001e e e everybody and welcome to the um February installment of the policy Committee for cincin Public Schools uh we will have uh before we conclude this meeting a hearing of the public for anyone who would like to share um Rob maybe we just do those instructions now would that be all right yep good morning if you'd like to speak during the speaking of the public session of the meeting please click the hand icon we ask your name and Association of the district and then at the end of the meeting we'll invite you in to speak for two minutes thank you great um so to um give just a an overview to our agenda this morning um when our policy committee met last year after Mr moraski stepped down um we put in place uh
002a kind of standing structure to our meetings which the committee decided to keep in place then this calendar year and so every time you join us you should see the same couple of sections um we're going to start by making our way through our tri-annual review of all the policies and CPS uh um led by our uh council's office um some months we may have quite a bit in that section some months we may have very little um we will then have a section where um any any board member can ask that our committee take up any issue that they would like um uh our board staff Phillis was very helpful in collecting requests that we cover over the first six months of 25 so you'll see those that are there um we won't talk
003about all of those this morning but we'll make through we'll make our way through them over the course of the six months um and then we have some space for anything we haven't finished anything gets assigned to us from a board meeting uh a little bit of flexibility space if we need it uh we'll hear from anyone in the public who would like to share um and then we will conclude so um in that spirit I think we can start with council's office for the uh item that we have on today's agenda yeah thank you uh so actually on our standing policy review we are now through all the employment policies so um uh we will start uh kind of with the next uh three-year review uh section I think it'll probably be either the
0042000 section or the I believe it's the 6,000 section but uh for today we have one that is actually a carryover from the December meeting uh board member map had made some suggestions to our um District school community Partnerships policy um that we did not get to this in the January meeting um but uh looking for the policy committee's approval to go uh forward on just a couple of changes to the district school Community Partnerships policy the the changes that board member map suggested was that all Partnerships should have a contract memor or memorandum of understanding in place before services are rendered that Partnerships should be always in compliance with our conflict of interest policy and excuse me that schools must ensure that consent forms are in place for students participating in partner programming so
005yeah I would just add that I think you summarized that uh very uh very well and so just open it up for comments from um board member Lindy or uh board member Weinberg um to add any additional feedback as uh General Council stated this is a carryover um from our previous meeting Mrs Weinberg anything on your end um I don't have anything to add I do appreciate thank you board member map for bringing this up and adding the additions espec especially excuse me um the ability to have the consent forms on file and making sure that we have those Spilled Out Etc so thank you for that absolutely thank you nothing additional to me on substance just on process is this ready to go forward yes great um would you like to see it in
006the consent agenda would you like to see it listed separately uh I think this is an item for the consent agenda right either seems great to me um anything else on that front Council that you would like to no that's what great that's what we needed great okay so um as we move to section three on topics submitted by board members um um my suggestion would be um I I don't have a maybe it maybe that um Kendra you or Mrs Weinberg H have some context on um the entries that came from Dr Moffet I do not yet um if you do have some let's talk about them this morning if you don't I think we could te them up for March um because we just we frankly had just very I think we had
007something like 10 last last year and we have like three now um and we have Mrs Weinberg and so we could do um we could do that third bullet this morning um and then we could come back to one and two unless either of you know um more about what Dr Mofford wants us to take up um so I am not um particularly certain at the moment so I think it would be helpful for her to maybe provide some context I do think um for the I guess just maybe for the immigration policies just given the fact that there's been obviously concern about um you know what we would do as a district to support our uh students and families in that regard so I'm sure that's probably some context around it and then I
008know as far as um just for the transgender student protections under the parent Bill of Rights from the governor um I don't have much context around it but I do know that this is something that to some degree has come up as we were talking about the mental health and wellness policy um as it pertains to confidentiality because this will require if I'm and you can correct me on this but this will require us to inform parents um about uh if there's any changes or any concerns pertaining to uh a student's um uh sexual identity or orientation and so um limiting us or uh providers or professionals to from having that con uh conversation and so I know that there's a challenge as it pertains to kind of that mental health and wellness scope um
