One can kindly take your seats. We can be begin the meeting. President Harden, before you begin before you begin today's meeting, I would like to read a few announcements. Good morning. Welcome to the December 3rd, 2025 agenda review committee
meeting. Before we start the meeting, I would like to share a few safety points and next meeting announcements. Please note that the primary exit and entrance to the boardroom is the door which you use to enter this morning. If you are 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 exits clear. If you need any assistance during the meeting, please wave the attention of one of our security officers. Mark your calendars for the upcoming meeting. The next board meeting is
scheduled for Thursday, December 18th, 2025 at 10:30 a.m. The board meeting will be held at 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 process, please
visit the Chicago Board of Education website cpsb.org. If you have any questions about registration or public participation, please contact the board office for assistance. Thank you for joining us today. >> President Harden, we are now ready for
you to begin the meeting. >> Good morning, everyone. That was pretty okay. All right. All right. Let's get it started. Welcome to the board of education agenda review committee meeting. Today is December 3rd, 2025. I'm President Shawn B.
Harden, and on behalf of my fellow board members, thank you for joining us today. We're holding today's agenda review committee meeting in the boardroom at the CPS Loop office, 42 West Madison Street Garden level. I'd like to note that the board members and senior leadership are physically present in the
boardroom. Registered speakers may join us in person or virtually if they've opted to do so, and registered observers are joining us in person. The agenda view committee meeting of Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025 is hereby called to order. Board secretary, please
call the role. >> Member Lozano, >> present. >> Member Smith, >> present. >> Member VeZ, >> present. >> Member Wallace, >> present. >> Member Kuster, >> present. >> Member Pope, >> present.
>> Member Rosenfeld, >> member Rivas, >> present. >> Member Brown, >> present. >> Member Rio Sierra, >> present. Member Gutierrez, >> present. >> Member Biggs,
>> present. >> Member Thodicura, >> present. >> Member Deberry, >> present. >> President Harden, >> present. >> We have 15 members present. We do have a quorum. I'd also like to recognize Dr.
Meline King, interim superintendent, chief executive officer. Elizabeth Barton, acting general counsel. Dr. Alfonso Carmona, acting chief education officer. Charles Mayfield, chief operating officer. Thank you.
>> Well, I'm pleased to announce the board's Black Student Achievement Committee has taken an important step forward, and I'd like to invite board member Brown to provide us with an update. Thank you, President Harden. I'm pleased to announce that the Black Excuse me.
I'm pleased to announce that the Black Student Achievement Committee is now actively accepting membership applications. We plan to appoint 14 members in early 2026. The application deadline has been extended to Monday, December 22nd, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. Membership is open to a
broad range of Chicago public school stakeholders. However, applicants must reside within the city of Chicago. If you are interested in applying, visit the board's website at cpsb.org to apply online. You can also direct any
questions to us at be@cps.edu. We appreciate everyone's engagement and look forward to sharing more good news in the future. Thank you very much. >> Thank you board member Brown. Just want to acknowledge everyone who had in hand and moving the committee forward.
Excited about the work that's going to happen going forward. The order of the meeting will be as follows. Public participation presentations including office of student protections and title 9 update office of inspector general update internal audit and advisory
services for fiscal year 2026 audit plan. There'll be discussion of the agenda review committee meeting items 1 through 4 will go into recess. Reconvene from recess. Discussion of agenda review committee meeting items 5 through 17 will go into cold session. Reconvene
from cold session. vote on the public agenda item and then finally we will adjourn. Let's now 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. Poke
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 the 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. And while we can't discuss personnel matters, pul participation is a key component of transparent governance and it 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 very seriously and 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 host board office hours so that we can have a conversation. So, 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. And we thank you for your attention and consideration. And finally, as a reminder, union representatives will be allotted 5 minutes to speak before poll
participation and any elected officials will be allotted 5 minutes to speak after the conclusion of poll participation. Board Secretary, please share the rules of poll participation. Thank you. Before I proceed with the rules, I do want to in um note for the
record that Vice President Baltista has joined the meeting virtually via Zoom and joined at 10:37 a.m. Member Blae joined the meeting at 10:39 a.m. and member Lopez joined the meeting at 10:40 a.m.
Members of the public who registers registered to speak were given the option to attend via in person or via an electronic format. For those who preferred 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 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 42 West Madison Street, Garden Level. 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 cpsb.org. Speakers, please listen while I provide directions for public 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. 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 a speaker, note that in order to comply with the city's fire code, please stand
along the glass partitions on the marked spots to keep files 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 Caroline Rutherford,
CTU Charter Division Vice Chair. Susan, do we recognize members Smith and Lopez? Member Smith was here when RO was called and member Lopez, I did recognize her right before I started with the public participation guidelines. >> Thank you.
