions you might have that need answering this request is consistent with board protocol and we appreciate your help in the unusual event that someone is not willing to follow this protocol we reserve the right to end that person's time again each person will have two minutes to speak when the timer goes off your time is up please refrain from discussing any Personnel matters after speaking if you're online you'll briefly see a welcome screen again as you transition back to the stream meeting finally we ask that your public commentary be respectful of all of all listeners thank you very much and Robie will start with uh the online presenters thank you our first Speaker tonight will be Renee let me get over here Renee you can unmute your mic and
022camera and you can go ahead thank you and good evening Board of Education my name is Renee Avia and I'm here to speak against Ohio Senate bill one sb1 is presented as a reform but in real ity is an attack on local control and an insult to our Educators like me and a direct threat on the future of our students by stripping the power from the Ohio State Board of Education and handing it over to politically appointed officials this bill silences the voices of parents students community members who have long played a role in shaping education policy for decades the board of education has operated with elected members who are accountable to the people not to politicians and Columbus but sb1 shifts that power into the hands of the governor turning education into a partisan
023weapon instead of a public service do we really want our children's education dictated by political agendas rather than what's best for their Learning and Development this bill also undermines teachers the very people who dedicate their lives to educating our children instead of focusing on Solutions like Fair wages smaller class sizes or Mental Health Resources s sp1 prioritizes bureaucracy and political control it does nothing to address the real challenges in Ohio schools it only creates more red tape and fewer opportunity for our public school students public education should be about students not about politics it should be about preparing our children for the future not about consolidating power in the hands of a few sb1 doesn't serve Ohio families it serves politicians who want to control our schools without listening to the people they impact most
024so I urge every legislator to stand up for our house students parents and Educators and vote no on Senate bill one our children's education is too important to be turned into a political bargaining chip and I will send this uh a statement to our house senate or our house uh legislature thank you thank you Renee our next speaker will be Dr John Jung you can unmute your speaker and and microphone please go ahead good evening I am here to extend an invitation from the fine arts department I would like to invite all of the CPS Community to attend the fifth annual CPS International jazz festival at the arof Center for the Arts on Saturday March 8th at 7M after you're finished at the job fair get something to eat and come on over for a
025free concert cuz the Festival is free to all and there are no tickets required how many times do you get to go to see uh something at the air and off for free right the jazz festival will feature 130 student performers from 25 schools around our entire District our special guest artists our world famous musicians uh Miss Tanya Darby and Miss Camille Thurman the artists will be visiting CPS schools on Thursday and Friday and meeting our students and playing for them in addition on Saturday night performance you will hear an original work by director and CPS curriculum manager for the Fine Arts uh he is has his own creative work that he has done called cityscapes and it's going to be played by group members of the group it is an amazing thing you do
026not want to miss it so with that I will yield the remainder of my time with this question will you be there thank you very much John our last speaker online will be Dr ranona Oliver well go ahead hope is a choice it is active not passive like optimism good evening board members and superintendant Murphy my name is Dr Winona Oliver and I'm the special Le special education Le on for CFT at both the state and federal level there is an attack on funding for education at the state the plan is to cut $13 million from Ohio's public schools in order to Aid in providing fireworks of funding to private school vure programs and charter schools at the price tag of $100 million the funding attacks do not only affect academic necessities and supports but
027even our students breakfast and lunch programs will be impacted it really disturbs me that also they are going to seriously slash the funding needed for the supports for our students with disabilities funds at the Ohio for Ohio at the US Department of Education on The Chopping Block are 559 million for students who receive help like speech services reading support and to ensure accessibility for students with disabilities 41.3 million to help under represented students those with lower or from lower income households or who have disabilities 5 million to support our students mental health and learning needs preschool intervention for students with autism and their needing speed those needing speech therapy are most times not financially feasible for families of our students without those programs our students will suffer and their parents will not be able to
028provide the needed assistance for them we must have hoped to win this battle of securing what is best for our students that means we must be actively engaged thank you thank you does that conclude thank you Rob and now we'll go to our inperson speakers that will adjust just a little bit uh we usually have President sers of CFT speak uh last uh we want to remind folks that due to contract and due to practice uh president sers does have more than her two allotted minutes so president sers if you'll make your way down here and then we'll be you'll be followed by Clayton Adams Ryan Shear uh and Michelle Dunn and Katie Hoffman oh you did you hear her you'll be next you'll they'll call you good evening members of the board superintendent Murphy
029and treasurers Wagner and Gustin I want to thank everyone who is here in attendance this evening there are staff parents community members and I would also like to include um making a special announcement to the nurses who came from UC Health because our students health is going to be impacted tomorrow is a national day of action across the country to protect our kids the Trump Administration wants to slash education and health care to pay for the tax cuts for billionaires by getting the US Department uh by cutting the US Department of Education tomorrow we are going to be having a clap in 30 minutes prior to the start of the school day at schools across the district then at 2:00 at the corner of MC Millan and Collins we will be having a press conference
030those in the administration make it sound as if dismantling a bureaucracy will have no collateral damages to our students the real impact would decimate vital funding for our most vulnerable students that our students and families and schools rely on um I've also heard and this is not finalized that because of how our state State legislation is um made up that there will be an Ohio office for Doge gutting the dep Department hurts kids in every district and this and they will lose critical Services title $1 this includes special services and reading and math for students who um need extra supports idea dollars students with disabilities will lose specialed services that are federally funded um um idea cuts to Medicaid we do Medicaid billing and every school psychologist does Medicaid billing and that's what helps to
031pay for many of the testing materials that they must use next year there's going to be a whole new um type of testing that are that we are dependent on those dollars for to buy those kits Working Families could also lose access to pel Grant and subsidize loans which will prevent millions of students from going to college this will only drastically increase teacher shortages across the country how many American families can afford to send their children to college without any student aid or student loans I know that most teachers and District employees and students families could not afford this burden to send their children to college what will become of our state and our country if most people cannot access College educations all of these cuts to fund all of these Cuts will be to
032fund tax cuts for billionaires do we choose kids over break over tax breaks in Ohio schools and funding will be getting a double whammy our state cannot afford to financially support three systems of Education within our state State one an increase of vouchers at the tune of over $1.2 billion annually and this is growing two charters and that is another push where they are going AC for um across the state it's push of Charters both of these systems have no accountability and they um have no um transparency they have no elected board and the third system which is constitutional is the public school system that has complete transparency complete accountability with the state budget Bill House Bill 96 the bill is biting at our heels to steal our schools they want to take any schools
033that are under enrolled it's in the budget bill of less than 60% enrollment they want to cut services to students and transfer funding to Property Owners which would be unconstitutional the dero case in 1997 was declared unconstitutional and at that time we received 48% of the funding for um Cincinnati public with in the next two years due to the increase of property values and the cuts from the state we will be down to 5% and let me be perfectly clear they keep saying choice choice is not for parents as they want you to believe choice is only for schools schools choose the students they want the voucher schools choose their students the charter schools choose their students they accept only some students not not all students they retain some students not all students or they
034never allow some students to enter their doors only public education gives access to all students this evening there are teachers parents and community members who will be talking to say we protect our schools please join us tomorrow as we clap in our students and the ask that I have for everyone is more than just showing up to show support for our students at the door but it's to ask everyone who is here and everyone who is listening to please download the app five calls and we would like for you to oppose the unfit cabinet nominee Linda McMahon this cabinet choice is dangerous to the Department of Education and all children across the country like I said to the media earlier today which probably won't make it to the news final cast we know things are
035going to be tight but we also know that we have a superintendent who in who is in place right now in Cincinnati public who understands our communities understands our families and our children and I know she will do everything to help us fight to make sure we maintain the services to our children and so I hope that everyone here this evening is um going to come out tomorrow and join us and to reach out to your legislators and let them know we cannot have these Draconian Cuts thank you thank you president fell Clayton Adams Clayton Clayton Adams Ryan Shear Michelle Dunn and Katie Hoffman come on down all right good evening members of the board and superintendent Murphy my my name is Clayton Adams and I'm a teacher within this district and my children also
036attend this District I am speaking tonight in order to express my desire for this school district and Board of Education to fight back against the assault on public education that's happening in this state and this country president Trump Elon Musk Governor Mike dwine as well as our state legislature have made it a priority to destroy public education and public SE public sector labor unions we need this district and School District to stand firm against these attacks and advocate for more funding and resources for public schools we also need this school board and District to be an ally to the labor movement everyone on this school board considers themselves Democrats and all of you have pledged your support to labor and workingclass people it's time to put your money where your mouth is and protect public
037sector employees like teachers security guards par professionals clerical staff and administrators the time is now to stand up and fight back against School privatization efforts and Trump proof this District I ask you to work directly with all labor unions present within this school district and create a road map to protect your staff and students thank you for your time [Applause] good evening my name is Ryan Shear I'm a social studies teacher in the district and vice president of CFT and I'm here to call attention to the proposed cuts to education at the state and federal levels and I want to start with a quote from president ulyses S Grant the free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free Nation if we are to have another contest in
038the near future of our national existence I predict that the dividing line will not be Mason and Dixons but between patriotism and intell on one side and Superstition ambition and ignorance on the other end quote I am choosing to be on the patriotism side patriotism is standing up for the 90% of children in Ohio that attend public schools and calling out our legislators when they want to take public dollars away from the 90% and give it to the 10% patriotism is standing up for the 7.5 million special special education students across the country who rely on Ida funding patriotism is standing up for the 85% of CPS students who are economically disadvantaged and need fully funded schools that are equipped to address their needs real patriotism is standing up for the future of this country
039and demanding that our students get the education they deserve the free school is the promoter of that intelligence which is to preserve us as a free Nation I believe in this statement I believe it is worth fighting for the author Alice Walker famously said the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any we have the power we just need to wield it together in defense of our schools please call write your legislatur tell them what real patriotism looks like tell them that our students and communities cannot afford for our schools to be gutted finally talk to your friends and families explain how these Cuts will impact what we do CFT is here to help if you need help contacting your legislators or figuring out a way to do
040that thank you good evening chair Dr Kem Mett members of the Board of Education my name is m Michelle Dunn and I speak tonight as an American a taxpayer and employee of this district for the Cincinnati Federation of teachers and as a parent of a CPS student Alum who has cble paly and graduated from CPS and is now a successful business owner where he sells his art I'm here to support the national day of action happening tomorrow on March 4th Across the Nation to protect our kids against the proposal to get rid of the US Department of Education to raise the alarm on these devastating cuts and stand up for the Investments we need in our public schools for our children I know personally how funding in our Public Schools directly impacts students particularly those
041with special needs and here in Cincinnati public we educate many students with special needs because when us parents take those vouchers around for our kids we are not welcomed we are told our children are too expensive for religious and private education they do not accept our children the Trump administration's plan to gut Federal support for public schools to give tax cuts to billionaires at the expense of our kids is unacceptable these Cuts will affect real people real children whose lives will be directly impacted by decisions made by President Trump and an unelected billionaire Elon Musk I ask that you stand with us to protect our kids publicly to denounce these Cuts please join us at the clapin tomorrow morning 30 minutes before the start of school see you there everyone is welcome thank you thank
042you as as Katie Hoffman approaches the podium the next several speakers will be Nancy Sullivan uh Katie McOwen um Sarah Baner uh and Brian Griffin good evening board very happy to be here this evening back to my roots in Cincinnati public schools I'd like to thank you for being a stalwart member of the Ohio Coalition for equity and adequacy of school funding in Ohio you've been with us for years and that court case will be going to trial shortly I was elected to the State Board in November of 2022 and my first meeting on January of 2023 we were told that the State Board of Education was going to be taken over and even though it was illegally done thrown into the budget bill on June 30th of 2023 they did it anyway so before
043that time we would work on the Strategic plan we'd look at our goals our data our budget to meet the needs of the students across Ohio what once June 30th hit everything went behind the wall at the Department of Education and Workforce Development the very first thing they took was the budget and the data from the Department of exceptional children that's all the federal money that we're talking about getting cut now from the Department they took it behind the wall at the Department of Education and Workforce Development a bunch of political hacks at the bestest of dwine so there's no data there's no accountability and this is what we're looking for in the future because our legislature is out of control dewine's budget cuts public school funding by $13 million but there's an increase of
04415% to Ed Choice vouchers and the other thing that people are not aware of are these wonderful scholarship granting organizations these scholarship granting organizations allow the rich and Powerful to donate uh to take tax breaks of 750 for single or 1,500 for joint and they can use that on their taxes to take money away from our tax base thank you thank you it's really important that number has has gone from 200,000 to 11.9 million in just one year thank you very much good evening my name is Nancy Sullivan I live in East Price Hill I'm the director of transformation CDC and work with immigrants I'm also on the lsdmc for Carson school and I'm here really to talk about something you all addressed at the very beginning of the meeting meeting uh which is your
045commitment to um immigrant students guess what if hb42 passes that is really going to be put into Jeopardy for decades children of undocumented immigrants have had the right to attend public school based on a 1982 Supreme Court decision however that information about that on the education website is now archived it has a big yellow archived across it explaining that all children um have the right to go to school and so what is the change the Heritage Foundation which most of you are familiar with a conservative think tank issued a brief earlier this year calling on states to require schools to collect immigration status information so you all would be required to say how many students in CPS are citizens how many are immigrants here legally and how many are here illegally in their terms um