009because um according to our professional ethics um we uh have a requirement and responsibility to maintain and protect confidentiality unless there is imminent harm or danger and so this would kind of serve as a direct conflict as it pertains to that so I don't necessarily have from um Dr moffett's um perspective um the areas that maybe she wanted to elevate but I just know that that is a uh area of conversation for us especially as it aligns with the mental health and wellness policy and then I'm sorry I'd like to add in that I do think that we should definitely connect with President Moffett to see you know what exactly did she want to kind of discuss and even invite her to attend for the next meeting so that she can give her input or
010you know provide us with the input and the clarity uh for the March meeting so that we are um on the same page of what she's asking for or requesting or trying to um seek out further you know information moving forward thank you Mrs Weinberg um Council was there anything that you you were preparing I'm not there's no expectation on on my end I just anything you wanted to say on either immigration or transgender yeah so on immigration I'll take I'll take the immigration piece um I I included just on the board docks two policies that are currently in effect and that we've been training actively training our uh School staff on W with respect to there there is a lot of concern as you know in the community and the schools about how uh
011there could be uh increased immigration enforcement so the the two policies I wanted to point out to the board are 5111 which requires as the law does that CPS enroll students regardless of their immigration status and and so just to read from that policy students who meet other enrollment criteria shall be admitted regardless of immigration status it's not just the board's policy That's the Law it's been the law since 1981 a Supreme Court case um it's based on the Constitution it's not based on an executive order or an act of Congress so it is we are not doing anything wrong by enrolling students regardless of their immigration status we are required to by law and will continue to be because of that so a training point that we've made to our schools principles assistant principles
012clerks is that immigration status is really irrelevant to us and so when students and families enroll we do not have a need nor should we be asking for documents or other information about their immigration status it's it's simply not a relevant piece of information as as families enroll into schools third and last piece and and I attached one other policy which is 5540 uh it's titled interrogation of students but I think more generally it applies to law enforcement activities in school and again this is current board policy it's been long-standing board policy that the board's strong preference is that agencies should investigate alleged violations of the law off school property and outside of instructional time if at all possible and that that applies to criminal investigations it applies to JFS investigations it applies to immigration
013investigations that our our preference is to keep that out of the schoolhouse there are exigent circumstances particularly in JFS investigations where the only way a JFS investigator is able to speak to a child who might be um in um being harmed at home yeah it's Job and Family Services just people who may not yeah uh that where where that is the only place that kids can be interviewed and in that case what our policy says is that an adult has to remain in the room with the child but across the board our our practice policy longstanding standing kind of um way of going about things has been to urge law enforcement agencies to do any investigations outside of school so that that's that's how we've been training folks we do feel uh that we have
014policies in place that address these and that's what we've been training folks on there are some school boards and and others who have put in place much more specific policies that relate to immigration but wanted you to know that we feel equipped to train folks even even with our existing policy I appreciate the uh call out for the second policy that you mentioned as it pertains to um interfacing with law enforcement and what our um position and our stance is on that so I don't know um I don't know if there needs to be any mention anywhere else but I do think that like you said we're covering the basis with already having policies in place um recognizing that we support all of our students regardless of immigration status as well as this is how
015we would move forward in the event that there was concerned about their status thanks um thanks Dan um so what I'm what I what I have here is that we will um slot both of the first two bullets there for March um and just invitation again uh we have space board members if there is anything else that you would like like us to take up in these six months um um we don't need to uh but we we do have space for it um Mrs Weinberg would you like to talk about the third bullet this is the um house bills yeah um I just wanted to have an update um regarding any pertinent you know house bills any changes um pertaining to the district and um I guess just alerting us so that we are
016um in a place of transparency and um having Clarity to move forward so that was just my ask from our lobbyists so I'm not quite sure were they able to attend were they able to give an update were they able to provide Dan anything so uh our lobbyists are not here today um could ask them to come to a future meeting Stephanie and we included in the materials uh Stephanie and actually with some help from our intern as well Sarah Buckley uh we've put together a memo um that's been shared with leadership and and Stephanie can talk about it but it relates to uh some of the biggest impact bills that uh have recently been enacted in Ohio and if I'm sorry and as you see as you go through the memo you'll see some
