001Okay. How was that? It's been helping you share it. All right, I think we're ready to call the meeting to order. Um, welcome everyone that's in attendance tonight. Um, the reason that I'm in the chair seat tonight is because Chair Lewis is on her way to meet her grandbaby, um, Jasper Wayne Lewis, and we wish, um, her whole family all the best as in this exciting time. So, um, she'll be there shortly if she's not already arrived. So, um, all right. I'm going to recognize the clerk to read the meeting protocols and to call the role. Thank you, Madame Vice Chair. We are live streaming tonight. Just wanted everybody to be aware of that. We do ask that those that have microphones at their seats. When you speak, please turn your mic on. And when
002you're finished speaking, please turn your microphone off. And for everyone, if you need to have an extended conversation with the person next to you or on your phone, please do so in the lobby. Please note, spontaneous comments from the floor are not permitted. Individuals who exhibit disruptive or distracting behavior will be asked to leave. With that, I will call the role. Paula Lewis, Carol Thompson, Lori Bowman, present. Jessica Suentes, Dana Meister. Mike Shelton, present. Juan Lakuna, present. Meg Melhaney, present. We have a quorum. Excellent. So, the next order of business is 2.0. 01 special business consider taking action on the fiscal year 2024 audit report. So at this time I'm going to um recognize Clint Everheart um who will in introduce the auditor and make a presentation. Thanks Clint. Thank you. I'd like to introduce
003Tony. He is with RSM, our external auditors, and he has a a short presentation to provide tonight and then uh it will be for the the board for approval of the audit. Good evening. Thank you for your time this evening, board members. My name is Tina Roto. I am uh a senior director with RSM and I'm the engagement leader for the district's uh financial statement audit and I'm here tonight to present the results of the FY2024 audit and we've prepared a brief presentation. The presentation itself covers two parts the audit results as well as end of audit required communication. So in terms of the audit itself like uh Clint indicated the audit is complete. We've issued an unqualified opinion. What does that mean? That's the highest level of assurances that we can provide on a
004financial statement audit. And as previously indicated, as part of the audit itself, we were also required to look at the federal funds. Uh this presentation doesn't so much cover that, but we also completed the single audit part of the financial statement audit, and that will be released uh consistent with the issuance of the financial statement audit. As part of the overall audit approach when we started back in November, back in the fall sometime, we start with a risk assessment. We get together with with management. We gain an understanding of what the district's doing, what the district has done, and where the district is in terms of financial statement audit results. We do a risk assessment. As part of that risk assessment, we uh come up with our overall audit approach. As part of that audit
005approach, we uh also look at the internal control environment. Now when we look at the internal control environment, we do that to gain efficiencies throughout the audit, not so much to issue an opinion on internal controls. And uh we're required to report any significant changes that we came across as part of that plan audit strategy. It's always good when you have none. So we're happy to say that we had no significant changes to the overall plan audit strategy. In terms of significant risk, when we started back then, we also identified significant risk. those uh what is a significant risk? Those are just areas of the audit which deemed additional attention and back then when we did the risk assessment we identified of course your your federal funds a lot of the the revenue that's coming
006in for the federal funds that did require additional attention. Uh and the the other area is of course your pension liability. That's a significant number. Uh so we paid attention to that and brought in extra help to help us with the assessment on that. And of course, the other one, it's not unique to the district. It's just management override of controls. That's that's pretty standard on any audit. We look at management override of internal controls. We looked at that as well. And as I indicated, there were no changes to that significant uh overall assessment that was done, which that is a good thing. In terms of new accounting policies and procedures, uh there were none that were adopted during the period that we audited. In terms of uncorrected or corrected adjustments or internal control matters,
007we did have some and there is a slide further down the the the presentation that outlines those adjustments. On the internal control matters, they're not listed here, but they are part of that separate deliverable. And that separate deliverable is the compliance audit that has to be submitted to the feds. We've outlined those control deficiencies in that deliverable itself. So that is the audit results. Any any questions before I move on to required communication? Under required communication, as part of every audit, we're uh supposed to bring to your attention the overall conduct of the audit. Were there any issues or matters that were required to report or uh accounting policies or practices that were not consistent with GAAP uh and and the district's financials? And as you can see here, they're all nos. That's that's definitely
008good in terms of uh the accounting policies and practices that are that are followed. They're consistent with what the district's policies, procedures are, and they're consistent with GAAP, which is the reporting framework that they're in. Uh in terms of significant or unusual transactions, we did not come across uh any significant or unusual transactions that we're required to report to to the board. Uh significant accounting estimates. This is another area as part of every audit. Again, it's not unique to the district, but as part of every audit, we're required to bring to your attention significant uh accounting estimates that are derived by management. And uh the biggest one that I'll point out is your your pension liability, your net pension liability. There are a lot of parties that get involved in deriving that final estimate and
009it is a huge number. I mean it's it's north of 300 million. Uh as part of the audit, not only does the audit team look at uh how the numbers are rolling up, but we also bring in actuaries of our own to look at the economic and demographic assumptions to make sure that they're consistent with the plan itself. And again, we we understand that this is a cost sharing plan. So in terms of the district having a lot of control over the inputs that go in, you're kind of limited. You're you're you're given a number at the state level that you have to incorporate into your financials. But needless to say, we still involve our actuaries to ensure that there's nothing that's out of line. And uh everything that we looked at seemed uh uh
010proper and consistent with that valuation that was completed. As uh stated earlier, u this was the audit adjustment that we're required to bring to your attention. It is material, so we have to call it out. Um and again, this was just the reason you see two. It's because as part of the audit, we look at your uh opinion units. And what we mean by that is you have your general fund plus all your other other funds that you're reporting. So when we issue the opinion, it's not just on your general fund, but it's also on your major opinion units. So here, that's why we have to call out the building fund, which is an opinion unit, and then the governmentwide. The governmentwide being it's where all your fund levels rose up into a single column
011of the district. So that's why it's reflected as two here, not that you had two adjustments. uncorrected misstatements. As part of the audit, we're also required to point out anything that we came across that we know about that was not corrected. This is something that the district was aware of before we even started. So, when we started the work and uh we completed our testing, this was over the accounts payable area. Um there were some items that the district did not assess. These are immaterial items. They knew about it. They told us that there would be some some area some items in there that they weren't going to pay attention to because they weren't material and we agreed with that. These were immaterial items. And again, the reason you see two, it's because it's impacting
012two funds, the bond fund and then the the aggregate uh non- major funds. And what that is, the aggregate non- major funds is all the other funds that are not major kind of roll up into one column as aggregate non- major funds. observations about the audit process. Again, a lot of nos, which is always good. Uh significant issues discuss discussed with management. There were none disagreements with management, none difficulties, none. Uh I mean overall it other than the fact that there there were there was delays and and resource constraints, uh the audit was pretty smooth. The one area that uh we've been uh made aware of that we we should emphasize at the end of every audit and and that is independence. And that is because of the fact that independence is a two-way street.