046and they know that this will probably be a legal challenge in court right because it was a Supreme Court decision and they're hoping that the current Supreme Court will overturn that welcome to the new world thank [Applause] you hello hello I'm Katie mcen math specialist at Rothenberg I'm speaking tonight as a teacher in CPS and as a citizen of the US and a resident of Cincinnati I speak tonight to support tomorrow's national day of action to protect our kids against politicians and their proposals to dismantle the Department of Education and to cut Federal funding to our schools we need to stand up for public education now more than ever when we cut funding from schools we cut jobs we cut supplies and services our students need to be successful in life and we close great
047schools that serve invaluable communities in other words we cut and dismantle our future every year we have been losing more and more funding for public education while more money is being allocated to private and charter schools to the destructive voucher system here's some of the impacts that has I personally have had my position cut for next year I work in a lowincome urban school and it's frustrating not only because I know how close my students are to doing great things and I and I will no longer be able to see it through but also because I know the negative image people have of schools like mine and the extra funding cuts that help drive that narrative we always talk about failing math in reading scores and how we need to do more but funding Cuts
048continue to take away the support and resources that need that are needed to help counter that next year my building will also lose a full-time PE teacher and invaluable perah that helps support classrooms we are losing some of our tutor partners who work to get more students closer to grade level and in a previous School I've lost other teachers and a counselor even who provideed Mental Health Services Cuts Like This Is Happening all over the district and the country at a faster and faster rate as more money is being taken away as a society We complain about our students not doing well academically and emotionally but then we take away the resources that would help our kids if we are serious as a Nation about educating all children not just the ones who can afford
049it then we need to put all of our research into public Ed education should not be a for-profit business and it should not be about leaving groups of people behind it's about educating everyone so our communities and societies grow stronger together thank you very much thank [Applause] you Sarah veneer Sarah I I'm trying to spell it here uh while we wait for Sarah or figure out Sarah Brian you want to uh approach and as Brian approaches we have Larry Falon coming next Brad Smith Karen imbus and Madison wise good evening members of the board I appreciate the work you do sometimes it's thankless but thank you for doing it we appreciate it I'm here because I know all of our hearts are really in the right place we don't always have our heads on straight
050but we do have the right Hearts but I'm concerned I watch what's going on and I look I look at things like this proposed budget cut from the federal government includes 880 million from Medicaid and 330 billion from education NIH research funding cuts for Ohio State alone are 49 million threatening scientific medical advancements reductions of federal education funding will impact lowincome schools most of all and right here in Ohio governor dewine's proposed budget cuts $103 million from the state formula funding from Ohio's 609 public school districts at the same time 265 million more dollars is being funneled into private school vouchers shifting funds away from public schools Charter and stem schools receive an additional $221 million on 11.7% funding increase while traditional Public Schools see funding reductions larger class sizes you think we're going to
051see them I think we probably will greater burden on local taxpayers do you think maybe probably but I tell you what I am the executive secretary treasurer of the C Cincinnati aflcio I represent 10 and more unions I represent 35,000 hardworking families we are the middle class we are the ones paying the bill there's an old labor song that says which side are you on we've had differences of agreement on which side we've all been on but folks we've always all been on the children's side thank you Sarah hi my name is Sarah van I'm a speech language pathologist and I work at rosan Condon and that's a school in Cincinnati public and it's often it actually probably has the most vulnerable and the most complex kiddos accessing their education and I'm going to say
052some really sad things but I'm going to start with some really great things the Cincinnati public brings into the room and keeps them into the room and that's really powerful and I love that and our nurses if we didn't have nurses they wouldn't be in the room if we didn't have transportation they wouldn't be there assist of tech but not even two miles away um uh this P Saturday March 1st was the dis disability day of morning and we went to honor in memorium a really tragic history of Long View Asylum which is not even a mile away from my school their Cemetery is not even two miles away from my school and it's filled with onar Graves of you know young bodies old bodies that represent my students if you look at the history
053and it's not just people with disabilities it's it's people who were thrown away by society and we can't go back and what we're doing now and the call to action now is keeping these kids in the room in cinc night public you're we're doing it everyone in this room is doing it we cannot throw these these kids away and that's what Bel do that's what Charters do they don't even let them in the door so just know that's a local real part of our history and we are going to be on the right side keeping these kids in the room thank you thank you Larry or Brad good evening Board of Education my name is Brad Smith uh I am a resident of the district and a taxpayer uh I'm speaking to you tonight because
054based on the state budget in hamon County there are 22 school districts and of those only six are actually going to gain funding in the next two years and 16 are going to lose money uh of the six that are gaining money they include districts like Indian Hill and Sycamore uh the total cuts to all Hammond County public schools are $12.7 million for next year Cincinnati public schools makes up 10.7 million of that cut in 2627 public schools in hammy County are going to lose 8.2 million since I Public Schools will lose 5.8 million all but six of those schools so 16 uh schools across Hammond County are going to lose their share of State funding as a percentage of their funding so we just heard how CPS went from 48 when the funding formula
055was declared on constitutional to 25 so 16 or 15 other districts are going to share in that same fate across Ohio 69,000 new vouchers were created last year and private school enrollment increased by less than 3,000 students only 177% of those 69,000 vouchers were to lowincome students across state of Ohio 90% attend public school or uh 90% attend public schools 10% attend private schools I implore this board of education to get active I know there are some on this board who feel that 10% is deserving of $250 million more dollars while 90% are deserving of of 100 million less I implore you to change your uh really examine your position and change it and I implore this entire board to fight for the 36,000 students in this District to get the fair funding that we
056and our students deserve thank you thank you good evening president Moffett and members of the Board of Education thank you for allowing me to address you this evening my name is Karen imbus I'm a CFT field representative a taxpayer and the parent of three CPS graduates all of whom received an excellent Elementary and high school education in CPS I'm here to support the national day of action tomorrow March 4th when students parents teachers and citizens raised the alarm about the abolition of the United States Department of Education and devastating cuts to Public Schools public schools are facing attacks from multiple fronts state federal and local in 1997 in the derol case the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that Ohio's funding system failed to provide a thorough and efficient system of schools at that time the state
057share of public of uh the state share of per pupil funding was 48% as many people have said tonight but these uh statistics I think are worth repeating so we all remember them next year it'll be down to 37% and by 2027 it will be 25.6% a decrease of more than 22% since 1997 when the Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional and insufficient today today we Face an additional 10% cut to our budget due to the Trump administration's cuts to Title One and idea funding this Federal funding supports services for our most vulnerable children lowincome children and children with disabilities these enormous state and federal Cuts will further shift the burden to fund public schools to our local property taxpayers who are all are already carrying an unduly heavy burden due to tax payments we
058all know the school squeeze is coming and that is exactly what the people who are trying to decimate and dismantle public education intend democracy can only survive with an educated citizenry and so please speak up on behalf of our children and our democracy thank you thank you now our long awaited Larry Falon and while he starts to speak if Ricky Harris and Ann frish and then we'll get to our other presidents yes sir good evening thank you for the opportunity to speak today I'm Larry Falcon I'm a resident of Pleasant Ridge I am not a professional educator and I don't have kids in CPS but education is really important to me it's especially important because of the role that it plays in supporting our democracy I think a lot of the problems that our nation
059is facing right now is based on an inability for people to differentiate fact from fiction to do the research necessary to evaluate what we see in our social media streams and what we hear on the so-called news programs and so if democracy is going to function we need educated citizens and that's why I'm here today to ask everybody in the room to raise their voices in support of public education I also want to thank the school board members for the position you took earlier this meeting in support of our immigrant kids thank you thank you good evening everyone my name is Madison vice I am the 78 strides intervention specialist from Woodward Career Technical High School my students are often known to be the bad kids you know the kids that cuss like Sailors create
060chaos in a moment's notice and always have a better comeback than you uh strides and CPS recognizes that all behavior is a form of communication and I truly believe these students speak to us in the way they know how I have seen students in foster care students experiencing homelessness and students facing trauma I couldn't imagine experiencing as an adult and yet despite it all they come to my room ready to learn even if they don't have the tools yet to do so I'm proud of my students who surprise me with with their intelligence perspective and resilience the bad kids others see as a problem are often the same ones who choose to eat lunch with me for math support who buy me flowers for teacher appreciation week and who make me friendship bracelets when they
061finish work early dismantling the Department of Education will leave these students more vulnerable than they already are and potentially denies them their education the bad kids need us now more than ever and if you won't fight for them I'm asking you to fight for me a teacher in this District who sees how student out comes can change from consistency and compassion a teacher who knows this District sees that these students have a lot more to offer Beyond an idea paycheck and most importantly a teacher in this District who loves her students thank you thank you Harris good evening board members and superintendent my name is Ricky Harris I'm a Kennedy Heights resident and a retired Walnut Hills teacher I'm very proud of the 35 years I've spent as a classroom teacher the president's proposed attacks
062on the board of educ on the Department of Education will hurt all American students all of them but especially the 85% of our nation's children who attend public schools Federal funding is essential at ensuring high quality education for all students these Cuts will lead to fewer teachers more crowded classrooms which can only be described as a less efficient and less effective school system the American people did not elect the president to create chaos and recklessness in our schools and with our children's lives I urge the board to continue fighting for our children fighting for our schools and opposing the president's misguided policies thank you thank you Mr [Applause] Harris good evening good evening um president Dr Moffett the board members and superintendent Murphy my name is Fanny kadine and I am the President of the
063Cincinnati Federation of office professionals this is my first vice president Carol Smith and this is our cop secretary Miss civil white we are here to support the national day of action that is happening tomorrow on March the 4th Across the Nation to protect our students the budget and the the cuts that they are proposing and will hurt our students the resources or the let me be quit being nervous the budget cuts that are happening and the resources that they provide will hurt cincin night's most vulnerable students these Cuts will cut staff and services to our students that we know they need and deserve please join us tomorrow for one of the clapin happening in our schools tomorrow morning um 30 minutes before the school start of time thank you for your support thank [Applause] you
064good evening good evening thank you for the opportunity to address the Cincinnati school board superintendent and Treasurer my name is Emily Bell I am the President of asme local 232 representing over hundreds of Cincinnati public school School Employees as a public school employee for over 40 years I am deeply disappointed this Administration and Congress has passed a federal budget that slashes public education funding and is prepared to gut the US Department of Education these anti-public education officials are choosing to provide massive tax cuts for billionaires instead of the necessary funding for our children's education Ohio School District districts on average receive about 10% of their revenue from federal funding much of this funding provide resources and services for Cincinnati's most vulnerable students services and resources our members are honored to provide these Cuts without a
065doubt lead to unsafe schools a lack of needed resources and even potential cuts to the school staff our students our children your children deserve to have adults who will fight for their future these Federal Cuts will do the opposite ask me local 232 and its members are standing with our labor Partners as we fight to protect our students from these dangerous Cuts thank you thank you president B just to make sure did we have an frish and my name is an furlick I'm a retiree I retired in 2004 and um I also spent years working with dyslexic children and uh after I retired and I had one year at a charter school and I will tell you I wouldn't have put a desk in that place um I have both children graduated well my children
066went to Cincinnati public and they're doing very well I um I'm horrified I'm horrified at the fact of how it began with the state realizing they were giving money away to private schools charter schools and parochial schools and taking it from the public schools and now that we have uh who we have as president he's going in on it too and I'm just very concerned because I think public schools are wonderful and they take care of everyone really who goes there um I've listen to everybody and so I can't I don't want to tell you more about how much money is being filtered out of our schools I just hope that you will um come out for public schools and I know that there are um people suing the state but what bothers me is
067hearing that when the state is sued and they're told they have to do something they ignore it so I find it very um it's just very depressing and I hope that we win this fight and we all come out to support public schools which are essential in our country thank you thank you very [Applause] much and thank all those that participated tonight uh that concludes the uh hearing of the public Madam president back to you thank you everyone superintendent Murphy General Council hoing board member Crossett vice president Bolton and guests from ABC please present your presentation thank you madam president uh as our guests from activities beyond the classroom come forward just an introduction to this it's really very interesting to have listened to the compelling hearing of the public tonight generally based on the
068outcry uh with what is happening nationally and locally uh with student funding and so the interesting piece to me is that um several months ago the executive director of ABC and I Sally Grimes started to have conversations that were really pickup conversations from Beyond on six years with the two of us but even previous administrations had conversations around what would it be like what are the possibilities around starting a foundation for Cincinnati public schools and so Sally was willing to come to the table to be a part of those conversations and uh since then we have done a lot of time a lot of work a lot of conversations around what are the possibilities and so I'd love to start with her U sharing where ABC is now and why we believe that they are
069really poised to be able to be the foundation for CPS Sally thank you good afternoon esteem board members and Cincinnati public school leadership thank you so much for having us here tonight activities beyond the classroom my name is Sally Grimes at superintendent Murphy said I the executive director of activities beyond the classroom and I am excited to be here tonight to share with you some of the work we've been doing on forming a foundation for the district and what the mechanics would look like if this Foundation goes forward how we would operate what types of programs the foundation could support and how decision making would happen for the foundation first though let me give you just a little bit of history about why ABC if you could go to the next slide please thank you
070since our Inception into 2004 ABC has existed to serve the children of Cincinnati public schools our goal is and always has been to understand the needs of the district and then collaborate with CPS leadership to raise money and develop programming to meet these needs a few of the big buckets of things that we've done with Cincinnati public schools and for the children over the years include fundraising fiscal sponsorship and some capital projects on the fundraising side just since 2018 we've raised over $17 million for athletics Arts resource coordination and other programs we've also raised funds and led projects on capital projects such as the fields at Woodward wiro South Avendale and the MAC at Hughes High School in addition we manage about 260 school-based funds for free so that teachers coaches principles people who are
071raising money to support their students don't have to worry about forming a nonprofit we'll do all the backend work for them and they can just deliver their services to the students who are in need you can see up on the screen our timeline here we started in 2004 and we began per the request of CPS as a districtwide booster club to support schools that did not have booster clubs from there we worked with CPS to figure out how to manage stargo Stadium we took over management of athletic directors per cps's request we became a lead agency and we now are the lead agency at 14 schools in 2019 the fine arts department approached us and said can you also help us with Arts like you've done with Athletics we went into a partnership with Fine