>> Thank you. >> Good morning, board members, CEO King. I want to update you on CPS actions that undermine and ignore the directives unanimously voted upon in EPIC's charter contract on November 4th. That day, this board directed CPS to prepare a
transition plan in consultation with Epic students, families, and staff. The transition plan will provide opportunities to maximize stability and continuity for Epic families and qualified staff, including offering enrollment to all Epic students at a
district-run school and opportunities for employment for qualified EPIC staff in open positions at such a receiving school. Unfortunately, CPS officials seem to be willfully ignoring the board's directives and actively dismantling the school as we speak.
Instead of engaging the school community in a creation of a transition plan, CPS invited families and staff to a community meeting, but it was actually a special high school fair with representatives from 12 different schools making pitches for students to transfer now or next year. When CPS
officials were asked why your instructions were not followed to designate a receiving school, they said they didn't need to comply with your instructions because every school a student moves to is a receiving school. Additionally, Epic staff were told they will not receive the same support
transferring to a district school that CPS is providing for staff at Aero Espira and Passages after their schools closed. We ask that you reach out to CPS leadership to investigate why they have not invited the Epic community into a dialogue about the creation of a
transition plan, including designating a receiving school such as Southshore. In addition, staff at Epic Academy must be afforded the same opportunities as the staff from Mero, Espira, and passages if they accept a position in a CPS school.
We would like to thank CEO King for listening to the Cisneros and Shields communities and not recommending collocation of those schools. CPS sprung collocation on both schools days before the deadline with no other option. The teachers, staff, and parents of both schools worked quickly to organize and
push back and they were heard. Thank you. However, the Cisneros community is still waiting to hear from CPS what is next for them. Is there a plan to move Cneros next year or will students and staff remain in their current building for another year?
Next year, six charter and contract schools, fiveerero and shy arts will transition into CPS district managed schools. We have been meeting with CPS to maximize retention of staff and students. However, CPS continues to blame principles for why not one single
teacher or staff person has been asked to remain it at their schools. And Friday, we meet with CPS to discuss the transition of our members from Shy Arts to CPS. Is this the precedent CPS is setting that no one at Shy Arts is guaranteed a position? All of the
current staff, teachers, teaching artists, and staff may change. If we do not retain the staff, do we really save the school? Retention of students and staff must be added to any resolution the board passes in January when you consider the
financial op options for the conservatory preservation. And lastly, on Monday this week, Aspira Charter School's board of directors met for the first time this school year. The school communities have been terrified that a Spear Schools would not open this
week after their CEO, Edgar Lopez, announced to the newspaper they would not have enough money to pay teachers and staff. We appreciate the steps that CPS took to make sure that crisis did not occur, but now what? At
the Aspira board meeting on Monday, instead of bringing stability or showing appreciation for the support of CPS, CEO Lopez claimed the following. That CPS put caps on Aspir's freshman enrollment and has rigged the game against them. So, their low enrollment is the fault of
CPS. That he is going to foy CPS officials because he smells a rat. And that he is doing everything right and they don't have money because of CPS and his own teachers. I share this with you because like many of you in this room, we believe that CPS
students, families, and educators at Aspiro schools deserve honesty and stability. CEO Lopez attempts to excuse his financial mismanagement by attacking and assault insulting others when in fact it seems as though CPS >> You have 30 seconds.
>> CPU are the only ones attempting to stabilize Aspira at this point. Based on everything CEO Lopez has said publicly to board members, the Chicago Sun Times, students and staff, we do not have faith in the charter operator's current leadership. He does not seem
interested in solving the problem he created. Rather just blaming everyone else. He was directed to create a financial plan. Instead, their board chair informed us on Monday at that meeting they do not have a plan and CPS
needs to make one. for the stability of the students, staff, families, and the community. Please CPS step in and ensure that there is a plan that protects our students and these schools from mid-year disruption so they continue their education without
interruption by this chaos. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for your comments. The next union union rep is Dr. Diane Castro, CTU financial secretary. Good morning. My name is Dr. Diane Castro and I'm the financial secretary
at the Chicago Teachers Union. Our city is on the precipice of a budget that puts people first and makes corporations pay a fraction more. We began this school year with a board of education that insisted that CPS that the CPS budget would be made whole based on
promises from aldermen promises that TIFF dollars would be coming to this district there. These are many of the same aldermen who now look to reduce the proposed TIFF amount to libraries, schools, and parks by hund00 million. There is a choice to be made. Community