013Meaning we we we it's not just us that have to m be aware maintain independence to do the independent audit but management and the uh the board itself also has to be uh made aware of the fact that if if you if you come across any relationships that uh that are with uh RSM that may result in uh independents being impaired. You you have to be aware of those. So this is more of an awareness slide of hey we do an independent audit. We have policies and procedures in place as a firm to ensure that we maintain that independence, but management and the board has to be aware of the fact that you can't just go out and hire RSM to do a special project because that may impair independence. Again, not that that happens,
014but it's just some it's just awareness that we have to bring to the attention of audit committees, boards, and of course management. That concludes our uh our presentation. The other thing that we're required to to bring to your attention is in terms of written communication which you typically do not see is at the end of every audit we uh were required to obtain a management representation to ensure that everything that we asked about and we talked about that we received and there was nothing that was pretty much kept from us as part of the overall audit process. That concludes the presentation. Any any questions? Dana, I know earlier my mic is blinking red and green. So, sorry. I know earlier that we had to delay the uh acceptance of it. Can you explain what why
015the delay any? Yeah, this is you know I love doing financial statement audits. The one thing that I don't like is the fact that there are so many people involved and that we all have to come together and the timeline has to work. And I think that this year that's what happened is you know you lay out the timeline and you work towards that timeline. But on on our end, we didn't have the resources lined up because the way it works is we start back in the fall and you start with with your with your staff level people gathering everything that's needed and as as the work is being completed that work has to be be reviewed timely and you know things happen and uh as a matter of fact we were telling I was
016telling Clint that we were fortunate to to to to find someone to to help us get it through the finish line, but it was a resource issue. It was not so much that uh you know the audit if we had all the resources available, we could have been done in February, but it just didn't materialize. Okay. Thank you. Question. Yeah, Mike. Thank you. Uh my question is along the same same lines. Um cuz you've been doing Oklahoma City public schools audit for how long? It's been more than five for sure. Can because you didn't have the um resources, the staff resources to and you're saying RSM didn't have the resources. It was not because Oklahoma City public schools was not prepared. Correct. Correct. Correct. My my question to you is is that can this audit
017be trusted because you were late? I would say definitely. I mean, I I stepped into these shoes. I inherited this audit this last year and Clint and I were talking about what do you have to do to get it done on time? And it's all about starting early. I think this last year, if I remember correctly, you you think, well, is November early enough? I would say probably not. There's a lot that can be done prior to a workin trial. The workin trial balance drives the audit, but there's so much administrative stuff that you can do before you get your work in trial balance that I think we could easily work backwards. And and what I mean by that, Clint and I were talking about schedule a a drop date and work back to to
018ensure that you're we're allotting sufficient time and resources to get it done. What What's the implication on a school district that does not have this audit done on time? It's serious. It's it's it's uh I Please be specific. Well, loss of funding, accreditation that I'm not sure. I I c I did follow up with the state and loss of funding was enough for me to say, "Okay, we got to get this done." I I stopped at loss of funding and we were late. Yes. Because you all didn't have the resources. Correct. And you'd been working on this since the fall. Yes. and and now you know this 15minute presentation doesn't give the level of audit effort justice and what I mean by that is we put in you know a good several thousand hours several
019a thousand plus hours but that's just our time management also puts in a lot of time so there is a lot of back and forth and like I said it's it it it has to work in concert all team members and and unfortunately ely our side did failed to do so. And I I agree with it, but this is this audit is our everything. I I totally this is our hiring us for one thing and that is get it done and get it done on time. I totally get that. I totally understand. Yeah. So, uh, and I I the work that has happened, I assume that this is the first time that's happened with, uh, RSM that's that's been late, but, uh, you all being late is, uh, irresponsible. And, uh, could have put Oklahoma
020City public schools in a very bad situation. not only a bad situation, but it's just we're grateful that we have a good relationship with our State Department that was kind enough to grant us the extension or we would have been on national news for a whole different reason. And we put you, your RSM, not you, but RSM uh uh in the middle of our accreditation and our school money. So, I I I I just I feel like that I'm a new board member. We have several new board members that may or may not have sat through this that I want to make sure that they understand the real implications of RSM's tardiness and and your I'm not I'm going to use your words that you all failed to deliver uh uh this product on time.
021Any other questions? All right. Uh, thank you for coming in. It's good to see you again, by the way. Um, I had a question. I actually have a couple questions. So, um, whenever we perform these audits, um, I think I remember from last time that it's only a percentage of all of our funds, correct, that are being audited, correct? Do do you know the percentage of all of our funds? Yes. So, as part of the compliance work, we're either doing 20% of the total or 40% of the total. And depends on whether or not you're a lowrisk or high-risisk audit. You're a low-risisk audit. So, we did approximately 20 22% of the total, which if you look at the total federal awards, I think uh it was north of 100 million. Uh so, we did
022the child nutrition cluster plus the uh I think title three part A. Awesome. And for uh you mentioned the um like the the pension liability, so that's an estimate. So that's not exact. That is definitely a an estimate. If if you were to take let's just take one simple person that makes it a little easier. If it was just you and your pension plan and an actuary was trying to figure out, okay, when are you going to retire? They'd have to assess, okay, when is this person going to retire? what sort of compensation will this person have? What are the benefits under the pension plan? And then what are the mortality tables to apply to that individual? And then uh what's the uh does the does the district include some sort of uh cost of
023living increases to your uh to your pay. So all of those demographic and economic assumptions have to go in and the actuaries do a present value analysis if you will. Then the other side of the story is well is the district putting any money aside to fund your pension. So then there's there are assumptions that go into that of okay what is the district's policy for funding the pension based on their policy? are they going to continue to fund that pension over the life of the life of of of the pension plan itself? And then based on your investment portfolio, what kind of rate of return are you going to make on on your investments? So you you take all of these assumptions together, but you're not doing it for one person. You're doing it
024for the entire census data. In this case, it's the entire state of Texas. I'm sorry, state of Oklahoma. Excuse me. Sorry. Oh no. Okay. So, so I mean there there are a lot of factors that go in and and it is a present value analysis based on all the the assumptions that are embedded. So, yeah, it is an estimate and and what happens every year is uh it's it's within your financials. Your estimates are going to be off. So they true them up every year and they become what the district reports as deferred inflows, deferred outflows, meaning you were either off on on one side where it became a liability or you're you're you were uh too aggressive and it becomes an asset or whatever the case, but they they get deferred over the the
025average life of the uh of the participants in the plan. So in other words, if the average service life is X, whatever differences you're off every year gets amvertised. So it's still hitting that liability over the life of of the participants of the plan, if you will. So yeah, it's a significant estimate. That's why we call it out as as a significant estimate. Okay. And we're I guess all of our employees um I guess estimated for their pension on that or because since we have that 22 20 to 22%. Yeah. So the census data itself it's so the estimate itself is a function of all the employees that are eligible to receive benefits. I think that's probably the best statement I can make as it relates to that. Okay. Um and then the last question
026I have is um with those uncorrected mistakes or mis I'm sorry misstatements um that are not considered material what does that exactly mean? Okay. So, so as part of every audit, we have to come up with uh some values and some risk assessments on okay, what's acceptable to the reader of the financial statements in terms of okay, if it was missing, it would mislead. and and this fell into that range whereby the district has a policy of okay, if it's if it's $10,000 or less, we're not going to assess it whether or not it's a payable in one year or it's a payable in another year. So, it's not the fact that it won't be recorded. It's the fact that at the end of the year, we ask, okay, what should be acred? In other
027words, what do you owe at the end of the year? And for some of the smaller items, the district doesn't uh assess them, which we agree they're not material. I mean, this was 100% of the population. And it still doesn't rise to a level of whether you record it or not, it's not going to mislead the reader as to whether or not your payables were, you know, mis materially misstated. meaning would would your opinion change on the standing of the the the district if you have the extra $10,000 recorded in on your books. And uh our answer is probably not. Most readers wouldn't really materially it wouldn't materially mislead most most readers if that if those adjustments were in there or not. Awesome. Um, and for all of those people who love math out there,
028I mean, there's just a lot of variables to consider, uh, being on this board and auditing our district. So, thank you so much for your time. Okay. Uh, I just need to make sure that I don't know if what you were talking about was an example or uh using the $10,000. Are are we missing money? No. No. Okay. So your financials are are are prepared and Clint and I were talking about the fact that uh readers of the financials do they realize the fact that there's a reporting framework that that the district must adhere to and that is in this case you're you're you're following governmental accounting standards uh reporting that are uh using full acral accounting meaning whenever you're looking at your expenses at the end of the year. We look to see, okay,
029at the end of the year, uh, were there any invoices that were received and not paid? Well, what does that mean? Okay, they were received and not paid. That means that's a payable. So, you should have a payable on your books. Now, at some point, you'd want to go look at every dollar and say, "Oh, this dollar was received and not paid, so it should be a payable on your books." At some point, it's not going to make a m it's not going to materially impact whether you pay the dollar in June or July, meaning you're still going to pay it. It's just whether or not it should be a liability at the end of the year or not. So, that's the only distinction that that um that's critical here. It's not the fact that
