president Harden before you begin today's meeting I would like to read a few announcements good afternoon welcome to the March 20th 2025 board meeting before we start the meeting I would like to share a few safety points in the next meeting announcements
please note that the primary exit and entrance to the boardroom is the door which you you use to enter this afternoon if you're leaving the room please use this door the restrooms are outside the boardroom doors to your left during the meeting we ask that you keep all aisles and exit exits clear if you
need any assistance during the meeting please wave the attention of one of our security officers please mark your calendars for the next upcoming meeting the next agenda review committee meeting is scheduled for Wednesday April 9th at 10:30 a.m uh the ARC meeting will be
held at the 42 West Madison Street Garden level boardroom for details on how to register to speak or observe at the meetings and to learn about the speaker lottery process please visit the Chicago Board of Education website cpsb.org if you have any questions about the registration or public participation
please contact the board office for assistance thank you for joining us today president Hardin we are now ready for you to begin the meeting good afternoon everyone welcome to the Chicago Board of Education meeting today is March 20th 2025 we are holding
today's board meeting in the boardroom at CPS Loop office 42 West Madison Street Garden Level i'd like to note that the board members honorary student board member and senior leadership are physically present in the boardroom register speakers may join us in person
or virtually if they've opted to do so i'm President Shan B harden on behalf of my fellow board members thank you for joining us today the regular meeting of Thursday March 20th 2025 is hereby called to order board secretary please call the
role thank you member Lozano present member Smith present member Lopez present member Thomas present member Bole present member Wallace present member Kuster present member
Pope present member Rosenfo present member Rivas present member Rio Sierra present member Brown present thank you member Bannon present vice President Bautista present member Gutierz who's joining us virtually via
Zoom present member Biggs present member Thodakura present member Blae present member Zachor present member Deberry present president Harden present we have 21
members present we do have a quorum i'd also like to recognize Pedro Martinez chief executive officer Ruchi Verma general counsel Mcdana Shakumbova chief education officer Charles Mayfield chief operating officer and Carolina Kchie our
honorary student board member thank you um before um we move on for the record I would like to note that RS1 resolution adopting the amended annual school budget for fiscal year
2025 and EX2 ratify the fourth renewal and amend the intergovernmental agreement with the city of Chicago for the municipal employees annuity and benefit fund have both been withdrawn from the agenda so before we begin I'd like to state and
first acknowledge our negotiations team this morning they met and considered progress has been made we're very pleased about that uh we're extremely extremely close to settling the teachers union contract so as a result the budget amendment and relating items have been
withdrawn from today's agenda and these items will be brought back to the board at a later date for consideration we're very pleased with the progress so steady the ship and we hope to be able to come back very soon with that resolve so the order of the meeting will
be as follows honoring excellence CEO remarks committee updates public participation recess or reconvening from recess presentations including p postse secondary success options network charter and contract renewals discussion
of public agenda items vote on public agenda items hold session reconvene from cold session and then adjourn over the last year we've been honored to have Caroline Carti serve as our honorary student board member you have been a delight and at
any point you could come have this seat member Ki has been an outstanding addition to our board her leadership helped her center student voices and taught us all how to better engage students more authentically and meaningfully on decisions that impact
them however her term for the board will end in a couple of months and we will soon be opening up the application period for next year's honorary student board member carolina can you please share the details of the application and share a little bit about your experience
and what it's been like serving for us and how students who are interested may apply thank you President Harden good afternoon the Chicago Board of Education is looking for its next student leader to serve in the role of the honorary
student board member for the 2025 to 2026 school year the selected student will represent the interests and perspectives of all Chicago public school students by attending monthly board meetings the honorary student board member will also participate in
the student voice roundt initiative which provides a platform for CPS students from across the district to engage with CPS leadership and board members on various topics this student body representative will receive a $1,000 scholarship to be used to support
enrollment in a two or four-year college or university to be eligible for this opportunity you must be a rising junior or senior current 10th and 11th graders hold a 3.0 GPA or higher and demonstrate proven leadership experience the
application period opens Monday March 24 at 10 a.m and closes Friday April 25 25 2025 at 5:00 p.m please visit cpsb.org where you can review complete and submit the application good luck to
you all thank you President Harden you're very welcome thank you for serving you've been a delight cedricoba please proceed with honoring excellence thank you President Harden and good afternoon everyone i am proud to
continue our tradition of honoring excellence which today features the kind of success story we wish for in all of our schools when he joined Farragut Career Academy last school year Principal Verac
Nanavanti immediately knew this was a community with a great potential so he made increasing student motivation and community engagement a top priority two years later there is a noticeable difference in the culture and
climate fair i'll let principal and share more about that in a few minutes but I can guarantee it's had an impact and what I want to focus on which is the incredible gains Farragut has made in
postsecary success the school's college enrollment rate is now at 84.5% which is the second highest of any neighborhood high school in CPS and 14.7% higher than the district
average i have no doubt that the school's partnership with Hope Chicago has contributed greatly to this change knowing that the cost of college education will be covered is a huge motivator for students to graduate on
time and to enroll in two or four-year college community partnerships like this have been key to Farragut's transformation as a sustainable community school Farragut receives additional funding from the district to partner with organizations that provide
exciting and engagement programming for students by partnering with Enlas and New Life Farragut students now benefit from activities like weightlifting open gym and art workshops during lunch and a space in their school where students who
achieve high attendance can gather to talk play games and relax after school turing is also available for students who need extra support in English and math and Farragut's new credit recovery program has led to far more students staying on
track to graduate than in previous years under principal and leadership a summer orientation program is now a standard at Farragate this is part of his mission to connect directly with parents and work alongside them to raise expectations for
their children we are proud to have principal Nanavanti with us today along also with his wife Kirsten who works as an SEO support specialist for CPS i'm happy to highlight full family's dedication to our
district also joining us are assistant principal Jeff Hereda and Farragut school counselor Christristen Argillan and finally we welcome Stephanie who will be graduating from Farragate this year and who principal
Nanavante says embodies all of the positive change that his school has achieved in the past two years i'll now invite the team from Farragut to say a few words good afternoon thank you so much for having
us i am Varagnan Navati the proud principal at Fairgate Career Academy IB World School thank you Chief Shikamova for highlighting Fairg and I also appreciate the support of Chief Larosa and the Network 16
team our remarkable college enrollment achievement results are from our collaboration with Hope Chicago their support has transformed college aspirations into a reality for our students in Las Chicago our sustainable
community school partner has been instrumental in enhancing students academic experiences and enrichment opportunities they've also fostered engagement amongst parents and the broader school community through workshops and
meaningful community engagement events throughout the school year when I began my tenure at Farragate last year we prioritized listening to our students what they desired most was a school building that felt like a true reflection of their aspirations thanks
to my incredible staff at Farragate their dedication we've successfully reshaped the school climate into one of care and inspiration kids come to school they do well in classes and our building is bursting with positive energy
this year we changed our logo from an F to an A proudly embracing the Admirals along with this change we redefined who we are as a school the impact has been profound a
22% increase in attendance a 23% increase in our ninth grade on track going from 66% to 89% a 23% decrease in chronic absenteeism and chronic truency and a stunning 90% decrease in
behavior infractions and suspensions thank you most importantly our students like Stephanie have affirmed these efforts in our cultivate survey we achieved an average growth of
10 points across all nine learning condition a testament to the strides that we've made as a school with that I pass it along to Stephanie one of our proud seniors my name is Stephanie GL and I'm a senior at Fer Career Academy i
struggled in my junior year when and when my mom learned about my grades she asked me how was I going to get a job without a diploma i realized no one was going to fix my problems this year things are different at Fargate security is making sure students get into classes and there's events for us if we come to
school every day i use the student lounge to relax doing puzzles or work on my credit recovery my senior seminar teacher is helping me go to Malcolm X for nursing and I'm excited for our senior activities with the school because my mom's encouragement my own determination and the support from staff
at Fairgate anything is possible uh good afternoon my name is Kirsten Argeland school counselor at Farragate Career Academy where I've worked for the last seven years and two decades over two decades at Chicago Public Schools students like Stephanie are the inspiration for the changes Mr nanavati
and our staff have made to improve our school climate our school has always been filled with students who aspire to various post-secondary pathways and enter careers that provide for themselves as well as their families lost my with our supportive learning
environment and the varied interventions we provide along with post-secondary initiatives students saw possibilities with the additional financial support with hope Chicago's those possibilities have become realities thank you
thank you all thank you team um board members do you have any comments they're quick to walk away you might want to stay for a little bit um I am so excited to hear all of these achievements from students from principles and again super excited to highlight one of our neighborhood high
schools so um if anyone has any questions or comments for them please board member P yes this is really exactly the kind of thing I spent my career working on and hoping for stephanie you sound a lot like a lot of
my students at Gage Park who realized after a period of time that they wanted to make changes because they did have a future and they could dream about what is to come and I'm proud of you and it's very exciting to hear about the changes
at Farragut and the way that the school is listening to students and growing and developing thanks so much for being here and inspiring us board member Lopez okay let's try this again thank you congratulations to the school uh
very proud to have you here before me i grew up in Pilson went to Benito Huarees did a lot of work in the little village area and have had and currently also have amazing colleagues in my daytime job that are proud graduates from Farragate uh it's a applause to the high
school to the support system for the students like Stephanie uh representing Represent Lavita and also the families and also our community partners and organizations and it just shows how important it comes down to you know we got to work together it takes a village
right so thank you thank you board member Lozano i also want to congratulate the team because we know all of you together made this happen and provided for the students an environment where they could
learn and they could progress i thank you so much for that because I too am from this community and uh so just knowing that there's been such progress and the statistics that you're giving is
an example for all of our schools to follow so this formula you're using of surrounding them with with uh the resources and also the community organizations like ENS and hope and putting that all together really was the
proper formula i just want to congratulate you and you know you're really a testament of cudo thank you thank you former Gutierrez um I also want to commend the work um that Fairgate's been doing and we in my
daytime job I work at in Las Chicago so uh principal is looked at as a big leader as in our community and and sits on our quality of life plan so uh congratulations to everyone today
thank you thank you again uh fair team uh keep going keep growing go admirals see does that conclude your report yes okay great board members are there any comments or questions
se Martinez we're ready for your remarks thank you President Harden first I want to also add my thanks to uh principal Nanabati and his team at Farragut for their extraordinary work i'm particularly impressed by the gains that the school has made in college enrollment which is consistent with much of the post-secondary success we're
seeing from last school year and just on a personal note as a Huarez alumni you know when I first met uh Principal Nanavi and in fact we walked in the parade together last year I I had I didn't hide it board members i said I am rooting for you i know I'm going to get some looks i I had explained it to Juan
Carlos the principal Huarez but I you know when I met the principal I said this is the energy this is the leader that we've been waiting for board members I remember when I heard that uh the Farragate team beat out Lane Tech in the baseball game I thought okay something's going on at Farragate you
know so so again congratulations principal chief Kumba will discuss also more of our trends around postsecary a bit later in the meeting but I want to highlight some of what what we're projecting for 2025 after breaking district records in the last school year
C CPS anticipates that the class of 2025 will be the largest group ever to earn early college and career credentials while still in high school we are also on track to see a record of numbers the number of students graduating with 15 or more college credit hours and with
associate degrees already in hand so again uh just to remind everybody these are students that are getting their associate degrees they actually go to their college graduation before they go to their high school graduation so the they're earning their associates degree with a high school diploma importantly
these benchmarks are consistent across all racial groups board members this is the initiative that we have no racial gaps at all first initiative ever we've seen in the district that from the onset has been like that so I'm extremely proud that we're closing opportunity gaps for our long exist that have long
existed for our students of color and we're working hard to keep that momentum going the data is very exciting and we look forward to sharing more detail later in today's meeting i also want to congratulate our CPS athletic teams that have been crowned champions so far this school year most recently the boys basketball
team at Diet High School captured the state championship title for class 2A go Diet in class 4A the state title went to the girls basketball team at Kenwood Academy this was a historic historic moment for the Broncos
it was the school's first ever state champ state championship in girls basketball another historic uh moment came earlier this school year when the boys cross country team from Walter Payeyton captured their own state championship breaking the school's raceime record and in the process and
Isabella a swimmer at Whitney Young broke the district's record for the 50 50-yard freestyle capturing her own state title with a time of 22.5 seconds any swimmers in the room we're looking forward members to inviting our championship athletes you'll see them in person at next board
at the next board meeting i'm also proud to recognize all of our state champ as as I'm proud of recognizing all of our state champion athletes but I'm particularly proud of Isabella and the girls basketball team from Kenwood as we celebrate women's history month i'm glad to see that schools around the district take
advantage of this opportunity to uplift women and girls some of the schools have hosted h hands-on events to help female students explore careers in STEM where women continue to be underrepresented other hosted panels where students hear from successful women on everything from
health to self-care to self self-care to drive and resilience and in classrooms around the district students have been creating projects that highlight the contributions of female artists athletes activists as well as well as those who have who have famously broken glass
ceilings in various career fields we want girls in CPS to feel inspired and empowered to achieve great things thankfully they have tremendous role models in our schools to support them every step of the way i want to thank all of the amazing talented women at CPS especially our inschool staff who make
up the the vast majority of our workforce it is your hard work that keeps our district going every single day and I am constantly impressed by your skill dedication patience and empathy and I feel grateful that my daughter has so many of these women as CPS role models
moving on spring break begins Monday March 24th our staff and students have been working hard and I'm sure they're looking for a little bit of time off we want our students to have fun but also to stay safe and engaged during their time away from school families can visit our website at
cps.edu/springbreak for a list of programs and activities that are available to CPS students during the break they include our safe haven heights uh safe haven sites opp and opportunities from the Chicago public library and the Chicago park district i encourage everyone to explore the spring
break and uh the spring break web page and to find options that best fit for your families and I look forward to seeing all of our students back in class Wednesday April 2nd ready to finish the school year strong so again families first uh school back is April 2nd it's Wednesday so it's actually a seven-day
spring break for our students we also want to talk about also what something that's that's an something that's a concern that's rising across the country we want our students to return to school as healthy as possible which brings me to my next topic we've seen in the news that cases of measles
are are on the rise around the country measles is a is an extremely contagious virus if one person has it up to nine out of 10 people who have been around them will likely be infected if they're not protected fortunately we not we have not seen any cases in Chicago but we
want to make sure that our CPS community remains healthy the best protection against measles is the misos ms reubella and MMR vaccine as it provides the lifelong protection from the miso virus this is a required vaccine for CPS and most people will have received it in
childhood but for those of those of who have not there are many ways to access this vaccine including our district school-based and and mobile health clinics the Chicago Department of Public Health immunization centers and local healthcare providers and pharmacies the vaccine is free for
anyone who is uninsured underinsured or receiving medical benefits through Medicare or Medicaid for any family traveling internationally during the spring break it is especially important to make sure you have protection against the measles virus before you travel visit
cps.eduvacines or vaccines.gov for more information on accessing this potentially life-saving vaccine earlier this month we also celebrated social emotional learning or seal day and national and the national uh school social work week these two things go hand in hand because providing
emotional support to students is a big part of what our social workers do from our students early days in prek to the transition to and through high school and our our social workers strive to make sure that they they have safe welcoming learning environments when where they feel valued and supported
school social workers touch all aspects of the student experience from supporting students in crisis to shaping a positive school culture and climate and to giving students as they make their plans for successful f uh futures beyond CPS i thank them for being such a trusted
presence in our schools and for helping our students achieve a deep sense of belonging at CPS the emotional well-being of our children is always a priority that is why we're proud to announce a new partnership with Hazel Health United and United Healthcare to expand mental health services for our
youth thanks to this collaboration CPS high school students can now access highquality counseling from licensed therapists at no cost again I want to repeat that our CPS high school students can now access highquality counseling from licensed therapists at no cost all
sessions are virtual which means that students can access these services from the comfort of their homes as we continue to roll out this program this spring students will also have the option to engage in these sessions in a safe space at their school at a time when it where when it will not interfere with their learning as a public
education system our go our goal is to give our students the tools they need to be successful we know that this commitment goes beyond pure academics we need to empower our children by giving them the resources to navigate life's daily challenges and to help them build a strong mental health foundation the partnership this partnership is a power
is a powerful step in that direction and I thank Hazel Health and United Care for bringing this opportunity to our district mr president this concludes my prepared remarks thank you CEO board members are there any comments or questions we have no committee updates this month
so we'll proceed with today's public participation session thank you for joining us to share your comments with the board in compliance with the Illinois Open Meetings Act public participation sometimes referred to as public comment is a portion of the board meeting or hearing that grants district stakeholders the opportunity to address
the board with their concerns and comments note that public participation is a time for board and CPS senior leadership to listen and hear from you rather than a time for dialogue with board members during or after your remarks while we can't discuss personnel
matters public participation is a key component of transparent governance and provides us as board members as well as senior leadership an opportunity to listen to everyone who has signed to speak this board takes equity of voice seriously while we may not address your
comments directly during public participation CPS leadership is always present at our meetings and are able to address concerns as follow-ups after the meeting as a district and as a board we also have many other spaces for
authentic dialogue for example each and every one of our board members hosts board office hours so that we can have a conversation please use our website cpsb.org board if you want to meet with the board member during office hours we encourage you to take advantage of the
opportunity to meet with board members outside of a board meeting thank you for your attention and consideration as a reminder union representatives will be allotted 5 minutes to speak before public participation and elected officials will be allotted 5 minutes to
speak after the conclusion of public participation board Secretary please share the rules of public participation thank you President Harden members of the public who registered to speak were given the option to attend in person or via an electronic format for those who
prefer to attend via an electronic format they were given information to access this meeting by dialing a number and using their phone we did this so that speakers with limited or no access to the internet or who may have weak internet internet connection could still participate using their phones also
members of the public may submit written comments for board of education meetings via the written comments form on the board's website at cpsboe.org or mailed to one north Dearbornne sweet 950 written comments received between the day the public agenda was posted through 5:00 p.m the day after the board
of education meeting will be submitted to the board and published within five business days on our website at cpsboe.org speakers please listen while I provide directions for public particip participation i will call your name and number when it is your turn to speak for
speakers joining us virtually as a reminder to unmute please enter star six when you once you hear your name please state your name for the record i will then start the two-minute timer when there are 30 seconds remaining I will inform you so that you can proceed to conclude your remarks to allow for the
next speaker to begin for anyone standing with the speaker please stand along the glass partitions to keep the aisles clear thank you President Harden before we begin calling speakers from the speakers list we do have union reps who would like to address the board
we'll begin with Jen Conent CTU Charter Division Chair good afternoon members of the board i'm Jen Conant chair of CTu's charter division and a charter school math teacher i see that there are many charter educators and families signed up
to talk about their schools today the Asero moms you and they may have seen the last five months were also advocates for Asero during their renewals in the past they were unfortunately betrayed by Asero and this renewal process when Acero announced they were closing seven
of our schools last October despite a three-year renewal by CPS the year before some of the educators and families here today may be scared that their charter will not be renewed because charter operators may have told them that they should be scared to them
I want to share that this board has fought to keep schools open including charter schools this board stepped in to save five schools protecting students and families i also want to share that a delay in renewal votes on charters does
not mean that this board will not vote to renew charters eventually i actually believe that this board should pause renewals of charters including alternative and contract schools until this board creates new policies that improve accountability and protections
for families in the contracts between the district and charter operators changing board policy to ensure that charter contracts provide more accountability to the district and to families is urgent it cannot be delayed educators families this board and this
district cannot afford another Acero disaster our families deserve better here are some of the issues and questions that this board should tackle when it comes to district contracts with charter operators additional information and transparency what additional
information does CPS need in order to better foresee possible closures absorption procedures what absorption procedures for students and staff should be outlined in contracts if a charter operator decides to walk away from the commitments they made to CPS and our
students by closing a school cps shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel every time an operator closes a school minimum notification should there be a minimum notification timeline for charter or contract school closures and should operators ever be able to close
schools mid-contract an appropriate use of funds how can this board ensure that public school tax dollars intended for education are not spent on campaigns against educators who choose to form a union and that money is going into the
classroom and not into management fees i also want to speak to you today about the options alternative schools up for renewal concerns have been raised including by the press and CPS noting that schools who are killed or injured by gun violence have disproportionately
been at nondistrun alternative school chains such as YCCS cps has been investigating whether investment in district programs for atrisisk students might lower the chances of them being involved in a violent encounter what does this board know at this point about the
effectiveness of these programs counseling students out of CPS neighborhood schools into alternative charter schools may not be what's best for these students unsurprisingly those schools are not all the same and some of them do a much better job of meeting the
educational safety and support needs of students than others yccs is up for renewal this year and is a charter holder that farms out management of most of its schools to charter management organizations this structure means that CPS sends
money to YCCCS for its schools which takes a chunk of that money then sends it to the charter management organization which takes a chunk of that money and then it finally goes to the school this structure means that fewer dollars make it into classrooms than in the district or in charter schools that
are directly managed by the charter holder beyond that I want to flag that YCCS has failed to land a contract with us with CTU at YCLA our contract there expired in 2022 we negotiated an interim agreement on compensation for school