072Arts and we've been doing after school clubs throughout the district in addition to that we also are hosting the CPS International jazz festival which one of the hearing of the public speakers mentioned earlier that'll be this Saturday March 8th go ahead and plug that one more time and now here we are in 2025 and as superintendent Murphy mentioned last year we started this conversation about what could an education founded Foundation look for at C look like at CPS and what could it do for the kids next slide please so here's a little bit of an outline of what might change if ABC becomes the foundation there's not a whole lot that would change um we would remain a standalone 501 C3 three nonprofit with a board of directors that oversees the organization we would continue
073with our fiscal sponsorship program I mentioned earlier we would continue delivering extracurricular programs and the biggest change would be we would beef up our fundraising and we would start going out and raising money for the entire District not just extracurriculars and enrichment as we've done to date the one of the other big changes is on our board of directors we currently have 11 board members who are all community members if we became the foundation we would increase that by about 25% and add four seats for Cincinnati public school Representatives I'll go into that in just a minute but first I'd like to introduce some of my board members who are here tonight along with our staff our board is 100% supportive of this idea and everybody on our board wants to do everything we can
074to help CPS kids if some of my board members back there could stand up we've got board members and our leadership team thank you all right next slide please this slide shows an example of how decision making would make would work on the foundation the four Representatives I mentioned a minute ago that would be CPS Representatives would be one CPS board member the superintendent the treasurer and one Community member selected by this board every single one of those four people would be a part of the decision-making process every single way along the path of this Foundation it would start with this board determining the priorities and goals for CPS then those Representatives would come to the foundation board and share what those needs are with the foundation board who would then put together a fundraising
075plan and goals based on cps's priorities those Representatives would then share information back to you all the CPS board and the superintendent and the treasurer and that cycle would continue in perpetuity to make sure that we continually have the best collaboration and communication we possibly can for the children of Cincinnati public schools you all as the board would guide what the foundation is raising money for you would give our board of directors information about what is needed and we will go out and raise the money and then we will work with you to figure figure out the best way to spend it next slide please this is my favorite slide because this is the fun part what would we be raising money for the fundraising goals and priorities would generally fit in one of the
076four categories up here extracurricular career Readiness wellness and a general CPS fund that would be unrestricted donations that could be used for a wide variety of need per the discretion of the board and with the guidance of all of you and as I mentioned earlier none of these priorities would ever be done in a silo they would all be done with both boards communicating with each other those goals and priorities would shift as cps's goals and priorities shift as well if you could go to the next slide that is all of my slides so I know Miss superintendent Murphy and Mr Hy are going to present as well um should I come back for questions we're going to ask uh General Council hoing sure thank you good evening um I understand uh that you'd like
077me just to give a brief update on kind of where we are in the discussion and with development of anou so started again last summer with uh these discussions in the October work session the board had a lot of discussions about the various options uh for a foundation and I think landed on um you know this great partnership that we have with ABC um in terms of developing anou um we have uh been asked to draft one and we have one a draft going it's all it's been shared with the board um it's Incorporated feedback from several individual board members Incorporated feedback from the treasur and superintendent uh we've worked through most of those changes with ABC I want to thank Miss Grimes and Miss mouch uh who spent uh at least an hour on
078the phone yesterday uh working through some of the changes um in general just to give some broad um a broad description of it it it it contemplates a five-year term starting with the 25 26 school year uh during that term the find Foundation would be identified as the primary option for district level donations and Gifts um it's not to replace any school level uh fundraising organizations such as alumni associations booster clubs friends of organizations it is not to replace th it is expressly not to replace those rather it this is this the foundation would become the sort of District level uh primary uh partner for fundraising um and again that would be for to support cps's strategic priorities Athletics and extra extracurriculars Wellness programs Sally talked about um kind of what we anticipate the uh
079fundraising would be for um in terms of uh ensuring alignment between the foundation board and the CPS board I think critical here is cps's increased role in the foundation governance um and Sally talked about how the superintendent the treasure a board member and a Community member recommended by the board would all participate in governance of of the foundation uh CPS agrees on its part to also to make a commitment to the foundation among other ways uh by supporting the administrative expenses of the foundation um ABC has gone and and put together an estimated budget over the next five years of its fees and expenses related to fundraising and CPS in this agreement would commit to uh paying for that administrative fee uh ABC has also put together its initial estimate of fundraising goals for each
080of those five years and certainly there's an expectation that the um funds generated from this Foundation would exceed and hopefully far exceed the administrative expense um there was consideration given to other options such as using a percentage of do donations um gathered and at least initially I think the thought is to start with an administrative fee um the agreement also contemplates some in-kind support uh help from CPS staff uh uh possibly a uh an arrangement where ABC would have uh used CPS property for its administrative offices and if that were the case we'd have a separate lease with ABC that would cover that uh eventuality um I would say in general again there is Broad agreement on on the terms of what's been proposed and what's been drafted if there are two areas of continued
081discussion I would uh I would say one would be the the sort of natural push and pull between ABC's interest in stability they would like to see a stable you know uh funding stream for a period of time that will enable them to get their operation running and and fundraising for CPS here we talk about a five-year stream of funding versus cps's excuse me need for some Flex exibility uh for example if the the fundraising is unsuccessful or if future boards have different priorities so that that's I would say one area that there's still a push and pull a little bit and the second is the again same kind of thing the uh need for ABC to be an independent uh 501c3 Standalone governed by its own board versus cps's interest in assuring that funds
082raised were pointing to AB see as our our primary fundraising uh partner that those funds will be there to support what the the Strategic priorities of the board are and and there I would again point to the increased role in governance uh that that's contemplated by the agreement uh that's where we are I'm glad to answer any questions what M weberg yes thank you so much I have a question for you Dan and then I also have a question for you Sally so um I guess my first question would be would you be able to uh possibly share some of the founding principles and just kind of explain on what the foundation will be formulating to support so that the public is aware um I think that's drafted on theou I know that it's a
083draft but possibly able just to share that so that everyone is aware it is and I I love these and they are historic because they come directly from ABC's founding bylaw laws so this is not something I drafted or wrote this is something that ABC came up with 20 years ago 20 years ago when the organization was founded so one to the these are the the founding sort of purposes of this Arrangement one to support and promote the welfare of the children and the staff within the Cincinnati public schools two to support and promote high standards of academic achievement participation in extracurricular activities athletic performance and administrative efficiency Within Cincinnati public schools three to generate funds through fundraisers solicitation of contributions and grants four to initiate coordinate and facilitate all districtwide fundraising events and solicitations
084which are to benefit extracurricular activities and participants five to receive all funds raised and to maintain all necessary and appropriate donor records and six excuse me to allocate funds to Cincinnati public school district organizations student groups and individual based upon Merit need and availability of funds thank you and then I think my additional question would be um there was a mention of fees where would those fees be coming from where would they be coming from they would be paid by CPS uh presumably out of general fund that so this would be an additional budget item for the for the board okay thank you and then my next question is for Sally Sally thank you so much for giving a little bit more insight into the foundation um I did notice after reading theou draft that
085I did not see anything regarding athletic directors could you just elaborate a little bit on that piece I saw that it was missing from there yes as you know we have a 12year partnership with CPS um that is under a contract where we manage the athletic directors for the district as well as quite a bit of the budget that comes in from Athletics um we have discussed athletic directors as part of this conversation but the the decision was that that's a separate conversation and that is really at the will of this board if and our Athletics contract is coming up for Renewal June 30th 2025 so it's time for a renewal for that so we are waiting to hear from all of you what you would like to see happen with the athletic directors and
086where you feel like that should go that's we're waiting for thank you I just wanted to make sure that there was a clear explanation on that appreciate it Lindy uh thank you I think my only question is for the superintendent um which was what do you think about the proposal I love the proposal um I'm very excited about the proposal and while this won't solve everything that we need to take care of financially I am very optimistic about the beginning and where we can go with this over time uh I'm very excited that ABC has the structure to be able to do this I do want to address athletic directors uh for board member Weinberg and for others if I may we've had many conversations about how to handle the athletic directors I don't want
087to speak for ABC but it is possible as Sally said they are at our will in terms of what we want to do with the athletic directors we have had conversations about what would an offramp look like over time just to assist them with ensuring stability as we ramp up this uh possible foundation so I think there's some openness in terms of what that piece looks like in particular but I am extremely excited about helping us help ourselves help kids with our finances thank you for member Craig um so let me start by thanking super intendent Sally and Dan for for bringing this to our attention I I want to I want to speak on a process issue that I have and then I will speak about the overall thing here and my process issue
088is that conversations were being had that several board members were not a part of we're not brought to us and we're not made in praying to us and it's a problem I have because this is a pattern of things that has happened and I want to make it very clear there are a lot of great aspects to a foundation that I think are really important but when process problems happen it ruins confidence in the ability to make the decision and I feel like the decision is being made in in in the open and apparent and that is nothing to speak of the superintendent that is nothing to speak of ABC or the general council's office um second thing I want to say I think there's a lot of really good things that we can certainly
089build upon what thinking about and where we goals are I would love for us to have a little bit more conversation about programmatic connection so areas of focus to start uh because I do think that's another aspect of how we'll help a foundation is if they have a starting point of what of our highest priorities from a programmatic aspect things that we know that are in either in our budget now that we need to you know figure out a way to cover or address one of them is clearly The Imagination Library first right that's something that we as a board sat here and said we don't know that this is a long-term thing that we as a board can figure out how to maintain but it's something we want to continue to support and so
090it's something where a foundation may have that ability to do so and there are plenty of things like that that in their early years of a foundation might be great opening points that can again go into to show how they're supporting not just our students but everything um so I think just having some of those programmatic starting points is a little would be also a little bit more helpful for me to understand ultimately where that first year of the foundation would go um I think the third thing I will say and this is um kind of in that same vein is I think there are some stuff that we currently are doing that may be not as efficient of a method of doing it um and I think that's to things like are we able
091to leverage a foundation to purchase or to get certain Ro supplies that every school might need or every school might utilize or there things or goods for activities that right now are very difficult for parents to have to pay for or things that they have to do that would be very helpful and so I think again that's something another one where are there products or things that we could say are something the entire District might use and be able to Resource out um and that way that is you know it's a cost savings but also I know that you know in somewhat of the history of ABC is that they've been asked to you know each school's kind of brought their own little ask right and it's not always been ordinated in the best way
092and so I think that may be another great way to even get that part of it more consistent and grow so you know again I think I think it's helpful for what we're seeing for theou I think there's some some great opportunities to do something here um and I think for me it's more what are the programmatic connectivities or programmatic connections that we can do to say this is what our priorities are because ultimately that will have to be go into whatever a whatever the board for the foundation would be deriving for their priorities and fundraising their next steps and what they need to focus on how do they mark it out to those folks who might want to uh donate and that could be a conversation in a lot of ways of saying okay
093so this is what our priorities are but maybe these are things that they've identified as areas where folks are really interested in giving so like I think that's a continuous conversation that could be had thank you board member Crossett yeah I I uh just to follow on with board member Craig I do think there's an opportunity with a districtwide funding uh perspective to help create Equity within our schools I I think there's a big opportunity for that and that that'll be great I first of all I want to just thank ABC for all these years support really incredible and for you guys to come to us with this proposal is a gift it is absolutely a wonderful gift for our district for you guys to come here and say look we want to do more
094for you so I thank you also I see uh Mr fredman is there and Charlie Frank the board members thank you so much for being here for your support tonight very important um so that I just want to be sure to recognize what a great gift this is for the district and how important this will be for our future to to have this upside of uh potential uh increased funding it's just going to be U only upside that that I can see I also want I was part of the working group as part of our process we had a working group smaller than the full board to try to get this hammered out a little bit in a in a more efficient way and I I think the spirit of collaboration and the spirit of
095uh cooperation with the working group of our board and your board was outstanding so thank you again for your efforts and your your time so thank you vice president thank you very much uh just a first of all a quick question uh uh General Council when uh member Weinberg asked you for the uh principles or founding principles what did from what did you read both the first paragraph of theou but those are taken from the original bylaws of the what was then called I believe the Student Activities fund and became activities beyond the classroom and what year was that oh God Sally 20034 thank goodness Sally's here thank God think about that the founding principles that we want to use for this Foundation we're first EXP expressed 20 years ago by people who wanted to
096help our kids and our teenagers when indeed our kids when they competed against the suburbs you would be embarrassed by their uniforms these are people that have wanted to support our children and our teenagers for almost a generation of 25 years we would not not have what we have tonight if they hadn't taken up that Banner for our kids when this District wasn't even willing to do it I don't understand the hesitancy I understand the financial piece it's obvious tonight we need a foundation but it is also obvious that we will need some flexibility about what we can do every single year regarding the foundation but I just don't understand if general counsel was recommended which they you did in the fall the superintendent did in the fall the treasurer recommended and has worked her
097way through this agreement uh pretty um uh how shall I say it meticulously it seems to to me that it would be hard to be against something if indeed somehow some process wasn't there I honestly believe after 17 I mean after all these years that I've been on the board I don't I didn't see any procedural problem what I do see is a community continuing to care about our kids and our Administration recommending out of the best of their intentions and Views that this is the best way to go and also the quickest way to go and it's important for us to figure out if tonight we want to cast the votes that's up to the president and very frankly um or what good would it do to delay and so that's my concern but