030you're missing money. It's not the fact that the district missed anything. It's the fact that the district made a determination as to whether or not at what point do we stop looking for liabilities at the end of the year. Meaning, you're going to pay it. You'll pay it in July. But the question is, well, you paid it in July, but should it be a liability at the end of the year? Well, as we wrap up, I want to take a a moment um and I call these teachable moments uh in regards of being able to say that we are I am deeply grateful to RSM in regards of the integrity and professionalism of stepping up saying that this was on you're in. You never denied that. You you you said that to me. You said
031it to my team and you have showed up twice to do this report. That says a lot. And I I want to publicly say thank you for being uncomfortable so that we have clarity. And then I want to take a moment to say a very special thank you uh to Sydney Ward, our CFO, and Clint Everheart because the moment they found that it may be a delay, they brought me to the table immediately and said this will be our options if that happens. and we got you on the phone and we we did our uh entire Zoom call and and you walked us through uh and Clint said, "I I'll have to make a couple of calls, Dr. Poke, but uh let's make it happen." Then I'd like to say a special thank you to
032the state department because when we made that call, they understood and we would at this very moment be without funds had it not have been the due diligence of everyone I just named. And for RSM to stand up and say, "Dr. Pope, this was not your team. this was on us due to a lack of resources to get the job done, but we will give it our all. I just wanted to take just a moment to say thank you for that. And now that we uh have what I call also a unqualified opinion um that we will be good to go and um just want to say thank you for being in the space. Thank you. Is there a motion to accept the fiscal year 2024 audit report? So moved. Second. Second. Further discussion. Great
033discussion. And just wanted to also publicly thank Sydney CFO Clint, executive director for finance, the whole um financial services team and and RSM. Thank you for everything getting us to this point. All right, call for the vote. Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I call the vote, the members for the voice vote, I just want everybody to know I have the audit acknowledgement form which I will be giving to uh board member Jessica Squentes and I'd ask her and each member to pass it to the left after you've signed it and the superintendent signs it as well. It'll make its way around to board member Melhaney. If you could leave it at your seat, I'll collect it. I'll make sure I will uh notoriize it, certify it as the board clerk, and I'll give it to
034our finance team who will then give it to the state department. That is assuming we have a majority vote after I call the voice vote. So, uh with that, Lori Bowman I, Jessica Sephuentes, I, Dana Meister, I, Mike Shelton, I, Juan Lakona, I, and Mehaney, I. Having received six I votes and zero nay votes, the motion carries. Great. Thank you. Okay, now we Thank you so much again for being here. Um, okay. Now we shift gears away from audit and finance to our work session um 3.01 in which we will consider our future-driven goals and guard rails. And the first thing is that Dr. Pulk has a presentation and then we will um be able to ask questions, have discussion and we'll see how far we get. Very good. Vice chair, thank you so much
035for this opportunity. And we always start with our vision statement and I'm going to also state before we uh go too far. Our desired outcome is for us to uh review the drafted goals that were presented, goals and guard rails. Uh and then we will have an opportunity uh to do any revision that we see uh fit. Uh we we're kind of on a clock here. Uh uh Galloway will keep us uh fine-tuned here, but we would like to have an opportunity to put the revised goals and guard rails on the website for community review. Uh so please note that this has been a process that we have started back in spring. Uh as a reminder that the whole premise of student outcome focused governance is that school systems exist to improve student outcomes and
036student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change and it starts with me. Uh and so then as we go along here for the timeline, what's most important is I want to reiterate that um we do not expect a vote on the goals and guard rails until June. So we this is going to still feel a little muddly here, but this is part of the work. Well, once we stamp the goals and guard rails, which is the board work, then uh superintendent and team with the board's uh blessing, will then look at the interim guard rails in order for us to to move forward from that point on. Uh just a reminder in regards of the work that we're doing, all comes from our listening sessions that we had. And um thanks to uh Dr. uh
037Maloo Smith and her team who ciphered through about 16,000 responses to land on what we um now have are five areas that we have deemed through the lens of our PR team, our planning, research and evaluation team. Uh this is what the community says they value the most in order of importance. Just take a moment and let that seep in a little bit. Is there any comments um board members in regards of what you see here? You also have it in front of you. um in regards of what matters most to the community. I've got one. Um yes. So, uh no, these are great. Thank you for the for the summary. Um and for just being transparent. I've always appreciate that. Um yes. So, number one, you said they're in order of importance. So number
038one is I guess the mo is it the most common or like something that we saw. Um yeah and I think it's a little bit hard to measure I feel like thinking about our smart goals um and how to how to fix or improve number one. Um, so I'm I'm excited to see um I mean based off of what our draft goals are, how it's going to also in improve uh this this number one thing that the community was really um really worried about in OKCPS. Thank you for bringing that up. Um please remember when we received our report from the PR uh and they've ranked ordered them they also ranked them by community members, staff and family, staff, student and family. So through all of those stakeholders then whichever one of the the terms
039came up that's how they landed in order of these five themes. And so um but those were the stakeholders in which they measured them through. Take just a moment um and I'm going to ask board members just to refresh yourself in regards of the definition of goals and the definition of guard rails. You have been placed by a cabinet person if you need a thought partner, but uh cabinet members have been told this is not our meeting. This is their meeting. And so they will hold all of their personal opinions and will just ask or help you clarify any thoughts that you may have. So if I may please just if you can take two minutes uh talk with your your thought partner there because I don't want to get started and then we have
040a misunderstanding or what actually are the goals in the guard rails. Does that sound fair and safe to to go with? Okay, turn to your partner. Are you my partner? My partner I'm a little scared. No, I'm just kidding. Supposed to activate any similarities and differences to goals and guard rails. Okay. Well, goals are what we set off. So from from my understanding our goals they have to be smart. So specific, measurable, attainable, I think relevant or results now depending on who you ask. Um which I think I think the cabinet and everybody involved a big job at least for the for the big big draft. Um guard rails are things that may not corporate America includ like to view it as protections. Let me ask you a question. Like um it's not nearly as
041formal as here, but it is definitely like a hey, you can do this campaign, but yeah, like you can't um double dip in this budget. You can't we have to exclude this thing. These are the mandatories. You have to we typically call tits and so these are the tits. These are what you must do. And if it's not on this must do list, then you have space to innovate. I was kind of thinking about it that way. Yeah. The can't do versus the must for us. Yeah. We do I want to say thank you because even as I was talking, I was listening and I heard great conversation. Uh, and Lori, Vice Chair Bowman and I, uh, is real important. Galloway and I talked about this today. The goals are pretty well set. We we
042we've worked through that the whole session. So So we're pretty good there. Uh guard rails, we're pretty good there, too. except we just need to ensure this is the voice of the public as you marinate with what's happening within our our uh district. Popcorn out. Any clarifying questions that we need to move before we move on? Board, this is for board members. If there's anything that you need clarifying on, this is it. Okay. So, it's on. Sorry about that. Okay. For goal number one, uh, we're looking at the median achievement percentile. Could you remind us why we're looking at the median? Because the median is like the middle number. It's not the average. It's not the mean. And um number one for draft interim goal for goal number one, right? Thank you. Remember that we
043have to stay pretty grounded in we set the goals, they set the interims. You can absolutely talk about clarifying questions. Um but I just wanted to make sure we were all same page. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Yeah. So just for the group's knowledge. Yeah. to speak to the median. It's uh it's how NWA reports out. Um they they both do median growth percentile and median achievement percentile. So that's the uh the measure that it comes through the reporting. Okay. So it's like our median compared to like the nation's median. It's compared to the nation's median. Okay. Yep. Thank you. Any other qualifying questions? What's most important and I've placed it on the board as um it has been shared with us once the board stops talking that's when superintendent and team goes to work. Uh and
044so there are some things very specific in regards of what the board does and then what we do. We're just um excited that we're in the room with you all on today as you uh come up now with if I can have you focus on guard rails. These are the things as superintendent you don't want me to do because we've heard the voice of the community. I'm going to let that resonate a minute. These are the things that you do not want the superintendent to do because this is what the community has said that they value. So then I must always honor that. Does that make sense? Okay. So now I'm g um go here. Which one? Um, if I can share with you and thank you for board members who sent in your questions
045and your qualifying things. If you look on the board behind me, you will see which which side am I on Galloway? This side for transparency, opportunity, and safety. And then there are some others that are on this side of the uh wall also. What I'm going to ask you to do, and we're going to do this in six minutes tops. You have some sticky notes in front of you. You just go up on each one of these. And if it's a green for gold, you don't need any other clarifying questions about it. Yellow. I've got a couple of little thoughts about it. It's pink. That's so far off. Don't even take consideration on today. That's all I need board members to do. Go up and I'm going to ask that you don't talk. Is that
046okay? So we can get it done. go up on the ones even that we have because we have not seen these until tonight. You haven't seen those. Okay. You haven't seen green. Green is good. No questions. Maybe or Okay. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Well, no. No, it's all is on the table. But these are the ones that that they came up after our session. Are they close to the top and say I'm thinking I'm the one put I was going to see was there any other questions you had on the audit? Oh, on the audit. Oh, why is that pension liability important? So, I know it's a lot. It's over 300 million is what he said. I'm sorry. All right, everyone want to gather gather around Um, so I think I I what I
047think would be helpful for me. So, and I want to this is our the board working session. I think that we put a pen in this for just a second and we go back to the goals that are on the screen. So at our session when we spent the day together working to come up with this these were the ones that rose to the top coming out of our work session and my memory unless you all correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the goal section we knew the guard rails were going to be the toughest part because when we came for out of the the work session or the the dayong um goal setting workshop we all felt good about a literacy goal a math goal and a post-secondary goal. We also liked