safety or more community pain. Our school families are already being hit with groceries, rent, and health care costs. Corporations who can pay more should, especially when it would fund safety. What is at stake are massive
mid-year disruption that not every member of this board has been vocal about. Some older people have spoken about job killers. Voting no on this budget would kill approximately 8,000 jobs in our schools. How does this impact our students and their school
communities? Students lose 129 educators in the fifth ward, 206 educators in the 10th ward, 253 educators in the 21st ward, and approximately 200 educators in the 41st
ward. Every network will be hit with cuts that will amount to 8,000 positions. This is unacceptable. Thank you, CEO King, for your letter informing parents. We need to see that advocacy consistently and resoundingly
from all of the board members. Growing up as a CPS student, I became used to the noise of all the things that I couldn't be that I wasn't supposed to do or become. This is when CPS leadership looked like Mayor Daly and Paul Val. As an early educator, I was cut due to
austerity and lack of resources. That is when CPS leadership looked like Mayor Daly, Arie Duncan, and Rahm Emanuel. What kept me consistent and hopeful were the countless educators who believed in me, who believed that black and brown
children could achieve. And I know how much they put of themselves into this work because I worked alongside educators who still show up to teach and inspire the children of Chicago. Cutting a single position as I was cut years ago should be a non-starter. I compel this
board to show more courage and imagination beyond your predecessors. Our students deserve that. Just last week, we heard from board members who know that the status quo will only continue to keep black and Latina families from thriving. We need all of
you, every single member of this board, to acknowledge the same and step up and call the city council members that signed that promise to you. hold them accountable for that which they already committed or be accountable for the 8,000 positions that are at stake. Our
families need to see you fighting for community safety and the funding for our schools. We have already seen the school community at Bright advocating for investment for years. Safe passages and afterchool programs make a difference in our communities. I can assure you that
that is not the only school nor the only community who has had to advocate for the same and not receive it. Our mayor's budget says that our schools will be funded. Our youth will have access to violence prevention programs and jobs. And our families will have access to affordable housing. School is not
limited to what happens inside the buildings. We know the importance of community investment for our young people to thrive. This budget is an opportunity to write a wrong. We've also seen school communities from Aero to Epic to Shyarts to Aspira who are having
to fight to be heard and they also need advocacy. You will hear from parents and members, and I ask that you take the time to listen to them more so than the operators who have put their lives in turmoil and set up their schools for crisis and closure. Our educators should not have to worry if they will have a
paycheck. And our families should not have to worry if their children will have a school to attend. We appreciate that you did the right thing by providing that safety during the holiday. And let's recognize that the operators are hiding their valuable property even while they claim that they are bankrupt.
We need you, our board members, to continue to fight for our students and their families. I ask that you demonstrate your leadership by holding the charters charter operators accountable just as I ask that you hold the alderman accountable. Tell city
council to keep the promise that they made to the families of CPS students, to the children to of Chicago, and to you all. Tell them that it is beyond time that the burden be placed on the ultraw wealthy corporations so that our students have access to a black student success plan, our language learners
families have access to a language line, our children experience the joy of having librarians and libraries and our communities get to be safer. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. >> The next union rep is Tmaine Reeves,
SEIU Local 73 director of the CPS division who is joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. >> Good morning board members. Um Rain Reeves from SEIU Local 73. Today I kind
of want to focus on safety and security. Uh so with that in mind, I want to send a special shout out to uh Chief Ronin and the safety and security team uh for recent in their recent support of our crossing guard who experienced a very
unfortunate high security incident at a school uh just prior to uh Thanksgiving break. She experienced a shooting firsthand. Um, we were in the meeting, she shared it with us, um, reached out to Ronan who immediately responded to
me, followed up with that member and followed exact protocol. Um, and so with that, the member was really, really supported. The crossing guards felt really supported because they were witness to her testimony of the unfortunate incident. And it just
goes to show with strong contract language and good labor relations um, what it can do. And so I wanted to highlight that. Secondly, we are very glad for the return of Kim Jones and the of the transportation department and we're looking forward to working with
her and her team on much neededed safety trainings that's going to help ensure improved safety of bus aids, bus monitors, the students on the buses, as well as the drivers. Um there are a lot of safety concerns uh that are being expressed and our members are advocating
for additional training. Uh and so we're looking to partner with that expand uh you know the skills available to our workers so that they feel better supported and they can better support the students on those buses.