years 22 23 and 2425 but negotiations on the larger contract have been on hold for months as YCCCS has not felt urgency to land an agreement we also want to flag that while YCCCS is supposed to be responsible for providing special education staffing and services at all
of its schools Latino youth has barely received any services i have more concerns but don't have time for them now i also want to flag concerns about the Excel Academy and Camelot Network these campuses are run as subsidiaries of a national
forprofit private equity-owned education corporation which owns multiple for-profit companies and an investigation by the state of Connecticut found that the network um serving students with disabilities had grossly underserved
students with disabilities and violated state and federal education uh special education laws both the Excel Camelot schools considered for renewal today the Excel Southshore and Southwest were cited in their last renewal as having failed standards for special education
students here in Chicago please conclude your remarks given all of this I strongly encourage the board to delay any renewals until the board passes new policy on charter school contracts with the district to ensure that we never have another aserike school closure
again thank you thank you for your comments our next union rep is Kia Banks CPAA Chief of Staff good afternoon everybody sorry so we opened our meeting today
talking about all of the accolades and the accomplishments of this district and our students that educators and school leaders have made possible and while those things are awesome and we should celebrate those things what's important for us to ask you all today is that we
come to you today understanding that there are still some very important work and some very important discussions that have to be made see we understand that while there's much work being done at the bargaining tables with other unions we also have to make sure that we're
clear some of those sticking points we must say something about we understand that there seems to be some discrepancy about how we are going to make sure that our most precious and our our most critical people in the uh well those critical educators teachers have prep
time my question though for you who's going to supervise the children when teachers are off duty when they have prep time school leaders are left to figure out how to safely supervise students and protect their in instructional time we are already
struggling with the limited resources that we have to ensure that our students are safe and that they are receiving that highquality instruction that you expect from us and so what we want to know is where's that going to happen who's going to supervise those children
we also understand that there's an additional sticking point about our observations and again while we recognize that there are fair and and and and and other options that we can consider three years for a school leader
to determine the effectiveness of the teacher standing before children is too long we have to understand that a proficient rating is one step above basic there are ranges between proficiency at different levels and when
you have a school leader who inherits a school where the majority of their staff is rated proficient we have to have a mechanism to ensure that those teachers are performing at that level it's important that we consider that in order for school leaders to be held
accountable for the outcomes that you expect and for the education that our students deserve you have to give us the right to be able to manage our buildings and ensure that that environment produces that safe healthy rigorous
joyous daily experience that we're talking about in all of our plans school leaders are going to be evaluated every year regardless of what's going on change disruption federal cuts budget
cuts staffing shortages plans changing leadership changing principles and APS are evaluated every year we're evaluated by our supervisors we are evaluated by our LSC's and we are accountable for providing those outcomes that you expect
and the very accomplishments that you spoke about today we have to have a system that allows those leaders who are the ones that are most accountable because see it's the LSC's that choose to decide whether or not we get a contract or not we have to be able to
have the ability to hold our teachers uh accountable for their performance we have to have a system that allows us to ensure that we're providing the coaching the support the development the opportunities for feedback and mentoring to ensure that our students are having
the best possible instructional experience in CPS i am a product of CPS my daughter is a child in CPS i have the utmost confidence in this district to produce the outcomes that you all expect but we have to do it in a way that
respects those who are responsible and liable for the outcomes we have to make sure that when decisions are made those people who have to clean this up and in five short months open the doors on April August
18th we have to stand there and look at our students and tell them are are we have to ask ourselves are we ready to welcome you back do we have the resources do we have the staff do we have a plan we need to make sure that the right
people are at the table when these discussions are being held and that those decisions take into account the work that has to be done so that you too can continue to tout all of the accomplishments of our great district so I'm asking you today what is your plan
and how are we going to put students first thank you thank you for your comments President Harden we are now ready to call speakers from the speakers list and we'll start with speaker number one Latangelo Ward who is joining us virtually please enter
star six to unmute langelo Ward speaker number one please enter star six to unmute good afternoon everyone my name is Dr tantel Ward and I am a product of CPS and a dedicated CPS parent today I
urge you to reconsider supervision structure of Chicago public school principles by repurposing the role of network chiefs the responsibility of network chiefs such as developing professional development plans TIWP
support in fostering community engagement are essential that can be handled by school-based personnel like an internal leadership team the $32 million spent on the network chief's positions a small fraction of this cost
could be better invested in enhancing in-house teams to directly benefit students i propose that we revert to a more foundational governance structure empowering the Chicago Board of Ed the
CEO LSC's and ILTS with supporting and holding principles accountable i also recommend increasing the number of LSC voting members by adding two more teaching members to the team by doing so
we can ensure a richer more diverse representation of educators voice in decision-making the decent the decentralization would not only enhance accountability but would also infuse our schools with fresh ideas and perspectives revolutionizing the way
they operate let us invest wisely in our future by reallocating a fraction of these funds back into the schools not only will this save a 30 seconds amount of money this will shift the foster a nurturing environment of our schools i
sincerely urge the board of education to embrace this transformative change together we can secure a brighter future for our students and ensure our schools are a supportive place where all stakeholders can thrive thank you for your time and consideration
thank you for your comments our next uh group of speakers are from Interamerican Magnet School anna Retimo speaker number two joining us virtually lindseay Wood speaker number seven joining us virtually and Jennifer Torres speaker number 13
joining us virtually anna Retimal please enter star six thank you please proceed hello my name is Anna Retamal and I come before you as an interamerican alumni former teacher and parent to beg for your immediate action in addressing the
issues of safety and community engagement at the school as a student at Interamerican I learned not only academics but also about activism and advocacy we were taught to speak up for those who cannot to stand up when we see injustice and to fight for what is right
today we are asking you to listen to act and to step up to protect our children under principal Sai parents are terrified to speak up fearing retaliation being banned from the school or even facing legal action teacher and staff morale is low and it should come
as no surprise that students also feel unsafe and unheard principal SAS has steamrolled decisions about the school's budget staffing and class sizes he has shown little regard for the input of the school community or even LSD protocols
parents have been coming before this board for over six months asking for help begging for change we are not going away we will continue to speak up members of the board you were elected to hold the system accountable mr martinez
you were entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring that our schools are safe equitable and supportive for all students we ask you to honor those responsibilities and hold principal accountable for failing to follow your own established protocols
policies and procedures the time for action is now we need you to listen we have 30 seconds remaining and we need you to take the steps necessary to correct the injustices that enter American our children deserve better and
it is your duty to ensure that they get it thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Lindseay Wood speaker number seven please enter star six to unmute hi my name is Lindsay Woods i never imagined I'd be speaking at a Chicago
public school board of education meeting to help spread the idea that parents are real constituents of their children's educational experience that we have rights as parents to be informed engaged and supported within the school community to ensure that our children's experiences are positive safe and that we take an active role in the community
however this has not been my experience and that of many other parents interame magnet school in particular under the current administration of principal Juan Carlos in fact many parents and staff including myself have experienced harassment neglect bullying and retaliation from this administration in
fact much of this problem could have been avoided by seeing us as partners and sharing all aspects of our children's educational experience including any concerns regarding behavior bullying social emotional support acade or academic needs upfront this would include responding to emails of all parents with concerns or questions informing the school community
about reach of breaches of security transparency about changes to schoolwide curriculum and so much more instead parents have been stripped of their parental rights and education principal Zas has neglected to communicate with parents far too often on important matters that have resulted in neglecting the rights of children and the policies
in place to protect our children from such acts as a matter of fact on March 5th a second incident occurred where someone tried to enter the school buildings it is March 20th and Principal's eyes has yet to communicate with parents about the safety of our children and school community like myself many parents have signed up in
ways that would support the school community by volunteering joining school committees lunch and recess support kiss and go etc however parents who have been viewed as outspoken or voicing concerns have been intentionally removed from these opportunities resulting in a shortage of staff and supervision during recess and lunch and not only putting
our children in danger but neglecting to keep our school safe let me take you back to the beginning of the school year that the LSC voted and pressed charges last October 2024 which resulted in an initial investigation against principal Juan Carlos Zas at Interamerican Magnet School since then the board of education of the city of Chicago law department
shared the following the initial review has resulted in a formal investigation into mismanagement by principal Zas we are working to bring this matter to a conclusion as quickly as possible but also in a manner that ensures a thorough investigation the investigators are diligently working to reach a fair and comprehensive conclusion
parents who are here to speak to the board have brought up specific incidences that have impacted students incidents of bullying physical violence sexual harassment sexual violence threats that have resulted in parents contacting safety and security speaking at LSC meetings speaking at a board of education meeting and filing Title 9
complaints as a matter of fact more incidents have occurred and Principal Z has harassed bullied and retaliated towards parents he has attempted to take away our rights as parents in the education of our children we urge this new board committed to improving our CPS schools to please remove principal ZAS from our school immediately while the
investigation on past and now new current charges are being investigated we ask that you honor your commitment to parent engagement parents as active for your comments of their children speaker Jennifer Torres speaker number 13 who is joining us virtually please enter star
six to unmute hello my name is Jennifer Torres and I'm also a parent at Interamerican Magnet School i'd like to acknowledge the board President Harden and in particular two members from district 4 where Interamerican has been located since
2006 Miss Ellen Rosenfeld and Miss Karen Zakur the Inner American LSC first presented a plea for the removal of our principal ZAS in July 2024 and in October voted to press charges the initial review resulted in a formal
investigation into mismanagement by principal disas since that time other incidents in the school have occurred prompting several title 9 complaints including bullying bullying physical violence sexual harassment and threats principal Zas has neglected to report
incidents or create safety plans or support affected students or inform parents he ignored parent concerns and instead block parent volunteers in the classroom this is concerning and dangerous so today again the community of Interamerican urges this board this
president these members and CEO Martinez to remove Principal Z immediately even as his investigation continues before any further harm is done thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Winnie Williams Hall who's
joining us virtually speaker number three please enter star six to unmute good afternoon my name is Dr winnie Williams Hall and I'm here today as a CPS teacher advocate and community supporter i have been employed with CPS for more than two decades i currently
teach at Nicholson Steel Academy and I am deeply invested in the success of our students i am also a member of Educators for Excellence and the founder of Sped Talk the Black Student Achievement Committee BSAC must be established because black students continue to face
wider gaps in academic achievement graduation rates and post-secondary opportunities as compared to their peers and our goal should always be to create a more equitable society addressing historical disparities and ensuring that all students have the opportunity to
thrive black students in CPS deserve dedicated and ongoing support that is not subject to leadership changes or shifting priorities a permanent structure like BSAC ensures that black student success is not just an initiative but a long-term committee
backed by law this committee is not an optional advisory group it is written into law without this committee we lack a permanent structure to ensure the success of black students this should always be a priority no matter who sits
in leadership this is why we are calling on the board to stop delaying and file a resolution immediately to establish this committee we also demand that it is added to today's agenda our black students deserve more than promises they
deserve our action thank you for your time thank you for your comments our next speakers are from Youth Connections Charter Schools patrice Allen speaker number four and Thomas Gatuso speaker number
10 good afternoon CPS board members colleagues and community members first of all I'd like to give thanks to God for allowing me to be here before you guys i come before you as one of the staff members of UP Connection Charter
Schools i work at Progressive Leadership Academy located in the Woodlon community as a college and career coach and as a mentor i've been with I've been with you Connection Charter
Schools for just about eight years as a whole you connection charter schools focus strongly U Connection charter schools focus strongly on uh communities youth and
partnerships in a holistic way this approach acknowledgment the deep interconnections between social economics environmental and cultural aspects ensuring that our students are
not only resilient but also thriving we par we we pri prioritize community-led initiatives and collaborations and we create environment that empowers our students as well as our
families additionally social emotional learning remains a you have 30 seconds remaining social emotional learning remains a cornerstone of our mission recognizing that diverse backgrounds of
our families we serve is in great need of those things through constant through constant uh staff training we equip our students with critical life skills self-awareness and and
self-control and the an exceptional ability to build positive relationships we ensure they are successful in in school work and beyond we also edify life skills please conclude your remarks our
commitment to these values is what make us strong and successful with your contribution support and continue renew we look forward to involving and expanding our impact into the 21st
century and beyond thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Thomas Gatuso speaker number 10 good afternoon CEO Martinez ladies and gentlemen of the school board and other members of the CPS family my
name is Dr thomas Gutuso for the last 21 years I've been the proud principal of Sullivan House High School on the great south side of Chicago and more importantly a proud member of Youth Connection Charter School i'm here to support the renewal
of Youth Connection it is a unique and successful charter one of the most unique in the country our middle name is connections in order to succeed with students you have to have those
connections many of you are parents many of you are educators so you know the importance of connection whether it be with a student or with your children those connections happen every day throughout our 17 campuses
happens every day since 1997 what makes us unique specifically is that we take students 16 to 21 who have been disengaged discouraged disconnected
disinterested or just disappeared from school completely we give them a chance to come back to school looking for a second chance a better chance to attend a specialty charter like Youth Connection Charter School
we are successful not just with me saying so and not just 30 seconds remaining we have graduates but on every CPS matrix possible since I've been here starting with tape scores then SQRP and then the option schools metric youth
connection has always performed at the highest level I'm imploring you to renew our charter to give us more money for our diverse learners as we are woefully underfunded and because we take students in at different times of the year we take students in whose IEPs are not
current even when they're in our school because they weren't current when they came to us i'd like to thank the school board for your time and attention and your work towards our students thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Katherine Zamaron speaker
number five hello my name is Katherine Samaron i was born and raised on the southwest side the daughter of a bilingual preschool teacher the granddaughter of a social worker and I currently teach elementary school music in CPS this semester I
teach about 600 students they have IEPs 504s they are ELLs and they speak 40 home languages when my colleagues in their home rooms and their core content areas are on their prep I am not babysitting them i am educating
them teachers in my building and across this district are routinely robbed of our personal time the mental and emotional overwork of teachers is our worstkept secret my partner knows it my therapist knows it tick tock knows it
this board knows it and so does everyone at CPS this system only works because of our free labor that's why we came into this contract proposing an additional 30 minutes of prep time time that was taken
from us by CPS and the board of education when these institutions bent to the whim of Rahm Emanuel we know how to compromise though and that's why we're counterproposing 20 minutes because we know what negotiation
means so I'm just a tired teacher who worked a full day today who's a little sick and comes through anyways and I am asking you board of education you have 30 seconds elected and appointed to talk to your CPS team to tell them how to
negotiate and how to compromise meet us in the middle we are out here every day working helping kids tie their shoes and blow their noses and let them tell us about their bad dreams when they have them and how much they miss their mom
and why they're hungry because they didn't eat the school lunch we're doing that work and then we come here to do this work afterwards and we go to negotiate and we figured out how to compromise and we need you to tell your team how to compromise
thank you for your comments the next group of speakers are from Perspectives Charter Schools michelle Handy speaker number six victoria Henley speaker number 20 and Troy Hollingsworth speaker number 29 as the next speaker approaches the
podium I do want to um note for the record that speaker 29 Troy Haulingsworth is not here good afternoon my name is Michelle Handy i'm a proud PAC parent and a board member of Perspectives Charter Schools
as a parent I believe every family deserves the right to choose the best education for their child when my family was searching for a school we wanted more than just a place for academics we wanted a school that would help shape our children's character instill strong
values and prepare them for life beyond the classroom that's why we chose Perspectives Charter Schools my twin daughters have been attending Perspectives since the seventh grade and now our high school seniors they have been on the honor roll ever every year
and which I believe is a testament to perspectives student academic and character building foundation as a parent I've been involved in my daughter's education and the school community i see the impact of the
school's values and the dedication of the teachers and staff what makes perspective special is their they they live a disciplined life principle these principles shape not just academics but also character and leadership skills
one one principle that resonates with me is love who you are it teaches confidence self-respect and the power of embracing one's uniqueness i've watched my daughters grow in these areas for
years Perspectives has given families like mine the opportunity to access highquality education that meets our children's needs school choice is about ensuring that every child child regardless of their zip code has access
to the best learning environment possible for my children the environment is perspectives they are thriving academically growing in confidence and learning valuable life skills that will serve them well into adulthood this
school has been a place of growth excellence and support for my daughters and so many other students please conclude your remarks to continue providing this opportunity for students perspect perspectives needs a 7 to 10 year
renewal a short renewal period creates uncertainty for families and teachers making it harder for the school to plan for the future by granting a long renewal we can ensure that person remains a stable highquality option for
families for years to come thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker Victoria Henley speaker 20 good afternoon everyone my name is Victoria Henley and I'm a proud alumni of Perspectives Charter School
education was always a priority in my household my mother instilled in the importance of learning and of striving for excellence i was in a private school from preschool to about 8th grade and when I came
perspectives I found not only that it was just a school but they actually cared for us at perspectives i was a AB student a brand ambassador a part of the National Honor Society and a cheerleader i also took AP courses so beyond
academics one of one thing that I that really defines perspectives for me is the compassion so the teachers and the staff they invested in me and they pushed me to excel and made sure that I believed in
myself and my potential that support shaped me who I am today i went on to earn my bachelor of arts at Columbia College in fashion business and I was the president of Alpha Cappa Alpha Sority Incorporated
Beta Chapter today I'm the co-founder and executive director of Grow with Grace Foundation a nonprofit dedicated to gracefully empower the growth of young girls and young women through etiquette
education 30 seconds remaining health and wellness and with an appreciation for the arts so when we thought about this Tyler program of course perspectives was the first option for us me and my board members because it shaped who I
was and so I just want to give that back to the students and just pay that forward so I come to you today to ask you about the extension of the renewal for perspectives charter schools 7 to 10 years because perspectives is a school
that produces leaders and I'm living proof when you invest in students and when you believe in them the results speaks for themselves please conclude your remarks let's continue to give students the same opportunity to live a disciplined life thank you thank you for
your comments our next speakers are regarding the budget speaker number eight Dwayne Truss and speaker number 18 Dr angel Alvarez right here you want to stand here you want to stand right here it'll be
easier okay uh good evening President Harden uh board members and CEO Martinez and staff my name is Dwayne Truss i'm a former member of Chicago Board of Education i applaud you all here for your service to our children and the families uh but that being
that do not balance the city of Chicago's budget on the backs of our students and families as a board you have a responsibility to properly manage CPS funds do not borrow money or refinance any debt which my grandchildren and great great
grandchildren I got plenty of grandchildren but have to pay for as I stated during my tenure on the board there needs to be a strategy to develop a fund reserve because CPS doesn't seem that you got to do it because if you have a fund reserve and
when you go to the market because you've all voted on borrowing um was it TANS right temporary anticipation notes which is basically a payday loan and if we go if the board moves forward to be fiscally responsible it'll
be cheaper for our families in the future because it be less interest that has to be paid and also being from the west side I got to give a plug to the west side the fact that we don't have a wall to wall vacational school to go ahead and give our kids an opportunity to get on some of the future jobs and that's another you know issue that we
will be discussing with uh the board in the future but the but critically though it would be irresponsible if you would go ahead and move on as I know it was taken off the agenda so I guess it's kind of like my pre-estimony for the April board meeting so uh don't do it 30 seconds remaining no problem don't do it
don't do it don't do it because you're going to be bringing a lot of negative negative attention to CPS and also I was told by someone else that we uh had uh I think former interim chief talent officer Lauren Cla Mlullen uh unfortunately passed away she served
CPS was 25 plus years a public servant uh that's a loss when anybody you know you lose anybody from the CPS family and then my understanding that she was just only age 59 so my hearts and prayers and condolences go out to her families and I thank you very much i guess you guys
knew that you was going to have a night off or something right thank you for your comments dr angel Alvarez speaker 18 thank you CPS board it's my first time getting to address you but hopefully it won't be the last you will get to know me uh CPS's finances are a
horrible situation because of decades of mismanagement we are here because the past boards failed to ask the two basic questions they should have to answer how is this in the best interest of our students and how do we avoid these problems from happening again
let's put context in in 2012 CPS closed 50 schools they were facing a budget shortfall of $3.9 billion in deferred maintenance yet now we have over a billion dollars
of annual deficit and over 14 billion dollars of deferred maintenance those past solutions failed to really address the problem and past boards kept ignoring underlying issues because they failed to ask important
questions i implore you to ask those questions and one simple question is what are the financial projections for each school if you look at each annual budget 300,000 line items and add up what each school gets it doesn't match what the Illinois State Board of Ed says
they have so CPS has different numbers in their budget and what they report to is find out why and find out how come every year we keep going over budget let's talk about other problems not only is CPS not providing accurate
expenses right they hope that by giving you incorrect information you're going to keep making the same mistakes as the other board you have 30 seconds remaining let's look at also disparities in funding we failed to ask important questions about what was the return on investment uh progress for Latino
students lags behind others in the state and English language learners fail to make gains after the fourth grade essentially the longer they're in the system the more they fall behind i implore you I will send you all a report you will get to know me i assure you
please do better than the pass board ask hard questions and do right by our students thank you so much for your service thank you for your comments our next speaker is Janet Fernandez speaker number nine who is joining us virtually please enter star six to unmute
board members I am a parent of a student at Walter Payeyton and my child and I have witnessed numerous injustices at the school i am demanding the immediate removal of Principal Shabbas and the chief of network 15 parents and students should not have to endure ongoing unfair