048the fact that there was an elementary goal, a middle school goal, and um a high school goal. And I I would like to open it up to see and then so we got the draft goals. um our job is to, you know, make sure we're comfortable with these goals and that the interim goals that they initially drafted align with the goals. Um so I think it'd be great to start there to see if we have if that's okay, if we have feedback or um questions. I know several of us sent our questions in as requested um because um we wanted to give the district time to get any data that you all might be interested in seeing. But can we um take a minute and see what feedback you all have on the goals? Go
049for it. I was just curious how will the board itself evaluate yearly if this is working? We will have a workshop on that Mike. That's a that's an excellent so so this is a multi-step process as you know we have an implementation timeline which we have you know which we all have seen and have access to and um we will actually have on June 9th a workshop in which we learn how we measure ourselves on these goals because there's a component of us measuring ourselves on how we're monitoring basically it's a goal monitoring ing process that includes aligning the superintendent evaluation to the goals. So that's like part of the process. Part of the process is evaluating the board on how we are doing toward the goals and as part of that piece that's when
050all these other sections come in like Tony will be working on we'll be working with Tony on a policy diet. Do our policies align with the goals? Then we'll go on a board meeting. We'll analyze our board meetings. are the board meetings spending times on on the goals. So it's a you know multifaceted process but the the where we are in the long process is that establishing the goals is the next step but that's where we are. So long-winded answer to say, you know, we'll we'll be learning how we evaluate ourselves and the end pro the end um result of all of this learning and and will be a five-year calendar like we'll have a calendar if I'm not mistaken. Is that right? That it'll be five years out where we'll be able to look
051quarter by quarter where are we? What do we need to do to um evaluate ourselves? ensure that our board meetings are, you know, we're in the right spot. We're having the right conversations, too. And if I may also share in regard of that meeting that we had with coach AJ and coach Carol when we kind of wrestled with these uh one of the task or takeaways for myself and cabinet was in regards of the numbers uh in regards of the percentages and and were we because we were like it was too much and not enough. Uh I can even remember someone saying the most we've grown at one particular time was 2%. And so since then uh the the team um uh Alicia and um Galloway have worked with uh principles and instructional leadership team
052and every team we have to talk through the goals to ensure these are doable. And so they've done that work and that was our takeaway uh for that particular last meeting. That's right. Because at the workshop it was kind of X and Y's. You know, we knew we want fourth graders reading, but we didn't know the 25% to the 40%. Um so since Mike kicked us off with a question, why don't we go keep going around the circle um to Juan? Um do you have any feedback? just specifically let's focus on the goals right now. Um so the the question is do these represent what we discussed in our meeting? Are we do we like them and do we feel like the interims align? I don't I don't have any questions at the moment but
053I am on board with uh what we have right now for the presentation. Um, I know we can always do better. We there's always room for improvement. Uh, I know that our students deserve better along with her teachers of uh, so I don't have any questions right now. Thank you, Meg. So, there we go. Um, yeah. I wasn't ready to go deep like Okay. Little bit on the spot, but just Well, you can pass. Sorry. I've been trying to name a middle school, so it's been really busy down on in district 7. Um, so my overall comment, and this echoes whenever we did the full day board section, like all of these are great. These are things that a school needs to be doing well. the as the marketer in me is like what is
054the aspirational thing that is going to get people jazzed about this and instead hearing a bunch of we want our third graders to be reading on level and that's a goal you know that's just my overall comment that does not mean that I don't support these and think that these are well thought out it's just more of the positioning of it and how do we actually start to tell the story of well we are doing a lot of good because I do worry that this is going to come out in the wash and the story could become um we're having to do this because we are just not hitting these marks overall. My second comment is about our high achievers and I know we've talked about this a lot but and I'm wondering if and
055I didn't do my homework. I didn't send in questions. Um how are we going to make sure that our high achievers who are already at proficient and advance continue on and we're not just focusing on that bottom quarter, that bottom third to get them up in the middle. so that we are not leaving students behind because we know those are those are also the kids that were like atrophying out of the district. So just kind of broad thoughts here. Well I think you raise very good points. Um well done. Uh sorry to put you on the spot me but but you raised very good points points that I have raised as well and and I know that will be discussion I think. um and and you know can be addressed in the guardrails discussion in
056part that second that second piece. anything about the Alicia or Jason about the comment or any feedback on you know do you want to just give us information about the aspirational nature of these numbers and how the communication piece will be important in how we talk to you know just maybe you can just start there how you all came to these yeah thank you um some of the percentages that you'll referenced in the early literacy goal for example and the uh the moving to 40% by June of 2030. So just some context there um to help kind of bring it full circle is last year I believe the state of Oklahoma was at a 47% proficiency across the state in mathematics in 8th grade. it was at the 25th percentile or 25% of of the
057eighth graders uh statewide were proficient. And so, you know, at first glance, these numbers um appear like we're not setting the bar high enough. Uh however, you know, we're looking at, you know, in the eighth grade goal doubling the amount of students uh nearly that that are proficient here. And does that mean that we don't want or expect to continue to push that even further? We absolutely do. Um and I and I think a lot of it has to do because I think that the point is well taken that how is this going to land on the community and I think a lot of this has to do with what is the narrative that we are going to present and how are we going to talk about this. um we have a tremendous opportunity to
058impact this community in ways that um that could be very special. Um increasing uh the number of proficient readers because what that does is it opens up access to all other educational opportunities after that third or fourth grade level. The research is very very strong that if students are exiting second and third grade on level they will continue to remain on level through the remainder of their educational experience which opens doors which then leads to that postsecary opportunity which is really a choice-filled opportunity when you get into high school being able to take um concurrent classes to the point where I could graduate with nearly an associates degree or I could graduate with uh um enough AP credits um that I have a 4.5 GPA or I have an opportunity to graduate with credentials in
059workforce areas that I could go out and immediately be employable and earn nearly a six figure salary. I mean that we have stories across this uh across this city where students with certain lensure are getting out of high school making 60 70 $80,000 uh within 12 months of them graduating high school. It's just a lot of opportunities here to do something really special not only for individuals but also for the community as a whole. And so those are some things that that come top of mind for me. But um really that that third goal and I think that's what was discussed in the previous work session that third goal of post-secary readiness um is really that opportunity to um put a star on OKCPS that we have an opportunity there. Um that's a pretty dramatic
060move from 37% to 69%. Um that 69% would put us in the current metric uh with an A on the state report card in post-secary readiness. Um and that would be something that would separate OKCPS um from a lot of our contemporaries. And so just some things that are top of mind for me. The other thing I want to share too in regards of taking students where they are and growing them from that point here you see this is an overall average but we we have students who uh when we look and and actually work with them individually then our instructors know they should be going for a 5% increase every year wherever they are. And so that's a different mindset. So this is all of us. But there's no way I can do education
061for all. It has to be each. And so that's vocabulary we're starting to use is not every, but each. It's a whole different connotation. I'm going to give you what you need uh based off of where you are using the data and then growing. So, if I have a student that's already third grade at a sixth grade level, but guys, I need to then ensure I'm pushing them at least 5%. You say, "Well, why 5%?" Because 04 stays the same. 0.5 pushes you beyond. And so, that's why it's 5%. So, and that's the conversations we're having. We We have to take each student where they are. Great. Okay, Jessica. I think Oh. Oh, can we go around and give everyone a chance? Um, okay. So, we're we're commenting again on the goals. Okay. Going back
062to what we're talking about. Um, okay. So, what I'm about to talk about right now, um, is not the most fun thing to talk about. Um, but it's going back to that lump sum that we keep being called 49th in education. Um, and being the district that we are, um, and obviously I remember being courteous to you, Dr. Pulk, whenever people say that is what we're supposed to ask is according to what data. Um, and I agree with that. Um, however, that rap that we have right now, um, I mean, it's it's hurting us. It's hurting our kids. Um, even the most talented and the and and um, all of our kids, uh, no matter where they are right now. Um, that bad rap, it's it's, uh, it's in their own mind. Well, I'm in
063Oklahoma. We're 49th in education according to a data. Um, do I matter? Sometimes I've seen that. And so um but now the good part. So the good part is um we are a district of this size. We are the best district. We have quite the swing with that and what is being said um about us. And going back to what you said in education, um, not for all but for each, that is a compliment that people keep telling me about OKCPS is that we do an incredible job of giving access to a gifted education. And I would even take it further and saying gifted individualized education. Being the size that we are, um, that is very, very hard to do. And so with regards to our early early literacy and math proficiency, I do wonder
064my my biggest question is why is it so hard to move those percentages? Um I know we've talked about it, but um I think if if we could put that out at some point as to why it is so hard to increase these percentage points, I mean that that would help the public, that would help everybody. Um, what makes me excited though is I mean we're we are prioritizing this. We are talking about this. We are spending quite a bit of time I mean personal time and again this is a volunteer-based uh board. And um we're here because we care. And so with these those first two um yeah I seen I saw that math one and I love math and I'm like man only 11 to 20%. That's that's like could we do better?