017of the effective dates um for some of the policy so I know sorry we tried to summarize um kind of some of the bills um coming up and their their effect active date or inactive dates um in the in the memo so I know one of the questions um was around um our transgender Pro our transgender students and some of the bills that may be affecting um those students which would be included in the parents Bill of Rights which the bill itself becomes effective in April um but the actual policy that we're required to adopt doesn't have to be in place until July 1st so we're in the process still of just kind of reviewing our policies um seeing if there's any type of you know what guidance we would do differently so on and
018so forth so um but just wanted to at least just provide a summary of what the bills kind of their um intentions are so happy to answer any questions but we tried to summarize all that we could um just as kind of a um an update thank you um so much on that can I just ask board member Lindy what was um exactly my ask because I thought that I had asked if we could have um our legislating our lobbyists come to present or at least provide us an update can you remind me on what the ask was as of last month um what make sure that I'm on the same page as well yeah what I had Mrs Weinberg is that we would talk about that together today uh and H happy to do
019that I think um um is just from from my persp perspective uh looking back over the last five plus I guess years I've been here there has been some confusion in the past about who the lobbyists report to uh I'm certainly I'd like to make sure that we're getting updated information I have no problem with them coming and presenting but I would like to ask the superintendent what she would like to do with them because they report to her and and if they do come I wanted us to have a conversation about um we we don't give them instructions um because they're hired by the district uh and and the contract goes to the superintendent not the board I my hunch is that that's that's consistent with everything you were imagining and that we could
020set up a way that gets all of those things done but that that's part of the conversation I wanted us to have today no that would be great and whether it's um maybe an assignment that I need to then make in our full board session I just thought that I had requested that but maybe I didn't but I would love to have a perspective from um their Insight because they are actually you know dealing with it um each and every day and so I just want to make sure that whatever is going down the pipeline that we are up to standards and that we understand and know what we need to do um from a policy standpoint yeah and and I think um I think the next thing that should happen there is somebody just
021needs to ask the superintendent uh any concerns with them coming and sharing updates with the policy committee um I think you you should feel totally from my perspective you should feel totally free to do that um and I can't imagine that you would say no um but then once once we've got the superintendent okay on that uh I think having them come as available uh sounds great okay that would be great and I can um definitely work on that and uh thank you great uh and it's it's like I think it's a good topic um Mrs Weinberg because it's not like there are a small number of things happening there's a very large number of things happening absolutely and I think um I just think that I think like uh I would like to see
022us to the extent that we can become more proactive with what we're trying to do in Columbus as opposed to reactive right and I think that that I I am I am I am skeptical of our ability to do that well if their team is taking cues from the board because we only meet once a month in this committee twice a month the full board and there are seven of us you know but reporting to one person uh who I think could plan ahead you know we could we could hopefully get something that is more strategic and forward looking in place absolutely and so I just also wanted to thank Dan and Stephanie for the updates that they did provide so thank you both um I did want to speak to House Bill 206 and
023I do know it's on here for discussion but since we're kind of going through some of those uh or going through the conversation about um these updated uh we have a very short agenda I think you can go wherever where ever you would like whatever you would like we can finish early so I I am curious just in reading this it says this law allows schools to create a policy authorizing the superintendent to expel student for up to 100 day 180 days so this is not saying that it has to be an absolute 180 days because that would be basically a full school year right um and and the reason I'm asking this so it sounds like it's reading in terms of the superintendent has a discretion to determine how long for whatever the infraction
024is to make the determination about how how many days they are suspended or from school or possibly expelled and I'm I'm asking this question because I'm thinking about just our lens and our focus on the like restorative practice um piece and so how it would align with that so I definitely think for these type of infractions absolutely there needs to be consequences in place right because you're the individual may be imposing um imminent harm or danger or threat but also how do we still align that restorative piece here so I'm just trying to get more perspective um from you all well I'll start but Stephanie's been working on this also so this is a new statute it is a new the first thing that would have to happen is the board would have to authorize
025the superintendent by changing board policy so this is a new um it relates to a new ability to suspend or expel students for these specific actions one one thing we'll say is there is currently sort of a hole in the Ohio Revised Code and even in our own board policies with respect to um the law says that you can suspend or expel for a period of up to a year for a firearm or for a bomb threat bomb threats are are sort of that that those happened in like the 80s and the 90s and the whatever that sorry you need me to oh oh okay um the the current thing that is sort of equally disruptive to a school environment is like a school shooting threat and there has been some back and forth between