098I no matter what we decide to do tonight I find it fascinating that the fundamental principles on which this is going to be built started 20 years ago by people good of heart and a reason though if we get to vote tonight certainly I'll be voting in favor of this thank you any other discussion so I will share thank you to um our Administration for this Administration for taking the lead apparently this discussion has been somewhat in the making for the past two decades and um thank you to ABC for your continual support and to your leadership as well um the ABC leadership thank you um I'm going to address something regarding what board member Craig brought up around process and then um we can proceed from there so I believe the board members received
099the timeline of discussion and this started in September of 2024 and I believe we we can pull the roll call vote but I believe most if not all of the board members were present when the discussions were held in full board meetings where everyone voted in favor of moving forward they received the presentation they moved forward with respect to um talking about and and asking the administration to do the work of anou uh there was some discussion or at least some some cloud of question around um my desire to be transparent as a as as a new president and I want to address that uh I was invited to a meeting on January 28th by uh Miss Grimes that was regarding the ad uh existing subcomittee of that included two board members but she made
100me aware that this was happening and I attended on January 28th um that was my first inclination of some of the specifics around theou and Miss Grimes and I had a meeting because I had some questions on February the 10th and immediately at the request of one board member who made this request but the desire of others that I had heard we I called for a fact finding on February the 12th February the 12th that would be the second time that we talked about ABC Foundation under myself as being the president and then we discussed it on February the 25th where I put it again on the agenda for the board members to ask for discussion for the board members to ask for questions around theou and that all board members were sent theou prior
101to the meeting today not sure if you received 100% board member feedback but that was the request that was made so I am a little uh perplexed as to how there could be a cloud of process when it appears that the process um with regard to board inclusion and awareness was indeed followed or at least um the board members were made aware of their opportunities since I was president to be able to interject and offer some opinion and whether that be via email or whether that be um via the fact finding that we had publicly um I have had to take time from our scheduled student achievement meetings where we are to discuss academics as board member Lindy so eloquently stated at the last one and talk about things where I have full board participation
102because board members have not responded about extra meetings that I've asked for to come in early or to possibly stay late to address things like this so we are having to negotiate the time that is already allotted and prescribed to get things like the CPS Foundation discussed there are some things that I have shared with Administration I've shared with Miss Grimes and her team around specifics in theou that I think we need to continue to hash out I am concerned about a five-year commitment when we just heard about concerns of finances from the state I have concerns about remaining fiscally responsible um to something that I deem as extra needed but extra when I am going to have to potentially cut things to be able to provide academic support for our students and our staff
103so that's where my concern is but I think that we are ready to vote on the majority of the mou um if and and ask the administration to continue their discussions and I will share this that the the two subcommittee members did not share and I'll ask them to expand a little bit more but there is a timeline that ABC is working upon where they have an an opportunity for an additional Grant and funding that can benefit that they can utilize to benefit CPS that is roughly around a quarter of a million doll but they are on a timeline where they are going to need to receive um some commitment from Cincinnati public it could be a letter of intent but they would like more so that they could begin their work to become an
104official foundation for Cincinnati public I think there are some some things in here that um are are good I'm I'm all for the the financials and the time commitment or some of those that I have concern however I'm wanting to know from the board members what extra do you need how much longer do you need to be able to make a decision around this and if you say that you need additional time I also need a commitment that you're willing to put additional time on your calendar to discuss not only this but also additional things that are being asked outside of or in in an extension of the regular board meetings where I haven't been able to get a commitment previously so I'm open for a motion I'm open for further discussion share what your
105thoughts are po member Craig I think it's uh I I I go back to the example of when we did our contract negotiations with regards to the re redoing our Master agreement with Cincinnati preschool promise it was a process that was done in public to select who would work on it who would deal with it and to be very transparent about what happens throughout that process I am not sitting here today to say that I would vote no simply because we did a process that didn't that wasn't transparent for a large portion of it until we get to the end of anou my point is in bringing it up is to raise the fact that if we're truly committed to Bringing every board member on board which is actually the conversation I had with Sally
106is how do we get full support of all board members and the point that I raised to is that all board members need to understand what's going on need to have time to be able to understand what's going on so I appreciate the fact that we had a fact finding I appreciate the fact that we've done some other steps in that process since then but I can't also ignore the fact that that wasn't done beforehand I can't also ignore the fact that a subcommittee was created of which we didn't vote so like again I I'm not I think there's this false dichotomy that's being created that either you're 100% in support of everything that happened or you're against a foundation no I'm saying we should do a foundation and we should do better in how
107we as a board operate and as we as a board go forward if we are truly going to be one Collective board where every board member's voice matters and that's not fair for when we're now going to have to give task and give priorities to a foundation as to what we want done because if they're hearing seven different things that they are expected to do from seven different perspectives and there's never one Collective voice to it it will not be successful that way and I don't think it's unreasonable to say that we should have that opportunity to be doing that in a more transparent manner so again I am not saying I am against the foundation idea I saying that I felt the process was not very open and transparent and inclusive that was my
108point in raising that part because we haven't talked about that at all in this public setting one wber hold on I think oh I just thought like go go so again I just wanted to thank Sally and I wanted to thank Dan for not only bringing this draft and making it aware to the board um I'm definitely think that a foundation is greatly needed and I do want to thank ABC for all of their work you've done great things and I know that you're going to continue to do great things for our district and for our kids and with that I just would like to say that whatever we decide or whatever we vote on moving forward just making sure that if we do have any concerns with theou and you're going back and forth
109and discussing just making sure that we are updated so that we can bring it here publicly just to finish you know in discussing and finalizing but I would be in support of a foundation so thank you vice president yes thank you very much uh appreciate it and um we can always do better um we can always do better I I do think the public record does prove that there was transparency and involvement um and I think I'd like if it pleases the chair I'd like to introduce a a poorly written motion may I sure thank you I'd like to uh introduce a motion uh that in association with activities beyond the classroom CPS enter into a form the formation of a CPS foundation and upon the approval and oversight of the state auditor this Foundation
110exists for a number of years to be determined and and I would like to move that and would like a second to the creation of a CPS foundation in association with ABC and upon the approval of the state auditor if there is anything to look over um and move forward tonight with this decision is your motion including theou as written or I would include thank you I'll take that as a friendly uh uh Amendment that theou has written and to yet be finalized on those items that general counsel mentioned where there still is some uh movement yes I will accept your friendly your friendly Amendment Madam president I think there's another amendment coming Wy is it possible to change that statement so you said that we're accepting theou as written but to have so can
111you say something in regards to it's a little confusing yeah and and I'm confused by it but I my my interest is that the vast majority has been demonstrated the vast majority of theou is in agreement uh but there are the two or so remaining issues so can I call them remaining issues be resolved through F further negotiation so do we know that all of those are in agreement well I think we heard general counsel report to us what the outstanding in issues were and I'm not I'm not an attorney thank God but uh it's my opinion based on the conversation we had yesterday that we will be able to negotiate language that meets both parties interests on those last few points I like that statement so um as as a potential friendly amendment can
112we uh the creation of the foundation with ABC um with finalized language to be negotiated and further and uh future approval by the board because I I don't I'm not ready to to to agree to all of theou I've given my thoughts I kind of went line by line item by line item but I don't know if everyone is there so it sounds to me like it needs further board member review shall I change my motion mhm to be uh I so move that uh CPS enter um in agreement and association with ABC to create a CPS foundation and that the negotiations on those remaining issues on theou be completed uh and brought back to the board um but the vote for this this would be for the creation of the foundation with ABC as
113is there a second for that I sure hope so sure I'll second that okay any further discussion for member lendy thank you just a couple of questions um so there's no we don't know yet how much we're going to be paying the foundation at this point in time other than what's in the I'm sorry no I want to clarify the question superintendent I want to clarify your question are you saying other than what's in theou um that's correct I saw a version of this mou that did not have a dollar figure in it is there an updated version that does have a dollar figure it's in your email and we feel comfortable with that value great thank you um I think I just I'll to Mr Craig's point about process I think um I just
114want to validate I think what Mr Craig said uh and I think in my experience uh it's not uncommon for our processes to re to be not unlike the Matt Hatter's tea party uh and so This Is Not Unusual I think in my experience I also think if the superintendent thinks this is a good idea I happen to agree with her uh and if people feel good about the financials certainly fine with me any other discussion so let treasure Wagner can you call for a vote please can we repeat the motion one more time I know that that was to go back to the video to get it all but I got you I just put CPS enter enter a motion to for CPS to enter into an agreement with ABC to create a foundation
115okay it's call for a vote uh wait oh I'm sorry board member Craig but that includes bringing back theou at a later date to be the M will be approved by the board yes for full board approval not consideration for full board approval I have a point of discussion on that yes so that is perfectly understandable makes sense we'd have to do that anyway actually procedurally so it's not it's not a extra St but we would have to we'd be doing that anyway it would be very typical for us to put the final through the treasures report as well as the payment I think that's great I'm just want to make sure that is not to reopen restart or Begin Again Begin a new but it is to focus where indeed the parties have some
116still need for flexibility right is that is that my understanding is that correct yes okay now under discussion we need to put a timeline to this because what has happened habitually since I've been on this board is we enter into discussions people bring up things and we just never come back to them or we come back to them and then they just enter into an abyss what is the timeline that we are proposing to superintendent and what is is the timeline that theou would need to be returned back to the board could I make a suggestion about that please I wanted to answer my question yes my initial answer to you uh president my fo would be 30 days sure if at a Max at a Max okay vice president my suggestion would be the
117next meeting which I believe is uh yeah St Patty's Day is that is it the 17th or what is when is our next meeting that's right that's the 17th that way I think we would meet everyone's deadline especially knowing the importance or significance of tonight's vote I think that would if you think we could get it done I mean that would be Optimum to me I do and again unless there's um some unexpected uh glitch with the negotiations my expectation is we'd put it through the treasur report for final approval by the board that would be the that would be the vote well I think what I'm hearing I think that's the process on how it gets approved but what my concern is is that there are still outstanding concerns around theou that the board
118members need to submit information to you for and then that needs to you know be incorporated so it's not about when it's going to be finally approved it's about getting information compiled and then sent back out to board members timely for their own perusal privately and then discussion um amongst us collectively which cannot happen outside of a board meeting so the next opportunity for discussion would be on the 17th if there are any changes needed after that it would probably be at the next board meeting so that's the reason why I'm wanting to know from the board members how long do you need for consideration of any concerns that you have around theou get that feedback back to Dan and then we can vote on it how my question is clear how long do you
119all need you want to vote on it on the 17th board member Lindy I need I need nothing if it's if it's remains good with the superintendent thank you Craig I think again I think they'll resolve whatever minor changes there be there but the substantial portion of the document we already have so I don't know that you necessarily need any more feedback from us um outside of it something substantially changes but otherwise I see is voting on the 17th is fine okay just needed board member Weinberg I was just going to say that I think the 17th would be fine if we needed to add anything or ask we could put it you know back to them and then they could bring it back to us for the 17th okay so thank you 17th is
120it just want to make sure that we're all clear Jer Wagner call for a vote Please Mr Craig yes Mr crosson yes Mr Lindy yes Mrs Weinberg yes vice president Bolton yes president Moffett yes superintendent Murphy please introduce our next presentation absolutely so next we have a transportation update from our coo Mr Chris Burkhart hopefully some more good news good evening good evening thank you for the opportunity to give you a uh update on everyone's favorite topic Transportation as we transition to the next slide um this is a very uh data heavy and text Heavy slide as as the next couple will be but I'm hoping to illustrate to you uh kind of the hard work behind what the numbers that you're seeing um the hard work that the transportation team is implementing every single
121day so as you look at the first bullet point and the 11,310 students that were currently transporting on yellow bus and vans um I'd like to remind the board that that number doesn't start out at 11,310 it actually starts out with every student in the district and as we transverse uh every two weeks within the district we update those numbers we change where students are routed from and routed to so this is constantly every two weeks we are rerouting students throughout the district the other piece to to look at is the 12,756 Metro cards that we've issued now I want to remind you that this is also CPS Charter non-public pral schools all interwoven within these numbers um to my knowledge this is one of the highest numbers that we've had of Metro ridership um
122over the over the last uh uh decade as we look at some of the rest of the data um and we're looking at the the 11% of students that have transportation accommodations this is the most vulnerable students in our district and we want to make sure and the transfer team is very very happy to say that we are putting a lot of time and effort into making sure those students not only get to school on time but get to school safely and these are all students who have something different about their um ride to school and home from school every single day as we look at the um typical walk to stop we're looking at a13 mile um that is a a very very low number uh the state of Ohio says that we can
123have students walk up to a half a mile to their bus stop we are 1/4 of that distance at 0.13 Miles um one of the one of the lowest uh um numbers I've seen in my time with Transportation um CPS also operates 1142 routes with uh 316 assigned Vehicles hold that number because the next slide we'll talk a little bit more about that the last piece that I want to talk about is the 52.5% of the seats filled and that may number may look low to you that half of our or all of our buses are about half filled um but if you remember if you take into consideration a lot of our schools that have districtwide magnet status and a lot of the charter and non-public schools that number comes into focus a lot
124more clearly as we look at making sure our buses are routed according to also get students to school within that 55 minute window next slide so as we um move forward in the vehicles this question always comes up every year so I add it as a slide this year um what kind of vehicles we actually use within our school district you will see the the type A are those smaller buses the with WC is with a wheelchair lift you'll see the types of type A buses type B's are typically Al your 55 student buses and your type c are your 72 passenger buses so you can see each one of those with the numbers and the um ones that have a lift if we move to the next Slide by the numbers so uh back
125in 2223 school year um as we looked at our GPS and on time percentage I I hope I don't have to relive this as I'm standing up here but back in 2223 we had about 2700 students we could not get to school on time time for a number of reasons one was a postco world one was a lack of buses another was lack of bus drivers um and and just the in and we also during that year put more students on yellow bus from Metro so we don't have any good data from that year to be able to compare that year with 2324 as you look at 2324 on time percentage was 87% with our GPS at 93.9 if you look at this year's data so far almost identical so 93.9 to 93.8 almost identical