065But um I'm I'm I'm learning and I'm growing. I'm still learning. You know, I'm I'm uh growing within the district, of course. Um I think what's exciting me about those two goals though and just the fact that we're talking about this is if you can read, write, and do math, you can do anything. And I stand by that wholeheartedly. um because those skills are so fundamental and they are so related to I mean even our guardrails and everything that we're doing. Um but I think that's going to be the push to change the reputation of OKCPS. Um even though they're basic now for basic goals, they seem basic but they're really hard to accomplish. that postsecary readiness goal. When I saw that second number, I I wanted to jump for joy, but I didn't do
066it cuz I didn't want to embarrass myself. Um, now that is that's a sparkle. That is incredible. And the fact that we already have the compliments that we can we are already doing this well, but we're going to be exceptional and we are exceptional. Um, I I have no words to describe that feeling. I mean, maybe it's an adrenaline rush. So, thank you. And if I may respond to why it is um so hard, that's the question that will be before the board. Uh, one of the things that's in your eval self eval is to ask the five W's. Uh, and then we tackled that last one. Uh, what I'm finding is we're team too much. We want to do all of this and not master any. And so, as we go through this process
067for each one of these goals, with your assistance and our coaches, we will ask the five W's and we'll get to the one initiative for each one of these. And there we go. And then that's when we say everything else must fall away and this is what we'll focus on. We'll then report back to the board and say um how you doing on that? Is it aligning to the vision? Is it getting the results? And if we get too many nos, we've got to throw it out. So you're right on track when you ask why is this so hard? Those will be our next steps as we get through this process. That's where we're going to answer that collectively because it won't do us any good if you know it. You might know it. We
068all must know the why and go for it. So, thank you. Um the other thing I was going to give excellent points Jessica and but remind me as a followup to what um she raised. I feel like at our workshop we briefly talked about like the focus on proficient slashadvanced is deliberate because we could make it look better if we included basic but the decision was made at the workshop to not because if they're not proficient advanced they're not on grade level. So I think too when we're talking about it and we can't say it like that because that's too word too many words and but I think there's a way to say it is like we and am I remembering that correctly that we that we could have made ourselves kind of look better
069if we had captured the basic but then we had the discussion of why would we want a goal that doesn't even reflect moving kids to grade making sure they're on grade level and I think that's we can just highlight that fact And I'm wondering if there's a way that we can really educate the community that no, we're focused on proficiency and advanced. That's where we're going. That's where the kids, our students need to be. And with that, um, that means handing out a diploma that really means something. Yeah. Um, and that's the criticism I've received, but for the district, that is your colleagues are more worried about handing out a meaningless piece of paper than actually helping them and learning and having students learn how to read, write, and do math. Um, which of course
070that hurts. Um, but I bring it to your attention because that is meaningful work. That actually means something. ensuring that our metrics are actually meaningful as opposed to anybody else what anybody else does. Um, thank you. Thank you, Lori. And that's that's putting students first and that's helping students. So, thank you, Dana. Thank you. I'm waiting for my mic to come up here in a second. Um, basically, I have not really any questions. I just want I don't think your thing is on, Dana. I can project it'll come. It's it's on there. Uh it just took a while. I want to say that the the numbers that we're looking at, the percentages that we're looking at, they are as aspirational, aspirational and attainable, which I like. And we're not going to stop there. It's like,
071okay, you got to 40%. Okay, we're done. We're not going to stop there. We're going to keep going. And I want people I want the community to realize we want to get here. And then we're not if we get there in in November, we got another half year to go. So, we will keep going. Yeah, good point. That's a good point because we can revisit the goals, right? We don't have to wait five years if we meet the goals. So, okay, Mike, warming up. Yeah. Thank you, brother. So, I I I have a couple of questions and if you don't mind, help me figure out what my question is. Okay. Um I'm I'm looking at these numbers. 25% in August of 2024 to 40% in 2030. This past year, the State Department moved those standards
072back to levels that showed a lot of schools getting a bigger bump. My question to you is is that how's that going to because of that move back to 2017? Are we really seeing the growth? And uh and I want to ask you another question. Uh OSDE report card is subject to whatever the legislature wants to do, right? And it's I don't believe in the report card at all. It's it's it's been a failure since the beginning, but it's our it's our model. My question is is that when we have a situation like this year, uh that the standards were changed back to 2017. My question is that OSDE report card might look one way this year, maybe will look a whole different way next year. Now what the question is, I have no idea.
073But I am I'm making a statement that I'm trying to figure out, you know, how do we again how do we measure and really show that we are growing? Well, I'll answer just from the board process perspective on SOFG. Um, these are not set in concrete. Okay. So, I think to your point first, if for some reason the report card goes away. We'll come back to the table and we'll look at the post-secondary readiness goal and we'll have to come up because it has to be something that we can actually measure. So, the measurement would no longer be valid on that. Basically, these are while we're I mean, we're setting these there are five-year goals, but they are subject to change. If for something like the state legislature were to make a change to the
074report card that no longer makes this relevant, we would have to come back to the table and rework that goal. So, that's the the short answer of like these goals are our goals. they're the they're the target that we're all moving toward, but doesn't mean that in 18 months we won't have to come back and look at them again because of a change that has affected the goals. So, that's that. But I think Jason will have more detail on the Yeah, it's it's really a great question. Um that you're right. uh there there was a an alteration last year in the in the reporting metrics and you know in my career uh I've seen it happen probably four or five times over the past 20 years and one thing that we would do um perfect
075scenario is we would get a concordance table from the state that says okay if last year's um let's say 20% is this year's 25% so we would know okay there's a 5% movement in the numbers which then we could revisit these goals and adjust them accordingly. And so absent of that, absent of the um of the state coming with a concordance table, we've also uh our PR team internally um runs that type of data as well to really try to nail down, okay, what is this year's 25? If we had everything be completely equivalent, what would that 25 have been last year? to really try to figure out what the gap is and and I've seen those adjustments at the state um to your point um be adjusted up and be adjusted down um depending
076on uh depending on the year and and there's a slight adjustment um every year um you know one or two points here and there but I think you're speaking to the drastic um adjustments that have happened you know a few times in the past 15 20 years um but yeah the concordance um ideally an external concordance. Um but we could also look at an internal concordance as well. Okay. Well, I'm feeling optimistic about our goals, but but correct me if I'm wrong. I I I'm feeling like there is consensus. I mean, these are very much in line with the end of the workshop, the work that we all did um to come to this point. Um, are we feeling good? Like we could say, Lori, I got something. Okay. Uh, yes. No, I I agree
077with that statement, Lori. Um, and I didn't even get to say this earlier and I wrote it down, but I and I wrote this in my email, but I am uh I was actually very impressed with um the interim goals and the rationale behind um our interims, which again will feed into our big goals. Um, and I wanted to go back again to um, it these goals specify how we are starting. We are being transparent with where we are right now. Um, and thinking about this past weekend, I'm sure everybody heard about the marathon that happened this weekend. Um, man, that was record setting, right? So, what we're talking about right now is we want to beat our own PR. We want to beat our own personal record, our personal best right now. um despite
078what the state and how they keep changing their metrics. So that consistency piece um is very exciting and to know that we all know that this uh that we are going to be holding ourselves accountable and being transparent with where we are with our own metric. I mean setting our own uh and beating our own PR. I think that's a great way to put it for um anybody who's listening. So, I'm I'm excited, Lori. And uh yes, uh this I'm excited about these goals. Okay. So, where we go from here, if we're all good with the goals, we'll move on to guardrails. It's going to be a much more difficult discussion. I can already tell you that. And we're trying to keep within two hours. So let's okay what we do next if we're all
079okay with these goals or not just okay excited about this how far we've come um they will go out to the public and that will be done by putting on the website but I know that like Crystal will be coming up with a plan maybe some you know some press um encouraging the community over the next weeks months to get back with us like basically um we're going to drive them to the board of education website, say if you've got feedback on these, reach out to your board member and um and we'll have to regroup to just see. We're basically putting them out there for red flags. I mean really and truly like we know that the experts have come up with the goals. We know that the you know the experts have come up
080with the goals based on our recommendation but we also need to touch base with our public and that's what we'll do next on the goals unless there's okay okay let's celebrate the success this was it was good okay yes pat yourself on the back you've come a long way um okay next The guard rails are the other the next step in this process. And the guard rails we set then the interim guard rails the district sets and the guardrails are the values the district must honor that our community our community values. And I think this is a great one-page document that they put together for us tonight. In my question, and I'll just kick us off for consideration. I was wondering if the three guard rails that have been proposed represent what we heard over