026school attorneys and uh attorneys representing students in discipline hearings saying that there is no ability under current law to suspend a student for a long period of time for a very disruptive school shooting threat so that's one thing that this statute does is it updates the law to the kind of modern School environment but the other thing it does is creates this new possibly very lengthy suspension expulsion for a student and so yeah the board is going to have to weigh in on whether we want to add that to the array of discipline consequences that could be administered to a student um we had hoped to get some feedback from the the discipline committee which is a committee that uh consists of teachers um administrators principes um our PBIS Crew That's like um folks who
027work for minisha house uh but also some Outsiders Elaine Fink from um uh legal aid uh is on the committee so this is a long-standing committee that has sort of advised the district on Discipline matters and they they have this as an agenda item to talk about um and may get some uh perspective they were supposed to talk about it last night but I think the meeting was postponed so um that that's to the extent the board is looking to hear some feedback from the discipline committee we can offer that as well at some point and I would just that again this particular bill again is a a board May adopt so it is we have the option of whether or not um but again it it fills one Gap as Dan was explaining as
028far as you know kind of modernizing how we Define a threat but it does come with additional conditions and so we tried to list that in the summary as well because if you adopt the bill then the conditions are not aay the the conditions are we must follow so there's some additional requirements as far as like re um assessment by licensed psychologist there's some conditions that have to be in place and there's kind of a even like a protocol and a procedure that we have to follow so that's so again as Dan was saying that those are some of the things that the board would probably want away because while we have the option to add this particular um this particular change it does come with some additional requirements very prescriptive so it's some additional
029requirements that we currently wouldn't necessarily have to document as it's requesting we do here okay this is really helpful feedback and um I I'm hoping that it would be okay if the discipline committee did provide some updates or just conversation around how this is um progressing um so if that is okay with everyone else um that is something that I would like to see thanks sounds great um so just taking stock of where we are we've done the uh standing policy review items we have talked through topics submitted by board members we've done the last on the continued discussion new assignment items then we just got a handful of others we did the last two we did both of the last two you are right look at that we only have three laps okay um
030yeah and then I think under other under other business there I was I had asked um Mr hoing if we might hear just a little bit about the uh dear colleague letter that came from the uh new Administration in Washington about um you that whole set of issues at the end like and and we can I can't imagine this will be the last time we talk about this but we talk about it for a minute um okay so on 12:40 um uh Kendra Mrs Weinberg you may remember last time um we were trying to figure out what it was that Eve had wanted us to discuss when it came to 1240 in policy I did have a chance to speak with her yesterday about what the concerns were and so I wanted to bring those
031back um there is this section [Music] um I really appreciate whoever in if this is Stephanie if this is Dan if this is Phyllis but whoever makes it so easy to find the policies on board docs when we're talking about them who who is that Cathy Cathy um well and then just want to say thank you like it's it's very easy to navigate in these meetings to find the language that we want to look at um and I've been in a lot of meetings and that's not always the case and so I really I really just want to say thank you and I appreciate that um so uh in 1240 there is a in in part two in the second paragraph uh it says uh when in talking about the superintendent's goals that at minimum
032um these goals will include focus on improving opportunities for African-American students latinx students students of color and L income students um Eve had shared her concern with me that that language can be alienating in some way to students who don't fit into some of those categories um she mentioned for example gay students concerns about gender uh Equity uh transgender students gifted students um and thought that um the language we should have here should encourage us to set goals across the board or leaving no students out or in some way not over dialing on one and under dialing on another um so that was her concern and that was the the piece of language that she wanted us to look at um you know I I know we talked explicitly about this in drafting this policy
033and Kendra you and Jim and I were of accord that it was important we even rewrote it from the original version so that it would be the language that's in here um I I have to say that from my perspective I I think the point that Eva is making is reasonable like I don't think it it's it's like without basis or or weird in some way I do happen to disagree with it um I think that you either to do something other than this I only see two I see two other options you could put more groups in here or you could have no groups in here um and I think the challenge with the more groups approach is the more goals you set the harder it is to focus on any one of them