126on time percentage is 86% if we take and tease out just the CPS only routes our GPS is 94.6 and our on time is 87% so just slightly higher for our internal schools uh versus those non non-public and Charter Schools I also want to remind you that this ontime percentages takes in consider ation um our ability to get students to school before the school day starts that could be impacted by a number of things meaning inclement weather could be traffic congestion could be uh construction could be a number of things could be the bus is waiting for students as they're running from their house to the bus stop so some of these are within our control but some of some of them are outside of our control we try to make sure that we address
127each one of those on a daily basis with each one of the vendors when we see that happening uh day in and day out as we go to the next slide um this is the transportation cost per school that the board has asked for um again this has been called the Rosetta Stone but this year we put together the cost for yellow bus transportation as well as cost for Metro transportation and that is um for every school um both within CPS and our non-charter and public um schools as well and then finally a total cost there within that uh at the bottom we also have that segmented out uh if you want to see just CPS if you want to see a charter nonpublic or parochial those are split out those those different ways so
128with that that is a a short and sweet update to Transportation thank you do board members have any questions I'm sorry weberg thank you Mr Burkhart for a great presentation and I am going to say thank you for answering my question before I even had to ask it um I was looking at slide four and I couldn't figure out what OTP was I'm like what is that because the question was going to be what is the data on uh arrival times pickups um are we getting any information on discipline reports have we contacted fam Stephen ask them how do they feel transportation is going this year and if you could answer to any of that yeah so so thank you uh on time percentage obviously we we still want to make sure that we are
129addressing those every single day and and I say that honestly we do address these every single day and I also want to say we also address it not only with our yellow bus vendors and some of our White Fleet which are are those vendors who um um take some of our students with disabilities to school but we also do that with Metro as well um we also look at um as as you were saying we look at at uh data we have video requests for things that happen on the bus uh we have a 48 hour window turnaround on getting those videos getting those to um School leadership teams when they want to look at discipline and those types of things on the bus transportation department obviously doesn't handle that discipline that's handled through school
130level um unless it is a a Metro concern and then uh we go to Metro for those that that data that video or for additional information right and this was not in the slide but I wanted to ask do you have an update on the electric buses so update on electric buses great question um there was a lot of concern that the latest um Memo from the Administration has um paused the electric buses um I am told that if something was already in process um that we would continue to get those we don't have affirmative um from anyone that is true but that is what we're hearing uh we're still probably 16 months away from getting those electric buses um there's 35 of them that first student will be get on will be receiving on
131our behalf and that that um is too close to to tell you um where we're at within that timeline okay and I had one other question if you go to the transportation cost per school and if you click on CPS only can you just explain to me I was a little confused by the listing and let me find it just to make sure could you explain 56 and 57 line 56 and line 576 okay excellent so some of our schools um have so Taft and mount Alburn have routes that are combined so tafton Mount Auburn have buses that run together and pick up students for both schools um and then we have some additional um buses that are Taft Elementary only and so they almost share a parking lot if you will I should say
132share a culde-sac and so they they're close together so whenever possible I think this happened um at the beginning of last year we tried to combine routes to be more efficient I think that um situation saved us around $200,000 by combining those routes because we were going to those neighborhoods anyway and it's always a matter of trying to get those charter schools and nonpublic schools to be at the same start time as our school because you can't drop those students off too early or too late or you're in violation of Ohio law so we have a half hour window so it's really like trying to thread a needle to get the to pick up those students and um and have them get to each one of their campuses exactly on time thank you and with
133that breakdown so it's CPS only but when you then go to the Charter and you have Mount alurn um list is that a different pricing so that's that's some of the nuancing between it so if you see the mount Alburn SL um uh Taft it's going to be in both columns okay thank you sure I'm just glad it wasn't a typo on my behalf what member Craig um so again thank you and this is this is one of the charts though when I first started on the board um I paid very much attention to because I think part of their growing cost in our district is where we're shipping students to and from and how we get students to and from home to school um one of the schools that always I I I understand
134why it is but it still blows my mind every time is with is a great example of a school where it is the nature of the students who attend that school that decide how much those Transportation costs are it is not because there are not kids in that area that are not because there are not kids that live right next to wiro but is the fact that there are a lot of students who their closest school their closest high school is still going to be a substantial distance away and that means we have to transport them a good amount of good amount of space to get them there so I think it's just always BL blows my mind still that's like our most expensive our most expensive school cost on Transportation is a school where
135you would not think of being that case um so with also has a significant number of um special Transportation accommodations which is why I brought that up um it's one of the schools that has the space um that that that's needed for um students with disabilities and so by default um that would raise the the transportation cost because for every student you have um the 11% obviously raises the cost significantly for for that specialized transportation and again it's the nature of the student who's getting getting a ride right um one of the other ones that I think is just worth uh having a little bit of a discussion around and and hopes that you can give a little Clarity to there are some schools where we have a substantial portion where they're riding the yellow
136bus for and what I'm imagining in seventh and eighth grade at high school that now will not be heading to that High School building and heading to a different school and I'm just curious as to whether or not we will see any levels of reduction in those Transportation cost related to either them being closer to the elementary school or middle school that there will be now at or that they will be incorporated into other routes that were not already filled that would not be directed them into um to the high school level because I do know that part of the at least the year we went to yellow bus service for seventh eighth grade was a substantial increase into the cost per student of that Transportation yes you're correct and so what the the work
137that we're doing right now with part of the growth plan is to kind of model that to see we have a a companies helping us formative so not we're not only trying to look at where students are going to choose to go next year but we're also changing some of the entire dynamics of who goes to what school across the district putting in middle school and Junior highs for example um so we've actually been doing this for for a couple years now if you look back at the 2223 school year um we put students uh from Metro back on yellow bus so we had significant changes that year the next year we realigned our school start start times again significant changes um as we go into next year again significant changes with the growth plan
138um so we haven't had a lot of time to be stagnant or you know to to take our work and then build upon it because we have M we've had major changes every year so to answer your question we're working on it I don't have an answer for you today but something that we are you know diligently looking to see like the Mount Auburn and Taft where can we combine our resources and provide a lower cost with a with a service that is just as good or better and in in this case it's a better service because we're not only being more efficient but we're getting both sets of students to school on time um and then the last little point or is not something necessar have an answer to today but I think it's
139I'd love to see us start to connect programmatic like what our programs are at schools and how that would draw the students to those schools that also would then have the transportation cost connect connected to it right because I think if we are looking at for instance if we have a kid that we're shipping across the city to go to a program and if we put a program on that side of the city are the parent more inclined to be more close to their home are they more inclined to once they know about it be able to utilize it better as opposed to now what sometimes may happen and I think the you know example to me is still like SCPA for instance bring students from all over this city it's in large part the
140elementary school level is because it's one of the few program programs that specifically is dedicated to theater the Arts the music dance what not and so I mean I think there's opportunities for us to be thinking about that as well as another way to use Transportation costs and programs connect them all together be looking at that return on investment so what members have any vice president yeah on the um well you know how I feel about the cost per school and is the Rosetta Stone Rosetta Stone baby yes uh and over time you know I almost labeled it the Rosetta Stone I wish you uh but at any rate um over time we've been and most recently been eliminating uh the Standalone single magnets uh and granted the kids that uh go there and their
141families may not now have that uh Transportation status because it's not a magnet and but still they're going to cost us somewhere along the line it's not a oh good we've saved all that money but it would be interesting to see uh I had a piece of paper that showed how many magnets we had in 2016 versus what we have now and again I'm I'm not including uh some of our systems like our monory system or our uh International or I think we called it foreign language and culture schools like Ami and awl and Roberts help me with when you get to the per cost per school do you just do that based upon the number of students how do how do you determine the cost per school yeah so in in this case it's
142easiest to work backwards so we have all of our routing done and we take those routing plans and we then assign you know which schools go with those routing plans so you can pick awl for example awl has um let's say five buses um they go to awl we will take a cost estimate on what uh how many places that bus actually goes throughout the day so they're going to go to awl twice they're going to go there in the morning and afternoon they're also going to do another tier both morning and afternoon so in that case is those five buses whatever that cost is let's call it $100,000 each one of those trips is $25,000 for those students assigned to that bus so we're actually working backwards we're taking how the or the number
143of buses we need for each school after they're routed and then working backwards to assign the cost that way there are some buses that do midday routes so that's a lot more efficient drives the cost down the ones that cost us the most are one-offs or stand loans that we cannot put two routes together so those are the most costly and some of of those are the ones that go to the Far Corners of our district that it takes them so long that we cannot add another route to them to make them stackable the the problem is always trying to get those two to stack so it's not about where you start a route is where you end the first route and start the next route and that's not always the easiest with the geography
144of Cincinnati so it's buses and routes that determine uh the cost per School whereas in Metro it's really I guess the students $350 per student per card is is what Metro costs us and I may have missed this one I stepped out but do we just buy everybody a card uh or are we charged only when the card is used yes and yes so so we do start off with every student getting a card however we don't print those cards so if a student had not used their card from a previous year we do not print those cards so we'll start in the first shop the first cut you will if they didn't use their card before we're not making a new card for them for the subsequent year and then as we look at
145quarterly um or I should say per trimester we look at which cards were used if those cards aren't used then they're shut off and we don't get charged for them and then we keep doing that subsequently we also add cards so students changing schools students coming to the district as well as athletic cards so if you're in for example football um you'll get a card with an athletic card right away but if you are in a track and field for example in the spring you're not going to get your athletic card until that time thank you thank you I do have a couple of questions um do we know how much we are paying in payment in Li of Transportation costs for the year I I don't know that off top my head I'm sorry
146I can look that up so I I know what that means and I think some board members do as well but can you just can you just describe what payment in L of transportation is yeah so absolutely so payment and L of transportation is um one of the tools that the district can use to not only um make it a win-win situation in in some or a lot of cases these students are are not able to be on a bus route for example we may have I'll use um um SCPA is probably a bad example but we we go to every corner of the district to pick up students there might be a student that is not anywhere close to a bus route and adding that student to the bus route wouldn't would cause the
147bus route to maybe um travel for an extra 15 minutes um and that wouldn't be great for anyone uh parents also say well I'm going to drive my student so it's a win-win situation where we will provide that um parent uh payment in lie of and that uh shifts uh the transportation from CPS to that parent uh also there's situations in which um it is Impractical and that could be if there are five students at a charter school um we obviously can't send a bus to go pick up five students and they could be throughout the the entire uh city of Cincinnati so we may deem them impractical in which we would offer those parents payment in L of as well okay board member Weinberg just shared that it was 984 students so I'm wondering
148what the cost of that is um to us and that's not a it's not a question for today it's definitely a question for later so um I noticed that the magnet student the magnet schools are significantly more expensive than the um the other schools with regard to Transportation would it be possible to get this like an additional tab with just the magnet school transportation costs disaggregated from that that'd be helpful I thought I was doing well with the segments so yeah you did you did great you did great um one more question well two more questions um I see Odell Owens has a significant cost um for transportation and I'm um wondering it's like $887,000 but are those is that cost of those students being charged to their home school or to the center so
149how is that that's a it's a huge number for me to just ignore so I want Rob can you put that back on the screen for me um just that particular chart so you can see what I'm talking about um I'm wondering some students at at the center at Odo Owens and the promise Center are there from their home school so how does that how how can we get a true accurate assessment of the cost of that Transportation yeah so without looking at you know having that data in front of me um one of the things that as I as I um explained earlier um we're looking at the number of times a bus goes to that site and so in this case I'm guessing there's probably eight or nine different buses that go to
150that site from all over the district to have students go there and that's probably why it is so high um even though those buses and it also might be that those are Standalone because they're coming from um the far reaches of the district they might not be able to be paired with other schools so it's a very so once you start to have buses that cannot be paired you're doubling the cost of each one of those routes so the cost Also may be high based on that but I I don't know just off the top of my head okay happy to come back and and sure I guess I'm a little confused because that would if we're if you're a high school student you get a metro card right so the 5600 is for the
151high school students so the $887,000 is yellow bus correct so I would love more information on that that's that's disproportionately um for that one it just seems confusing and when you my last question is around you said stacking routes oh yes ma'am Dr mfet um and then the treasur has something she wants to share to the 5600 for the Odell Owens student the high school students go there consistently every day the promising our kids it could change dayt day so just wanted to share that keeping that in mind too right I I get that that's why I asked the question is there Transportation charged back to their home school cuz they're really not are are they there since it changes they're technically part of their home school well the the thing with the yellow bus
152has a good point there may be one one student coming from ex school I won't name any particular schools that need to get on the bus for five days to go to the promise Center their original bus that goes every day to that ex school still has to run because there are the other classmates on that bus so that so there's a double charge so the there's not a charge away from their home I'm I'm just trying to figure out how we how is that sustainable that we're paying for that particular students's Transportation twice because we're paying for it at the home school even for 5 days and then we're having so maybe the would it be legal to say that if you're at that Center and you have to be there for X number