treatment i firmly believe these persistent issues stem from a lack of strong leadership and inadequate parent support many parents students and faculty members want to speak up but remain silent out of fear
of retaliation from this administration this is unacceptable the fact that students and community members are using the Instagram account Payton voices who express their concerns speaks volumes about the urgent need for change additionally I believe that the
principal discretion process at Payton must be investigated there must be a greater accountability and transparency in how decisions are made regarding admission and student support i call for proper allocation of
funding across the district to ensure students receive high the high quality education they deserve at Payton thousands of dollars were spent at the start of the school year on unnecessary expenses such as balloons decorations and DJs during the December LSC meeting
we were told that back to school funding could only be used for balloons decorations DJs inflatables and bounty houses meanwhile students are left fundraising for basic supplies and amounting in as little as $30 to $50 for
extracurricular activities why is funding not being directed toward student needs this misuse of resources must stop payton's high achieving students deserve adequate academic support rather than wasteful spending on
non-essential items finally during this month's LSC meeting I requested the removal of principal Shabbaz and stated that the chief of network 15 should also be removed transparency at Payton is rapidly diminishing please conclude your remarks leadership
failures must be addressed furthermore I ask that you investigate the unprofessional conduct of the business man manager toward the LS to toward an LLC member for members I urge you to implement a plan to protect parents students from further retaliation by
this administration immediate action is necessary to address these critical comments we'll move on to the next speaker thank you our next speaker Eve Palmer speaker number 11 good afternoon everyone my name is Eva Palmer and I'm a a parent and
grandparent of two students at Elaine Lock Chart School can you speak into the microphone or you want me to start over yes please can we start the timer thank you my name is Eva Palmer and I'm a parent and a grandparent of two at a lame lock
charter school and I'm asking for this 10 re 10year renewal because not only have they earned that but they deserve it as well that graduation rate is at 100% when they go on to high school they
also have a 100% graduation rate and I just want to say that my youngest daughter she's in third grade um first mark and period she struggles with math and she received an F on her report card second mark of period came
out report cards came and I was really expecting for her math grade to stay at an F or at least go up to a D but she went up to a C and she's in third grade and she struggles i also want to say
that my granddaughter who's in fifth grade um she's doing well but I sit in her fifth grade math class and I do some of the work as well and I take some of the tests as well because I'm a Chicago
public school graduate as well i struggled in school and nobody never took the time to explain things to me this is one of the tests that I took in class and I passed with a B and to be
honest the highest grade I ever received in school as far as math went so I just want to say that the teachers at the Lane they they're doing a real bangup job with their students as far as
teaching go and I just I just feel like they really deserve this 10-year renewal and I just feel like you all should take that into consideration i'm 51 years old and I'm learning fifth grade math all over again and I think that's great i was
proud of my beat i went and showed it to the principal look what I got i got a B on my math test so I just take that into consideration thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Shaina Wrencher speaker
number 12 who's joining us virtually please enter star six to unmute good afternoon my name is Shauna Wrencher i am a former CPS teacher of 16 years with diverse learners and a former CPS graduate i'm a current teacher at
Mentor Academy Chicago South who I am as a teacher is making a difference in students one student at a time i am deeply invested in the success of our students i'm also a member and a teacher leader with Educators for
Excellence the establishment of the Black Student Achievement Committee is crucial to ensuring that our schools remain strong and supportive for all students especially black students we must create programs and policies that
protect funding staff and educational resources aimed at enhancing black student achievement without this committee I fear that many students will be left behind and opportunities for higher education and scholarships will
be limited our community has unique needs that must be addressed in order to foster and sustain achievement this committee is essential to ensuring that no student is
overlooked and every single student has the opportunity to thrive the BSAC is not only a necessary initiative but also a legal mandate that
is very crucial you have 30 seconds remaining change thank you black student achievement as a top priority without it there is no permanent framework to guarantee continued support and progress particularly through leadership changes
we call on the board to stop the delays and immediately file a resolution to establish the committee we demand that it be added to today's agenda our black students deserve more than just promises they deserve
immediate tangible action thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Jeremy Carlson speaker number 14 good afternoon my name is Jeremy Carlson and I am a CPS parent um I have a kid at
Kilmer Elementary School in Rogers Park and my kids are watching on YouTube so hi Luke and Grace um I am coming before you guys here today because uh Kilmer is a great school um and it really needs a new playground
um and so I just wanted to talk to you guys about um Kilmer and about the playground and the situation um and ask for your help um and then also to voice frustration that we've had with um the facilities department trying to work on
this this all came together just in a couple of days i we somebody mentioned it at the LSC meeting on Tuesday and I feel like I won the lottery to get up here um I had a hard time kind of condensing my my notes um but I have there should be a handout that you guys can look at there's some pictures please
take a look at it um a couple of things about Kilmer um it is the largest K through8 public school in Rogers Park has 810 students 78.9% of those students are economically disadvantaged 84% of our students are
minority students uh 25% of our students all have IEPs uh 56% of our students are English language learners uh we have a large number of new arrivals and refugees really vulnerable kids really vulnerable families the school's opportunity index score which I don't
know what that is but you guys probably do is 39 the Chicago hardship score is two which is the 27th percentile you have 30 seconds remaining thank you um yeah our playground it's not ADA compliant it floods regularly there's sewage that the kids are playing in
sewage water um and we've been trying to work together we've um put in foyer requests we've got a um an architect to work with us with friends of Kilmer um and our foyer request for basic plans the basic layout of the school was denied but we were told that they would
work with us um facilities finally after four months got our principal a copy of the plat which was from 1958 and so we're trying to work on this but um we really need some help so that's why I'm coming before you guys here today so thank you for your time thank you for
your comments our next speaker is Miguel Gabbera speaker number 15 good afternoon my name is Miguel Gara i'm from Institut Justice and Leadership Academy uh born and raised in Little Village i'm here to talk to you guys a
little bit about our school um we are a second chance high school that works with students that have been pushed or pulled out of other district schools or other community schools um we work with students that are between 17 and 20 years old 21 years old um a lot of our
students come from different neighborhoods and being familiar with the city of Chicago you know that within those neighborhoods there are boundaries there are organizations there are affiliations and we have to kind of do what we can control within our school to
provide a safe uh environment for them and so one of the challenges that we face is um how do we what can we control And so let me just briefly share with
you this story we had a physical altercation with two students from different neighborhoods and so I was trained doing peace circles by you all by CPS i took the restorative justice peace circles 101 102 and so I applied that within our school so I asked both
gentlemen separately if they were willing to sit in a peace circle and they both agreed now I can't go into the specifics of what the peace circle entailed but at the end of the peace circle okay and not only that but there was coexistence and not only coexistence
they were able to work together they were able to work together for the rest of the year now that is one physical altercation that we average a year in our school with students from different neighborhoods from different affiliations from different
organizations so if you understand the troubles that we have and the issues that we have in our city the roots and the causes then you will understand why our school is important and what we did that day and what we continue to do makes a difference it's you're not going to find this I know uh renewal
application you're not going to find what we did in some sort of an assessment but now this is something that we do so I'm asking you all take a look at what we do come to us talk to us get to know us better give us at least five more years for favor we just did
our new contract with the CTu give us the five years with the renewal and let's let's continue to do what we do thank you very much for your time thank you for your comments our next speaker is Lisa Blanchard speaker number 16 okay good evening everyone my name is
Alisa Blanchard and I am a Chicago resident born and raised i'm a 25-y year veteran of Chicago public school special education teacher and my current role is a case manager with 2.5 positions in Little Village for Corkery Elementary
School and Hammond Elementary School let me tell you a little bit about my time right now I'm on a full-time workload on a part-time schedule for two schools and it's hard it's really really really hard because we need full-time case managers
in these buildings we have our team day i have one of my schools with three cluster classrooms and those are our most significant populations that need the most support on a part-time schedule
i have 40% of my Mondays taken by holidays and school improvement PD days that I'm not there on a halftime schedule not on a full-time 40% gone 40% gone on a halftime my principal Principal Gonzalez she
facilitates some of my meetings because I'm not there enough to facilitate the meetings for the students for the kids for the services and she's a principal she has whole principal duties and responsibilities and she's supporting and facilitating
meetings we have 92 kids right now on our case load 12 coming down the pipeline in the last 50 days of school i don't know how we're gonna get this done 30 seconds remaining we need more help with our migrant population our kids we're trying to decide whether or not
it's language acquisition or either a true specific learning disability and we're being forced with they need instruction in Spanish we're being told you can't provide that because we can't obligate the district to services that we can't provide but then we can't violate their rights by not providing it
but then we still have to write the IEPs and the services to what they need and not to what we can provide so we need you to fund the schools we need you to fund special ed we need you to fund case managers we need you to fund dual language programs you need to fund bilingual teachers we need you to fund
the bilingual special ed teacher that's middle school endorsed unicorn fund it and I'm a veteran teacher pay me i paid 25 years into my pension pay me i shouldn't have to conclude your remarks thank you thank you for your comments
our next speaker is Mark Kaplan speaker number 17 good afternoon board members CEO staff and guests my name is Mark Kaplan i am a community representative from Uplift Community High School and a member of North Side Action for
Justice i love Chicago public schools and I love public education both of my children are products of CPS and my son has been a teacher for 26 years my granddaughter just graduated from CPS last year and my
grandson is a junior in high school they're all successful products of Chicago public schools because their schools were highly resourced and had dedicated staff and
teachers we're calling on you the board to do everything in your power to transform this district so that every child has the opportunity to attend schools that my children and
grandchildren are able to attend we need the board to make all the necessary moves to fully fund our schools and um and reach a just contract agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union it
allows the district to continue moving towards creating and developing schools that our children deserve in these 30 seconds these times of a massive assault on public education by Donald Trump and the oligarchs we are in the need for the
highest quality strongest and most engaging community schools and district we believe that the CTU's bargaining for the common good modest demands that are still not resolved are a way to get there these are common sense initiatives
that will move the district towards the highquality sustainable community school district that our children families and communities deserve thank you for your time thank you for your comments our next speaker is Delanie
Preston speaker number 19 who is joining us virtually please enter star six to unmute good evening my name is Delaney Preston and I am here today as a CPS teacher and former CPS student i have been a teacher
in CPS for two years currently at McNair School of Excellence in the Austin neighborhood and I am deeply invested in the success of our students i am also a CTu member and a member of Educators for Excellence the Black Student Achievement Committee
must be created because the current federal administration is working to dismantle DEI initiatives that safeguard the rights of people of color those with diverse abilities and individuals of all genders both in the workplace and
beyond this poses a direct threat to our most marginalized students leaving them vulnerable to the harmful impacts of these changes as educators and citizens of Chicago it is our responsibility to provide every possible opportunity for
our black students ensuring they are equipped for success in these uncertain times black students in CPS deserve consistency and unwavering support one that remains steady regardless of leadership changes or shifting political
priorities establishing a permanent body like the Black Student Achievement Committee ensures that Black Student Success is not just a temporary initiative but a long-term commitment backed by law this committee is not a
voluntarily advisory group it is mandated by law without it we risk 30 seconds structure to guarantee that black student success remains a priority no matter who holds leadership
positions that is why we are calling on the board to stop delaying and file a resolution immediately to establish this committee we also demand that it be added to today's agenda our black students deserve more than just promises they deserve action thank you
thank you for your comments our next group of speakers are from North Londell College Prep james Fields speaker number 21 Kyra Bradley speaker number 22 joining us virtually amir Richmond speaker
23 i bet Colliemore speaker number 25 who's joining us virtually and Tyrone Stevenverson speaking speaker number 26 joining us virtually peace good evening everyone uh my name is James Fields i am a currently the senior director of youth councils at
Mikba Challenge and a born and raised Westsider and a proud graduate of North Londale College Prep the class of 2007 and I'm here today to speak about their charter renewal um for me growing up in North Lale um it was a safe space but it
was also a space of empowerment um empowerment to learn to be able to serve as your community and also connect with your peers um it's more than about a renewal it's about a legacy um and we have to make sure that we continue to invest in those young people that look like me um that come from the west side
of Chicago and all across the city i've witnessed firsthand uh cuz I have program at North Londale every single Monday with my middle schoolers um that's called a neighborhood leadership initiative but I witnessed firsthand Principal Bradley in the hallway greeting young people encouraging young
people i've witnessed firsthand administration administration in the hallway greeting young people and creating that space of belonging i know that that's a part of CPS's 5year strategic plan um I know it's also something that we want all of our young people to be able to experience i've
also seen um and had conversations with the young people in North Londale about how they're feeling about their learning and how they're feeling about their experience and one of the greatest things I've seen is that us as alumni continue to go back and serve as our school um right now I know that there's
um the class of 2018 who are currently teachers there and they're giving it their all every single day you have 30 seconds um I know that uh there's a lot of things that have to go into consideration but I do want to just uplift that you know our young people need a space like North Londale inside
of North Londale the community needs it um it's a safe space for everyone to be able to thrive so I ask you all to really consider um making sure that North Wondale's renewal is approved thank you so much thank you for your comments our next speaker Kyra Kara
Bradley speaker 22 who is joining us virtually please enter star six to unmute esteemed members my name is Kiara Bradley and I am the proud principal of North Lawndale College Press as a Chicago native I understand both the
privilege and the disparities that exist in education at NLCP we are breaking down barriers to opportunity every day for over 25 years our school has been an anchor in the North Londale community preparing students for college careers and leadership we don't just educate we
empower we are proving that access to excellence is not a privilege it is indeed a right since opening our doors in 1998 we have empowered more than 1,900 students to enroll in college graduates of NLCP also earn college
degrees at three times the rate of their surrounding communities programs like our innovative Phoenix Pack has provided more than $8 million in scholarships since 2015 ensuring students attend college with zero out-ofpocket costs
nlcp is more than a school we are cornerstone of North London many of our alumni like James returned as educators or an influential leaders and serve the community i joined this family six years ago and I'm not alone in making it a
home here our staff and educators are here because they believe in what's possible once people join us in LTP they stay we have teammates who have been creating gener general impact for 15 17
and even 24 years our community deserves work i urge the board to to renew NLCP for four years such a vote will provide stability for our incoming freshmen we cannot do this work alone and we appreciate your ongoing support
in keeping NLCP as a beacon of community opportunities for Chicago's west side lastly I would like to extend my gratitude to board members Blae and Brown for their visit yesterday and the meaningful dialogue they shared with our scholars renewing NLCP for four years in
is an investment in our city future together we will rise thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Amir Richmond speaker number 23 good afternoon board members my name is Amir Richmond i am a proud junior at
college prep and I'm dedicated member of peace players i stand before you today because at at NLCP is NLCP is more than just a school it is a home a community and a place of transformation at NOCP we are not just taught academics we are
taught leadership resilience and the power of peace as a peaceuer I have learned how to diffuse conflicts uplift my pe my peers create a safer environment to my for my school and in my neighborhood sorry in the community that faces too much violence NCOP stands
as a beacon of hope our teachers and our and staff see us more than stewards sorry they see our potential they push us to grow to dream bigger and to believe in ourselves the support we we receive goes beyond the classroom it's
in the mentorship college readiness programs and the unre unwavering belief that we can succeed we need NLCP the students who can't who come after me needs NLCP and our community needs NLCP i urge you to renew our charter because
when you invest in NLCP you invest in the future leaders peacemakers and change makers of Chicago not only did NLCP positively impact my life it impacted others you have the power to impact others lives if you invest into
us thank you for your time thank you for your comments our next speaker is I bet Kymore speaker number 25 joining us virtually please enter star six to unmute good afternoon my name is Evette Kymore
i am a proud parent of Nvea Washington junior at North Londale from the beginning Nvea knew she wanted to attend NLCP it was her choice not mine but I trusted her looking back I am so
grateful I did since she started at NLCP I had I had never I have no worries the school provides structure that keep her on track they are consistently open doors for student to pursue dreams most important they prepare her for college
not just with academic through the fitness pack Naa has the chance to go to college without me worrying about how I will pay for it knowing that North London is helping means everything nvea is determined to be success she's
involved in Chileia participate in leadership program with the CEO and even training with Chicago Police Academy because she's determined to become a homicide detector she will be the first in my family to pursue a career in law
enforcement i am confident she will achieve the goals because of the support she get at North Londale when the Vea need help I know she have sta I know she have support chief staff Miss Mau she's always there for her to help Na to push
her to her full potentials and guide her and keep her on task i am grateful for NLCP for the structure the discipline the opportunity the opportunity they provide to students like Na because of this she's not just
dreaming of a better future she's achieving it it takes a village to raise a to raise our child north Londale is changing life that work that work must continue please renew chart North Londale charter
schools thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Tyrone Steverson speaker number 26 who is joining us virtually please enter star six to unmute good afternoon CPS board and CEO Pedro
Martinez my name is Tyrone Stevenverson and for the past 25 years North Londale College Prep has been more than just a workplace it has been a community and the place where my family have thrived i've been I've seen it
firsthand how NLCP transforms students into leaders but more than that I have lived it i was born and raised in North Londale in the North Londale community and I raised my daughters here all four of them are proud NLC
graduates each of them attended the college of their choices and today they all are successful professionals because of the foundation NLCP gave them nlcp scholars are more than just members and test scores we make sure
that our scholars in the communities are seen nurtured given opportunities that other scholars simply other schools just simply cannot provide the finish pack the posy scholarship the RBL scholarship are examples of how we create pathway to
higher education that many other of our students never would thought was possible i've watched my daughters tap into their strength and rise above the challenges that often hold young people in our communities back for 25 years
this school has kept this promise to my family i have had the privilege of mentoring school mentoring scholars you have 30 seconds to have college career and comeback leader in leadership position right in North Londale when I
look at the alumni returning to come and give back I see the cycle of transformation in action for those reasons I urge you to renew NLCP's charter for four years let us continue to change lives and uplift this community for generations to come i
thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Violet Whiteside speaker number 24 who is joining us virtually please enter star six to unmute good afternoon members of the board esteemed colleagues community members i
stand before you today to strongly advi advocate for the renewal of the charter school of Catalyst Circle Rock i am a parent of ch uh Catalyst Circle Rock a decision that will have a profound impact on the future of our students our
families and our city charter schools like ours provide families with choices ensuring that students regardless of their zip code have access to a high quality education tailored to their unique needs at Catalyst Circle Rock we have
demonstrated a track record of success our students are excelling academically our graduation rates are rising and we continue to close achievement gaps for underdeserved communities beyond test scores and statistics our school is a hub of opportunity we offer specialized
program in STEM art college readiness and other unique aspects equipping students with the skills and knowledge they need to thrive in invol in in an involving world we foster a culture of invocation leadership and community engagement elements that are critical in
preparing our students for success beyond the classroom the demand for our school speaks volume parents chooses us because they see the results they see their children engaging inspired and achieving at levels they never imagined possible our dedicated teachers and
staff go above above and beyond to ensure that every student receive individualized attention they deserve renewing our charter is not just about preserving our 30 seconds remaining it's about investing in future of Chicago it also reaffirm our commitment to education
equip to empower families and strengthen our workforce with wellprepared graduates i urge the board to consider impacting our schools has an impact on the lives of countless students let us not disrupt the progress we have made instead let's continue to build upon
success and reaffirm our shared belief that every child in Chicago deserves access to a great education thank you thank you for your comments our next speaker is Lorie Turner speaker number 27 good afternoon President Harden members
of the board CEO Martinez my name is Lori Turner and I'm with the Illinois excuse me the Illinois Network of Charter Schools we are disappointed to see the renewal vote punted to next month our schools still don't know their renewal term lengths more than 20,000
kids and their teachers futures are hanging in the balance i will reiterate what we've shared before this board the last few months that schools should have no fewer than three-year renewals to ensure schools have stability and
families have assurances their schools will remain open in the last three months I have visited the city's charter public schools with many of you thank you and together we have seen nurturing cultures engaged students and families
who are committed and choose to attend our city's 119 charter public schools along with you I've been amazed by the dozens of alumni who have come back to work in the schools that served them and afforded them amazing opportunities
you've asked questions you've made thoughtful observations and you've shared genuine concerns one of the biggest concerns we've heard is around the issue of accountability for charter public schools charters are held highly
accountable not just during renewal but annually through submission of financial operational and academic data two seconds remaining concern you've shared with us that this board cares about are about English language and diverse
learner accountability however there is no public data in district operated schools to rate on these same metrics so it makes it difficult for us to know which issues we could be working on with you together such as teacher shortages
or funding challenges whether those are at the school level or citywide to shorten renewal based on citywide issues is overly punitive in recent months we've heard board members stand firm to keep charters open while in public
comment we've heard please for short renewals this is counterintuitive because short renewals hurt schools which ultimately hurts kids we ask you for renewal terms no fewer than three years thank you very much thank you for your comments our last two speakers from
the speakers list are from Jones College Prep speaker 28 Nathan Euan and Ed Edward McNal speaker number 30 who is joining us virtually good afternoon my name is Nathan Yun and I'm a junior at Jones College Prep High
School i'm here today because we were recently um the issue has recently come up of staffing with our band department our current band director Mr samuel Froch is being replaced by our previous band director Mr michael Block
currently our students have shown overwhelming support for our current band teacher Samuel Froch we have over 300 signatures and many students have spoken about how Mr frost has benefited them not only personally but also musically and academically i'm not here
to argue against Mr block returning i'm only here to advocate for Mr frost and in some way for him to retain his job at Jones College Prep over the past year we have gotten many comments from parents teachers students and other people who
believe that our Jones band department has benefited greatly from Mr froch's support mr frost has also helped greatly with our ACES program which is our special education program at Jones all of our special education aids
and also our students have noticed that with Mr froch the program has benefited greatly and many of the students have shown significant improvement mr froch has spent so much of his own resources and so much of his own time on helping
all of our diverse learners and I have noticed personally as part of the ACE program seconds remaining that Mr froch is extremely passionate and extremely patient i am here to ask you to please consider allowing Mr frost to stay in