034I think I've shared the story with this group before but when I joined the board the reports that we were getting from the superintendent you had to print them on a legal sheet of paper in very small font just to fit all of the goals on one sheet of paper um and so I think this process of of forcing focus is really important um and I think given uh the history of education in this country and in Cincinnati this is a really important place for us to focus um it makes me worried about a version of the policy that has no group specified um for for similar reasons so like I'm just one person um if if if the majority majority of my colleagues feel differently we will suggest something else um but I wanted
035to hear whats thought so I I appreciate you for sharing um um Eve's perspective on this and I do also recall as very having having very intense conversations um in the policy meeting as well as with the full board and just another point to add is that the other reason why we focused on this is because it aligns with our goals and our guard rails and so we wanted to make sure that we were uh being strategic in elevating that and also we know that there are um areas um that we need to close our gaps for our students and so I still stand by this language and making sure that we specifically call these uh these uh areas out um again it's as we talked about it's not to um it's not to exclude
036but at the same time making sure that we're being targeted with the students that we recognize are having some of those challenges and there also may be a lot of intersectionality as we're con you know considering these uh these uh students of focus so I would still like to see it reading as such because again I think it strongly aligns with our goals and our guard reils and so um I want to make sure that we're honoring that and and I guess in down the line if the Dynamics change um for said boards to change the policy because maybe there's a certain uh Focus area I think that would be okay to do but at this current time I do think that it's helpful considering that this is um a huge population of our students
037and as the data continues to reflect we are really trying to work to improve the outcomes for these particular students in these categories and I think I would like to just add you both really um said some great things um I'm curious uh did Vice President Bolton have any suggestions in terms of specific wording and if she did can that be shared if she didn't that's fine I am still going to um state that I agree with the verbage as is I think it definitely targets and hits the goals that we um have stated and I would be okay with leaving it as is and I appreciate her for suggesting and wanting wanting to include others but I think in this particular goal we wanted to be very um targeted and very specific so I
038would be okay with um sticking with the verbage that we have currently thanks Mrs Weinberg uh I'm just making a note of that to make sure I share an update on this at our next board meeting and did did she provide anything suggest suggestions when she brought this topic up okay she did not if I had to take my best guess based on what she was sharing I think think she would prefer that the language just come out rather than add it add something else in there but I I but I but Mrs wber you're asking a good question and I might be wrong um but I appreciate what you were saying about um the way it's written thank you yeah um so that is the first bullet under continued discussions we have second bullet
039which is uh mental health Wellness uh yeah so this is really just an update so last uh Friday I was we had the opportunity to meet to talk about the policy with uh several members that are providing support um in several domains of Mental Health and Social and emotional Wellness so I I really want to say thank you to Stephanie and Dan for helping to facilitate this meeting so we were able to um connect with uh Miss banka gay who is our uh lead school counselor uh Miss Naomi maderas who is our lead School social worker um we received input from our um our community partner mind piece we had uh Dr M minisha house as well as we had uh our lead school psychologist Miss Sarah English and so it really help to just
040create some robust discussion about how we are able to um begin to organize the policy and really reflect from everyone's respective um practice and scope um how this uh should work in terms of drafting the policy and so really last week we were able to um provide some organization inst structure to just defining everyone's role so everyone is aware of what um each provider or support um offers to our students and how they are a benefit and how they are helped to our students and so that's really where we uh started and so we still have some more work to do but just wanted to give uh an update and just let you all know that it was such a great meeting we were all able to be collaborative and um just add that perspective
041um to what would be helpful to supporting our students as well as our staff with the mental health and wellness policy and Stephanie if there's anything that you want to add she was definitely uh helpful in organizing and changing language and documenting um things within the draft um so I appreciate your support and we were scheduled to have a meeting this week um on I think Tuesday Tuesday or Wednesday but unfortunately I did have to resched the meeting yeah the only other thing I was going to add um to a board member mat was saying as she just emphasized in the end is we recognized as we were discussing the policy that the that the intention of the policy is for both students and staff and so we wanted to make sure that we were
042doing both kind of um sections of within our district um a service by making sure we were addressing because the needs of students would be slightly different from the needs of our staff or and things of that nature so then there were some sections where we were kind of trying we were combining it and so um having that call out that we needed to make sure that we were addressing staff needs as well I thought was really important yeah thank you for that and and really what you all see um on on the screen or what we've been discussing before as I shared with the team that was just literally a brain up let's put all of our thoughts out right on paper and then we can begin to work collaboratively to restructure and organized