153of days you don't get Transportation they won't come that might be a yeah that that might be a reality too that's just a lot of money so I'm just I was just wondering about that um that was just a question that I had about that one thank you yes ma'am um I have an answer for you they they budgeted 490,000 for pamman and louv this year okay thank you my last question is around you mentioned stacking and I get that part what about combining routes with combining schools is there a cost savings with that is there I remember I'm a little old I'm over 50 but there used to be multiple schools on routes that started around the same time is is there been any exploration around that yeah we we're looking at that literally
154every time we do a reroute and as we as students come off of the bus let's say that they um either leave the district or their parents are driving them they no longer need that that bus and and we'll I'll go back that 52% where there's a point in time where that number becomes low enough that we then look to see how can we add that bus with another bus combine them together to create that efficiencies we don't typically do that with um with two schools only because it's really really hard to have two schools in close proximity to each other that are going to the same neighborhoods to pick up students and then get them to their respective School within that half hour window I'm not saying it's it's not done because we do
155those but it's really really difficult um which is why you don't see it all the time we'd have to really take another hard look at school start times if we want to maximize those again would it be more beneficial on the parochial side or the charter side rather than our side so the one thing about Charters and and non-public is we cannot dictate what time they start so what we've tried to do in the past is have conversations with them and say here's one the our best opportunity to get your students to your school is and hope that they can massage their start time to be within that 30 minute window uh we can also be fined for not getting students to those schools within that 30-minute window and so that becomes part of it
156as well that there's the economies of scale but then if you break it you're breaking funding as well gotcha I just kind of needed you to say that publicly thank you yeah sure any other what across it just I'm just curious uh with the nonpublic schools um trying to get their start times unified that creates cost savings correct is it I'm just asking a question is it possible that um sharing those cost savings with those schools would be enough incentive for them to want to change their time just a curious idea whether or not we'd even be allowed to do that but just trying to think of an incentive to help help that along just just an idea no no need to respond well I'm I'm I'm Happ to share with you what we did
157last year so I personally went to every single one of those schools last year and shared with them our four start times that we wanted to have within our district and for a lot of them they were able to move 10 15 minutes One Direction or another there are a handful of though that said you know because of maybe their contractual um obligations to their teachers or their their um parents they weren't able to move and so we're constantly having those questions um we have some some great Partners on on the procal side as well that I talk to on a regular basis so we can see what what uh parallels there are so that we can obviously we want to lower the cost and we want to be able to offer the service as
158well and we're required to offer the service any other questions vice president B just uh on the parochial on the private um and the total budget part it's my understanding that we have about on this on these current charts 39 million or so cost for transportation not including fuel is that is that correct I think it's anticipating I'm anticipating 50 million but I'm I'm at least the numbers look like it's 39 or something I was going to say 38 let's call it 38 six and of that 41.6 what's the percentage that are not our uh enrolled students I'd have to look I don't have that that would be interesting to know uh uh for me anyway that uh uh what that budget actually looks like because of those demands yes that that's would be interesting
159to me thank and and to that number we also have um um the ancillary services and obviously um the the staff for transportation so adding all those things as well that that go into it gets up to yes thank you board member Lindy um thanks a lot U Mr burkart really appreciate it glad to see the numbers and the big changes we made a couple years ago continue to have a big impact um and thank you for all your work um are there um looking to next year uh can you anticipate yet any changes in transportation for individual schools or things staying mostly the same could you speak to that just a little bit sure with the growth plan um obviously we're we're talking roughly so you know 25 to 35 schools so um that
160that will have changes in some uh shape or fashion some of them are programmatic changes some are completely different changes I.E the the middle schools Junior highs um in the changes that you're asking for for example a junior high school that's seventh and eth graders uh we would we would look at those students to be on Metro because they're Standalone but in our middle schools where we have maybe 5678 or 678 uh it's always been um the board has said they only want one uh method of transportation per school so we would look at yellow bus so we would have some students going from Metro possibly back to yellow bus um which may in increase our yellow bus costs next year we're modeling that right now so as we as we look at next year
161and look at where students are and where they're going as the selection process is is uh being finalized we'll know within the next couple weeks where every student is anticipating going next year and that will give us a lot more um certainty as to what we think is going to happen so I'd be a little presumptuous if I said right now what what that number actually is no that makes great sense and I'm I'm just thinking in particular some of the schools where we heard the most from families and staff who were there so I'm thinking there was you know hay Porter there was Woodford there was Taft Elementary there was Clark like for for I'm sure I'm missing some big group of parents somewhere but those four in particular do you anticipate any changes
162for those schools um so as of right now um no change in Clark so Clark would stay the same um would referred uh with their loss of magnet status they would lose their transportation for next year um Taft Elementary I believe that we um the discussion is whether or not Taft would have or not have the transportation for next year I let the superintendent address that one and there was one more that I just missed I'm sorry Haz Porter Haz Porter there's no change to Haz Porter so Haz Porter would be the same as it is this year great thank you sure I don't know if you said you wanted the superintendent to address the Taft Elementary one um sorry yes so we made the decision that the Taft Elementary yellow bus transportation will remain
163in place for next school year thank you be so thank you Mr burkart thank you um let's see superintend okay superintendent Murphy Treasurer Wagner and uh looks like vice president Bolton introduced the next presentation regarding the budget absolutely so charger and Wagner and I have been spending a lot of time together uh beginning to talk about this fiscal year 6 budget so on the next slide what we thought we'd do is start with um the next slide again Rob thank you where we left off with uh last time and that is the survey that was launched with the districtwide lsdmc and so uh you have on this sheet just really a snapshot of all of the categories that were discussed as a part of the budget with the highest and the lowest priorities so as
164of I believe Thursday uh this had increased to 93 responses uh we did take a look today and uh there was a request to send the survey to board members and so a couple have had an opportunity to take the survey but we didn't bring that synopsis yet because we just looked at it today but we can certainly have that the next time so we thought we just would run through uh with these priorities uh just some conversation around some of the categories so we have set set up the three Corridor system the Citywide the East and the West that has been completed and you should have a single one page no it's actually three pages but a document in front of you um that also highlights the school selection and pathway process that is
165on our um website website for students and families to be able to see the progression of services we do have established The Early Learning Centers in each of the corridors of the city as well as the welcome centers where we are with this piece now is that the startup welcome centers at West High at at dater at awl with row at Hartwell are going to visit the Roberts uh Center so they can get an idea a better idea of how those are operating with the middle schools we do have South Avendale established Pleasant Hill Academy Heartwell Academy all of those schools have had CTE 26 applications filed with the state for their career in technical education foundational programming some of them have already had responses come back positively from the state and so we look
166to fulfill all of those at this point depending on uh your support of the recommendation tonight we would have had all of those principal uh positions filled as well for the junior Junior highs the same is true we know that Schroeder was really a part of phase one but the CTE department has done the CT applications for all of those schools and submitted to the state uh for approval all of those schools have your support principles there is a project timeline that was shared with you during Friday's update actually was sent Thursday update from me but that is available for you to see where we plan to go next starting with principal training then staff training and PD looking at positive School culture looking at all the operational processes for making sure our middle schools
167are up and ready to go Citywide programming is listed there I have a typo with uh D GA and our school is GDA uh reminding you of that redesign uh on the next page you see other uh service opportunities the wrap we're really excited because we we have been able to move to the second round of a grant that we're working on with ABC for the rap and the Community Learning Center model being reviewed for how we're currently doing business because we do believe and have a direction from the board that there could be more efficiencies around our Community Learning Centers as it relates to Resource coordinators you see the alternative programming options that we have in our school district the monory lab school at the Bramble nature campus uh we have hired much of
168the staff I think there were two teaching staff members that declined at this point but we do have 117 out of the 160 students registered to attend school the IB training for the east side at with high school we've we've completed that study and the principles are ready to go to training uh for IB programming cosmetology automotive and Entrepreneurship we did submit an application CTE 26 for entrepreneurship to the state uh the cosmetology and Automotive that application was not submitted as we're waiting to be clear about the funding for that thinking that it that will come in fiscal year 27 the public service academy uh we do have uh fire being looked at a little more carefully at West High to make sure that's as efficient as it can be and that we can get
169young people to be prepared to take the firefighter exam we have worked with the city to talk about the uh public service that will take place at wiro with the police process that is in place that CTE uh 26 application for criminal justice has been filed with the state junior rltc uh Army we added a second component to Akin High School this current school year and we are talking with uh junior rltc Navy as well as Coast guard for additional rlt Services the cost of the army Junior rltc Just for information to the district is $50,000 that includes the instructor the materials the supplies the uniform uh uniforms that the children need to be able to participate in the program uh Early College we are talking to the University of Cincinnati about the Early College
170uh perspective and uh sailor Park and they are extremely interested Owen Center and the promise Center that was taken care of in phase one at the alms Place location centralized enrollment those positions have been posted and the selection is underway for the staff uh for the centralized enrollment at the customer care center student services reorganization we do have a new um director who stepped up and we are looking at where the specialized classrooms will be located for next school year and in the future just to put a bow on the dawn uh Community School uh our relationship with them they did approach us about a sale of property uh Chief Burkhart did go over take a walk look at that sale of prop that property and we do not think it's something that we're interested
171in at this time Spanish for all uh we're looking at how we can be able to apply Spanish not only for our um Spanish speaking students but also for our English students because we want them to be able to communicate and work with um their classmates the Department of Transportation you just heard the update from Chief Burkhart we have assumed the responsibility of our crossing guards uh additions to the schools and this school year we open the additions to H High Park Pleasant Ridge monor and wed Hills High School youth employment we continue to have our career cafes focusing on different aspects of careers we participated in the mayor's career fair and we are currently planning our next step is a CPS grow your own for our graduating seniors to be able to become employed
172at CPS talked about the middle school and Junior High Principal selection the Woodward principal selection is completed I talked to you about the Community Learning Centers we do have the first semester survey completed second semester will go out in March as it relates to our instructional practices continuing to monitor our goals and guard rails monitoring the instructional rounds that are taking place in all of the schools we do have a process for tracking our graduation graduation cohorts our big goal for this year is to gain at least a half a star so we have a simulator for that that we have reviewed with each school and there is a work plan for each school to be able to accomplish growth uh we do we did have an instructional reset we have coach in in place
173we continue to monitor our Benchmark data and our I ready data and are providing professional development as needed and then finally number 25 are beyond the tassel committee we reinvigorated which used to be the my tomorrow committee this group is laser-like focused on graduation requirements strategies Readiness and engagement just a little update all right next slide Rob please one more so uh we jointly came up with uh three scenarios to work on um given all the depressing news based on um the state budget Bill and what's happening in the federal government um and the agreement that we've already made to return to to our forecasted revenues we are in a situation of reduction as you remember last year our budget this year our budget 644 million and we use some of Prior year savings to
174pay for some items so already our budget's going from 644 to 624 keep in mind that's the November forecast value um that will change in May and um based on new information that we know about as things up update with the budget bill but the simulation is already saying we're going to lose $10 million of State funding if things stay the same uh with the government's um the governor's budget bill so in order to balance to the 624 million um and the one we agreed to a $1 million set aside for the growing the cash Reserve um we thought there's three different ways to balance this budget one is to reduce all budgets by 14% evenly schools and Administration two is if you leave the schools the way they are today we the central office
175has to reduce by 31% um and then scenario three is we just start with the state minimums and um build from there so we wanted some feedback from the board on some of those three ideas Bo M lendy thank you um I really appreciate laying out the St terms of the of the financial problem we need to solve and it's very helpful I like the scenario is a great deal I think my my question is from the administration's perspective what do you recommend is the best path forward is that for an answer today it doesn't have to be but I think my question is going to be the same you know like I I think my my my um from my perspective um we should you all are so much much closer to the details
176than we are you have um decades more experience than we do uh and and um my request would be that the administration comes to the board with a with a proposal it could be in pencil it could be you know you could socialize it with us individually ahead of time like doesn't have to be a big reveal in a board meeting but but I do think that I'd like to start with what do you all think is the best way to impact the goals that we've set as a district given the financial realities of the world that we're in and and I I I really want to I both want to be clear and I want to beath genuinely this is really really hard and awful and you will have for me an enormous amount
177of empathy for whatever you suggest uh but I do think I do think it should start with what you think the right thing to do is board member Craig uh so I a lot of ways to share some of the same thoughts board Lindy has with the one exception of option two and the reason I have my concerns with option two is that we've continuously kept cutting central office budget to a point in which you know it's going to make it at some point unfeasible to manage the district and I worry that we are getting very continuously close to that point in which it becomes next to impossible to do some of the basic necessities That central office has to do I think of that especially in light of wanting to bring some things back
178to being centralized like enrollment that I mean I think if we're in the same point saying central office do more work and you got less money to do it feels a little bit uh unfair um but I think whether it's figuring out a way to do the reduction of I mean I think if I had a lean some way would probably closer to three because I don't know that evenly Distributing hits everybody evenly and when we've done that in the past uh last couple years some departments it's a whole lot harder to cut 10% out when you have nothing but salaries left then other departments who have other things that might be things that we don't necessarily need to do or things we can push off so um I think it'll be helpful to hear
179kind of what would three look like what would one look like um I am terrified of what number two sounds like it would look like um but I think it barring some strange new thing that comes out of this that is totally different from what I'm expecting I would probably closer to three just because I think is more flexibility for how you would do some of those cuts where some arees could be cut a little bit more versus others would be uh cut a little less so remember cross it um thank you for I know you've put in a lot of time and uh thank you for doing all this hard work I'm I'm curious about one and two is is there would there be and I'm just a suggestion uh a scenario where maybe