And then finally want to talk about uh job security. Eligible workers should be afforded the right to form a union without opposition. Workers deserve the right to advocate for a fair livable wage. I think we can
all agree that living in Chicago in 2026, 2025, almost 2026, $16 an hour is not a livable wage. And so what we ask that this school board do is that they publicly commit to standing
against any opposition of workers having the right to join and form their own union so that they can advocate for livable wages, better working conditions, and help continue to improve the learning experience of the students
of Chicago public schools. Thank you all. >> Thank you for your comments. President Harden, we are now ready to call speakers from the speakers list. And we'll begin with um the first group of speakers from Chicago High School for
the Arts, Megan Riley, number one. Oh gosh, she started. Good morning. My name is Megan Riley. I'm a math teacher and department chair at Shy Arts. I know that money is a major concern for just about every member on the board. Fiscal responsibility and financial stabil
sustainability in the face of both local and national contexts. It's an immense responsibility on your shoulders. I know how important it is. I have personally worked for months to advocate for a city budget that fully funds CPS. I've
traveled to Springfield to call on lawmakers to fully fund Illinois schools. I've met with state legislators, alder people, community members to try and get you the money. Shy arts is a clear case study in how philanthropy is unable to sustain a
school and that the part public part private model no longer works here. Anyone who works in development or fundraising can tell you that the landscape of philanthropy has changed. It isn't working anymore. You voted unanimously to explore alternative
financial strategies. But I need you to understand that you are the alternative financial strategy. Every other public arts school in the nation is funded publicly. While philanthropy can supplement our school, we need stability
that only you can provide. Let the wealthy donors pay for things like auditorium seats and play bills, not textbooks and payroll. This board has been clear in words that you support maintaining our conservatory model. Now, you must be clear with your actions and
commit to fully funding our conservatory with CPS funds. CPS has enjoyed a public art school in its portfolio for 15 years without needing to pay for its arts programming, but now public investment for all parts is necessary.
>> Art must not become a privilege of the wealthy. It is a human necessity. So, it's not fiscally irresponsible for CPS to fund public arts education in Chicago. You have been elected, appointed, and hired into the seats you currently occupy. You are the ones with
the resources and power to fund our schools. You have the duty to protect that right for the students you serve. Commit fully to funding the Shy Arts Conservatory with public CPS dollars. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next
speaker is Aaron Brown, speaker number 10. Um, good morning to everyone. My name is Aaron Brown. This is my eighth year as a public school teacher in my third year at Shy Arts where I teach 9th and 10th grade math. First, I'd like to ground my comments in the importance and impact of
Shy Arts for a city like Chicago. Contemporarily and historically, the cultural impact of Chicago is immense. Our city lives in the hearts, minds, and souls of people around the world thanks to the fearless expression in creativity from Chicagoans past and present. Shy
Arts works to build on this legacy by providing a public pre-professional arts education for young Chicagoans, helping students students learn and engage with the creativity that thrives within themselves and their city. To lose the conservatory model would be a disservice to our students, our city, and our
city's history. One of the best steps we can take to preserve the conservatory model is through an intentional and compassionate leadership selection process. For context, the last several years at Shyart saw significant budget cuts um and multiple transitions in leadership
for principles in the last three years. This tandem has led to a constant cycle of refining policies and procedures left our school underresourced and left our community feeling hurt and deprioritized. This is relevant and must be considered as we proceed with hiring for leadership
positions. First, Shy Arts needs a leader that is passionate, experienced in public education, and has a deep knowledge of CPS and the arts. We need someone who can navigate the unique challenges and nuances that come with transitioning shy arts from a contract to a district school. 30 seconds
remaining and keeping the conservatory model a priority, especially since we have seen and felt the impact of lackluster leadership on our school arts programming. Second, it concerns me that at Tuesday's CPS community meeting for Shy Arts, it was proposed that our advisory council would choose a
principal whose contract length was unspecified. Not only do we need CPS to provide our advisory council with arts forward, collaborative, and skilled applicants, we need CPS leaders to be clear and transparent with parents, students, teachers, and community members as to whether our new principal
would receive a multi-year contract or be an interim, and to be clear about other relevant information that we need to make an informed decision. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Allison Byestron, speaker number 14.
Good morning. My name is Allison Biston and I am a proud alum of Shy Arts, current arts administrative assistant for two departments and I teach concert choir, keyboard and oral skills, vocal jazz and contemporary techniques to both vocal and instrumental students. In the past four years at Shy Arts, I've taught
a total of seven different classes that have been offered to our scholar artists. My favorite memories at Shy Arts were working with my choir teacher, Mr. Bill Chin. his work with the Chicago Symphony Choir or excuse me Chicago Symphony Orchestra Choir, the Symphony Chorus of Oak Park and River Forest, his
contributions to the Chicago coral scene, and ultimately Shy Arts is the reason I am standing here today. It is because of teaching artists like Mr. Chin that I had the opportunity to sing with a professional choir and orchestra, perform with conductor Ricardo Muti, and it is because of Mr. Chin that I went to
school for coral music education and am an educator today. I'm here today because I am concerned that CPS has not yet made a commitment in writing to retain the current students, teaching artists, teachers, and other staff at the school. Without this commitment, you would be erasing arts education history
in the city of Chicago. I know firsthand that these groups are what make our school Shy Arts. It is not the building or the name, it is the people. I have been one of them for a very long time and I hope to continue to be. I want to be able to carry on the legacy of Shy Arts and the teaching artist model.