043what we ultimately would want this policy to um look like and so again it it really uh yielded some very robust conversation and so I look forward to being able to bring this back um once we have a chance to meet again sounds great sounds great Phyllis if you're watching a recording of this and putting the minutes together um if you could capture that for our next policy committee meeting um next month um okay I think we're down to religious expression days which I know we talked about last time a little bit uh and um we have an update let me find that I believe that we again this is um one of the uh policies um that did come out of a recent legislation that that each school is required to adapt a policy
044that reasonably accommodates the sincerely held religious beliefs and practices of our students so the policy that we review last month pretty much again came straight from the legislation how it's IND dictating the language that it wanted us to include um but specifically for these religious expression days um up these up to three days is what um is required in regards to us being able to accommodate um students as it relates to this particular legislation and we keep referring it to it that way is because we feel that again our current policies really already address you know excused absences for students for Bonafide religious days so again the but the actual policy itself is required for us to have and so um this is more so for us to be in compliance of what um from
045a legal standpoint um but we but the last meeting we were asked to change um kind of Midway down um that it reflect up to three days as as as opposed to the language it said not more than three days and then also we added at the end um we wanted to just reiterate because I think the question was try to define the difference between the two policies and it's really difficult to do that because again we feel like we're already addressing this concern so instead we just added a sentence at the end of the policy just basically saying that this would not prevent the district from approving students absences for religious holidays as already provided in our board policy 5200 attendance um so again so it doesn't limit us to these three days if
046there was a need for more than um three are we have another policy that already addresses that so hopefully that addressed the concerns from the from the last policy meeting whether there any other questions about this one I know that most of these concerns were mine I'm happy to go first unless Kendra or Mrs Weinberg want to go um uh yeah no I I think uh first of all thank you I think these um I think these um changes completely address the issues that I was bringing up last time I appreciate it I think just for anybody who was not here last time or was watching this later and did not watch the first one um I think there are to be sure students in CPS who have uh a religious background that will involve
047more than three religious holidays that fall on CPS school days um examples include but are certainly not limited to conservative and Orthodox Jews uh and if that's the case I don't want us to put in policy something that makes it look like you can't take we think you can't take those days off of school um uh and what I appreciate that about the way that the council's team and um Stephanie thank you for doing this um you know it [Music] um I think it's written like the law the statute itself is confusing and I appreciate you all pointing that out last time I think this does what we can to keep it from being as confusing un um inadvertently misleading um uh for for folks who were part of our community so thank you um
048Kendra anything on your end or Mrs weberg I don't have anything I I have a question about something and it does it necessarily relate to this but in some aspects it do it does so I know that there was um as we were talking about the uh updates the house bill updates um there was something in terms of language that was saying that we had to have a policy that would allow students to um be excused to take maybe religious courses off site um and I don't have all the specifics to it so maybe you can speak to that um but I am curious to know does that in any way um impact what we have in policy here I can't remember the say no because in some ways we felt as though this specific
049the religious expression days is really addressing things that we already have addressed in our current policy so again if a student has a Bonafide religious reason to be excused from school whether that be a religious holiday or an activ activity we already have policies in place that allow them to be excused for that reason so for the religious holidays it's the it's part of our attendance policy and there's another one about the religious expression Dan's looking it up right now but there's a separate policy um that talks about um religious instruction outside of school but again so it's already addressed so again our Our intention is not to make it more difficult for students to be excused for these reasons and so that's why we've kind of added this additional language to make sure that
050that That Remains the Same I mean that's kind of been our policy and practice of the school District already okay does that answer the question yeah it's it's 5223 is the absences for religious instruction I think the new requirements that you're talking about come from the parents Bill of Rights law which is not yet effective we don't need those policies in place until July and we will check and double check this but I believe the only thing the law changed there was that it used to be discretionary on the board as to have uh absences for religious instruction policy now it's mandatory we do have one already so I I don't think there's changes needed but we'll double check that before July 1 when we got to have this in place all right perfect thank