180this schools would get cut evenly uh some different percentage some combination of the two you know it wouldn't wouldn't have to be necessarily All or nothing and I guess that gets back to board member Lindy's Point come to us with your recommendations the other scenarios that I would be curious about is what if the $20 million floor occurs what you know in other words the scenarios would be the total budget uh uh possibilities to look at that and people prepared for sort of a worst case kind of moment too um I was trying to remember the the dollar value of the impact of the 20 mil floor Senate Bill 66 I think it is um I can't remember the number off to my head but I want to say it's a big it it's a
181big number it's a big number um well I'll I'll bring it back when I get the real number um verified I'll bring it back to the board and and those kinds of scenarios because we will talk about that in the fiveyear forecast presentation Jen Dan has the number do you have the number I think it's bigger than that but we'll verify thank you Dan um so I have um I I I am slightly agreeing with my colleagues but i' I'd like to see scenarios so I I kind of I know it may be a lot of work but I I would like to see an overarching view of each of those scenarios um what does it look like if we reduce it 14% what does it look like if we reduce Central Administration I also
182am a big um I think I shared this with you after the last meeting when we were trying to build the agenda um I would like to see if we had every department or at least the schools at what they need absolutely to operate like what's their minimum and then we build it that way um because I think central office Central Administration just keeps getting cut and cut and cut and it's not fair there there is some probably some wiggle room at the school level and we just need to to figure that out but I would much rather be interested in seeing what each of those scenario looks like even if it's just a very broad perspective so that I can see the differences um okay well we definitely don't want two or we definitely
183don't want one but why we don't want that I think that that can guide my direction to you all around what um I I I'm not saying I don't trust you I just would like to see more data filled in first and I would also encourage the um scenario with the floor with with the impacts that are coming that are pending what does that look like a to to these scenarios so after we've created these scenarios what is the impact of legislation that's coming down and and then we can get a visual on that so that's that's kind of what my ask is is is um all of the things that that we're creating and a base a baseline budget I think it's the only one that I don't see here is what does it
184look like just Baseline for every single Department Schools central all that that's the only one they're missing and then what are the are the potential impacts to that that's what I'd like to see okay vice president Bolton yeah thank you of course I reject all three of these um and so there to for me there has to be another alternative um but this is about the general fund budget only that's correct okay so it doesn't it's not including those monies that we are getting from the federal government or not getting from the federal government because they have to be supplemental yes exactly so this is a and so my question is 14% number one and 31% in the other and and then State minimums what what amount of dollars uh does 14 in what number
185one and and 31 in number two represent it's the same amount of money just spread I got it but what's the amount of money is it was going being cut if we do number one or number two so the number one is going from 644 million to 624 million so 20 million right number keep going two is if we took care of the schools and then the amount that's left that difference is 31% so that I think what was left with schools was like our central office was after schools are taken care of is about 144 million something like that close 136 million 136 million so that represents the 31% cut that would need to take place last year central office office came in about 250 million it's about 200 million 200 million central office
186last year so if all things stay the same the 31% to get to the 140 was is a 31% cut so so it's pretty it's more complicated than one might think um so we have a current budget of 644 million we've added 16 million to that we've added $6.5 million of tech leases that came back from Esser we've added a lab school we've added an ABC Foundation we've added step increases that are already in the collective bargain agreement at $6.7 million so we're up to 660 million to 660 million minus 24 but you have to take into consideration hit the next slide please we have obligated costs already that you cannot cut you can't cut your debt payments you can't cut your fund 34 transfer which is money that gets put into the facility maintenance
187fund for filters and small repairs um and so the while we used to call these fixed fees they're not really fix they're fixed line items but the values may change that's why I made them variable excuse me so for example the auditor fees they charges depending on what they their rate of collection not necessarily a flat rate liability insurance is fairly fixed every couple years they increase the costs um we have required tuition where they actually tell us you have to have a million dollar contract for um Department of Youth and services um our retirement B benefits by state law are required to pay or sick Le conversion when people retire and that is variable because the number of people that retire and how long they've been here and how much sick leave they have
188built up changes the value of that the science of reading stiens um I put in we put in there I I don't know if it's a requirement for the next year is it yeah so we have to pay those sens out first and then we get reased by the state if they agree that we did it correctly um treasuring you have to have a treasure you have to have a superintendent um utilities this is just facility related utilities like electricity water sewage um $12 million I don't think we're going to cut electricity we might try try to be reduce it but we can't eliminate it and then we already have a master agreement with CPP where the this year's payment was $9.9 Million for to the United Way for to support their share of the
189preschool so we've already obligated $61 million out of the availability of 623 so and that so that's 10% of your budget's already committed to things that you can't really change and and actually 10% as the variable cost or whatever fixed cost or whatever you're calling it 10% of that that's really not a bad percentage for a budget yeah to have that of small of fixed costs obl yeah o thank you that's so the sly conversions going to go up next year because we have more people retiring because of the new rule that stirs so that once we figure out the whole list of retirements we can figure out what I I don't reject this screen okay I like that screen but helped me out as you're building the budget and I don't I don't want
190to okay so we keep going just keep in mind that we started with $644 and we added $16 million boom okay so that makes the cuts small um smaller so if you leave we've already allocated money out to the schools so we either going to take money back from them in order to help balance a budget or everybody else has to bear the cost of that reduction go ahead next slide so the areas that we still have to allocate are you know Personnel I'm and these are just placeholders for you to consider thinking about these are the things that we spend money on we have salaries benefits um stiens um we have vendor contracts that supplement the staff or they behave as staff members like a resource coordinator a nurse versus I'm paying somebody to
191provide professional development for me okay transportation instructional subscriptions for curriculum um Nuance as we moved into the digital world we've gone from buying hard textbooks into buying electronic subscriptions for curriculum on a per people basis just a side note um transportation Legal Services professional Technical Services software I won't read them all supplies Capital Equipment and then other others like our memberships Awards um and our con IES okay next slide oh I Mee back up I forgot the footnote down there the current general fund positions of 4 175. n million are used are used for um the fiscal year 26 average salaries so we if we funded everybody that's in a filled position today next year's salary and benefits we be $475 million okay next slide so I was asked so tell me what the big
192buckets are so I got sassy and I started making buckets next slide um so the biggest obviously we are a human capital organization and um so our inventory is people and so that's going to be our biggest cost so our related salary and benefits um 463 million um this is in the current budget I'm telling you because we don't have next year's budget built so I can't tell you values but currently we 63 million in the general fund for staff and related benefits spending $ 41.6 million on Transportation Services because the staff and the department earn the staff bucket okay so this is all non-personnel tuition's $22 million utilities is 19.4 now on the previous bucket I showed you it was 12 million the difference is telephone services are in the technology budget not in
193the facilities budget so it's on in the 19 in the the pink buck and then we have the nurses and um athletic trainers $6 million we spend $19 million on technology that's not staff um curriculum spends $8.6 million this is the thing that I felt very interesting is that our software for curriculum is $4.7 million in the fiscal year 25 budget um Professional Services of $20 million and I showed you a list of the bigger line items that we have um supplies 4.8 million um and the fixed costs are off to the side so for everything else we have $6.3 million left over for the everything else stuff you any questions on the buckets do you like my buckets I love your buckets yeah I love the buckets it's great very cool I'm just kind
194of curious are are the percentage of the total budget of each bucket is are there benchmarks that that compares to with other major districts or do you even look at that we do on occasion yes but we are heavily outsourced like most districts don't Outsource their transportation so their staff would be much higher than ours our Professional Services are much higher than other people's um and so it it's kind of an odd comparison I just want to say you know one of the things with the bucket that I think it's important for us to do because we haven't really been doing a very good job of it for the last few years is acknowledging that there are things that we're going to have to do less of and it's good way to see this in
195reality because we keep adding and at some point we're going to add past the point where we can actually even get to a cut level um but I think one of the things that is helpful to see is things like the fixed costs um and some of the things like Professional Services and other things that we've been utilizing resources for that are not necessarily something we're going to come off of tomorrow um I guess maybe my question though is are there what are the things that are should be our focal points because I think there's a question coming up a little bit here about potential things that we've C but what are the things that we're looking at or which are the buckets we're looking at as the things that we need to be paying
196attention to as we think about what are the potential Cuts or potential changes that we want to look at well when you ask a financial person that we always look for the low hanging fruit the biggest things you spend money on for right so the academic side of the house might have a different answer that answer right now no it it doesn't have to be right now I just think it's something for us as we as a board think about any recommendations that comes through is just understanding you know like again I think something like transportation is a hard bucket to lessen until we figure out a way to lessen the transportation needs right so it's a need-based bucket versus and utilities the same way right it's a hard one to cut utilities um unless
197you have some magic way of getting us better more energy like people come up magic way give us more energy but I think there are other ones on here that potentially are stuff that we have to kind of think about how we're doing it or whether or not it's the same way that we want to do it going forward um and keep in mind that um the treasures required a sign or certificate that certifies the mone's available for this budget and then the fiveyear forecast it looks at the threeyear window so on that threeyear window in the 5-year forecast if we show negative cash balance then OD starts sending nasty letters and you have to come up with a reduction budget anyway and then if you can't do that you can't use pass a new
198Levy um as part of your solution they won't accept that but if then you can't do that then they come down and start making decisions for us so we need I would rather us make the hard decisions that we're we can live with and have somebody else come in and tell us how to spend money I have a question where would vendor contracts that don't impact that don't directly touch kids go they're under Professional Services Professional Services so um I don't have them um like if you add all those numbers up I don't think they come up to 20 million there's other Ser Contract Services that might not be included in that there's um because you have some technology contract I'm not picking on you Jeremy I'm sorry I have I have outsourced contracts um
199I'll just say the treasures office we have a financial advisor we have Bond counsel I mean we have to have that stuff um they're small contracts in relation to some of the larger ones um I was just thinking like you know we've got I've said this before like we've got data coaches we've got coaches that don't impact kids directly it's indirectly significant nonetheless but where would those fall if we were interested in cutting some of those services so the data coaches aren't in here because they're funded by title Title One Title One okay that's right this is just general fund so of the contracts that are vendor Services type they would be under Professional Services or the ones like you're saying contract work right okay vice president Bolton yeah thank you um so is is
200the number 20 million what number 20 you just mentioned 20 million again it's a 20 million of Professional Services that that bucket don't fit into one of the other buckets gotcha um so the amount of money that we're talking about for the budget is is decided based upon what we believe the revenue to be for the general fund that's correct that was in the resolution and exactly because we're trying to have a balanced budget but um on the general fund and the revenue I remember last time we had to go through all this we changed the um Revenue a bit and that caused us to not have to cut so much but in this particular year it would look like the revenue projection would actually go down based upon additional bad news for 26 so
201in 25 from 24 to 25 we lost about $5 million in state revenues right but what I'm what I'm saying is that that we were able to not cut some stuff because the revenue projection changed our Revenue projection now would be changing downward in in all likelihood that's correct for the general fund okay and then just to how much what's the percentage that the state in all likelihood is cutting I know you've told us a couple of times I think it's 7 million 7% oh I don't what the state are you asking me about the State share well the state share is going to uh go down but the state cut is between last year and this year what does it look like in percentage are you asking me to the district or the state
202and as a whole the district um I don't know off top my head okay okay that's that's okay I can't do math that quickly that's all right you can do everything else real well but our state share um so uh president s and team were right we started at at 48% State share the the trienal update on property taxes caused us we are now at 36% and projected to go to 30% next year and then 25 in the following year because when property values goes up are we get wealthier in the wealth index State share goes down so just shifting this event EV is proving the deral case that there's an over Reliance on property taxes and there's a bigger strategy to that than even we've been able to talk about thank you okay so
203the next couple slides just skip to the discussion questions if you don't mind um so question number one what are your surprises about what we've talked about tonight you you're taking notes thank you well M Lindy I I I'm I'm G to answer a question that's different from the one that you asked um I I'm going to answer a question that's different from the one that you asked okay um I I think you all have done a really good clear job for months of messaging the size of the challenge that we face and the moving parts that we're stuck with um my I think my request for all of us is it it is easy for us to complain about the things that we don't like coming out of Columbus and I agree I agree
204with all of those complaints and we're going to have to figure out a plan and I think we model the best kind of leadership when we when we minimize the complaining about things we can't influence and I'm not saying that let's pass a resolution let's send our lobbyists let's do the day of action let's do all of those things and we need to come up with a plan and and I think that plan starts where I said before with recommendations from the administration and so I I think um we we've had uh I think the average length of our board meetings is going up um and we haven't even made any decisions yet uh and so like I think we got to get out of the here are all the things that are wrong they
205are wrong again I think we should pass resolutions I think we should send our lobbyists I think we should push as hard as we can and we got to start moving towards what are the recommendations what are the ideas um what what's our you know um people were mentioning scenario planning before I think that's great so we have a we have the the best case scenario the worst case scenario and the moderate case scenario but we just got to start start building those and I I do think that should come from the administration first thank you B member Weinberg I'm going to keep it very short and sweet I just want to say thank you board member Lindy I agree with everything that he just stated thank you that was short for member Craig I
206will answer two the questions on here I think my biggest surprise is that none of this is actually a surprise because we've been talking about this for about a year in budget and finance so I'll be quite honest most most of the stuff is stuff that we you've been trying to get us to be more honest about even last year when we were doing the budget and I think we're now at a point where we have to be um but I will say I think maybe one thing that is an addition addal idea to this mix is a little bit more of an understanding of how do how are things going to be adjusted based on how the district is now reshaped that maybe provides us an opportunity that we didn't have before to do
207certain programming cuts to do some reviews I think one of the examples that uh president MF has talked about more recently is things like how we do resource coordination and like some of these things where maybe there's a way that we can be thinking about this in a different way this year and be more honest with what we can kind of start cutting some trimming out even of that that gets us to a more honest place to be able to deal with the real harsh cuts that may have to come through vice president Bolton yeah I think I think that's a good point everybody's made a good point and and actually there's uh the board has to be willing to make cuts um and uh and and and be willing to make Cuts i i