081and over that life skills and leadership skills that are our community kept telling us. We want our kids to leave ready to with leadership, critical thinking skills, communication skills, the ability to go out and be successful in a fast-paced world. Um, and I am not sure that these three guard rails um represent that. But I'm also and and so that's why I think in part the district team came up with some alternatives or things for us to consider um to add to. We can have between three and five. So we do not only have to have three, but we also cannot have seven because there are seven up there right now. Um so that's the next topic that we have to discuss. What do we think about these? Are they the right ones? Are they,
082you know, Meg's point, academic rigor? I mean, we heard over and over, we want our kids to know the basics, but we also want to be able to push our our kiddos that that need those honors and AP and algebra 1 in the eighth grade. And we want to make sure that we're providing those opportunities for our kids um as well. And do we think these guardrails represent that? Do you want to kick us off? I'll kick us off. Okay. Mine's actually not about that, though. Oh, okay. So this is more of a fundamental question because I think it's important for us to remember. It's important for me to remember, especially with the safety one. This feel like there's some squishy stuff there, but I think calling this safety to me makes me think like,
083well, are do we have to include the basics of like we're not going to not have metal detectors? We're not going to not have best practices, we're going to do fire drills, we're going to do these things. like it feels very much like we don't have to overcompensate for what's already in policy and so just I'm calling that out that maybe these don't have to be let's think of everything that possibly could happen or etc etc because we do have solid policies we will be reviewing them but we're also have like held to federal and state standards for like the minimum viable product for a public school y right so that's my first thought on the safety one It feels very much that and maybe it's just because it's called safety but um I I
084do think just going in on that one I have a lot of questions on what we are defining emotionally supportive environments and just kind of the thought process into what that is because that's the one I think I'm struggling with the most out of these guard rails um and how it's not quite reflective of what I feel like we heard but Yeah, I agree with you. I had the same thought. I mean, I I did. Okay. And and I my memory of the day and I I think I told Dr. Pulk this like I felt like by the time we got to the guardrails conversation and our goals, we were we were brain dead. We were brain dead. I feel like that might have been like something we kind of were just tossing out. I
085agree with you. I feel like we've got the policies. We've got the processes in place that I mean, if we go back to this list of what what the community raised, it's the fifth out of five. And so I I don't know. And then we have to we do have to I agree. And Dana, you I agree too. Dana had the same thought. Me, too. Okay. Yeah. So, um, you know, I I think that's what this conversation's about is about like if we remove safety, um, from as a guard rail, do we like the other two? Do we like something up there better? Um, do we feel like again, do we feel like the top two things that raise to the top, life skills, leadership skills, academic rigor, and foundational literacy? Do we feel like
086those are represented in the guard rails? I'll keep going just and be the bad guy. I'll just everybody. So transparency. This again feels like a policy thing. Um and a definition of like what it what is high impact? Is it a percentage of our budget? Is it the number of students that were impact? And I know that there's going to be interim guardrails there, but again, I'm wondering like just to push ourselves like should we be thinking bigger more in alignment of what the community is and let our policy speak for itself because this also feels like a policy issue and I don't know if this be I know this is becoming policy and this is becoming a gray area but that was my knee-jerk reaction to that one. Um, and I think opportunity out
087of all three, this is the one that feels closest to being correct for me based on the um, feedback that we heard from the community. So, I don't know if anybody else wants to jump in there now. Yeah, Meg, I think you raised really good points. Um, I really do. Sounds like several of us had that feeling on safety. Um, I agree about the opportunity one as well and it definitely rose as a theme from our community as well. Yes. Um, and um, no, I I agree with the the safety one 100%. Meg, uh, the transparency one um, on the paper they gave us and I'm not sure would this definition be a part of our policy too. Um so high impact decisions are those that have significant effects on district resources. This includes decisions
088decisions that involve changes to at least 20% of schools, and then also 20% to large scale financial expenditures, comma, or 20% to systemwide shifts in educational programming. Uh cuz my I asked that clarifying question um in my email that does that 20% um apply to each of those things in that list? A great question. Thank you for that. And to take us back to our previous work session, uh we kind of left it as um undefined. And so that definition is one that we put together as just a way to kind of quantify what that definition meant. Um but it's not set in stone. Okay. And so from a board perspective, uh the board is completely within their uh their bounds to say, okay, let's really talk about this and let's talk about how we
089would define it and how we would apply it um to the superintendent. So anything that's on uh the original draft that was sent back on April 4th uh as far as that definition, that clarification um is uh totally up for grabs. So hopefully that helps. Okay, thank you. Ask y superintendent how would you apply just wait on it. How would you apply transparency to those goals? How would that and so I'm pretty excited that uh you asked and so what we did after that workshop uh cabinet level we had a retreat and so we wrestled with that uh and so please know we hadn't changed any of what you all have said originally but when we were in our retreat that we struggled and so we came up with what we came up with the
090best we could. Uh but please know one of the questions we always have to ask ourself is how will we measure that and we need to know that before we start not once we get into it. So thank you Dana that we anybody else that was there you know that was one we had a lot of angst about we couldn't nail it. Thank you. How will we know it's working? Thank you. I have a new one. Okay, there it is. I'll be louder. Thank you. I appreciate that answer. Yes, ma'am. And and and you did so the draft interim guard rails. Um just so they're on this sheet and the this is what you all brainstormed. Basically, you would use the experience survey, ensure that our meetings are livereamed and we have access to decisions
091at the board meetings and that um there would be four formal engagement opportunities with various stakeholder groups. Um, again, I think maybe we take a minute and read over how they would measure it and again think about it through the lens [Music] of does this raise to a community value that the district must abide by. Huh? I mean, that's that's what Juan, do you have Oh, sorry. And if you're No, really, Juan, if you're looking at this, so let's just say that the board agrees that safety is not necessarily a guardrail. It's more of a policy. Then there are six items left up here. And if the other things that they were so kind to draft based on what the community said, if those are things that we feel like speak to you in a
092way that more closely aligns with what the community told us, then I think they're worth considering. So you can walk up there or point one out if you earlier I was about the safety one. So uh I had questions and between me and you clarifying I like okay got it. So um like at first I thought okay this is a guard rail or a policy. Uh, do we need to go just like Meg's like, do we need to go, you know, to go through the metal detectors or or whatn not? It's so at first I was a little confused, you know, like is it this one or the other one? Which which way does it, you know, go goes to? But um I I think in my personal humble opinion uh safety I don't think
093it's much of a guard rail to me. I mean I'm not saying that safety does not matter the the but and again it's not like all these things matter like all of it matters. What our what we have to do is like what did the community say? These are the absolute values and to Meg's earlier point which she raised these are the things we're going to go out to the public and give us the opportunity to maybe do something a little more aspirational like the one about advanced opportunities like these are the goals but we also understand what we heard from the community is that we need to ensure that advanced opportunities are still high priority for all of our students to ensure that each student gets where they need to go. Yes. So, it's
094just to make a suggestion. There's three of these that are very similar. Equitable access to effective staff and resources, advanced opportunities, and opportunity. I think between the three of those, we could probably lean one way or they're not there's a vin diagram and there's a whole lot of overlap. They're not all identical, but I think that we could probably maybe request that we get a guardrail that does incorporate advanced opportunities, but the equitable access to me just transparently, these three plus the transparency one feels like a direct response in reaction to the feedback we got from uh Pathway to Greatness and just being a little bit more forward thinking. We learned from that. We've done a whole another bond process under that. But I think we could look at those three and combine it into
095something that does match number two. Could probably check some boxes for number two. Check a box for number three. Maybe number four also if we're going to do access to things like mental health support um or advanced learning opportunities. But I I there's just some overlap there that I think I wanted to call out that may drive the conversation if this is what the goal is to talk about. I agree with Meg when you use the word reactive. I think transparency is kind of a reactive goal. Got something? Um yes. So I was definitely looking at over here and I was also thinking they are very similar. Some of them are similar in different ways. Um, I do like the fact that the life skills and the literacy instruction engagement, I mean, we're kind of
096all pretty clear on. Um, but I mean, I don't know if, yeah, there's a way to combine them. Um, and then the safety one, going back to that one again, I mean, yeah, it's a policy and law and and I mean, our schools are safe, so I agree with that. Are we trying to eliminate guardrails tonight? Correct. That is the goal is to get it under seven. Okay. Well, here's the deal. So, like what are we trying to what are we trying to do tonight? Ideally, we are getting the guard rail the goals and the guard rails where we want them so that we can we can send them out to the public to see what they think. But we obviously cannot put I mean we're like basically this is our workshop to come up
097with our goals and guard rails um to float them to the public. So they don't have to be perfect, but they have to be pretty close to what we want because we're all the people that have really done the work. So unless the public comes back to us and says, "Yikes, we're looking at this in a way, you know, brings raises something to us that we feel like warrants, you know, coming back to dig in." Um, you know, but we've got to we've got to get buy in from our community. We have to say, "We did the work. We got it. We listened to you. These are the goals and guard rails we came up with." Ideally, we would walk away with three, four guard rails that we feel good about um putting on the