Without this commitment, teaching artists like me will be forced out of stability and the sense of belonging that is Shy Arts. The work that what we've done to maintain and excel the pre-professional arts training in every department will be >> 30 seconds remaining. >> Past teaching artists have had the honor of shaping the path for the curriculum
and standards that are executed today. We carry that legacy and create new traditions that shape this generation of scholar artists. When our students graduate, I want to continue to hear, "I can't wait to work at Shy Arts with you when I graduate college." And for that possibility to stay a promise, but right
now, myself, my students, my co-workers do not know what is next. Please put it in writing that we will all be a part of Shy Art's future. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. The last speaker from the Shy Arts group is Sha Wallace, speaker number 26.
Good morning. My name is Sean Wallace and I teach musical theater to freshman and senior students and songwriting to senior students at Shy Arts. I stand before you as a proud CPS alum of Morgan Park High School and the renowned
conservatory, the Merit School of Music. I've been a performing teaching artist for almost 30 years and have worked with students of varied backgrounds from the kids next door to incarcerated and justice system involved youth. All of Chicago's youth deserve their
inalienable rights, life, liberty, health, and the pursuit of their greatest dreams. Thank you CPS board for voting to take over the management of Shy Arts. However, like the carpenter song from back in the day, we've only
just begun. We must not only save Shy Arts High School, but we must sustain Shy Arts High School. Our goal should be to make Shy Arts the premier public school for the arts and college prep in Illinois. We have schools to use as examples, so
there's no need to reinvent the educational wheel. We're modeled after LaGuardia High School in New York that inspired the film, play, and television series Fame. As a teen, I never miss an episode of the TV series Wishing I could go to that school. And now for the past
three and a half years, I have worked at Shy Arts. Dreams do come true. Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington DC and the Philadelphia High School for Creative and Performing Arts are other examples of public schools. You have 30 seconds. >> That feature pre-professional arts conservatories using teaching artists as
arts instructures instructors with a college prep academic curriculum. This model is sustainable. Recently, we've united as a city and state to resist the actions of a wannabe dictator. We have become the model of resistance throughout the nation.
Therefore, it's time for all of us, students and parents, Mayor Johnson and the city council, the Chicago public school board, the Illinois State Legislature, and Governor Pritsker, business and philanthropic leaders and arts institutions to unite again in
sustained support of Shy Arts High School. As I was told by my students yesterday to tell you, let's lock in and get this done. >> Thank you for your comments. The next group of speakers is from Espira,
Heath Davis. Speaker number two. >> Good morning and thank you for allowing me this opportunity to address you. My name is Heath Davis. I'm an ELA teacher, student council adviser, and curriculum and instruction adviser at Aspira Early
College, otherwise known as AEC. Like all of us here today, I'm an advocate for Chicago students. I've stayed at AEC for nearly 10 years because I've witnessed the transformational power that our schools have had on our majority Latino families that we serve.
Our school is a tight-knit community. We offer our community everything from ESL programs that embrace and guide students who are newcomers to the US to a dual enrollment program where students can graduate high school with half of the college credits necessary for an
associates degree. Unfortunately, we have recently learned that our organization is under threat of no longer existing. The trauma that many of our students have already experienced from ICE and CPB is already high and the possible
closure of our of our schools adds more stress that they should not have to bear. On October 3rd, we were notified that key members of our staff would be laid off because of lower enrollment. On November 19th, we learned that the Sun
Times through the Sun Times and WBZ this bureau might not make payroll because of financial negligence. We left for Thanksgiving break unsure if our schools would be open when Thanksgiving break ended. On November 25th, it was reported
that CPS had >> 30 seconds remaining >> to pay for that period, but the future remained uncertain. What's more, as the possible closures of our schools loom, the messaging has been neither direct nor transparent. The Aspera board of directors has canceled multiple meetings
where the organization's financial situation could be addressed, leaving local reporting to fill in the gap. This has left teachers and staff with the burden of reassuring stability to our students and families while we ourselves cannot be sure of our future. This
negatively impacts our ability to serve students and rumors of closure certainly impacts future enrollment. >> We ask, >> please conclude your remarks >> to provide our students, family, and staff the stability they deserve through
uh financial support. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Jennifer Conan, speaker number 18. Good morning members of the board. I'm Jen Conan, chair of C2's charter division, but today I'm here to share remarks that my union sibling Claude
Holmes, an educator at Aspira Pantoa High School, wanted to say, but couldn't because he wasn't selected to speak. So, first I want to thank CPS for advancing funds to ensure that Aspira's school doors stayed o stay open through
December. We are truly grateful and I hope this attention to our school's stability continues in the months ahead. However, I'm here today because I feel it is critical to address the current mismanagement within our spirit charter network and to work together toward solutions that will keep our network
stable and functioning. I have two major concerns. First, we've discovered that Aspir's board of directors in June authorized CEO Edgar Lopez to create a new organization and transfer two of its buildings to this new Espira Illinois