some position at Jones College Prep because I feel and all of our students and staff feel that he will bring enormous benefit to Jones College Prep thank you very much thank you for your comments and our last speaker from the
speakers list is Edward Mc Edward McNal speaker number 30 please enter star six to unmute thank you so much uh for the board for having me today my name is Ned McN i'm a proud parent and an involved parent of three children within Chicago Public
Schools uh one currently at Jones another one bound for Jones we're very excited and another one at Waters Elementary uh I echo all the sentiments that the previous speaker so eloquently outlined uh my son Jack is a freshman at Jones and we were so thrilled that he
became involved into this uh band and jazz program uh Mr frost from the time we saw him at student orientation we knew right away we were so lucky to have an involved teacher and then once Jack got in and began working under his
tutelage we were we were just so amazed by how transformative and enthusiastic of a teacher um that that he is um for for Jack and his classmates we were really saddened um on March 12th got an email from Principal Dolan about Mr
frost being uh replaced by uh the previous band director we were really taken back we did we had no idea that it it was a temporary position um and and we're just saddened I think for the reason that the the the the the uh that that the previous uh person
mentioned that he he's he's an amazing teacher the kids all love him he's transformative he's he's literally in the middle of transforming this program and and it really just feels like the rug is being pulled out from under these kids that that just admire him so much so um it's it's with uh nothing against
Mr block i I don't know him i didn't know anything about him until this email on the 12th and we are just so impressed by Mr frost and really hope that there's an opportunity for him to continue to to work at Jones uh and and help these kids because they look up to him so much and
it would be an absolute shame for him to not be involved with their um academics moving on thank you so much um for the board for our time today thank you for your comments president Hardly Harden we also have an elected official who would like
to address the board alderwoman Stephanie Coleman from the 16th ward who is here in person good afternoon good afternoon thank you for responding back to uh our board uh CEO Martinez to President Harden to this
very distinguished board members uh I am the very proud alderman of the 16th ward and in the 16th ward I represent 20 Chicago public schools and as an alderman there are a few institutions
that uh no alderman or community should lack schools hospitals grocery stores and Walgreens now this quite isn't the platform for a closed Walgreens however of the 20
schools three of those schools are in the charter network that is Catalyst Maria Providence Englewood and Unbudsman South you all Catalyst Maria is the only school in the 16th ward that service kindergarten through 12th grade
unbudsman South up until last year was the only high school of those 20 schools in the 16th ward and Providence Englewood is one of the few schools in the West Englewood community you all all of those schools have strong community partnerships especially Maria Catalyst
in the Chicago Lawn and Marquette Park uh neighborhood with institutions like Holy Cross and St bernard their model of teaching minds and touching lives lives has been a true
testament of communities like Marquette Park Englewood Back of the Yards New City i urge the board to please demonstrate your commitment to equitable education and strong community partnerships board I know you have some
dis important decisions to make i could only imagine some of the votes that you have to take and I think you might feel like city council right now but certainly I ask that not only for schools in the 16th ward but schools every teacher every principal every
special educate every person that make up the faculty and staffs at schools on the south and west side and north sides especially for black and brown students that you remember that commitment and the advocacy for highquality education
no matter what options no matter what community but I ask that you find in your hearts to make sure that schools like those that I've mentioned that they will not be closed you all the the irony of the three schools that I mentioned i
have three vacant schools in my ward alone three vacant schools so I ask that we write the wrongs and that students will not be another product of disinvestment on the south and west side god bless you all thank you for this opportunity and know that I am praying
with and for each and every one of you thank you thank you thank you for your comments president Harden this concludes public participation board members do we have any questions or comments related to public
participation we're now moving to a short recess i'm sorry board member Bannon yeah um CO Martinez i just uh hoping you could address give us an update i uh as much as you can in public on the contract negotiations
we've heard a lot from we had speakers here to ask about that can you give the board some sort of update i think what I would like President Bannon is um I know our chief of labor is work is going to be working on an update for you very quickly for the board again things are very dynamic the
only thing I'll say is that um again we can we're as close as we ever been and I think again I'm very optimistic that you know we'll have a resolution you know in the near future thank you President Harden um first I I just want to congratulate uh the
excellent work at Farragate uh and make sure it's not lost on the public that it is a sustainable community school uh I want to congratulate the girls basketball team at Kinwood um as a graduate of Kinwood in 1991
um I'm proud and I think that Kinwood stands as a testament in Chicago public schools as a neighborhood school with a magnet component that's been a top 20 school for 50 years and I don't think Kenwood is celebrated enough but um point of personal
privilege I do want to just celebrate the fact uh and thank you uh CEO Martinez for your remarks earlier uh but the story of Diet winning the state championship can be a movie um 10 years ago at this time Diet
was closed not being saved from closure it was closed uh the last year there were 13 students that died they were called the diet 13 and a community banded together and fought for four years to say that we
deserve a prek a worldclass prek through 12th grade system of education in our neighborhood and diet stands today as a testament um to the power and beauty of folks when they are allowed to impact the institutions that affect their lives um
from hunger strike to state champion any folks out there that can make it happen it could be a movie um I also want to just say to the folks that are concerned about the Black Student Success Plan so are we uh and we are uh
very serious about filing a resolution um to harmonize with state law um just ask for a little patience um with a lot of the things that we have to deal with as a board uh but we're
very serious about both filing that resolution and I have already volunteered uh to be the person that's on post uh on the board if the board would have me to be the person representing that one of the people representing that committee last thing I
want to just report to the public um in the midst of as you know contract negotiations and everything going on uh a team of seven board members went to Springfield this week um to begin to meet with
legislators around how could how could um Illinois become the education state in 10 years being in a uh with Chicago being a global city it's inexcusable that for decades
we were 49th in public education and so we met with several legislators and I just want to report that we'll be going down every two weeks on post to build a campaign to d to make sure that the
state is paying its fair share to fund public education not only in Chicago but in the state of Illinois uh the last thing I would say on that point um that folks may have heard today that um President Donald Trump did file an
executive order to disband the US Department of Education i want to say to every principal to every teacher to every parent in the room that what that's going to look like and we may not feel it for a year but
what that is going to look like is when you get that $430,000 on your discretionary budget from Title One imagine that gone imagine the resources that you have for a speech therapist if you have
a child with special needs imagine that gone so this is a time not for spin but for leadership and so uh we're going to do our level best
um to do our jobs as board members to try to come up with a way to make sure that we are um equitably funding our schools so um we'll report out each board meeting to let you know that you know we're going and and what's happening but just want to make sure
that the public understood that thank you Board Member Rosenfeld uh I also want to say thank you to the brave students that come up and speak i know it takes a lot of guts um so I appreciate that congratulations to Fargate as well um
much like today's Ben budget amendment being pulled without notice to the board um in terms of charter renewals punting the ball for a second month does concern me i I care so much about those 20,000
students i've asked to understand why that keeps getting punted down the road and I haven't gotten an answer but I hear you and I agree um that's it thank you Board Member Smith
you know uh I know that board member Brown is my brother because he took all the words out my mouth i want to echo the sentiments and with with board member Brown being my brother I gotta say that uh board member Thomas is our
elder and gives us a lot of guidance and thank you for the guidance and counsel you've given me uh I want to also give a big shout out to Farragate and I agree with board member Brown kinwood does not
get enough recognition for the excellence that they produce i want to also give uh a big warm shout out to Diet because not only is it a movie it's a movement with that being said there were some people that came and spoke
today that don't get a lot of recognition or any recognition at all and while I use data as the foundation for the decisions that I make there's nothing like visiting a school
especially the option schools that I've been visiting and I visited Southshore XL and I saw the wonderful work that they do with our most vulnerable populations after we just voted to pass
a $18 million contract for Back to Our Future options uh XL is exactly the student population that that was for and I see students and options it was a
studentled tour the school was student informed that was the environment it was colorful students who uh were underserved in other schools and that was their last option they were thriving
getting barbers licenses getting uh security licenses and getting rigorous academic support i just want to say how proud I am of those students the student government that gave me the tour through
the school were students from Haiti Mexico Brazil and even the neighborhood of Southshore that they grew up in i know that there is a concern about people who look at education as a
predatory business that is not what I experienced when I went through those option schools with those most vulnerable children who were being served but because of that I also want to say how proud I am of the body
of this board that co-sponsoring a resolution you will see today are members from across the aisle member Thatakura and member Ebony De and Maya Angelou says this and I'll end she says
"When you learn you teach when you get you give when you know better you do better." Mayor Dailyaly instituted a policy of CEO over superintendent and today we will bring our infrastructure
and our body back into place and so you know as board member Brown stated they are eroding the Department of Education there is no time like now to make sure that Chicago ensures that whoever leads
CPS understands the core work of schools and we don't lose that experience in education so I am proud of this board proud of this body how we're working together and how we're all seeing the
same things at the same time let's f follow the words of our dear Maya Angelou let's do better thank you thank you i wanted to echo board member Brown's comments about um the trip that some of us were able to take earlier
this week to Springfield um I wanted to say especially thank you um to the staff including um chief of staff to the CEO La Lau Roman who helped us um and the IG team who facilitated some of the conversations that we had in Springfield
and provided us with some resources i think that there's a lot that we may disagree on on this board but there are definitely things that we agree on one of them is that we need more resources and funding for our students and when we were down there in Springfield having conversations both with legislators
representing Chicago who had kids in public schools who were strong champions for public schools in the city of Chicago um and also downstate legislators um or suburban legislators everyone that we spoke to whether they have been vocal about it or not
mentioned the need for additional investment in public education and right now there's a lot of competing priorities because the Department of Education is facing cuts we're also seeing cuts to Medicaid and to housing and to social security and so in this tight of a budget year to prioritize
education there's a lot that we are going to have to do and a lot that we're going to have to do in coalition with others so um really appreciate the folks that were able to come down this week the legislators that were able to speak with us um will be going down in the future but the call to the public is
please contact your legislators at the state level um and ask them to support funding for public schools um no no matter if you're a teacher if you're a principal if you're a parent if you're a student that really matters because in a world of competing priorities um there needs to be some pressure to advocate
for education first because education is truly an investment um and the other piece of that is when we're competing for limited resources we also have to advocate for the additional revenue to make sure that we meet our budget needs in a sustainable way not just a
short-term fix so again thank you so much to the CEO and your team that supported this and thank you to board members um for making this a success any more questions or comments i do just want to underscore and appreciate and lift up the board members
who've went down to Springfield one of the benefits of having such a large board is we get to divide and conquer and so I appreciate the leadership that you guys took last week to uh represent us and represent us well we'll now move into a short recess board member Pope do you have a motion m1
I move that we take a 30 minute i second the motion board member Pope can you read that um motion back into record thank you uh I move that the board take a 30 minute recess
now that my mic is on I'll say it again i move that the board take a 30 minute recess is there a second i second the motion thank you i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith
yes member Lopez i member Thomas i member Foil yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member
Rio Sierra yes member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Baltista yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs i member Thodakura i member Blae i member Zachor
yes member Deberry yes 20 I zero Naz this motion is adopted by the board this meeting will now go into a 30 minute recess team can you remove the in recess slide the meeting of the board of education is reconvened we'll now proceed with the
business portion of the meeting ceo Martinez we're ready for your presentations thank you President Harden um and before we start our presentation President Harden I wanted just to um you know this was mentioned by one of the public speakers u one of our most devoted um retired employees passed away
just suddenly um it was Lauren Claire Mlen and uh Lauren um and I go way back she was she's been in human resources and talent u all her career in CPS and when I came as CEO for Chicago she was our interim head of talent she wanted to
retire immediately after I came and I asked her to stay because I had just started i was getting to know Ben and so I remember how I would joke with her because I said you know she she died at at the young age of 59 and so I joke I joke with her about
how she was too young to retire and I just got to say um she was just a a quiet leader she was she was um completely devoted to the district to our staff she was responsible for all the amazing recruitment gains that we
gained over the last 20 years so um again um if you don't mind President Hart if we could just have 30 seconds of silence for her and her family thank you board members and with that uh again we'll turn back to um talking about our postsecondary success and we
have our amazing college and career readiness team that are ready to present and I believe uh Chief Hogar will probably kick it off thank you actually I'm handing it to Deputy Rodriguez to kick it off all
right good afternoon everyone uh good afternoon uh board members uh my name is Armando Rodriguez i'm the deputy chief office and college and career success and before I start I would like to thank uh board member Harden for joining us to the skill trade event yesterday in total
we engaged 1,12 students from 78 unique schools across the four hosted at the union training centers also our goal is to raise the bar for all equity access on the programs so today we're going to talk about our
success in advising the progress made from the learn plan succeed which created the foundation for this postsecondary plan also the purpose of this theory of action is to increase the students persistent so I'm going to hand it off this to our to our amazing executive
directors thank you good evening board members uh my name is Dr heidi Truax i'm very humbled and honored to serve as the executive director of the office of school counseling and post-secondary advising if we could go to the next slide we wanted to start off today um actually
the slide after that even I apologize great um we wanted to start off today sort of giving you a quick look at um what we want our students to be experiencing on their post-secary journey so you'll see here sort of a map of what uh the experiences of a student
are like from sixth grade through alumni status so you'll notice that they should be supported by college and career instruction that starts as early as sixth grade that post-secary individualized learning plan tasks which are done on our school links platform are paramount to their growth and
understanding of the options available to them there's high quality advising for both course selection into rigorous courses as well as post-secary across all paths exposure to college campuses um trades programs and professionally
diverse representatives through career fairs and other opportunities and then experiences like work-based learning internships and rigorous coursework as we head into our next slide this is just a reminder from the five-year strategic vision that our
five-year visionary goal is that um all students if we can go to the next slide sorry um really are earning the equivalent of a semester of college credits while they're in high school that way we can ensure that each and every student in our high schools um are
aware ready they have the access and the success in life beyond high school whether they're seeking to do that through college or a non-deree pathway such as enlistment or trades or another experience we know that paramount to
both of um their preparation and their ultimate success in post-secary is early attainment so I'm going to hand it over to one of our co-executive directors to talk to you a little bit about the early attainment process thank you Dr trex uh good evening board
members i my name is Maria Busio i'm the executive director for early college and career education very excited to be with you today uh through our career connected learning approach we prepare students by connecting them to employers and industry providers uh through
activities like career and technical education which many of you may be familiar with work-based learning and early college the aim here is to give students an opportunity to experience the future they aspire to while they're still with us here at CPS uh we are
committed to providing options that accelerate and support their goals and plans for life beyond high school and so we focus a lot on skills we focus on knowledge and we also focus on mindsets for the future so a lot of our work is very much around that um I want to share
a few successes beyond what you see on the screen for our CTE programming we do have programs in 80 schools and we have 34 pathways that are represented we are currently working on uh expanding the types of certificates and certifications
that are recognized under our programs and we're working very closely with industry providers to ensure that those certifications that our st students are earning are industry aligned we're also working on ensuring that our students have an opportunity to participate in team-based challenges while they're with
us in terms of work-based learning very exciting work there happening as well we have recorded over 8,000 experiences so far this year uh and we're gearing up to kick off our summer internship programming last year we were able to
place over 1,400 students with workplace providers and we hope to be able to do a lot more this year and we're already moving in that direction this week we concluded a four-part series of skilled trades events we did this in cohesion with hire
360 Leona laborers the plumbers and also uh carpenters we just did that yesterday very exciting and and like deputy shared we were able to impact over,00 students very exciting work there we have also uh
just launched our second year with the uh laborers training program and this is through a relationship that we currently have with Leuna Chicago Laborers District Council and the Department of Streets and Sanitation what's really unique about this program is that our students get to participate in a
two-week training program that feeds into uh essentially work through the summer with the streets and stance team uh and then our students who then bid for the positions are able to get positions with the city what's really exciting is that last year we were able
to do this with 75 of our students and 55 of them did get employed by students and sanitation uh very exciting work and this year we'll be able to do 100 students with the hopes of doing the same and replicating even even more impact and more jobs for our students
uh most recently we also just graduated our third cohort with the plumbers union where our students spent 10 weeks with uh the plumbers they sat with uh they sat for interviews with general contractors and they've got letters of
commitment and they just sat for the test for the apprenticeship with plumbers we're very excited and waiting for the results in that uh what I'm hearing from the plumbers folks is that our students do really really well uh and I'm hoping that our students will will get picked up we started with 33 students this year 30 of them went
through the entire program and 29 said for the test one of them got picked up by the elevator union so that's why he didn't sit for the test very exciting work um and then uh this year we are reaching our fifth year anniversary with the relationship that we have with City
College of Chicago through our Chicago road map and we're getting ready to kick off Chicago Roadmap 2.0 know which will expand beyond just city colleges it will also now include UIC Chicago State Southern Illinois University Carbondale NIOU and there are more colleges signing
up to work with us in creating a smooth transition from Chicago public schools to city colleges and beyond uh IIT being a model to follow uh some of our students are are working towards that masters and they started while they were with with us very exciting next slide if
if if you will please thank you in terms of the Eric C for us dual credit dual enrollment and the CTE certifications do play a key role in this metric and we have seen slight increases slight growth over time we're currently working with
networks and school leaders uh to course map and to connect with partnerships that will increase options for our students and quality programs um we are also seeing some growth in the dual credits across all communities and all schools happy to report that that's
that's a big gain for us uh one of the things that we have been working on the the last couple of years and this started really this this May is this new thing that has come through ISBY it's a statewide movement we call it a statewide movement and it's
a college and career pathway endorsement uh again very exciting work happening there because it allows us to expand districtwide our career connected learning options and in the visual that you have on screen it shows a lot of the work that you're probably already familiar with here at Chicago Public
Schools but what's unique about this is that it brings it all together and the focus here is to prepare students across Illinois to confidently take on life beyond high school and it also allows us to retain our workforce uh last year we were
approved by ISBY to provide the endorsement in five programs i'm happy to report that as of this morning um we did apply for 18 programs and we have been approved for 16 and two are pending uh we are are hoping that those two will
also be approved but very exciting to to to be able to share those news um again in our desire to make career connected learning available to all students we have organized our supports by shifting staff to the schools um we are very committed to having supports closest to
students in the next slide uh I did want to share a little bit with you about the early college progress that we are making uh we are we know that if our students complete 15 or more college level credits they are more likely to
persist and to graduate from college so very exciting for us to be able to move towards that metric last year we recognized 65 high schools at the milestone celebration this year that will happen on May 20th uh which recognized students who earn 15 or more
early college credits and this year we're still awaiting some of our final data in terms of the spring enrollments and we are expecting that we're going to hit more than 71 schools who have who will be recognized at the milestone celebration we're on track to double the number of graduates with 15 or more
credits and that if we look at uh school year 2022 to now we're doubling it um this year we are expecting to graduate over 200 students with an associates degree and this again since 20 2022
school year 2022 um it's it's it's what tripled that's a pretty big gain uh this year new dual credit course uh requests went up by 140 I'm sorry 184% uh in
comparison to this time last year that is over 200 new course requests across all networks um in City College campuses and then the last thing I want to share with you is that we currently have upwards of 6,000 students who have earned at least one college credit again
exciting news to share with you i know you all want to snap that's so exciting uh you can tell because kept saying exciting news it's exciting work right we care deeply about this work um so on the next slide um we do just want to sort of lift to you the ways in which um
this this um post-secary work is put in front of students on the regular so again uh we do pre really key progress monitoring of post-secary work through our school links platform um and that is the the primary college and career readiness platform for the district it
serves uh over 170,000 students again because it's serving um students from sixth through 12th grade for every single grade level um students get the opportunity to complete a minimum of four tasks that help them build a post post-secondary portfolio
and this uh vendor is newer um we're in our second year second year of implementation first year second year man I it's all a blur right um uh and it's been such an improvement over our previous platform where now it's actually interactive it's visual it's
dynamic it translates into different languages they can use it on their phones so really incredible stuff happening there um while simultaneously it's being supported by adults who are increasing their capacity and ability to really advise across all pathways we were once a collegeonly district and
we've really recognized in part because of learn plan succeed and the data that has shown us that we consistently have a group of students who confidently tell us college isn't for me i want to go straight to a trade i want to go military i I'm I need to do this service year and then I might go to college
right um really helped us understand the ways in which we need to better equip the staff to help support them on those journeys and advise while making sure that they're equipped for every single journey because we also know that young people pivot and then usually they end up going to college so we want to make sure that they're prepared in every way
um school links logs experiences career in it provides career interest uh inventories it's a place where young people can build resumes um and complete those tasks that I talked about and that culminates in learn plan succeed which is um an
unprecedented graduation requirement in Chicago public schools that's now in year five maybe um where young people are telling us what they're going to do after high school and it is no um no exaggeration to tell you that we've seen
extreme benefits for our students since this graduation requirement has come to be u you're going to see that in a moment on the next slide but we've also seen it again benefit our staff because it's helped us understand ways in which we need to better support our school counselors and coaches in being able to advise across all pathways on my final
slide um I do want to just lift for you our college enrollment and college persistence rates so um when I got into this role I got to get some keys handed over for me from someone that had been with the office since 2004 and he said "Heidi when we started we had less than
half of our graduates going to college." Right 43% of students in 2004 were going to enroll in college that number is now a record-breaking 69.8% y'all that's so huge right um
because nationally for districts that have comparable students to ours comparable conditions to ours that rate is 52% that's how incredible Chicago public school students are and we all know that that's why you all are sitting here um but it's so lovely to see it evidenced in this way um I will also