051you great Mrs Weinberg anything on your end uh I don't have no I don't have anything thank you for asking great um so then I think um Dan and Stephanie this one's weird enough that I feel like we should listen to separately yeah set okay okay any any concerns like so so we we'll put it through at the next board meeting but list it say again please definitely okay to move forward I'd like to list it not in the consent agenda um thank you listen great great um so we've got uh one done two done three done four done I believe Rob we're at hearing of the public do we have any speakers we have an inperson person great hi good morning uh my name is Michelle Dunn with the Cincinnati Federation of teachers and
052I just wanted to speak to um the issue of state or actually add into the discussion the impact of federal uh education policy as it relates to cide Public Schools some of you may have heard um that the current administ ation in the federal government is considering eliminating the Department of Education uh they've also um are passed I know a letter was sent to the district I believe about um Dei language um federal law now prohibiting covered entities from using race in any decisions pertaining to admission hiring promotion compensation financial aid scholarship prizes administrative support discipline housing graduation ceremonies and all other aspects of student academic and campus life this covers K through2 as well I know it's not fully implemented but if it were to become implemented the discussion you had about the superintendent
053evaluation for example could be an example the federal government could say you are using considerations of race in promotional considerations I just it's a warning to say these discussions are happening at the federal level I think it would be wise to ask the lobbyist to not only advise the board and the community on how to Grapple with or respond to state laws but also what we're hearing from the federal government of course because this could impact our access to title and idea funds federal funds that we rely on in our district um it it's so unfortunate that we have to like take this up but it could actually really happen and have a real impact on our practices and policies um as we operate as a district and I would just say that the Cincinnati
054Federation of teachers is keeping a close eye on all federal and state laws as well um we track what's going on we have um lobbyists through our Ohio Federation of teachers and others our American Federation of teachers who are are really going to the mat both in litigation and Beyond to fight back against what we see is really anti-public education policy um I just want to mention March 4th is a national day of action for for public education um it's in its formative stages right now uh we're planning something um you might have been around a few years ago when we did a walk-in which was like we love our Public Schools walk-in we're imagining maybe something similar um so we haven't um talked to the super intendent yet or anything it's it's a it's
055a very kind of Grassroots driven National Action to kind of show support and also to say we don't want our department of education to be dissolved we uh rely on their important support and to kind of uh engage community and parents around um these Federal uh decisions around our schools so I just wanted to mention those couple things thanks for the opportunity thank you very much uh and R you said no online speakers okay great on that issue uh Dan and I had chatted yesterday just about the dear colleague letter that came out from the feds I know there's only one piece of that bigger picture but do you want to share any perspective you share sure and I have copies if um others want to see it obviously we're uh monitoring it closely also
056um I I think at its core the letter says that put simply I mean I'm quoting educational institutions May neither separate or segregate students based on race nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race and we don't and haven't and work hard to avoid um uh discriminating or dis having disperate benefit benefits based on race I'm not sure that's exactly the way the administration uh viewed their uh the author of this letter thought of it I I think probably more concerning is the piece that that says that uh Dei programs in their view uh deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school um I think that's a harder case to make and um you know I I assume the administration will be making it but at this time we've not
057changed any of our board policies we've not been directed to change any of our board policies and we are following all policies so and I appreciate that I do have a perspective on this and I'm just one person um but I I think that any absent some seismic change in law I don't understand how the current Administration could accurately deprive us of federal funding for any of the things that CPS is currently doing and so my perspective is we should continue to do the things that we think are the right things to do for children and if we wind up in court we wind up in court um but I'm I am not inclined to make changes of any kind um given that de colleague letter like nor nor nor am I inclined to like
058pass a whole bunch of new things to go pick a fight you know because I think we we we've put care and thought and intention into the equity policy into the anti-racism policy into the part of the superintendent eval policy that we wrote into lots of other things we have here um and um uh you know I sleep well at night on that front um and if people feel people feel differently I'm I'm very open but would curious what other board members think yeah you shared my sentiments uh exactly so I don't disagree with what You' stated and I'm just agree I have the same feelings as well great so that was easy um I'm sure that's the only time we'll hear about this over the course of the next six months to a year
059um okay I have no other business does anyone else have any other business or anything that we are missing okay um having no other business before us