Foundation. These buildings are significant assets owned by a CPS charter operator who is threatening to miss payroll and asking for support from the district. Why would Aspira, knowing it had financial issues, move two properties out of its
portfolio? This raises serious questions and concerns for our staff, students, and the broader community, especially when there is no clear plan to ensure payroll can be sustained beginning December 26th and through the rest of the school year. Second, the lack of
transparent communication from Aspir's leadership to CPS and to CTU has been deeply troubling. >> You have 30 seconds remaining. An article laid out the poor financial reporting and challenging communication from Aspir to CPS. And where CPS has struggled to determine how much money
Aspir actually needs, we've had the same struggle. Aspir's communication with CTU and its members has been frustrating um and reached a low point with the Sun Times article telling us that payroll would not be made on uh the day after Thanksgiving. The Spirit couldn't bother
to tell us themselves. We are grateful that CPS stepped in to ensure staff are paid. Um, and it's clear that Aspira leadership is not able to make a plan for our future on their own. Unless CPS steps in to help resolve these issues, put a plan in place, and force API to
collaborate with parents and educators, I fear that we will fail our students and the community we are serving. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The last speaker from Aspira is Todd Ferry, speaker number 25. Good morning. Good morning. My name is
Todd Ferry. I've been a history teacher, coach, and leader at Aspir Early College now for uh 10 years. Uh it's one of three schools in the Aspir network, and I've stayed because of my students. Um Aspira's mission is clear to serve Latino families, many of whom are
English learners and newcomers who may not feel comfortable in other schools. Families choose a spirit because we care for our students. We help them achieve and we push them to excel. I teach AP and dual enrollment courses and my students are dedicated and driven. I do
not want to fail them. Last year, as Spirit closed its middle school, Hogan due to under enrollment. Soon after, Spirit owned buildings were transferred into a new foundation that has not been explained to us. Resources have dwindled. Programs have been cut, layoffs have followed. In early
November, we were told the network faced a major financial deficit, now reportedly in the millions. How this happened remains unclear. CPS and CTU have repeatedly requested financial documents, but Aspir has not provided them. Recent Sun Times and WBEZ uh
reporting quotes the CEO blaming everything from gops ranking systems to low recruitment to bad and expensive teachers to a flawed uh to a flawed charter funding model um to an alleged plot by CTU and CPS to end charter schools. Nowhere does he take
responsibility worse. Those same articles were the first time I learned I might not get paid during Thanksgiving break. CPS ultimately had to advance funds to cover payroll. Thank you for that. I've been told I will receive one more check on December 12th and that I don't know if I'll and I don't know if I'll be
paid. And more importantly, my students don't know if they will even have a school to return to after winter break. Imagine being a senior unsure if you'll graduate with your class or a junior fearing a mid-year transfer to a school you've never even seen. There has been no meaningful attempt by a spirit
leadership to solve this crisis. The CEO appears to have given up. The board of directors meeting publicly for the first time this year only two days ago, despite the fiscal emergency, offered no plan to stabilize our schools. If the board cannot direct the CEO and the CEO cannot lead, who is left? I'm asking you
to fully investigate the Aspir Charter network, determine the real cause of this deficit, and help us navigate it. We may be a charter network, but we are still part of CPS. Our students, families, and teachers deserve your support. Please conclude your remarks >> and help stabilize our schools. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Jesse Bostic, speaker number three. Good morning, members of the board and Dr. King. My name is Jesse Bostik and I teach fourth grade at Walt Disney Magnet Elementary.
Right now, because of the budget this board passed, my school community and those across the city are hurting. Since this board voted to tie the district's hands and place all bets on a city council without the political courage to choose children over the wealthy, school
communities across the city are about to be devastated. Almost every classroom in my school is infested with mice. We come into filthy classrooms, cafeterias, and hallways on a regular basis. This makes the
environment unsafe for everyone in the school. We have gone from 13 custodians two years ago to three on an average day to serve a school of about 1,400 students. There are no longer enough custodians to clean everything. Children and educators
are watching mice run through classrooms. Our prek students had to be removed from their learning environment for a week due to extermination and deep cleaning of droppings. This is embarrassing. Every day our principal, assistant
principles, educators, and students are cleaning our school and picking up the slack. Instead of supporting teachers, our admin is cleaning. Instead of planning enriching learning experiences, our educators are cleaning. People are vi buying vacuums to excuse me clean their
own classrooms. This is not a requirement that has been training. >> We do this because we know that if our students arrive in classrooms that haven't been vacuumed and smell like yesterday's trash, they will feel undervalued. The fact is at every level of
government, we have shown that they do not value children over the super rich. Without the TIFF funds in the mayor's budget, our school is slated to lose a further 1.6 million, which comes out to about 20 positions being cut. There is
not one school in this city that can afford to lose any more staff. Reach out to your contacts at city hall. Make them understand that children are not pawns to be used in the games of billionaires and politicians. >> Please conclude your
>> situation is unacceptable. We desperately need the funds that we were promised. I hesitate to imagine the state of our schools if the mayor's protecting Chicago budget does not pass. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments.