208u I'm not surprised um and and you would like our reduction ideas um and maybe some board members uh would prefer just that to rubber stamp whatever you're going to say because that is a little less pressure than us trying to present something but it is going to be on your advice as to whatever we do when you say addition ideas uh are you you talking about our thoughts about additional revenue or is there or repurposing some of the things we do now that might cost less which is maybe part of what Brandon just said quite honestly I can't even bring myself to ask the question about what what more you want to add I know so that's why I'm confused by it um but the but it could be Revenue it could be repurposing
209of things well yes we will have to repurpose things um I appreciate all the comments and um we really wanted one of the reasons I asked for what are the SEC cows because it's very very frustrating to spend an ungodly amount of hours coming with proposals that just get shot down and they would had no purpose in passing and so I kind of wonder what what are the guard rails that have to stay Within uh in order to but we my best recommendation is to start with the state minimums and build from there and figure out with the money that's available what's the best paying for our buck to help students move forward well of that's going to be P very painful of of the three that would be my choice of the three but
210the community won't accept state minimum so as long as we understand that before we go around again I'm going to just give you my opinion I I'm we've been in the data collecting mode I think it's time that we get some information that has been requested of administration um we've asked about the numbers for athletic directors we've asked about resource coordination we've asked for them to come back with some ideas on how to do that I'm I'm a I'm going to agree with my colleague in that we need data I understand that you all want some Direction but there's too many open-ended questions that have not been answered by Administration with regard to data that have been asked multiple times in different ways that it's time to provide that information so that we're informed to
211be able to direct you I will give you an example the board has has made it very clear we do not want resource coordination to be cut multiple times many ways I think the regular kid on the streets like don't cut resource coordination because now they understand it but we've also been very very open to Resource coordination looking differently so if that number is let's say for example $5 million come back with a proposal of what that could look like differently to save money and Athletics direction is the same way I don't understand how we could talk about new initiatives how we could talk about new things that add to the bucket that is already overflowing without data around what costs can be cut where and then we can begin to say okay we can
212afford X if we were to take this proposal middle schools we know what the the uh Scher Middle School who was the first one we we should have some data around what phase one was we should have some data around what is phase two going to cost I think it's wonderful uh Chief burkart you gave us great presentations I'm kind of tired of hearing it because I want to know what is it going to cost there should be some definitive answers around all of these proposals so that we can say we're going to see a cost saving here because this is what we've been presented with and then we can add X so I don't I don't know if I think that this is the time for the board to provide Direction but it is
213absolutely the time for the administration Treasurer everybody to provide the requested data so that we can make some informed decisions because quite frankly I want a lot of things but if we can't afford it doesn't make any difference what I want so that's that's my perspective I'm one of seven but I'm I'm I'm I'm at the point where where we've made several requests in multiple ways um and I don't have enough data that I've requested to come back because I'm I was just getting ready to say can we find the price of phase one can we find the price of and I've asked that question before we shared that well I want to understand what phase two is going to cost so that we know what it is that we're going to anticipate costs with
214regard to Transportation with regard what is the building going to cost that's one of the reasons why I asked when we talked about Baseline funding we know what some of these buildings are going to cost us just to operate minimally that's what I need to know so that we can decide on you know what what what we're going to do moving forward so my opinion is it's it's I need more of the data that's been requested wellard member Craig I I will say this and and this is one area where I think I just share a very different philosophy about this I the administration's come to us on multiple occasions and asks us what our priorities are and we haven't given them a single one and to be quite honest I mean I think we
215can keep asking for date all we want to and that gets into the weeds and the numers but to board member Lindy's point at some point you really just want the administration with some guidance what our priorities are what we think are the most valuable things to bring back a presentation of those information based upon that and then we can certainly have the discussion around it but I think it's really hard to have them bring anything to the table anytime soon if we don't at least tell them what the table is supposed to look like and I think that's been our biggest problem is that nobody wants to say well let's get rid of the spoons because we don't need Spoons on our table anymore we all want to say well we want all the
216civilware we want all the plates we want all the cups and glasses and all the things there but we know we can't afford it we already know we know we can't afford it I think there is a value to bringing back more information yes but I think we are at a point where this Board needs to give a direction and and this happened last fall when we tried to we talked about the phase two and you had the superintendent pleading with us to give direction we've had this from Jen who is on multiple occasions over the over the last two years begged us to say what are we going to stop doing so that we can pay for the things that we want to do and to be quite honest last year this debacle of
217how we did our budget prove that we don't really want to make any decisions on what we don't want to do so I think we honestly need to have a little bit more clarity given to them and then yes they can bring back more information but we at least got to give them some direction to go in I think board member Lindy had his hand up first go ahead I'm fine thank you oh vice president uh vice president Bolton and then it's hard to break the um I want to say this and not sound too bitter but uh the reality is to have heard some of the conversation tonight it's amazing that we're where we are having just uh achieved the biggest changes in the last 10 or 12 years in the district it must
218be a really incompetent board to have done that and a really crappy uh superintendent and Treasurer because we have radically changed and redesigned the entire District now I will tell you this as one board member I'm going to be very happy to give anybody that wants one a really big cut list but when I do I don't want my colleagues to come in and tell me that was not my role board member Craig or Crosset um having been in your Ed Jen in in my career in different places I just got an idea I do kind of I agree with board me member Lindy and Weinberg where maybe they're looking for something to come back from the administration and I think it's interesting that you haven't gotten any direction from us I think we're at
219a point where we don't really know how to give the direction well enough so my suggestion is this if it's not too much work if if I'm walking walking in your shoes at this point I would I would put together a couple of different proposals if you get to some points where like oh I don't know if I can decide this one or that one maybe just give us a little bit of something to react to so that we can give you some direction if that's a helpful idea that's great thank you that it all right uh let's see we are moving right along we're at the point for board matters do board members have oh wait no never mind it's my turn so for board matters I just wanted to bring up to the
220board um I we did not hear back Miss Phyllis did not hear back from any board members around the joint CPS City meeting that was going to be held at 3 p.m. in March so we are moving it to April the 16th um she's we're going to take a part of our Cal so that um to board member Lindy who asked about academics we know that board members will be here from 4: to 6: so we're going to have that meeting at 5 o'clock on April the 16th beginning at 5 o'clock on April the 16 actually April the 16th of the city I might be having a mixed up um that one is going to start at 5:30 but you'll get some more information but mark your calendars for April the 16th we knew that
221we would have board members here for the Cal so we decided to put it there and that was a that the city talked about for the joint CPP CPS meeting is going to be part of the Cal Time March the 12th which will be um next week or a week and a half and that is going to be at 5:00 p.m again because we didn't hear back from board members to take up earlier time we're going to take up part of our time um for the joint CPS preschool promise meeting so mark your calendars board member Lindy um thanks I think that's not a great idea because I think that our focus on student outcomes is more important than the joint meeting with the city I understand that may be a minority perspective and I
222understand that the meeting will likely take place anyway but I wanted to make sure I shared that I think we dedicate that time to look at student outcomes as board I think that is the most important thing that we do and so I think it is a mistake to substitute that time towards uh an expansion well I shouldn't say expansion to the collaboration work that's trying to happen with the city thanks you're very welcome just to be clear and my apologies I should have been a clear the we will have some Committee of the whole meeting from 4: to 5: and then we will Begin The Joint meeting um unfortunately and that is for the preschool promise again I'm going to reiterate I said this two times in an email and I've said this once
223before Cincinnati preschool promise is looking to meet with Cincinnati Public Schools board so that we can begin to align on if and what a potential Levy would be that is a very important conversation that needs to happen and no board member responded back to a 3:00 meeting before our cow and so that is one of the reasons why we are taking the time up because that meeting needs to happen for The Joint City CPS meeting again we are going to begin from 4: to 5: and have academics and then have our joint meeting any other questions thank you for sharing your perspective though any other questions mark your calendars and Miss Phyllis will send out a um a calendar invite Mr Lindy you have a resolution adopting board policy I do I do um so
224we are trying to follow a process that we put in place with the policy committee last year which is that if changes to policy are routine or cosmet cosmetic is strong but um routine maintenance um not of major substance we are putting them in the consent agenda anybody can still read them anybody can still pull them out if we have a policy that is new or that is more substantive we're trying to list it separately on the agenda so that it gets more airtime and people can ask questions about it so this here is an example of one of those that is not routine uh and so I wanted to list it separately um just a tiny bit of context on this um this is an example of where the state legislature has required school
225districts to put in place a policy on something it is calling uh religious expression days um so on the one hand um the state uh is requiring us to get a policy in place allowing students to leave school for up to three days a year to engage in religious expression um now I think we had a really good good conversation in policy um about ways this might create some unintentional challenges and I wanted to just applaud the way council's office has kind of navigated this with us um here's what the concern was it was my concern the way the state law is written a school must offer up to three religious expression days uh I don't think it would be unreasonable to think a religious expression day is a holiday um apparently the state is
226using religious expression to mean something other than a holiday why does this matter it matters because of the up to three language um there are students who have religious backgrounds who would need to miss more than three days of school for observing holidays uh examples might include um I think most conservative Jews most Orthodox Jews could conceivably have more than three school days that would be religiously observed holidays we I was I was worried about passing a policy that would unintentional un um maybe inaccurately and unintentionally signal that you couldn't take more than three days for your religious background so I think that the um Stan and Stephanie had a brilliant way of rewriting the original draft so that it made clear that nothing in this policy is actually about holidays we have a separate
227policy that addresses holidays students of old different Faith backgrounds in Cincinnati public schools are able to honor those holidays um and that is a separate concern from the new state requirement around religious expression days so I think this is something we have to do uh I think there're probably more important things for us to talk about uh I think that the Council Office did a really nice job honoring the things that we value in CPS uh and so I'm excited to recommend this for passage this evening thank than you do board members have any questions board member Craig uh just really quickly and I I want to applaud this for being done I know this has been something the state put up I think it's also an example of where a state writes a bill
228in like very poorly uh it makes it very difficult for us to then pass policies that match up to what the bill is supposed to do um and so we dealt with this at UC as well and I think all the colleges have had to deal with this the same exact thing where the actual legislation passed is actually less than the protection you have under law before it was passed so I again will applaud you both applaud the committee and applaud uh general council's office for being able to navigate this because this is a wonderful fight that we end up happen because the state passes laws in a in a thought process of being bipartisan in some ways even um that don't always make sense when you actually have to apply them any other comments
229is there a motion to approve policy 5200.01 and this is a resolution adopting new board policy around attendance religious expression days yes so moved second second she did treasure Wagner Mr Craig yes Mr Crossett yes Mr Lindy yes Mrs Weinberg yes vice president Bolton president mofin yes a proposed consent agenda has been distributed Treasurer Wagner please maintain the list of any exceptions and the exception makers do board members Su the superintendent or Treasurer have any exception items to the consent agenda board member Weinberg I do have some exceptions page 7 section F line 10 page 8 section c line one and 8 page nine section c line 4 6 and nine any other is this the superintendent rex or the treasures Rex superintendent thank you any others all right I need a motion and a
230second to approve the items of the consent agenda so moved second thank you roll call Vote with uh for the consent agenda with revisions I'm sorry I was still writing I didn't get the who motioned and who seconded motion thank you second thank you Mr Craig yes Mr crosson yes Mr Lindy yes Mrs Weinberg yes vice president Bolton yes president maffin yes there were no inquiries or updates submitted do board members have any on the floor we're getting there guys you almost made that nine o' to the to the staff board members are there any assignments vice president Bolton I have it's an assignment like and a question I U the only part that was mine regarding that budget piece was that whether or not we wanted to extend the survey that we had on
231the initiatives so um assigning if it pleases the board to the administration to widen the scope and and uh widen the number of people that are being surveyed regarding the initiatives Why didn't it to may I ask to clarify like like the community great I don't I'm just we've got it to the lsdmc we've had 90 some folks out of the seven board members a couple have responded so if this pleases the board do we want to have this survey be extended uh as part of the engagement piece I think the administration said they were doing that the treasur and I talked about doing this during our uh virtual budget meetings do you need to make it an assign I mean I know I know they discussed it last meeting to do it last we
232heard was the 90 some so is it of interest to expand the survey remember cross it clarification initiatives or budget priorities are you talking about the initiatives that chart of the 25 that we've already surveyed okay so I'm I'm a little confused on your assignment are you asking the board members is their interest or are you assigning it to administ to complete I'm personally assigning it in public but if it doesn't please the board okay that's what I'm saying so I think it should be expanded and extended because I think it's good dialogue good discussion it's easier to understand than the 10 buckets or whatever okay for at least getting some sense not that we're going to do all these or or what have you but I think it's great to have a rating and
233a ranking if possible okay board member Craig I was just going to maybe clarify I think is the assignment that they continue to keep the uh survey open through these next few however long like I don't know if there's a time frame you might want to add on to to just ensure that um the work that they're doing that we just make sure that it's assigned out to keep it in consistency there with great idea board member Weinberg yes thank you board member Craig I was just going to ask that question as well wanting to see if there was a time frame on this particular assignment and if there is a time frame can we include that in the request as well I I think we should it's it's in part of our action plan
234that we have to pass a budget by June uh 30th but we also need to have uh some real clarification according to the administration through this month and really no later than this month so I through March or whatever would be reasonable because we have the budget engagement going up until spring break right you four March 13th is the last date okay it sounds it might be good I know that you mentioned some board members took it did you get 100% board member participate well I think we receed two okay so I think the first order of business before we direct the community to do the survey is to have the board members complete the survey it's separate I mean it's it's maybe send out a reminder I'm happy to send out one too but
235they don't necessarily read emails is any other assignments I will gladly entertain a motion for adjournment so moved is there a second second