098website for community review and pushing out to the public. If we don't, that's okay. We can schedule another workshop or we can on at an upcoming board meeting, we can continue this discussion and we can push out our timeline. I think we definitely need to have one that says liter excuse me life skills and leadership skills because that's the number one. I like it. I think we keep Yeah, I think life skills guardell is the one that and then we can go out and say we listened like we heard you loud and clear. Yeah. Because here's the thing and I I know many of us will get feedback if we come back and we're like we're going to have safe schools. They're going to wait. So that's not what we asked for since the results
099are public also. Does that sound good? Okay. So what I what I feel like we've decided right now is that safety is not a gu. It's it's important. Of course it's important but it's not going to be a guardrail. However, life skills is definitely. Yes. Yes. All feel. Yes. Mike. Yes. consensus. How you feel? Feel okay with that? Okay. Um Okay. And then the opport advanced opportunities access to or which one please? Yeah, I would just speak to uh board member Mhaney really brought up a great point in I love vin and triple vin diagrams uh and just around this word opportunity, right? So we have advanced opportunity. We have opportunity to to equitable access to to resources. We have opportunity to not reduce uh access to core instruction. And so what that could look
100like is while we're in pursuit of raising reading achievement levels, we're not going to impact uh instruction around the sciences or social studies or uh opportunities for elective courses and things of that nature. So, this brings up an interesting point that it helps us as a as a staff to get real clear on what value within opportunity are you most interested in protecting. And I bring this up because when when that is written, that is then going to impact and start our process for writing the interims. Because what we don't want to do is we don't want to write interims that are missing the mark ultimately of what uh what the gu what the guardrail language is saying because to her point opportunity is very very broad and we can interpret that a variety of
101different ways and we'll probably start layering in our personal opinions about what opportunity means to us. Um, but we want to make sure that when we're going to draft our interims that we are speaking to the spirit of the value as it's written in the guard rail. Um, so, uh, if it's around, uh, for instance, advanced learning, that starts to drill it down and we can really start to craft interims that that really protect advanced learning opportunities. uh whether it be through gifted and talented instruction, whether it be through uh advanced placement courses, it could look a variety of different ways in an interim process. Uh however, if it wasn't directly written towards advanced opportunities, the interims might be might not even mention advanced uh coursework at all. And so hopefully that um adds some
102clarity that uh and and I would say it even applies to life skills as well. um uh leaving the guardrail broad as life skills, I would still invite discussion at this table around which life skills are are the most important to protect because life skills itself is very broad. And so are we talking about um character education? Are we talking about financial literacy? Are we talking about um projectbased learning and and learning to work collaboratively in groups? or we talking about leadership capabilities and um and instruction. So hearing like some of um deconstructing life skills perhaps a little bit more and it doesn't have to be deconstructed necessarily on the guard rail but in discussion. The discussion will help drive us in how we develop the interims. Okay, Mike. I uh I understand guard rails
103to be something that the superintendent cannot correct break. Um it's it's her we Yeah. Yeah. It's her kryptonite. Thank you so much. Um, and and I hear life skills and things like that. I don't that's just part of Oklahoma that that's what it should be in academics is is life skills. Is that a goal or is that a guard rail? We want her to impact life skills, right? So, I don't know why that would be a guard rail and not a goal. Yes. Okay. So because of the measurement tool and and remember our goals have to be all the all these things they have to be smart they have to be measurable they have to have a like and so because there's not so that's why guard rails allow us the opportunity to raise the
104values of the community in a way that goals lend themselves to literacy math you know measurable things that movement on assessments because they have to have two measurement tools. Um, and we don't have measurement tools. So, this is our opportunity to represent what the community told us. It's just a different I mean I mean you're right. It's a it's kind of a different way to um approach it, but it does not rise to the level of being able to be a goal. But we did hear over and over collaboration, problem solving, um you know, being able to get a do a job interview, look at the person in the eye, shake the hand, come to work on day two and day three, not just day one. Those sorts of um is that what you all
105heard? And um what um board member Shelton, if I if I could address um your concern, I'm not saying that it would ever happen under this administration. Um however, as the goals are written in the language that they're written with um drastically improving literacy scores, there are school districts, not OKCPS, there are school districts that could say, "Well, in pursuit of of radically improving literacy scores, we are going to just go allin on literacy all the time. We're going to strip back everything else and we are going to spend four hours a day on literacy and we're going to abandon different things that the community may value. We're not going to talk about character. We're not going to talk about life skills. We're not going to talk about these things. They may be um loosely
106tied in through the the work with teachers and the values that teachers teach just innately um but it wouldn't necessarily be explicit. So, this would be a protection, if you will, um, for the board to put into place to have asurances that life skills instruction would not and could not be abandoned during the pursuit of achieving the goals. Thank you for that. and uh what you described as abandoning uh that school districts that abandoned everything and focused on literacy that that was the model that Mississippi used and they have moved up tremendously uh as far as uh creating better school districts. Uh I I'm I'm going to be honest with you. I want a school that is struggling cuz in the uh student school profile uh I got schools that I got at least one
107school that's a zero reading proficiency. I want them to have that opportunity. You know, I want I want them to be able to make the decision saying we're abandoning everything. Four year four four uh we're going to first four hours everybody's doing literacy. you know that I want those schools to have the opportunity. I don't know if we can do that. I don't know if it abandons uh what she's talking about. I'm g I'm gonna leave it there, but I'm going to offer one thing is that under and this is almost probably going to be a skunk in the room situation, but just under everything that's happening in Oklahoma City and across this nation. Uh uh I feel like at some point Oklahoma City public schools, the largest school district, the most diverse school district
108in Oklahoma, is about to have a a head-on collision with the state department on diversity and stuff like that. I want to empower I I don't I want the the superintendent to know is I don't I know that they may pass down something uh from the school district saying diversity needs taken but I don't want her to make that decision by herself. It needs to be the school board that stands stands up and stands for the kids because let me just tell you this Hispanic month needs to be celebrated. Women need to be celebrated. blacks need to be celebrated. And so I'm I just hope that in some space up here, we can add the word diversity. Uh so we ensure that we uh uh continue to embrace that and we don't put it on
109one person to make that decision that we stand with our our superintendent uh to ensure that she is uh uh protected that if if we need to push back because I don't want anybody taking away Black History Month or Hispanic History Month. So okay, I want to do a time check y'all. It's 7:20. We're 10 minutes from our 2hour aspirational um ending of this part because we still have executive session. So um do we feel good? And Jason, do you feel like you've heard from us on life skills and Dr. Pulk enough? I mean I like it. The other thing that I think is important is the opportunity conversation because like I know from my vantage point and I think I said this in my Q&A that went, you know, we've done so much work
110to ensure that I mentioned to Jason the other day when I first got on the board, we were told that like not every kid has access to algebra 1 in the eighth grade. and we know algebra 1 is the gateway for them to complete, you know, to be able to open doors after they graduate from high school. And and I I couldn't believe it. And so I guess we've done so much work to ensure that our eighth graders get algebra 1, that everyone has access to fine arts, that everyone has access to these. we can say in if I look at the what matters most to the community the word that jumps out are the enrichment opportunities the what gives our kids that well-roundedness um and I would I I think for me that's what
111opportunity means to me but I think that other people need to weigh in to say you know is that what opportunity means to them opportunity and equity that's so that you you don't have to go to one certain school to get a music teacher or you know we we get that or one certain school to get algebra one we have it everywhere. May I also ask Galloway we what how often does your cohort group meet and and I have a point to make every other Monday. Okay. So please note when um we refer to uh Galloway for the answers, we have deliberately enrolled and he participates in a national staff cohort for SOFG. Uh so he is with coaches uh two hours every uh other week and they spent the majority of their time today
112on guard rails. And so, uh, please note, um, we're we're going to do this well because this is the foundation and if the foundation is rocky, everything we build up on it will then start to to sway and and you can come by my office. I typically have a board meeting of some city going on around this nation. And um if this is Rocky starting now, you'll feel it months later. And so take your time, get it right, and and and we'll take it once you pass it to us. We'll be ready. Um can I chime in about the equity thing? So like a million years ago whenever the student experience and equity committee started meeting with board member Ruth Beiels um I that was one of my first things for into equity work on
113this board and it was very progressive. It was very there were a lot of eyebrows wagging because we had this open conversation for the first time as a district and I'm just I represent the southeast side of the city. My entire district is south of the river. I don't look like the majority of the students who go to the schools in my district. But that does not mean that I cannot understand uh the frustrations and the word that jumps out to me about equity and opportunity isn't opportunity or about teachers, it's fairness. When we were talking about the board or the bond, I was in a meeting with Gloria Torres who serves um where Juan Lacona serves and there was a huge conversation around well we had are we doing too much for South of