The next few uh several speakers are from Hogan Elementary School. We'll begin with Meg White, speaker number four. Hello. Growing up at my overcrowded Minneapolis elementary school, we packed into drafty old trailers for art class
and attended counseling sessions in broom closets. But when our public school colllocated with a sparsely attended magnet school, it impressed upon me that adults cared about my educational experience. That early acknowledgement of my worth helped me advocate for myself through high school,
college, and grad school. Today, I urge you to do the same for Hogan Elementary students. As an Albany Park homeowner, I am invested in the community and its student success. And as a volunteer at Hogan, I witness the overcrowding there and the community's heroic efforts to
ameliate it. I also see neighbors and friends across Chicago forced to choose between community and their children's future. Some of them give up dreams of home ownership to rent near good schools. Some move to the suburbs or choose private schools. None of these options allow them to reinvest in the
neighborhood that I love. Given this, I was shocked to see Hogan's straightforward community-led child-c centered collocation request denied. The school's dual language population, social work, and specialized classes deserve physical space to complement the astounding level of care and work that
go into serving them. And there's a whole community here prepared to make the most of that modest investment. Take Esther, whose child will soon graduate from Hogan's preschool program. With two kindergarten classes already at capacity, there's funding for a third
class, but literally no empty room to put it in. Our class is already relegated to a cart. There's no science lab. >> You have 30 seconds remaining. >> Library houses a makeshift classroom, a tech repair center, offices, and counseling nooks. Her choice is heartbreaking and unjust. Esther can
give up on CPS, but she's seen how this plateaus growth and doubles down on disinvestment. The data may suggest that this school doesn't need more space, but the reality is a monument to Chicago's de facto socioeconomic and racial segregation. Esther, who's given up countless hours organizing neighbors to
accompany kids amid ICE raids, should not have to be complicit in this cycle of inequity. And neither should you. With this relatively small investment in a beloved neighborhood school, we can break with systemic institutional racism. The idea that a state-of-the-art school sits one block away is a travesty
and an embarrassment. CPS can furnish the solution to Helgans's overcrowding, provide dedicated instructional environments, and support its transition to a dual language school. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is an Kale Kelpie who is join speaker number six, who is joining us
virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. >> Hello everyone. My name is Anne Calpe and I am a member of the Hogan community and a parent of two CPS students who attend Hoggin. I myself am a former CPS student. I believe in public schools and
the accessibility it creates for all and I was really shocked to hear that the the denial for Hoggin collocation when there is an obvious need for space at Hogan. Currently, one of my children is in kindergarten and he is in a class of 30 students. This has been reported in
more classrooms. Other reports of overcrowding include support services being conducted in spaces that aren't actual rooms or offices. That's unethical. That's unsafe and that's unacceptable. During one Hogan community, current Hogan students displayed their bravery
and shared their lived experiences of being overcrowded. We believe in an equitable school system. Yet, this denial is not addressing the Hogan community's needs. I myself am an early intervention occupational therapist. I work closely with families who
transition into the school setting. I advocate for children who require support in the school to achieve their academic participation and socialization with peers. For a child to succeed, we all know and believe that the environment is crucial to their learning. We need to prioritize the
environment that we're setting our children up in and that includes creating a safe space for them. The Spirit North River has that space. So, we kindly ask to please let Hogan use that space. It is important that the Hogan community stay together. You have 30 seconds
remaining. >> Our classes for students with disabilities, early childhood, and preschool. Hogan is a neighborhood school for all community members to have access to Hogan. We need to continue to offer a safe place for all families, including families of students with disabilities and for families of young
children, my family included. I have another child who is in pre kindergarten at Hogan and I hope to see him again at Hogan next year. We're really grateful for the teachers, the support staff and administration who show up day in and day out at Hogan for our students. It is past due that we show up for them and
give them what they need. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Mary Margaret or speaker number 12. Good morning. My name is Mary Margaret our uh my usual audience is a room full
of eight-year-olds. So, thank you very much all of you for having such smiley faces. I do appreciate it. They also think I'm hysterical. Um I've been at Hogan School for 32 years. My husband attended Hoggin School. So, I've literally been involved at Hoggin School my entire career. Um, administrators
have come and gone. Uh, I now have students in my class whose um, parents were in my third grade class many years ago. I won't tell you my age, but you can figure it out. I have been at Hogan my entire CPS career and I'm very rooted in um, the ups and downs. We are
currently facing um, not an overcrowding formally. Uh, we're at capacity, we like to say. Um, we're hoping that CPS is going to look at their model for how they formulate the numbers of students that should be in a school. We have many
preschool classrooms and we have several cluster classrooms and those classrooms do not house 30 students. The old model housed 30 students and our new CTU contract does not have those numbers. So, we really feel like when a spirit closed their doors and we sort of missed