call out that we have lots of schools that are doing an incredible job with that some of whom who are um consistently breaking the district average include Huarez Farragut Morgan Park right um we've also seen that
persistence improvement has come it's a little slower that's harder work because it takes our partners with institutions of higher education but um for the last four years we've been running two years of alumni support initiative where we um equip staff to do alum be alumni
coordinators and offer first um and secondyear post-secary support and our persistence rates increase when we um do uh uh disagregation to look just at the schools who are using the alumni support initiative year round the persistence rates increase there's like oh a two and
a half% difference right and so more and more schools are now buying in oh this is important our work doesn't end when they graduate we're excited to support them and as their collegebound students and trade students etc um so I I do want to just call out a couple of students who have schools who have seen huge
improvement in persistence because they've done such um good fidelity with the alumni support initiative so if we can please celebrate multicultural arts high school at the little village campus and von stuben who have on incredible works increasing their persistence
year-over-year maria and I feel incredibly honored to do this work we're very nerdy about it in case you can't tell we we care about it deeply as do deputy and chief um and we truly appreciate your time today to allow us to share a little bit about the work that we do thank you and President Harden if I can just give a little
context um so the college credit work you're seeing this is specifically students enrolled in college classes not count and and I would tell you we're in about the third inning in a baseball analogy um you know we celebrate these students every year that get at least 15
college credit hours the the rooms we have to get have to get bigger and bigger because there's more high schools represented and more students that is this is not factoring in the fact that we're the most accomplished district in terms of advanced placement courses not only taken but passed that also give
college credit and does not take into account that we have the largest one of the largest international baloria programs in the country that when students pursue the IB diploma and some of the certificate courses they also get college credit so with that you know our team it's not enough because we have
many students that by the way want to go into a five-year apprenticeship with the plumbers or they want to be you know stolen away by the elevators union which I didn't know that was a thing but and so meanwhile what we're what we're finding where we're really becoming really and I really credit you know the
team is a holistic district that really is just trying to help our students find that passion wherever it's at and these pathways that Maria just talked about these are pathways that are going to be connected not only to higher ed to uh trade partners to union partners to
companies so at the end and again we will continue to be the model that the whole country will continue to see yes it's outstanding first Maria you just got to bring more passion to your presentation we just couldn't couldn't feel it uh no I just want to acknowledge
Chief Hogar i had the opportunity to to come out to the carpenters union yesterday it was incredible to see all the students and the engagement uh this is one of the areas that I'm particularly interested in and so you know want to see it grow you know engage us to how we can be helpful um let's
press the city to do more and let's talk about how PBC and the county can also be participants uh board member throw to core okay sure thank you um this was this is amazing i
think even back in January with when we had training and we dived in dove into the strategic plan it was great to see for me this was a highlight the post-secondary goals that we had because they're incredibly ambitious goals and you're giving students opportunities and resources to meet those school those
goals and surpass them so this is incredible to see um I have a couple questions one is around I see you're tracking persistence so not just college enrollment how far along do you track our students is it through college graduation is it beyond um that's a
first question that's connected to another one thanks um so we uh track as far as what we publicly report we use enrollment and persistence so that they show up for the second year right um internally and what we use for to help support staff and
advising we're following them the whole way um because we that completion piece is what we're absolutely interested in we just have to at some point empower those post-secondary partners to really support our students through the journey so we have some uh key partnerships we have a college compact with our 35 top
attended to really engage universities and how to best support CPS students because they're not designed for CPS students um to make sure that they're persisting and we've seen improvements from that um but that's that's our our key focus is on the persistence piece
always an eye towards completion and then looking at that to help guide our advising thank you and then my second question is how GED programs for our parents fit into that that strategy um for students that may not complete college but later
they have kids in CPS and may be able to participate in GED programs u I know there's only so much you can focus on because if you focus on everything you're not focusing on anything um but how how does that or could that fit in i think that's a great question and for
one our partnership with City College includes continual continuing education and GED education um so we're able to work with our family and community engagement team and then schools that are sustainable community schools or community schools initiative that have
parent programming to make that connection as well we don't we don't have the adult education funding in in our office per se um as some there are some districts that are organized that way and it's based that's based on the
state um but in terms of our partnerships with all of the GED providers and city colleges is really an amazing opportunity because the way that they're organized once you start in the GED or the adult ed program it can
convert to early college to college credit or the certificate programs so GED in in and of itself is um doesn't open as many doors as if you're in that pathway and it converts directly to um college credit yeah so board member just
to you know so the chancellor and I have always this agreement and we we go out to community meetings together and we we talk about how CPS will you know in partnership with um you know the community colleges or universities we will continue to support our students but he always says the chancellor says I
will also support your parents so don't just limit yourself to the students students bring your parents along bring your uncles and aunts whether it's a GED program whether it's helping them with partnering with us to get their high school diploma to continue to college because it's not just the high school
diploma so just know this is a passion that the chancellor and I have but literally he literally says I will take care of the adults Pedro you take you help me with the students and then we'll do it together thank you board member Rivas uh thank
you Mr president um so first off uh all all of this work is my jam uh if you know anything about my background I spent uh seven years as an alumni counselor at UIC College Prep one of the Noble Schools where that programming around alumni supports persistence
retention um has a long deep history and I'm really really proud of the success we've had um and so one of the things about alumni coordinator I also was called an alumni coordinator when I started that role in 2015 and we do so much more than coordinate things and I would love for them to be called
counselors uh but that's just a little nitpicky of me but it's definitely incredibly important work i'm so proud to see this um we know that the data is out there and that we have the ability to be able to track our students through the National Student Clearing House and all the other ways that that we get this
data and information and so uh I'm so happy to see um as someone um who worked at a high school also doing the dual enrollment that's a really hard piece uh because it's a it's a lot harder to track a student once they're enrolled in a class at Malcolm X or whatever other
city college um and making sure that they're actually showing up especially if it's an online class and so uh kudos to you to be able to to continue to support those students and ensuring that they're getting those credits because it makes a huge difference um as someone who is you know a first generation
college uh graduate um having um at back in my time in CPS it was called College Bridge with uh Marcia Boyd way back when um and so College Bridge having those classes from NEIU allowed me to be able to strategically drop classes in college
to keep me on track to graduate uh in four years and so that's all you know part of this work that you've been building upon here in CPS um and then I also just want to really shout out uh Maria who I've known for many years uh another Enlas alum through uh Nor
Eastern Illinois University um that unless a program that helps more Latinos uh get into higher education to support our students our black and brown students graduate from college because we know that that college that college degree or that trade program or whatever
that certification is is going to really make that difference to help you build that generational wealth to be able to lead choicefilled lives so thank you Maria thank you to the whole team there for the amazing work you're doing for our kids and our families
or member Kuster i too am just going to echo the thank you sentiment um I I think it's wonderful that we have so many different options and choices and great partnerships for our students um I know when I have been going around and visiting schools within my district the principles are very excited to show me
their CTE programs very excited to take me down and show me what the students are doing and the students are engaged they're excited um I don't even think they know I'm standing anywhere near them because they are just very focused on what they're doing so it's great that so many of our kids have so much choice
um within the district um and I just also want to thank all of you for your passion like it is so clear and um that feels very good too knowing that we have people that are super passionate and super excited about what they're doing um and want to build and expand on that program for the benefit of our kids so
thank you so much board member Lopez thank you President i'm also going to be adding uh to phrases i love hearing about the partnerships that we have with the labor um you know making these opportunities accessible to individuals in the community um in particular
hearing about all the schools um the ones name in the seven district and also uh I I agree with the point about the GED for the parents i've seen this in some of our community schools um thinking about the Portkali and the Little Village area and also the Little
Village uh South Landell high schools uh that being said I was wondering if you can share um because I know it's difficult to track because we don't track students immigration status how are we supporting those students that don't have you know the proper documentation to uh you know right away
go into a paid internship or more difficulty getting into a four-year because of how much they got to pay out of pocket let let me start team and then uh please add on so um one of the wonderful gifts we have in our community is that every
student who is a CPS student um and I don't remember if it's a if there's a grade requirement of a B or uh but but regardless of immigration status free tuition at the community colleges point blank uh and then of course there's several programs that we try to connect
students with special scholarships and I'll let the team f you know so there's that's an also focus area as well um but the number one thing I tell especially any student who shares with me and you know in confidence that look I'm a senior I'm worried because I'm undocumented the first thing I say and
especially with our recent arrivals I go right to them I say you realize when you graduate free college immediately at the community college and you can go into medicine technology manufacturing what in teaching I mean and you'll continue from there latine
yeah I would just um in addition to the STAR scholarship which undocumented students and uh students from mixed um immigration status are welcome to to take advantage of um I'm very fortunate on my team to have a program manager specifically for undocumented championship uh in post-secary um and
we've been convening for over seven years a student voice committee that was called so coalition of advocates for uh undergraduate uh student education and those young people told us in year two of that so six years ago hey adults need better training and how to advise us no
shocker there right um and so we've developed a a credential that uh all CPS school counselors and college and career coaches teachers can opt into admin can attend um that's a one day to come in and really learn how to do advising for students that are undocumented and on
the immigration spectrum to learn about it to learn about all the different opportunities they get a know your rights component so that there's some protections built into the education as well um so that's a part of the work is is really helping equip the adults to advise students across um and then we're
also partnering and Maria has championed a lot of this work with both higher ed and with um our other partners of how do you build out better systems to support young people that are want to access you will be incredible um parts of your community if you can create pathways
right um you might not be able to call it a scholarship so what can can you give them a stipend can you give them an honorarium right so trying to just work the system as much as possible because if they can't do work study what can they do um and making sure that we're taking advantage of the undocumented
liaison that every campus is required to have by the state of Illinois to really actually be advocates on those campuses to build better pathways for students and I would add as well that the STAR scholarship there's a specific scholarship for students who are in
options schools that has a slightly different criteria i know our great partners from the options network are here but um we're seeing with students who are newcomers who have a shorter runway to graduate if they are going to an option school we also are really
focused and counseling on the the options version of the STAR scholarship thank you so much and I appreciate the response and also uh some you know very thoughtfulness of how do we engage the families and the community so thank you
board member Pope yes i also of course want to thank you and I want to say that it's great to hear about how much progress there has been we had a situation when I was at Gage Park where our saludiatoran our
second in the class found out in January when she wanted her parents to fill out the FAFSA that she had come here at the age of four months and even though her younger brothers and sisters who were nowhere near as academically inclined as
she was were all citizens she was not a citizen and it was just heartbreaking to see what she went through and how few alternatives there were for her and that she literally ended up working at the dollar store on Kenzie Avenue just broke
my heart more than almost anything else and it's also great to hear about the partnerships that you've developed with different unions and I'm wondering if you've done any work with women in the trades i have some friends who are very
actively involved in women in the trades and they're a great organization for supporting our young women who may want to go into uh non-traditional but very well-paying careers yes thank you for raising that and I'd love to talk about women in the trades
especially in women women's history month when they were at all four of our trades events um our skilled trades events and then uh with all of the unions we currently work with because women in the trades is not a hiring organization they provide the connection
um uh Latasha who is one of the our great partners at Lyona is a member of labors 101 and she's a member of women in trades so when we get our young women into the unions we get to make that connection And I think that mentoring relationship
we've done we've made a lot of progress in changing the access to uh to unions and their great jobs and we still need to make sure there's mentoring so women in the trades does a great job with that higher 360 does a great job with the
mentoring because we are still always going to think about persistence and just like we think about college persistence maintaining that pathway in the trades uh is a really important point so we we definitely women in tra in the trades is a great partner um and
we appreciate all of those workforce development partners that are at the table with us as well i'm gonna break protocol here and I just have to say I didn't talk about the CPS Dream Fund and my team will literally kick me in the shins if I don't remind you that CPS also has our own dream fund
scholarship every year we award more than 70 students uh last year we honored students from I think it was 21 different countries um the need is so great so if you know people with deep pockets send them to Children's First Fund have them to look at the CPS Dream
Fund we need y'all's help um because that is another primary way in which we are supporting our students and it's a last dollar scholarship that we award directly vb Bautista thank you and I mean hats off Chief Hogard i'm so proud of all the
work that you guys have done your team is incredible um I come from a bluecollar family i have so many uh electricians plumbers my husband works for the railroad and um I'm this is such
an just like what an opportunity for our students our CPS students um and I I do have one question do you have the ratios of like uh male and female um students who enter the
program for the trades programs we have to manually assemble that um because we don't have a good mechanism with uh employment data that's okay i'm not I don't I don't want to put more work on your already very plate but it's
something Yeah that I'm also really interested michael Madre is a electrician at Ford a single mom and is also uh a graduate participant of the women's in the trades and so we you know also want to talk to our our women there's a lot of the new economy like re
renewables like solar and uh wind and all the other things that are on the horizon well were before Trump but um but you know there's opportunities for like also um blue collar workers to work on these like kind of sustainable jobs
uh in the in the trades so I'm really excited about that and I'm really happy that you um have been able to accomplish so much thank you thank you we do recruit intentionally for all of our events we look at our demographics we
look at the network so we can see part of the city we look at types of schools and um the trades where we've gotten uh we had a great cohort of young women who were successful in getting into the plumbers apprenticeship right out of
high school graduation um and this year at that event one of the first year apprentices who was leading is is one of the young women um so we we are getting a great reception from the trades where we need to continue to grow um is having
young women apply um so that's definitely an area that that we want to focus on and we do know our college data is skewed more uh female as well so I think making sure that we're really making sure everyone understands all the
opportunities um and we've had great response with built i think part of this too is we need to build those opportunities so all of these partnerships we need to build we need the unions at the table we need the industry partners at the table and then
with us as the education um component and I think that's the place where when we say where we can use additional support it's making sure we get the industry partners at the table um the unions have been great and responsive but they can't hire so when we're
talking about um the you know the Southworks development and which is also my community we're saying we want to make sure that these construction jobs are representative of our our community and then we need all of the contractors
at the table to do the hiring but then we also need the project to be funded and the unions to be there so it really is a dance of getting us all at the table wow and just please lean on me i would love to support you and in that effort and also with the dream fund uh
anything that I could do if you need me to attend a meeting with with you guys or anything like that um my door is always open thank you for so much this is this is especially a program that is really close to my heart so um I will definitely uh support in any way that I
can or member Rosenfeld uh I like my fellow board members want to give you all the praise in the world i really appreciate the work that you do um learn plan succeed becoming a graduation requirement was a gamecher you know as a
parent of three graduates and a junior in high school it's nice to see programs that are created and then implemented and implemented in a way that I I hear from the principal and then I hear from the school counselor and then I hear from my own child so
there's accountability which leads to success so one of the big successes isn't just that it became a requirement but at even at the school level at the student level it's being implemented they understand why they're doing what they're doing they're given the
checklist it's really simple easy to use and look at the success so kudos to to doing something and taking it from the beginning all the way through to my own daughter telling me to sign it off so I appreciate your work yes you deserve the
applause bannon um I'll set you up for an encore right here um like everyone said thank you for your great work uh uh I agree with all that um I thank you for your program i my
daughter got some uh dual credit and uh um and um she went to write for a summer English class so she might graduate a semester early so my pocketbook thank you as well um but uh my question is what um what do you need from us what
what do you see your blockers you you've got a great trend for success which is fantastic maybe there's a little COVID dip or whatever but um you know what what do you see as the main things you need to continue your success i I mean first we need we need all of
your partnerships at the table with us i think um that's really important we are doing a lot of look we're doing we're looking a lot at policy and where there's potentially barriers um for student access so that's something we'll
be coming um this summer and the early fall and talking about some some policy pieces um I think this the 70% of students reaching a semester or more is a very ambitious goal and um like learn
plan succeed there's some folks who think it doesn't apply to all students or shouldn't apply to all students so we need we need the backing that we can do this we can put the intentional supports in place we we don't want to lower the bar for any students and so I think that
um as a place of of keeping making sure we have everything we need to implement this policy um and the roadmap 2.0 that we're going to talk about uh shortly with our launch of creating that seamless partnership into a 4-year
university from us with zero credit loss um is the early college credit is free but the support that we need to have within our office to make sure we can progress monitor and get all those
students over the finish line um is something we need to maintain that I think that the points around um it's not just a mandate of like you need to graduate with this requirement because if we would have done that without support it would have just it would
eliminated a group of students who didn't have what they need so I think always keeping the needs around post-secary success the reason why we are successful is because we have college and career specialists we have CTE specialists we have more counselors
in schools than we've ever had and we we are thinking a lot about what are those supports along the way every step um so what we really need is to maintain the the uh this isn't we've built the
capacity and now we can walk away um and we know we're in I think we all know where we are with with the budget and the uh national conditions um but this is an area where our students need us to be there in partnership with them all
the way through graduation yeah and I'll just add Megan because um you're trying to allude to it but I rather be direct about it so you know board members um not only in Chicago but in every district everybody likes to marginalize our central office departments they feel like it's bureauc bureaucracy it's
wasted funding and I've always been really clear that everything we do in CPS it's not perfect but it always has a purpose and so there's always areas that we can improve on we'll never say that we don't but these additional supports for students the systems and structures
we create we have wonderful counselors in our schools but without a leader like Heidi they're not going to be as effective without leaders like Maria uh Armando and Megan they're not going to be as effective so all that to say as we think about future budgets being protective of our infrastructure because
that's usually the first thing that people like to cut and marginalize and they don't realize that it is they're not in they're not independent with the structures at schools they actually are together and the reason we get our success is because we've been at this
for so long improving the structures and investing these are all extras i not my word board members but this is not funded by any of our formulas in terms of the state the federal government or even our our local funding these are considered extras but in Chicago they're
not extras they're essentials and that's the reason we're getting the success we're getting can I add one thing too i I I really we need you all to champion that our students are ready now like they we need youth apprenticeships to start while the
students are with us we need the roadmap to start while students are with us we need that warm handoff from us in high school directly into the transitional programs directly to employment because if we let go of our students it's really
hard to get them back and so this idea that our our students aren't ready that oh they're not going to pass the apprenticeship test or oh they need some remedial courses we really are proving that wrong and we've set up all of these transitional pathways and so we need to
have that language really shouted loud and clear from the from the mountain tops we need the supports for our students but they really are ready and they're amazing thank you very much i'm sorry board member Brown
i appreciate the work that you all are doing it it's um it's critical and I guess as I'm listening I'm I'm reflecting on my father um my father was u a machinist at Wisconsin Steel and he
allow he had a ninth grade education he allowed us to move out of low-inccome housing and buy a little two-bedroom house on 103rd Street and you couldn't tell me that we weren't the the Jeffersons right you couldn't tell me we weren't moving on up but I grew
up in a community where the person that owned the gas station looked like me there wasn't a corner liquor store on every block owned by somebody else because in the African-American community there was this system of economic development because a lot of us
knew how to work with our hands my father taught me how to work on cars right when Wisconsin steel when the steel industry collapsed my father was an alley mechanic but you know we've seen over
the last couple of decades um a lot of the services that used to be at places like Dumbar right used to actually be a school that prepared a middle school that prepared young people to go to CVS or go to Simeon or go to
Dumbar so I guess um I just want to commend you on that work because I think losing that type of um self-sufficiency in your neighborhood has disastrous impacts um
the loss of economic development uh living in a state of like colonialism in your own neighborhood because the things that you used to know how to do for yourself is now being done by somebody else and they do those things based on their opinions of you not based
off what your real needs are so I am interested in in thinking about like re like how are you all rebuilding that infrastructure even better for the 21st century that used to exist in our neighborhoods so the one of the investments that Maria
talked about is shifting central office staff back to schools so our big CTE high schools and our early college STEM high schools all have a staff member that is working directly with those schools because we really do believe the school is the unit of change and the
partnerships and the relationships are at the school level um so that's one of the areas we submitted our capital uh budget last year and we're in the the midst of some of those uh capital repairs and we're submitting our capital budget for next year with which CTE
program uh spaces need that capital attention um I still think of Simeon as a new building it's been there about 20 years right um and where uh I think the other place that I would add is where should we support programs with city
colleges and where is it brick and mortar in our buildings um Olive Harvey has amazing uh aviation and transportation and logistics at a large scale that we don't have in every school and so where is it
that students uh we facilitate the classes that are more like labs at all of Harvey and where is it that we do foundational work at our at our high school so that is definitely something um that we're thinking about and one of the uh one of one of you all also spoke
about student agency and really student decision making with support i think that's another area that um we want students to be able to if you're at builds you get to try all the different trades um so thinking about
where are places that we can have um cross training within those CTE programs um I think one of the other areas and I I don't know if anyone uh wants to jump in on this is that we've got a lot of interest now from students