114the river? That was a conversation and it wasn't like in a mean way, but it was a would the city support a bond that most of the dollars or majority of the dollars were going south of the river. Well, whenever you're looking at where our kids are, that's where most of our students are. And so for me, and I was over here and I wrote a draft guard rail that is probably not great. I'm not going to read it out loud, but um I think we could it's advanced learning opportunities, so it's protective of our higher achievers or the kids who want to do more, so they have access to more, but it's also making sure that our students who are in the schools like they can go and get an algebra 1 class, they
115do have access to AP. You don't get eye rolls when you say, "I live south of the river or east of Shields. I can get these things." It's protective. It's fairness. It's it's reflective of a community that I feel like this people who showed up, especially in my neighborhood and neighborhoods like mine who care deeply feel for years that this district did not. We heard their voices, but we did not do anything about what we were learning from them. And I feel like this guardrail needs to be about fairness and equity and not just access. Um, so that's southeast side of the city's uh statement on that. Okay. So, do you see that as um academic rigor is part of that? I do. I think it's academic rigor. I also think it is things like
116um gifted and talented programs. It's after school clubs. It's my kid wants to be in the business professionals of America. It's making sure that we've got fences around our our playgrounds on the southside so the stray dogs don't run up on recess, which is a real thing we've had to talk about at this board in years past. It's resources from a financial standpoint and it's also resources from access to education and educators. I think that goes handinhand with the academic rigor. We can't have academic rigor if we don't have quality professionals in our classrooms also. Yeah, it's hard. And I was going to say I think a word that has been said before um quality of instruction um could encompass a lot of that. And so with our goals and guard rails, I mean, we're
117going to increase our quality of instruction to meet these goals. Um, and so with I mean there's there's so much um but going back to what matters most to the community. Um, I mean, here it says for number two, prioritizing strong research-based instruction, especially in early grades. And I see advanced coursework. I feel like that's also quality of instruction. Strong teachers, that's quality of instruction. um enrichment programs. I mean, they're enriching. That's the that's the quality of them. Um I also see an overlap between uh I mean, mental health supports on number three and then student support and mental health on number four. Um but in terms of what opportunity means, I mean, Meg, thank you for your input and your previous experience on that. If I may, I really liked it when you gave
118us homework and you said, "This is what we're looking at and this is why we're looking at it and this is and give us your feedback. Some of this is new that's on the wall back here. Can you give us more homework? Do we have to decide it in the next five minutes before it's 7:30? Can can you do what you did originally and give that to us and let us discuss it that way and then come back in in another week or whatever it takes?" Well, and we can we can I mean we set aside this work session because we knew it would be longer than what our board meetings typically allow. However, we can now shift to including this conversation in I mean depending on what Chair Lewis says. Um you know whether
119or not we can put it back if we if we come away from today saying okay we've eliminated safety from this list. We've eliminated transparency. We've given the district our feedback on what we're trying to articulate. Um maybe we come back together and either and we can decide if it's a work session or it's 30 dedicated, you know, 30 to 45 dedicated minutes in a board meeting. Um what do you think Dr. Pulk? I am truly grateful for that direction. And so what I my takeaway then is let's capsulate what we have here and get it back to uh chair and vice chair of what we heard and then you all then direct us from that point. But I did hear we're pretty solid on the goals that that's a good spot for us that
120keeps us moving in the work. So, thank you for that. And as I've said before, it'd be nice to nail this solid now because this will be our build out. Not that we in 18 months couldn't change this after hearing the voice of the community again. Uh but and that's a good point. Thank you for reminding us that what the work we're doing now is trying to get it in a place that we feel comfortable taking it to the community. So that's something else to remember that this is still an evolution. It does not have to be solid. We could send it to the community and through the work here. Wait, I don't see I attended those listening sessions and I don't hear your mention of my priority. And again, these are the top things,
121the guard rails, but we value lots of things. That's the other thing we have to remember. So, does everyone agree that the next best step is to it's 7:30 on the dot, 2 hours, that we take a break, go into executive session, and then revisit this. I have I have a question, please. Is it possible to consolidate some of the goals? I don't I'm not sure if transparency was completely ruled out, well, by me, but anybody else here. Guard rail. Um, guardrail. Yes. Um, but is it possible to consolidate any of our guard rails? Like is that doable or do we have to pick from what's presented? Do you know? No, we the these are ours. I mean, so no, we don't have to pick. Again, the they they need to be though things I
122think it is important to make sure that there are things for which they can develop interim guard rails. So remember, we don't want to give them a guardrail where they're like, "Oh my gosh, how do we how do we measure that? There's no way we can measure this community value." So I think that's the other thing that has been so important from the cabinet is they wrestled with these at their retreat. Okay. And some of them was like you know Yeah. to like the the opportunity conversation I think was what do they mean? Opportunity for what? Um and so yeah. Yeah. That's so yes and no. We can consolidate. We don't have to consolidate, but they do have to be guard rails that the district says, "Yeah, we can do that." We have to have
123smart interims for correct. Yes. Correct. So, we just have to make sure that they're Okay. Yeah. We'll work it. A major takeaway. Please note, the three that were here were from the workshop that took place uh when we were all collectively together. We um cabinet and myself came together day and a half retreat and we worked through several things but one of the things we really wrestled with were the guard rails because we're we're trying to ensure we can do what you all have asked us to do and we kept going back to this sheet in regards of what the community said and and we have a thing where we keep a plan in our back pocket and this was a backpocket plan that came out here. Um, not to disguise or but I didn't
124want us to come together and say, "Oh, here's this. We could have done let's go ahead and put it up. It's going to be uncomfortable, but this will help keep us moving along." Like I said, you could have thrown them all out. Yeah. But but this says once we came together, it's like and and and and it is so exciting when you walk around this district and you see uh employees with uh great on their behalf book in their hand, bringing it to meetings, they're highlighted up. And so when we say that we're building this based off what the community said, I in turn then couldn't allow the board to get too far from this. That's all. And so um I want to say thank you for uh the opportunity to stretch us off and
125and do this. Well, thanks. This is not easy work. He's got a he's got a theme song. Not easy work. Okay. But it's the right work. It is. It's the right work. We'll be happy when we when we get there. That's why we don't need to rush it. That's right. That's right. You're right. And as uh Scott Randall says in regard to we just have to handle hard better because we'll look back on this and this will be the easy. You wait till we have to make tough decisions in regards of finances because it doesn't hit what we said. That's going to be so let's let's linger here a little bit. Okay. Okay. Well, we'll regroup after this and find additional time between graduations and and all the things. Um because we really do need
126to take advantage. Coach Carol and Coach AJ will be in town in June, which I believe you've already been pulled or you know for uh for the workshop on what Mike mentioned, which is the measurement of all of this stuff. So, I know it's going to be hard, but I do think to the extent possible, we need to get these solid going into that workshop because we can't learn how to evaluate ourselves if we have not come up with our goals and guardrails. And coach Carol has said, "Please, any board member, if you need a one- on-one with her, don't hesitate. That's why they're here uh to help us along the way if you need coach uh Carol. Um we have her number. You have her number. Please call and she'll walk you through whatever
127you need." Okay. So, with that, um I would like to consider a motion to enter into executive session. Is there a motion? motion here. Okay. Is there a second? Okay. Let's call for the vote. Lori Bowman. I. Jessica Sephuentes. Hi. Dana Meister. Hi. Mike Shelton. Hi. Juan Lacona. I. Me. Mhaney. Hi. Having received six I votes and zero nay votes. The motion carries. Okay. Five minute. I know they left me. They left me. All right. Okay. Um I'm uh we returned from executive session at 8:22. I think two minutes ago or right I mean if yeah whatever time it is 23. Um and so now I am going to recognize the clerk to read the executive session compliance statement. Thank you madam vice chair. Do we have 10 seconds for a quick little blurb about
128microphones? So, um, the our stellar IT support staff here, which I'd like to ask everyone to give them a hand of applause for their they do a great job setting all the mics up and the laptops and the live stream and all that stuff. So, what they've asked is to let you know that sometimes when uh a mic sits and it stays on and it's not used, it will automatically go into sleep mode and then when you push it to talk, that's why it's flashing because it's taking a couple of seconds to reconnect with the Wi-Fi. So, I'm just letting you know most of the time it should connect eventually. And then the other thing is uh the other thing is this is what I love about cordless mics. you can walk around. So, uh,
129my, uh, great team over there has asked to let you know that please try not to grab the mic touching the silver part at the top. If you touch that part, it makes a loud noise and they're listening to the live stream and it and it's kind of a not a real pleasant situation for them. So, and last but not least is just always to remember when you're having side conversations, try to remember to always turn the mic off. We don't want those hot mic moments. So, with that, I'll segue into the executive session compliance announcement form. The board entered into executive session at 7:37 p.m. and returned to open session at 8:22 p.m. on April 28, 2025. All board members present at this meeting were in the executive session in addition to Laura Holmes
130and Jamie Pulk. and the board discussed the superintendent's evaluation and no actions were taken during executive session. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay, here we are. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor say I. I. Any oppose say nay. Hearing none. The motion carries. The board is a