who are not in CT programs at all to go into trades pathways um so that's another place where really the idea of the Chicago road map is that you had a lot of on-ramps and off-ramps that were
flexible and uh if if anyone uh came to the the laborers event that we had at Lyona we had three young people or four four young people that are first year employees in the the city of Chicago and
they were the panel when they stopped speaking they were like swamped like they were rock stars by all of these young people coming up to talk with them and it was a student from Bogan a student from Kenwood good
and oh my gosh I'm forgetting right now but it was really representative of students from around the city who had not come out of CT programs and had they told the other students like this is my career like I'm coming back to do the solar training or and then I'm going to
move into working for this other city department so I think us thinking about how where are all of those flexibilities and opportunities um and it really is students from across the city that are showing up for all of these
opportunities gutierrez uh first and foremost I want to thank you guys for all the great work that you guys are doing um but one of the things in my in my day job I think a lot about
marketing and how do you connect those dots and I think one of the things that in conversations that I've had with unions um is how do you connect how being in the trades or in different career pathways is cool and it would be
great to figure out in our schools how do we work with um both the unions in making promotional videos and bringing in those experiences that you just talked about about those laborers who were once in those seats to
make it real and you know the ability to be able to talk about what a what an electrician is making on average in Chicago right because there's not many right we we a and and talking
to them in in pure economics right uh and that I think spurs people the opportunity to do those types of things and um look I'm not going to put my uh my my my colleague uh my board member uh Smith but I'm sure that there could be
some music in this video um that we can kind of get together to do um just that because I think it's really important um the work that's doing the other shameless plug that I will put in uh board members is that you know we have a project uh in the development in the 8th
district at Hubard kind of looking at an addition that would add some additional space for uh this type of work so more to come on that so thank you thank you thank you very much thank you
good evening everyone board members CEO Cedo my colleagues that work for CPS um my name is Richard Smith i am the chief of the options network alongside me is
Molly Micleek she's the director of accountability and school options before I begin and uh I'm gonna share three points with bullets i just want to acknowledge a couple of people in here
who uh really support the options network first one is Cedo thank you Cedo for really uh your vision and the development of the options network uh second person is board member Harden i
just want to thank you for coming to our UBV meeting uh it's always great to have board members come out to different uh groups to so they can participate to see what is actually going on uh the third
person is Mr shay Ryfest Smith right had the pleasure of meeting him this week at Excel Southshore great meeting and I think you enjoyed yourself kids were and I hope it changed
the perception what option schools look like students attend options uh so thank you for giving up your time to come to that to that school last but not least want to acknowledge my colleague here Molly Leche probably one of the smartest
people that I've worked with the last 32 years so I just want to acknowledge you with that um as a chief of the options network you know I work with very smart group of people sometimes uh when when
we're there you're tasked with what to do so I've been tasked today with going over three different things uh the options what typical characteristics of an options student uh the transition from
INI to the options network and options uh academic accountability i will begin with the transition uh from the from INI to the options network and again this was a
vision CEDO at the time based on the need to strengthen the support for our option schools uh the opsis network was established in in school year
22 in the office of network support with the goal of providing educational resource and supports schools who serve our district's most vulnerable student population when the options network was established the role
of overseeing authorization and removal process moved from the office of incubation innovation and incubation to the options with that I think one of the key goals for me and that I was tasked with was
ensuring that district resources were aligned to our option schools um and building trust with our operators to ensure that resources could land at the school building
needless to say in three years I think we've done a solid job at building relationships and supporting school leaders uh that work in the options network we still have a lot of work to
do because as we all know building trust is an ongoing process we will continue to build trust to support our most vulnerable students that attend our option schools uh characteristics of an option student
um option students face significant barriers to educational success and graduation option students tend to be older students who are off track many many have many are dis uh disengaged or
or are at risk of uh disengaging from schools um option students are dis disproportionately students of color that experience higher rates of mobility homelessness uh
involvement in the juvenile justice system and victimization and many of you probably remember uh that at one time black and brown students being pushed out of schools at
a high rate which increased the dropout rate uh due to the options network in developing a transfer policy where we now analyze our transfers uh we still
provide parental choice if a parent wants to send their student to an options network but we also make sure the student their parents have options the student have options based on sometimes it's not a good good thing for a student to transfer to an option
school because they have all of their credits uh they may be a attendance problem or academic or a behavior problem but based on the strong MTSS interventions that are in place now with
schools we we tend to have conversations schools based on how they're supporting these students and is it the right choice for this student to transfer to an option school so last but not least options accountability
um one key distinction between option schools and traditional schools is the method we use to evaluate academic performance uh we always start and as I came into the role of the chief I had to
do a lot of assessments uh and changed my mindset from being a principal for 15 years to really understanding this population uh and I always thought wondered how are these students being
assessed and how are these students being uh really educated and I came to the conclusion along with the team that we have to really look at how we are holding schools accountable and it cannot be cannot be equitable if we are
using same accountability system that traditional schools use our option students based on the problems or struggles or situations that they face every day um ISB summarive designations which are
used to evaluate traditional charter and contract schools cannot be appropriately or equitably applied to option schools and last in partnership with school stakeholders CPS has implemented the options accountability policy which uses
a set of metrics that are designed to accurately evaluate the academic performance for this unique student population um so what you will hear today is a three-year process where we
had to develop different uh processes of going in and evaluating schools developing what school visits and school sites site visits look like uh to really come to this day we talked about this
three years ago uh as it relates to removal of uh for our our option schools our charters and district and alops and things of that nature so at this time I will pass it over to Miss to
Molly so she can further indulge you guys in in in the day thank you thank you Chief um good afternoon board members uh Martinez I think you might have stepped out on CPS leadership uh my
name is Molly Mlechek i'm the director of authorization and school options in the options network um to piggy back off of what Chief said I want to address a narrative that's been circulating regarding students that are killed or injured due to gun violence who are disproportionately enrolled in option
schools option students by definition are our most vulnerable students in the district as chief mentioned they face higher rates of mobility homelessness involvement in the juvenile justice system and victimization as well as a range of other barriers to educational success so it's really important not to
confuse cause and effect option schools are not the cause of these barriers rather option schools serve as the district's last defense before students drop out option schools accept these students and welcome them with open arms it's been said that counseling students
out of traditional and uh traditional district-run schools may not be what's in the best interest of students and this is absolutely true unfortunately this does not always happen we have a lot of students and families that elect to attend option schools because is it a
it is a good fit for them but unfortunately there's a lot of students that are still wrongfully being counseledled out of our traditional schools and option schools are there again to welcome them with open arms next slide so today we are presenting the
options charter and contract schools that are up for renewal this year um remember that the opt the term options refers to the student population served so within the options network we have charter schools contract ALOP and district run but we're talking about the
student population served so to explain the the overall uh renewal process uh the the school renewal process allows for a comprehensive review thank you um an evaluation of school or campus academics finances inclusive programming
and equitable systems and organizational performance over the last three years this year's option school cohort contains four operators with 20 campuses after completing a thorough and comprehensive evaluation process a final recommendation is provided to the board
for consideration there's uh several potential recommendations based on school performance schools might be recommended for a 5-year renewal for schools uh sorry uh five-year renewal for schools that meet expectations in all performance domains and charter
schools that exceed may be recommended for more than five um there's a five-year term with conditions shorten renewal terms or non-renewal we've already begun to engage with the board and will continue to do so to determine any changes that the board would like to see implemented
related to policy changes the renewal process moving forward or the language in charter and contract school agreements and the vote today is on the length of the renewal term or the number of years for each charter or contract school agreement next slide
um so to provide a quick overview of the uh the renewal process and how we engage with schools um last April we did a kickoff meeting where we went over all the expectations for schools so they can understand what is involved in the in the renewal process in April we began
site visits we did special education academic culture and climate and English learner we started them in the fall and then continue or sorry started them in the spring and continued them in the fall applications were due in July and then we began to review applications and then the supplemental materials
beginning in August we had ongoing office hours and one-on-one meetings for schools that uh requested it in the fall and September and October the charter and contract schools hosted their own renewal state of schools meetings um and this was designed to uh for them to talk
to students and families about the renewal process um then we began to generate the renewal recommendations reports in October through December in February uh we had the options school charter and contract renewal public hearing so um this allowed community
members stakeholders aldermen to come um and either provide a verbal or written comments uh we had a total of 304 comments across the four option schools um all supporting our schools next slide all right so the um the renewal
evaluation criteria which I'll go in more into more detail in the next couple of slides um so we objectively evaluate across four different domains academics inclusive programming and equitable systems or IPEs financial and organizational each
domain has specific criteria which I'll talk about in the next couple slides and then the performance for each domain will result in one of five ratings so it'll range from exceed standards meet standards approaching needs improvement and need substantial improvement next
slide um under the academic performance domain uh we look at the options accountability scores from the options accountability policy um so each year the schools receive um a rating of either good standing or intensive academic support in school year 24 the
options network also conducted an academic site visit to gain a more holistic view of the implementation of instructional practices rather than solely relying on outcomes alone um and the ratings for this domain were based on um the criteria outlined in the
options accountability policy as well as the academic site rubrics which are based on the Danielson framework next slide next we have the financial domain so the ratings in this domain are based on the criteria and the key performance
indicators that are outlined in the charter school agreements and this all comes out of the annual financial audits that schools submit um and the ratings for these were normed across all of our options schools next slide next we have the organizational
performance domain um this looks at compliance in 10 different subdomain areas so we have legal compliance governance students in temporary living situations parent issue review admissions and enrollment student transportation student safety timeliness
and then we also look at whether or not the schools met or did not meet the conditions outlined in their previous contract next slide all right and lastly we have the inclusive programming and equitable systems domain or IPES so this domain
was previously part of the organizational domain but based on feedback from previous boards we separated this out um specifically these four subdomains um to emphasize the importance of these areas giving their direct impact on the student learning
experience so these four subdomains include diverse learners English learners discipline and teacher lensure uh moving to the right for teacher lensure schools are evaluated on their ability to meet or not meet teacher lensure requirements so contract schools
are required to have 100% teacher lensure and charters are required to have 75% in each of the remaining uh remaining subdomains we uh of diverse learners English learners and discipline um schools are evaluated on two criterias so one is their annual
compliance data and then we also conducted conducted site visits in each of these areas so for special education we look at IEP timeliness and completion rates for English learners we look at English learner screeners and as access testing compliance and then for
discipline we look at uh whether or not they are below the 75th percentile of out of school suspensions in comparison to their five closest geographic schools um next slide so this year um to increase
accountability um in addition to outcomes the options network launched a very robust and comprehensive site visit process to gain a holistic view of school performance so this was the first year that most of these schools received these site visits um so by conducting
these it's created a renew a renewed emphasis on prioritizing and improving the ways in which schools implement their educational programs as well as the systems and structures for providing services to specialized populations um as a result of these visits the schools have a better
understanding of which areas they need to improve upon also the options network has a better understanding of the areas where we need to provide more support and more monitoring since conducting these site visits again we've begun to see a renewed emphasis on data collection monitoring and professional
development in order to improve instructional practices for the academic site visits um we do classroom observations document review um use student work samples and do focus groups and this is based on the Danielson framework for special
education this is a holistic review of IEP implementation and special education compliance it's conducted in partnership with the office of students with disabilities and there's four areas that we look at school-based staffing compliance IEP implementation and
progress monitoring and collaboration the final ratings excuse me for special education site visits include evident partially evident and not evident and as we talk about the schools that I'm about to go over for our recommendation it's
important to note that schools that have received a note evident rating does not mean that they have not done any special education services it means that they haven't quite hit the threshold that we're looking for i just want to highlight that doesn't mean they haven't done anything at all but we obviously
know that we have a lot of um areas to continue to provide support and help them improve in those areas um for culture and climate we reviewed structures uh related to student discipline and restorative practices uh this involved classroom observations and focus groups and was
done in partnership with the office of social emotional learning learning using the castle framework um the English learner program audit this is only for schools that had 20 or more English learner students and this was done um by the office of
multicultural and multilingual education and lastly we had our facilities visits um and this is a review of our independent facilities and um to better understand if if they are in compliance with ADA life safety and municipal code requirements and this was conducted by
the office of facilities and operations and ma uh operations and maintenance next slide next slide thank you um okay so this is an overview of the um this the option
schools in this year's renewal cohort um so in the next few slides I'll go over the the term recommendations for each operator uh before doing so I want to highlight for that for each of these operators we've collected additional information related to their uh three-year budget projections so this
included enrollment data and we've had extensive conversations about their long-term financial sustainability we've talked about their current financial health enrollment projections and we've talked about what factors that could possibly lead to financial strain and again with a
special attention to the potential for declining enrollment we discussed strategic plans for sustainability explored the school strategy for addressing deficits managing costs and how they would pivot or make adjustments to remain financially viable in the
event of changes in revenue or expenses due to enrollment loss based on these conversations we feel confident that each of these schools will fully remain financially viable for the duration of their upcoming contracts next
slide the first school um in the options network that's up for renewal is Excel Academy of Southshore we are recommending Excel Academy of Southshore to be renewed for a 4-year term with conditions southshore is a contract school in the
Southshore community serving about 202 students ages 15 and up the majority of their students are African-American most come from low-income families about 12% are diverse learners um the school has consistently received a rating of good standing on the options accountability
policy earning them an overall rating of exceeds standards in that domain um again highlighting this is the first year that we've done all the site visits so um for academic and culture and climate they received a rating of basic um given that this is the first year we
have had no schools in the options cohort receive a rating above a basic um for students with disabilities or a special education site visit they received a rating of not evident um however they have met or they've become or they've come very close to meeting
the 95% or greater threshold for IEP timeliness and comp and completion in terms of annual compliance they've consistently met annual compliance metrics for English learners over the last three years they've met teacher lensure standards two out of the last
three years and the combination of these factors has resulted in an IPS IPES rating of approaching standards south Southshore has exceeded standards in financial performance demonstrating strong financial health and management they met all organizational performance
standards with the exception of a few um contractual conditions and this resulted in a rating of approaching standards for organizational performance lastly they have consistently proven to be a very good partner engaging with the options network um to improve um their
leadership and um yeah their leadership capacity and instructional practices next slide our next school is Excel Academy of Southwest this is um of the same operator but they these are two different contracts uh we are recommending the Excel Academy of
Southwest to be renewed for a three-year term with conditions this is a contract school in the Chicago lawn community serving about 170 students ages 15 and up um their student population is about 57% African-American and 42% Latinx the
majority of students are from low-income households and almost 21% are English learners southwest received an options accountability designation of good standing in two of the last three years um they were just on the threshold the last year but they were in intensive
academic support but overall they received a rating of meet standards in the academic performance domain um for their site visits they received ratings of basic for academic and culture and climate they received a rating of not evident for their special education
visit and a rating of minimal minimal for the multicultural and multilingual learners visit they have met standards for English learner annual compliance two out of the last three years and they have met teacher lensure standards two out of the last three years so the combination of
these factors resulted in a rating of needs substantial improvement um and so we know that we have a a number of areas that we'll be working to support these schools and improving southwest has exceeded standards in financial performance demonstrating strong financial health
and management they have met all perform uh all organizational performance standards again with the exception of a few contractual conditions uh and this resulted in a rating of approaching standards also southwest they have consistently proven to be a good partner
they've engaged with the options network uh have attended options options school leader meetings and have been focusing on building adult leadership capacity next slide next we have institut justice and leadership Academy we are recommending
Institute of Justice to be renewed for a 2-year term with conditions this is a charter school um and the the lower west side serving about 103 students ages 16 and up their student student population is almost all Latinx about 79% of the
students from low-income households and 55% are English learners before providing details about their performance I want to highlight a couple key caveats about Institut so they're previously coming off of two one-year
contracts in a row so despite the difficulty of showing improvement while in a one-year contract they have shown improvements in a range of areas from curriculum and instruction culture and climate and financial oversight options network has worked
very very closely with the school we've provided a lot of additional support not accorded to other schools um and while some of the improvements may not be easily captured um in the performance evaluations there's there's clear performance uh performance improvement
that you can feel when you walk into the building the school has began begun implementing various strategies for improvement which includes streamlining enrollment processes dramatically increasing attendance focusing on professional development specifically for students uh for English learners and
working to improve discipline reporting and overall school culture um so they received an options accountability designation of intensive de intensive academic support over the last three years which has resulted in an overall rating of need substantial
improvement for academic and culture and climate this year they received a rating of basic which has been improvement from last year when they received unsatisfactory in both of those areas for students with disabilities they received a rating of not evident and a and received a rating of minimal for
multicultural and multilingual learners um they h excuse me I do want to highlight um again that they have a 55.3 population of English learners and compared to the district which is at
37.3% and they have taken on a very very large number of our newcomer students uh while it's too early to decide or to determine whether or not they've met the conditions of their current contract they have made consistent good faith efforts to do so
and are and are on the tra trajectory to meet those conditions um last year the collective bargaining agreement with the CTU resulted in higher wages for their teachers um they received a rating of meet standards for the financial domain
which is an improvement from the last two cycles where they did not meet standards um and we're we're very excited to see the improvement that's been made but we also understand that there's still a lot of work to do to ensure that institudo is meeting the needs of the students and providing a high quality education so within the
next two years of this contract the options network plans to continue providing the the high levels of support to achieve this goal next slide all right and then the last option school up for renewal is Youth
Connection Charter School or YCCCS we are recommending YCCCS to be renewed for a 4-year term with conditions um YCCCS is a charter school operating 17 campuses that are predominantly on the west and south sides of the city they are a replicating
charter which means that all 17 campuses fall under one contract with YCCS they serve about 2,291 students ages 16 and up their population is about 67% African-American
30% Latinx 90% 97% of students from lowincome households with 17% diverse learners and 15% English learners uh the YCCCS charter was established in 1997 and at that time they brought
together various existing schools that were operated by community management organizations serving the student population these schools had strong ties and were deeply embedded in their in their respective communities before coming under the YCCCS umbrella in 1997
and in turn the YCCCS schools have very very strong community support in their respective communities these community man uh management organizations such as Sullivan House Pilson Wellness Center Association House and the Greater Westtown Community Development Project just to name a few
of them um are organizations that provide a range of services within their communities and they partner with YCCS to be able to provide educational services to the students to uh students needing alternative educational services in their communities
um so schools um in terms of the options accountability designation for the academic performance domain um the majority of their schools have received a rating of good standing however in school year 22 only nine of them did um I will highlight that this year um the
metrics were a little bit different due to the co co 19 um but since then their schools have improved and have majority have earned a rating of good standing uh this earned them an overall rating of meet standards for the site visits for
academics 15 of their campuses earned a rating of basic and two earned a rating of unsatisfactory um since implementation of the academic site visits we've really really seen a shift from a significant focus on to a renewed focus on
professional development for instructional improvement culture and climate 15 campuses received basic and two received unsatisfactory these were different campuses um from the academic site visits for the special
education visits nine campuses received a rating of partially evident while eight campuses were not evident and for the four campuses that received a an English learner program audit they all received a rating of minimal in many of the site visit focus groups
um the YCCCS school staff have cited the need for additional support and resources for serving the student population and this is the exact intention and goal of the options network to provide additional supports and resources so we welcome and we continue to encourage the YCCS
leadership and school staff to participate and take advantage of the resources offered by the network and by CPS um across the network uh schools have either met or were close to meeting the 95% uh threshold for meeting IEP annual
compliance the majority of campuses met standards for English learner annual compliance in the last three years majority of campuses have met the teacher lensure requirement in the last three years and all these factors together combined to give a rating of needs improvement
they have exceeded standards in financial performance demonstrating strong financial health and management and then lastly embedded within this renewal uh is the relocation of YCCS progressive progressive leadership academy or PLA so they would
be moving from 6620 South Martin Luther King Drive to 6320 South Dorchester Avenue it's located about a mile and a half away in the Woodlong neighborhood and this would be for the start of next school year there's no attendance boundaries so there's very minimal
disruption to any neighborhood schools yccs and PLA have hosted several town halls and invent and events in which they're communicating to students parents and the community um about the proposed relocation resulting in lots of letters of support from students parents
community member community members and older people um the new facility while it is a little bit smaller um it does offer distinct classrooms their current location um they're they're sharing classrooms they're sharing office spaces and so this new facility will allow a
distinction there um there'll also be a reduction in rent from 17 grand to 15 a month so there is a little bit of a cost savings and with the options network oversight um YCCCS will coordinate student and parent communications making sure all safety
and transportation needs are met and ensuring that students are successfully enrolled and ready to attend classes at the new location on the first day of school so that concludes our presentation um I we will turn it over to board members for any questions board member Smith thank you
Mr president uh yeah I uh visited the Southshore XL campus uh one of my biggest concerns right now in terms of CPS's safety and security for our students I was very
proud that when I asked uh your the XL students well are there a lot of fights in this school and they said no they looked at each other confused and said our teachers are counselors we have counselors everywhere if we have a problem with another student we can
actually call that student for restorative justice mediation and we usually handle it like that and and I I thought that was very great for this population of students my my question is in terms of children with disabilities
we heard earlier there was a critique what what do you find is the biggest challenge with uh the uh the option schools serving this population of students uh that's my first question and the second question is we just approved
$18 million with Back to Our Future uh for students that uh will probably eventually attend option schools what is the best way that MFS and Back to Our Future can work with uh your schools for
optimal results yeah thank thank you for that that question we're very very excited we're very excited to really begin this second process of working with Back to Our Future i've received
emails and communications from Chief Ogard but we be we will begin to meet about what does this structure look like and how does it best serve students my direction solely for back to our future
is uh the options network will ensure the educational component students that are enrolled in the back to our future program it's my understanding that students will spend 12 uh nine months in the back to our future program during
those nine months it's going to be very important for us as the the options network to really be the liaison between back to our future and our option schools uh because we want our option schools to understand when these students transition from back to our
future to our schools we want to make sure that we're monitoring the process students have wraparound services they are you know treated equitably where they can be in a in a in place where they can be very successful so as soon
as those meetings start I'm going to really push that piece for us as an options network uh and then help out any way that I can uh we didn't really have that opportunity in the first session back to our future but uh this time
we're all in we're vested we just want to do what's right for our disengaged students and and what about uh your biggest challenge with working with your uh population with disabilities as it
relates to disabilities um understanding the governance model we do have four district schools which comply to all uh special ed uh directives things of that nature in terms of co-eing models um for
our ALOV charter and uh contract schools do they do have sense of autonomy where we do send our our DR there for support uh and they know they can call at any time to request support from our DR and
our our special ed department uh but there's a there's a thin line between autonomy and providing resources resources are there can't make schools take advantage of them our role is to
make sure that they have the opportunity that's what I'm big on i want to make sure that all of our partners understand that these are CPS students they're attending your school they're they're all of our students and
the resources that are in place from the district that support every other CPS school support your schools um I think a a big challenge is is the nature of our students the nature of our schools they are highly mobile so a lot
of them may have already dropped out um some of them are coming in with an IEP that's out of compliance um and so our schools really have to be flexible in terms of being able to provide those services to students that are coming in and out of their doors on a regular basis um so I would say that's a big
challenge um and then I also want to highlight as I mentioned before this is the first time that most of these schools have received a special education site visit so step one is identifying those areas so now that we have these special education site visits we know the areas where they need to
improve on we've identified it that's step one now we can work with our DR we can work with um you know OSD and the schools to really pinpoint those areas where are the areas that we need to improve and work with them on those areas but step one is identification so
we've done that now and now the work begins of improving in those areas and um yeah the mobility is just it's an ongoing challenge that we try to work with them last thing although this special ed is compliance-based we try to create a
narrative where when we support schools it's stock compliance it's typically support does a excellent job at looking at monthly data clients for special ed and and when
I have my meetings with them monthly my my first question is what have we done so we're continually supporting us building relationships and trying to stay away from compliance so much
board member Kuster you my question is actually about the site visit and this is just a curiosity honestly um since you guys have implemented the site visit has it helped inform um some of your previous data collection um on accountability scores like are you
seeing that reflected in what you're seeing when you go to these places are you seeing even more sometimes than what's being collected in the data when you go to visit like how has that really helped um you know add to how you're evaluating these schools and what you're
actually physically seeing um that's a great question and at this point in time since we just started these we won't we won't be able to see how it's affected the outcome like the options accountability scores until they come out next August September um I mean
we've had we've seen changes in how schools are approaching the CIWPs and what kind of professional developments they're engaging in in um you know just discussions that we're having with them in terms of focus groups um so while we we've seen
improvements anecdotally we don't have that um like the data yet because we haven't had the first round of um accountability scores to come out our goal is to you know have the resources to continue doing these so that we continue to see this focus on it um but
just unfortunately at this point we we won't know until we get the next set of scores well I think it's I think it's a great added component because it's one thing to collect a bunch of data and look at it and make a decision versus really truly being in there um and seeing it and so I guess in this case
it's almost in reverse like you can see it firsthand and now you're waiting for the data to support that so I just it ultimately I think it's a great addition to the whole process member Pope yeah thank you for your uh very thorough report and I do have a couple
of questions uh I understand that YCCCS has 17 I think you said campuses and that each of those campuses is basically separately administered is that my understanding rather than really by a central body
so answer if you can answer that then I'll go on with my next part yeah so YCCS is the charter holder um and then of the 17 campuses 13 sorry 14 are managed by community management
organizations so yeah so three of them are managed directly by YCCCS and then the other 14 are community management okay so I'm trying to figure out how that re affects what resources are available in the schools because I
assume that YCCS gets a certain portion of the money I guess that's allocated and then is less money therefore allocated to each of these community holding organizations because I know we have limits on the funding that we can
provide and if so what kind of an effect does that have is this a good model to be following i'm I'm a little sort of I know it's not a Ponzi scheme or anything like that but it just seems like there's a whole middleman component in there
that might siphon off some of the money that would go otherwise to these students who are as everybody has said some of our most vulnerable and in need students so maybe you could explain that a little further yeah so um as I
mentioned prior to 1997 all these different schools existed um they all serving this this population and so they all came under the YCCCS charter um that was kind of a unifying act um so yes YCCS we we give them the funding
directly to YCCCS they do a lot of administrative uh administrative things they um I know for example they hire all of their special education staff and they are responsible for making sure all of that compliance um is in order um
yeah they do a lot of different things in terms of overall oversight ensuring the schools are doing what they're supposed to be doing um and general like educational management um then within each of the the community organizations um many of them have different funding
sources from their communities um as I mentioned several of them offer other services their to the to their communities so some of them I I can't speak to whether they do or not but some of them may um you know provide some additional funding to those schools um
but they're the ones providing the educational services where YCCCS is kind of oversight management making sure schools are in compliance across the board for all educational purposes i I'm still a little baffled by exactly
how that works so does YCS YCCS function basically as the network for them i'm sorry can you say that one more time does YCCCS function basically as the network overseeing them in that way and
then you're overseeing both YCCCS and the individual campuses in your department or so so YCCS is the charter holder right um so yeah so we oversee YCCCS and then I mean as we mentioned with site visits different things we we
do interact with the schools but ultimately YCCCS is responsible for making sure that each individual school or campus us is in compliance or providing a high quality education right and clearly some of them are in compliance on some things and not on
other things etc thank you for member Rivas uh thank you Mr president uh thank you uh so much for uh this thorough information um earlier it this month last month a few weeks ago uh
a few of us uh were able to meet with uh YCCS uh and learn about their model and how it works and um I actually have a few YCCS campuses uh in my district so Association House uh which is right down the block for me which is really beautiful um that we you know we have
this alternative option there and they have so many other opportunities available there and uh and then Greater Westtown so that was a really great opportunity to be able to visit these campuses um one of the the um issues that I learned about that evening um was
related to to actually to the funding model and so I from my understanding of how finances work with the district it's based on uh when we're looking at uh I'm assuming the 20th day um funding rate because this population is so highly
mobile you know we're talking about students who are you know we're we're trying to get them re-engaged you saw how much money we're putting into you know to to MF MFS and Back to Our Future um one of the things that was brought up is that you know sometimes students stop out for a semester a few weeks um you
know they're uh have a job have a baby something's happening um that they stop out and then come back to the school and YCCS takes them back because that's their home that's their student and this student has the motivation then after whatever happened to be able to come
back and and complete their education and hopefully gain some type of certification afterwards um so I'm wondering then what what is it that we can do to support to ensure that you know if a student's not there for the 20th day and enrolls in October stops out in December comes back in March but
is still working toward credits to get to you know graduation or age 21 when they're aged out of the system what what are we doing to ensure that we're not missing out on funding because I'm also assuming this is coming from not just from CPS but you know how we get money from the state federal things like that
what can we do to ensure that we're getting as much funding as possible so that we can provide those services to those students um that's a great question i think um ultimately we would have to you know circle back with the board and figure out are there ways to change the funding
structure which is you know a bigger conversation with the budget team um I do want to highlight a couple of things just for contextual um uh help so um for all of our charters it's 20th day it's also 10th day of semester 2 so there's two enrollment
counts that we use for district schools it is just 20th day so I just want to highlight that because we do have districtrun option schools that have that same you know the same thing that we're talking about where it's kind of students coming and going and they don't benefit from that 10th day count they're
only bene they're only captured with the 20th day count um with that being said I mean yes it's definitely an area where I think we could improve talk with the board talk with the budget team to see are there different ways of funding it um I'm also going to be very transparent
and highlight um we have in the past year we've begun to look at those enrollment trends to really understand what's happening with the student population unfortunately we do see a large number of students that are withdrawn right after enrollment counts are captured um so that's actually one
of the things that we want to address in the conditions um because we are seeing a pattern where a lot of these students are being dropped right after they get money for them so we want to understand what's going on here are these students actually leaving is there a reason are they being pushed out like what what is
going on this is something we've just started looking into um so just transparently um yeah I think it's a conversation we need to continue with the board but we also need to continue looking at the data and the trends that we're seeing and the enrollment patterns with our schools
and I I would also add that I've I've these same questions have been asked to mecc and I've you know as the liaison oh as the liaison between CPS and YCCS I've
always suggested to them that there if if a meeting needs to be set up with CPS leadership to address these concerns I can do that but a lot of the a lot of the questions concerning 10day and
20-day fund and funding these are these are questions we can't answer so I've you know I'm a liaison and my job is to support YCCS leaders i'm open to uh setting up something so
they can talk to about this thank you um one of the other things I I wanted to mention um that uh board member uh Smith brought up is just again this idea of how can we ensure that what we're what we're putting into that back
to our future that we're working together side by side so that we're not uh necessarily competing uh between you know options network and back to our future uh and and you know spending double the money on on on the same number of kids but rather how can we
work together to ensure that we're putting all those resources is uh toward supporting students yay thank you sorry i'm glad I'm still here um because I believe in this work but I So Back to Our Futures is not a school it's not an
educational uh students are not enrolled into Back to Our Futures it is the funding and the programming to stabilize them to ensure they get back into a school so it is not a competition it's with the m with the majority going to an option school
of the few that that were serviced last time could you repeat the with the few that were serviced last time a lot of them went to the options schools correct yeah so I'm just trying to figure out a way where we can work together as opposed to working separately to to enroll the same students
so we did work very closely with the options network and that's why we're continuing to discuss how we build that partnership even more strongly there wasn't competition last time it really was individual just like as Chief Smith was
talking about the transition process that is the best practice where individual meetings and conversations are held in a transition plan is created so we really are our intent is to continue to build that transition process for what's best for each student
in partnership with the options networks and the transition specialists thank you appreciate it that's it for me thank you President Gutierrez so one of the questions that I have um
given the last two months where we have had um we had some issues with the SEO um and the whole issue of short renewals and not really giving agencies a runway
um if one of those schools that um that has a lower uh renewal rate uh decides to you know what we're not going to do this who serves those kids who serves the hardto serve student that we're trying to connect right
because they're disconnected youth right how do we connect them uh who would who what would be the the the plan um so that we potentially wouldn't end up the way we almost did um with the Assuro
closing can can you clarify that uh clarify that question one more time please what my my my question so So So what plans are in place if one of the current renewies
that will renew tonight decides that they don't want to renew because they don't have enough runway in terms of the renewal term the renew term a 24-month term versus a four-year term or a fiveyear term what
where would those kids who would serve those students um well I want to start by saying we're we're not anticipating that um I think specifically talking about Instituto uh which is a school that's up for that we've recommended for a two-year um as I
mentioned they're coming off of two one-year renewals uh and we've worked very close closely with them um I just anecdotally we don't have any reason to believe that they would back out last minute um because they got a two-year renewal with that being said um one of
the option schools Little Black Pearl decided to voluntarily close last year um so we worked with that school um fortunately I guess the option schools are smaller we don't have it's not the the size of a serero so we have aboutund stu 100 students that we would
need to work with um so we work with the school we look at how the students are doing would they benefit from going to a traditional school from going to another option school we work with students and families to figure out you know transportation can you get to this new school is it a good fit we've also
worked with other network chiefs and traditional schools to say you know we had this school closure can you help us with finding homes um schools for these students um so we I mean it would look very similar to how you know what we did with Little Black Pearl um and as I
mentioned it's because there's fewer students we're able to engage a lot more time and effort in each and every student making sure they find a good fit and then digging a little deeper uh I think one of the with the little black pearl situation and understanding
different neighborhoods that students were uh coming from to attend the school uh we reached out to different principles and neighborhoods and you know gave them a forefront of you may be receiving these kids due to closure
voluntarily closing of uh little black pearl so we monitor that process very closely and I think we had about 97% success rate in placing students schools across the district i appreciate your thought you guys do
have a flat so that that's what I wanted to make sure thank you board member Bole hi um I have an observation and then a couple questions you know you were talking about u I guess specifically I
was looking at Excel of Southwest um how how the scores sometimes seem to vary from year to year up and down and I'm wondering because the kids have such mobility that the discipline issues or
the IEP issues might vary year to year because of the mobility because you are looking at a different student with a different IP or different social emotional uh needs so I I was just wondering if in the future there could
be some sort of um a point adjustment for the school because they have such mobility and you're not really measuring the same set of students that's just an observation and then my next question has to do with the site visits i think
that's great um I'm wondering uh does does your department have the capacity to do follow-up site visits for for schools that you identified um that were
having you know more difficulty and that you want to go back and see again give them another um opportunity to demonstrate growth or you know like what are your needs in terms of kind of building on the site
visits because I think that's super important and um one other quick thing okay the other thing would be are the schools aware of the points and the thresholds and where they're falling
um sort of like a progress report and then they have time to um address the issues who's um so I'll comment on your observation which is an excellent idea uh we are
we're going to start working on um a new version of the options accountability policy in the upcoming year so that's definitely a great point that we will you know take into account and think about how we can kind of factor that in um because you're absolutely right i mean it's a whole different set of students and we really try to tailor
that policy to the student population um the second question was about about the your ability to um yeah do like the site visits do you have the per the the the manpower to to
do the site visits i think uh we questioned it at first but we spoke with leadership and they provided the funding to really provide us with extra bodies to to do site visits we had
to do 18 of them it was a monumental task but in order to do it fair and equitable process we had to get in those schools to see so it was important to us and it was very important to Cedo
and her team that funding was provided if I can just add uh something um some components of the site visit actually are um conducted by other teams and departments so office of students uh for students with disabilities does a
special education visit if we have bilingual students the office of multilingual and cultural education so it's a really crossf functional team effort but definitely adoption schools um network been kind of holding the bigger burden on that and just
piggybacking off of you know these she's saying uh special education counseling these people are part of our staff they sit in our offices every day but they're from
OOS Scopa special education department so they they've hired someone and they are solely working with the options network so in terms of site visits those are our key people that look at special education seal work and the count
postsecondary thanks and and the third part of my question was do the schools have an awareness of where they are falling on the point scale and what what they need to work on for for their next renewal um
yeah so each year we um on an annual basis we have three different scorecards that come out well one's not a scorecard one is the options accountability designation um so they can see how they did on each of the metrics we have an operations scorecard which has most of
the components of um the organizational domain as well as some of the um like uh special education compliance and then we have a financial scorecard so that's based on the financial audit that they submit um so we release that on an
annual basis we are actually working on a an updated version where it's updated on a quarterly basis and we're giving them more immediate feedback so they can address those things right away uh we're still working on that hoping to get it out for fourth quarter um so they they
are provided with that information um in terms of their overall ratings um prior to this you know a little bit before this meeting uh we didn't have the final final recommendations part of it is because we had to uh again this is the first time we did all the site visits we
had to complete those we had to get all the scores back we had to figure out how those are going to be embedded into the overall process because again this is the first time and then we had to kind of norm that across the board and like what makes sense based on how the schools have performed so everything
with the exception of the site visit scores the schools receive to understand how they're doing on an annual basis yeah I had a question board member Loausano um I understand that there's um
the site visit to make sure enrollment like the 20th or the 10th like what you were talking about but there needs to be kind of another site visit to kind of promote an incentive for retention i think that's what we're trying to get at or some kind of initiate uh some kind of
resources or training uh that would be around uh motivating students to stay in school because what happens is there's like a marketing and everybody's enrolling students so that they meet those benchmarks and then after that the
students there's no incentive or or maybe not enough of an incentive and I visited some of these uh option schools or alternative schools that are doing well and there's incentives have always been like afterchool jobs summer jobs
you know like stuff like that where that they could also uh keep the kid the young the students motivated by using other things you know sports or things like that but I was just wondering if that was something maybe another site visit would also encourage uh the
schools to look into how they can have incentives to for retention um yeah that's an excellent point so we do have a couple things in place we have um within the options accountability policy there is a stabilization metric
that looks at um currently looks at do are students currently enrolled at the end of the year um or have they graduated um with the new work with CDT we're actually looking at expanding that um so it'll be students um are they enrolled or have they graduated by the end of the year are they enrolled in the
same school and then we're also looking at um another version of the metric that looks at students that were previously inactive were you able to pull those students in and were you able to hold on to those students for you know until graduation um so with CDT we are working on
expanding some of that um also um all of our all of our schools except for our charter schools so 17 of our campuses have OS receive OST funding so um out of school time so our schools are engaging in a lot of um you know afterchool programs and activities to get students
more engaged and more connected to schools um but yeah oh go ahead this is your area i mean well I would also in addition to out of school time all of our option students have access to all of our post-secary programming and support so at the at the skilled
trades event we specifically invited option schools we have post-secary specialists in the in the network um option network Chief Smith is a great advocate for these opportunities so the the jobs opportunities and especially
with um workplace experience and work-based learning which is during the day programming is open and accessible to all options students so that's that's a place where we work very closely together um and it fits really well because of the the place where most
options students are kind of age and and fit and uh mentioning builds as well we have students in the option network that are able to access builds we have students in the options network for the first time in CPFTA which is the police
and fire training we have students from the options network that are um laborers this year that were hired by the city there there is not an exclusionary practice it really very much is a practice of including all students and
then um like with CPFTA they they specifically looked at GPA current point in time versus over history because we know if you've had negative academic experience your GPA is lower so th this is a place where we partner very very
strongly together and um want to continue to expand we have Anushia okay okay thank you um I have a few questions so my first one is are any of these um schools that are up for renewal
forprofit or related to for-profit entities yeah the the 2 Excel campuses are and do you see like in how in your accountability work a difference in how that for-profit structure influences the education that our kids receive or any
of the incentives that they have honestly not at all um I will say Excel is one of our best partners um so yes they are for-profit the district decided to engage in a partnership with them about 13 years ago since then they have
strong um strong outcomes for students they're serving students well they're a very good partner they're very great to work with um so to honestly no they they've been a great partner thank you i really appreciate that sir uh and I would add that they also take advantage of several district
resources which makes them a stronger stronger school that is great to hear um you know just doing some googling and I saw that a former adviser to their previous company that turned into full bloom is Barbara Bird Bennett so wanted to ask um another question not related
to Excel to YCCS are the community management organizations for profit i don't believe so i would have to look to be sure i'm fairly confident that none of them are but I would have to look i would I'd have to get back
to And what exactly are the functions i know Debbie sorry board member Pope asked this question like what are the functions that the community management organizations provide exactly and can you tell how much money flows through
the community management organization and how much goes to the students at the schools like do you have oversight on that sorry what was the first part of the question again what are their functions the community management organization's functions um so they're hiring staff they're running the school they are
bringing in external partners that provide additional services so um you know like you know if there's workbased learning programs if there's um you know mentoring or counseling services that they bring in so they're bringing in those outside services um hiring staff and you know kind of running the school
um like the day-to-day operations um whereas YCCCS is serving as like uh oversight compliance special education staffing um you know providing like money for power school you know things
like that like um administrative stuff um oh and yeah so they'll they'll get resources from ASN alternative schools work um and then I'm sorry what was the second part i'm sorry i tried to ask two questions in one um can you see how the money flows like how much um is taken
out by the sorry C CMO community management organization and how much goes directly to each school so CPS gives the money directly to YCCCS and then um every year we do collect a budget and then we get quarterly updates um where they report out how much money
is going from YCCS to the individual campuses um I I don't have those numbers in front of me i also don't know that we I'm sorry it's public though i would have to check i don't know i think it is but I I think one
component that I I feel like may be helpful um this individual community based organizations do not hold charters so they're basically taking the lensure if you will from a charter organization the charter that is issued is to YCCS
and these individual organizations they're very involved in the management and the running of the school but technically they can't even receive the funds from the district because they're not charter organizations so I hope that helps a little bit so I understand the question about whether or not they're
taking too much money but these community- based organizations wouldn't be able to run schools and to receive funding from you from the board because they don't have a charter individually i hope that helps a little bit wow and I would just assume also you know for the
team that they're in charge of all the credentiing of the programs right with the state to be a valid school to provide credit whether they're a high school or to provide you know the proper um you know evidence about learning if they're an elementary school so it is a
little bit more complicated board members and this is this organization has existed for decades um and so again you know again it's it's just it's the structure of it and and so anyways I I'll leave it at that no thank you
that's helpful because sorry I know I have a lot of questions so I try to cut that one out you said the schools have existed since 1997 but it's also the organizations that are the community management organizations they've also been in existence and running those schools since then that is very helpful long before long before okay that is
helpful um and then on the um the enrollment drop off that you mentioned after the day that you measure do you see similar drop offs after the enrollment collection day at the district run schools that's a great question i have not collected that data i think that would
be great to see because you know the incentives may be different um at our district run schools versus um our other partner schools so that would be information that would be very helpful to have um and then two more I swear two more uh one is how far in advance are
the site visits announced um so we we had a kickoff meeting in April where we went over all the expectations what we're going to be doing um and then a minimum of two weeks out uh we tried to work with the schools
to figure out if there are there any bad days that we you know that we don't we try not to just show up um a minimum of two weeks but we try to I mean some of them get like two months in advance but it it varies thank you because I'm sure the site visits are very helpful um but
in terms of you know the incentives if you know that there's a visit happening on a particular date that a lot can look different during the visit versus a different um time and then my last question is I know that we renew the charters like the operator they don't renew the individual schools but there's
two schools that used to be in good standing that are no longer in good standing could you share a little bit about the context there and I we can't like we have to renew the charter operator as a whole yes it's nothing about individual schools correct so it's
it's one charter holder so all the all the campuses are kind of treated as as one school um so the two campuses um that did not receive good standing so within the options accountability policy there's I believe there's 10 or 12 different metrics that we look at so we
look at STAR reading um and math growth and um well there's there's two different metrics for each for STAR we look at attendance growth in attendance um learn plan succeed credit attainment one-year graduation rate there's a few more I'm blanking on but so there's a
range of different metrics and then depending on how well the schools do they'll get points from one to five so those schools I don't have it in front of me but scored lower on a ver variety of metrics um and so that's that's why they were lower and I
I can get you more information specifics about um exactly how they did thank you i I just want to go back to your question too about 10 and 20 day um with understanding we have four districtun option schools two of them are detention
centers two of them the other are piecing in and that's Simpson and based on trends I have not identified 10 or 20 day drops schools
thank you member Rosenfield uh so thank you for your presentation for answering all of our questions um I think these schools are super important to the ecosystem of Chicago public schools we're reaching our students furthest from opportunity
here and that's our biggest challenge but arguably our biggest job um so one question are neighborhood schools in urban risk communities have the same enrollment counts so that beginning of the year and after the
second semester so if I think if I understood your question correctly so our our district run schools enrollment counts are taken on the 20th day right but I thought that in urban missunities we also looked at them again no in in the second semester
not that you know of no not so okay um so I did I was lucky enough to visit YCCCS the Westtown campus and the academy and I met the staff and I um was toured through their various programs
and it was an amazing tour and the professionalism and the passion that the staff there had despite all of their challenges was like nothing I had ever seen before so I just think it's important that we remember to meet these
schools where they're at they are on a different playing field and um it's our job to support them and ask them how we can support them and and understand that what they need is different than what so many other schools need so I appreciate you guys doing that and remaining
supports to these schools if I can help please let me know or member Wilz thank you i'm glad that there's new uh metrics added including the diverse learners understanding that it still needs some areas to be straightened um I
also do agree with the point that board member Gutierrez made in particular about if there has to be a closure of one of the campuses uh for me will be how can we also make sure that um the option school is helping ensure with
transition of students and helping the district and it you know it doesn't just fall on the district um the other item just went and I already had kind of imply into by other board members uh looking in particular the metrics that we use to measure one campus uh for
renewal as opposed with for example in this case YCCS that has 17 campuses um you know we get the just the overall it seems the uh average of all those campuses um and my concern is what if you know it looks like two of those
campuses might not be meeting um the metrics or you know they're a little bit lower that there's a support for those two particular campuses um so those students don't suffer or that also though you know uh the professionals there that they get the support that
they need and you know and don't get disregarded just because out of those you know they are falling a little bit shorter compared with the rest of the 15 other schools thank you um yeah so there are schools that are designated as intensive academic support
um we do a range of different activities with them throughout the year professional developments we work with them to ensure that they are able to improve in different areas um I'll also highlight that within um so they have a designation of good standing or
intensive academic support but they have a score and so um yeah like so that kind of helps with averaging them together is because maybe some schools are here maybe some schools are here but I will say in general YCCCS's schools are generally in the
same area we don't really see a lot of outliers um but for the schools that do have do fall under intensive academic support we do provide extra resources extra support work with them throughout the year um make sure we're working with them specifically on their CIWP to
address those areas board member Rivas uh thank you so much uh so I I just wanted to clear up some confusion as best I understand it around um these school this the community- based organizations that are that are
supporting these schools and so when state law changed in 1996 I know we all love history lessons here state law changed in 1996 authorizing charter schools so these schools were already in existence many of them I'm assuming
probably all of them i don't know for sure uh but these schools were in existence already to comply with the new charter law 1996 the law passes by the Illinois General Assembly 1997 charters
charters are created we have now YCCCS in 1997 bringing together all of these community-based schools um under that umbrella as Bdana was saying about having the charter as the authorizer as the person receiving the funds to be
able to manage these schools um so that's that's one thing the other thing too about these community- based organizations if you're really interested in the financials and where the money is going please look them up um all nonprofits have to file 990s every single year many of us here work
at nonprofit organizations that have to file 990s you're able to look up uh Guidear uh I think the name has changed recently but it used to be called Guidear used to be one of my favorite things to look up 990s of organizations you can see the top 10 paid uh board
members or executives of those nonprofit organizations you can see all the money in all the money out how much was spent on programming all of those things you can be can be looked up for all the nonprofit organizations that run that that are partners with YCCS to
be able to run these schools um so I just wanted to wanted to add that for all of our researching yes thank you absolutely correct thank you board member Blae hey thank you so much for
um coming out and staying up so late um uh you're the last line of defense right before sometimes we lose these students forever so I just want to commend you on your mission um I know it's not easy um we've got lots of questions because some
of us are really new to it um um if not for some family members of mine I would you know I I would have some questions too but um I hope you know um even if we're throwing lots and lots of questions at
you it's coming from a sincere place but also there's a number of really wonderful people on this board who have walked a number of lives who have dealt with a number of populations um that can really be helpful to you so um um I'd
like to stop by i'm sure some other folks would um and and we'll continue the conversation but um thank you again it's this this is really missionbased work it's not easy um and
um it's super necessary you're the some for many many people you're the last chance before the streets take them completely or before um you know or many of them are in JTBC
right you have do you have a school you have schools in the right so um it's yeah it's thank you and I'll see you anyway because on I work for Cook County Commissioner and we're doing some
tours of JCDC so I'll I'll see you over there anyway thank you you Thank you thank you very much thank you yes open it up now to We couldn't possibly have any more questions or comments though so I'm just going to
bypass that we'll now proceed with the vote on public agenda items board per board secretary please proceed thank you President Harden i'll proceed with the items on the public agenda read the board report numbers and brief titles i believe board member
Reevas has motion regarding record of proceedings i move that the record of proceedings of the agenda review committee meeting of February 12th 2025 and board meeting of February 27th 2025 prepared by the board
secretary be approved and that such records of proceedings be posted on the Chicago Board of Education website in accordance with section 2.06B of the Open Meetings Act is there a second second the motion i'll
proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole i member Wallace i member Kuster hi member Pope yes member
Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez I member Biggs yes
member Thodicura yes member Blae I member Zachor yes member Deberry I 20 eyes zero naz this motion is adopted by the board president Hard will continue with items that do require a vote each of
these items will be voted on separately rs2 resolution of the Chicago Board of Education establishing a requirement that the leader of Chicago public schools holds a licensed superintendent credential president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so
moved is there a second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith yes member Lopez I member Thomas i member Bole yes member
Wallace i member Kuster hi member Pope yes member Rosenfo yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra hi member Brown yes member Bannon i vice President Bautista
yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs yes member Thodura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry yes 20 I zero naz this matter is
adopted by the board rs3 resolution appointing Ed Bannon to the board of trustees of the public school teachers pension and retirement fund of the city of Chicago president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second the
motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith yes member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole i member
Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra hi member Brown yes member Bannon i if I can yes yes yes
you can vote vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez i member Biggs i member Thorakura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry yes 20 I zero
naz this matter is adopted by the board rs4 resolution appointing Emma Lozano to the board of trustees of the public school teachers pension and retirement fund of the city of Chicago president Harden this item does require
a vote is there a motion lopez I move is there a second second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith yes
member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster hi member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i
member Brown yes member Bannon i vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs yes member Thorakura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member
Deberry I 20 I's zero nazs this matter is adopted by the board rs5 resolution authorize appointment of members to LSC's to fill vacancies president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so
moved second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano member Smith yes member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole i member Wallace i
member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs yes
member Thorakura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry i 20 eyes zero nays this matter is adopted by the board ex1 transfer of funds president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved second
i second that motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith yes member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member
Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon i vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs i
member Thodura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry i 20 eyes zero naz this matter is adopted by the board ex3 authorized renewal of the Excel Academy of Southshore agreement with
conditions president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i
member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i
member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez i member Biggs i member Thorakura yes member Blaze i member
Zachor yes member Deberry I 20 I's zero naz this matter is adopted by the board ex4 authorized renewal of the Excel Academy of Southwest agreement with conditions President Harden this item does require a vote is there a
motion move so moved second I second the motion oppos proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith I member Lopez I member Thomas I member
Bole I member Wallace I member Kuster I member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra I member Brown I member Bannon I vice
President Bautista yes member Gutieras I member Bigs yes member Thodura yes member Blae I member Zachor yes member Deberry I 20 eyes zero
nays this matter is adopted by the board ex5 authorized renewal of the Institute of Justice and Leadership Academy Charter High School agreement with conditions president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second member
Rivas i second the motion thank you i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano see I member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope
yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi
member Biggs yes member Thorakura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Derry i 20 i's zero naz this matter is adopted by the board ex6 authorized renewal of the
youth connection charter school agreement with conditions president Harden this item does does require a vote is there a motion member Rivas so moved is there a second i second i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano
yes member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes
member Rio Sierra hi member Brown yes member Bannon i vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs i member Thorakura yes member Blaze i member Zachor yes member
Deberry i 20 eyes zero nays this matter is adopted by the board op1 amend the request the public building commission of Chicago to undertake the FY22 Kenwood link and mechanical project
president Hard and this amendment is necessary to revert back to the original PBC authority of 13,950,000 i'd also like to note that for the record Vice President Bautista board member Blae and board member Brown will be abstaining on OP1 this item does
require a vote is there a motion so move is there a second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas stay
member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra I
i noted the abstension for member Brown member Bannon i I noted the abstension for Vice President Bautista member Gutierrez i member Biggs yes member Thodicura yes
i noted the abstension from member Blae member Zachor yes member Deberry i 16 eyes's four four abstensions zero nays this matter is adopted by the board op2 authorize the first renewal of
the lease agreement with 8300 West Addison LLC president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second second thank you i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano
yes member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas hi member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster hi member Pope yes member
Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon i vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez i
member Biggs yes member Thorakura yes member Blaze i member Zachor yes member Deerry i 20 eyes zero nays this matter is adopted by the board
op3 authorization to purchase the former Wright College South property located at 3400 North Austin Avenue president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so move is there a second i second the motion thank you i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano i
member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member
Rio Sierra hi member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs yes member Thorakura yes member Blae
member Blae i'm sorry member Zachar yes member Deberry I 20 I's zero nays this matter is adopted by the board pr1 authorize a new agreement with various vendors for college and career readiness services president Harden this
item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second that motion thank you i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i member Lopez i member
Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster hi member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista
yes member Gutierrez i member Biggs yes member Thorakura yes member Blaze I member Zachor yes member Deberry i 20 eyes zero nays this matter
is adopted by the board pr2 amend the pre-qualification status of a new agreements with various vendors for emergency facility restoration services president Harden this amendment is necessary to add three additional vendors to the list of pre-qualified
vendors this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second the motion thank you i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i member Lopez i member
Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member sorry member Rosenbel yes member Rivas yes
member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs yes member Thorakura yes member Blae
i member Zachor yes member Deberry i 20 eyes zero nays this matter is adopted by the board pr3 amend agreements with various vendors for the purchase of maintenance repair and operation supplies and
personal protective equipment president Harden this amendment is necessary to add two additional vendors this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there Is there a second is that me
i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace
i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi me vice President Bautista yes
member Gutierrez hi member BGS yes member Thorura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry i 20 eyes's zero nazs this matter is adopted by the
board pr4 authorized new agreement with warehouse direct inc dba Midwest office interiors president harden this for the record pr4 has been updated and the final will be included in the agenda of action the changes have been made to the financial section the not to exceed
amount is now $15 million and fiscal year spend breakdown is as follows fy25 1.25 million FY26 5.5 million FY275 million and FY28 3.75 million this
item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozo yes member Smith i
member Lopez i member Thomas hi member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster hi member Pope yes member Rosenfo yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i
member Brown yes member Bannon hi Vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi member Bigs yes member Thoro yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry
i 20 eyes zero nays this matter is adopted by the board pr5 report on the award of construction contracts and changes to construction contracts for the board of education's capital improvement program president Harren PR5 was drafted on agenda and the
final will be included in the agenda of action this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes
member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas hi member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld she stepped away
member Rivas i member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon i vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez i member Biggs yes
member Thorakura yes member Blae I member Zachor yes member Deberry yes 19 eyes zero nays this matter is adopted by the board pr6 authorize a new agreement with
Sentinel Technologies Inc president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion is there a second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i member Tom i'm sorry
member Lopez i member Thomas hi member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes she's not member Rivas yes member Rio
Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez member Gutierrez i thank you member Biggs yes member
Thodicura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry i 19 eyes zero nays this matter is adopted by the board pr7 and authorize the first renewal agreement with Global Payments
Inc DBA H Heartland Payment Systems LLC president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith I member Lopez I member
Thomas I member Bole yes member Wallace I member Kuster I member Pope yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes
member Bannon i vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez i member Biggs yes member Thorakuro yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry yes 19
eyes zero nays this matter is adopted by the board president Harden I'll continue with additional items on the public agenda that do not require a vote pr8 chief procurement officer delegation of authority report for January 2025 and
chief financial officer officer report for January 2025 ex7 PR report on principal contracts new ex8 report on principal contracts renewals ex9 report on the chief executive officer pursuant to board rule 5-4 AR1 report on board
report reisions president Harden these items just need to be accepted by the board please mark received and filed president Harden will continue with items from the general counsel that do require a vote ar2 appoint assistant general counsel Steven Peters ar3
workers compensation payment for lumpsum settlement for Maria Castanada ar4 workers compensation payment for lumpsum settlement for Tashana Johnson Jenkins ar5 approved payment of proposed settlement regarding Kyle Burke ar6 approved payment of a proposed
settlement regarding Destiny Hart Jabari and Jamari Champion ar7 approve payment of proposed settlement regarding Isis Holmes ar8 approve payment of proposed settlement regarding Lataya Lataya and Nasha Scales
ar9 approve payment of proposed settlement regarding Qatara and Kfan Tucker ar10 approve payment of proposed settlement regarding Richard War and Jeriah Fletcher ar 111 approve settlement between the board of education and Katina Woods president
Harden these items do require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second the motion thank you i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano i member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas i member
Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra hi member Brown yes member Bannon hi me
vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs yes member Thodicura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry i 20 eyes zero
nazs these matters are adopted by the board president Hardon will continue with an item from the chief executive officer that does require a vote ex10 report on principal contract ALSC new for Rosa Jimenez at Solario High School
president Harden this item does require a vote is there a motion lopez move i move is there a second so move Mr president thank you i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano
i member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfo yes member Rivas yes
member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez i member BGS yes member Thorakura yes member Blae i
member Zachor yes member Deberry I 20 I's zero nazs this matter is adopted by the board president Hard will continue with an item from the board that does require a vote rs6 resolution approving chief of executive officer's
recommendation to dismiss educational support personnel president Harton this item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano i member Smith i
member Lopez i member Thomas i member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i
member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez i member Vixs yes member Thorakura yes member Boyce i member Zachor yes member
Deberry yes 20 eyes zero Naz this matter is adopted by the board rs7 resolution approving chief executive executive officer's recommendation to dismiss probationary appointed teacher president Harden this
item does require a vote is there a motion so moved is there a second i second the motion i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas hi member Bole yes member Wallace
i member Kuster i sorry member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra i member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Bautista
yes member Gutierrez hi member Biggs yes member Thorakura yes member Blae i member Zachor yes member Deberry yes 20 eyes zero nazs this matter is adopted by
the board president Hard and I I believe member Lopez board member Lopez has motion MO3 i move that the board adopt the minutes of the closed session meeting of February 12 2025 and February 27 2025
pursuant to section 2.06 of the open meetings act where members reviewed these minutes and determined that the need for confidentiality exists therefore the minutes of the close session meetings held February 12 2025 and February 27
2025 shall be maintained as confidential and not available for public inspection is there a second so moved i'll proceed with a roll call member Lozano yes member Smith i member Lopez i member
Thomas hi member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas yes member Rio Sierra hi member Brown yes member
Bannon i vice President Bautista yes member Gutierrez i member Biggs yes member Thorakura yes member Blae i member Dor yes member Deberry i 20 eyes
zero naz this motion is adopted by the board we will now move into executive session board member board do you have a motion mo4 i move for the passage of motion number 25-0320-
M4 and the commencement of a closed session to consider matters permitted under section 2C of the Open Meetings Act subsection one as specified in the motion is there a second so so moved i'll proceed with a roll call member
Lozano yes member Smith i member Lopez i member Thomas member Bole yes member Wallace i member Kuster i member Pope yes member Rosenfeld yes member Rivas
yes member Rio Sierra hi member Brown yes member Bannon hi vice President Baltista yes member Gutierrez i member Biggs i member Thorakura yes member Blae
i member Zachor yes member Deberry yes 20 eyes zero nazs this motion is adopted this meeting will now go into close session tech team can you remove the in Oh thank you i mean you could you might get some side eyes
okay the board meeting of the board of education is reconvened board secretary please proceed president Hart and I would like to note for the record that there are no items to vote on from executive session thank you is there a motion to adjurnn so moved is there a second all in favor
we are journ thanks everyone