the deadline cuz they announced in January that because of our numbers and the new formula that we heard is coming, we really hope that that will help shine some light on the fact that Hogan is really pretty cramped. We do not have a classroom to offer. um CTU uh and the
overclass size uh committee graciously uh gave us some teacher assistance, but that just put more adult bodies in rooms that are already filled with many many students >> because we were offered teachers, but there's no place to put them. So, we're really hoping that
>> collocation isn't a dirty word. It's not a bad word. We know that there are some issues to solve, but we think that coming up with that new formula of how we uh come up with numbers for how many students should be in a school will really help shine a different light on Hogan School. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Tiffany Harvey, speaker number 13. Please proceed. >> I am Tiffany Harvey. Um, good morning. Thanks for this opportunity and a special thanks to U. Board members Pope,
Rivas, and Rio Sierra for visiting our school and your responsiveness. I also want to thank Alderman Rodriguez for her visit and advocacy. I appreciate all of your hard work on behalf of our children. I'm a Hogan sixth grade parent and LSC chairperson. I come to you today deeply disappointed that on Monday CPS's
chief portfolio office denied our collocation request without explanation of any path forward other than to work with Hogan to explore solutions to maximize space within the school facility. This is unacceptable. We expect to grow, but even if we do not grow by a single student, our situation
is untenable right now. There is no extra space. No Finchu tips will solve our severe space issue. Unfortunately, we feel that CPS has misled us at every step of this process. First, in 2022, we were told not to object to North River's
moving into the Leland building to colllocate with Aspira Middle School. To stifle objections to the placement of a lotterybased elementary school just two blocks from Hogan, North River promised that it would remain a small school and not occupy additional space. And CPS
assured us that the two schools could collaborate later if we grew as projected. Since then, Hogan has absorbed and retained over 200 migrant children. And yet, our severe persistent need for the vacant space at the Leland building, which was built for our
students, has been disregarded. We have tried to engage with North River for a full year, but have yet to meet with them and CPS has done nothing to facilitate yet alone assure the promised collaboration. >> Um yet next, when Aspira announces
closure, we were too late. um after being advised it was too early for us to speak up. Over the summer, we attempted to survey both the school community and the larger Albany Park community um but were told not to survey the community. That was the portfolio department's job. But there was no community survey and
there will not be unless you, the board, intervene. Instead, fewer than 60 North River survey respondents against collocation will speak for the entire Albany Park community. Meanwhile, the building will be complete. The Aspira building will continue to be severely underutilized. There is almost no wait
list for North River and none for grades other than kindergarten. >> The only river will fill their um school is if prospective Hogan families are told to go away, we're full. Go to the choice school down the block. >> We assert that every student has the right to attend an adequately resourced
neighborhood school and expansion of choice schools should never impinge on this right. We respectfully >> Please conclude your remarks. >> Yes. Just just uh one more second. We respectfully request that you put our collocation request on the agenda, allow it to see the light of day and for the public to weigh in and also that you
demand the portfolio office share the reasons behind its denial because no um explanation has been provided and we see no legitimate reason for uh a cycle of rinse and repeat and no solutions at the expense of our vulnerable students. Please help us. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your comments. Then next speaker is Ann Nolan. Speaker number 15. Good morning members of the board and Dr. King. My name is Anne Nolan. I'm a bilingual special education teacher at Hogan Elementary. I came to speak today
about the overcrowding crisis at the school and I'm here to assure you it is a crisis and one I live every day. The crisis has led to teachers, staff and students being moved into every
available corner of the building, including closets. We have overenrolled classrooms. We have enrichment and teachers with no physical space moving from room to room on a cart. Our case manager, bilingual team, and others are
crammed into what should be a school library. We need to open an additional sped resource classroom to serve the population we have and another kindergarten, but we have absolutely no space in which to do so. Many teachers,
myself included, compete for space at tables in the hallways on a daily basis so we can provide the essential small groupoup support that students need. Our students in our community deserve
better. This is what we want. This is what we deserve. Students should be taught in classrooms within the legal CPS mandated sizes. We need permanent dedicated private space for special >> 30 seconds remaining
>> for special ed classrooms. We need dedicated rooms for enrichment classes. Our students need and deserve a permanent library space. Our support staff need private office space to counsel and provide services with
parents and students for delicate conversation. Our community deserves schools that serve neighborhood residents first. We demand that CPS facilities in the neighborhood, including the former
Espira site, are used to serve community residents, not for magnet students. >> Please conclude your remarks. >> Reject a solution to this crisis that breaks up our school community.
Last and most importantly, we want and deserve to continue the important work we are doing, not just to educate the children of our community, but to serve serve as a hub of community activity and a resource to local parents and
families. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The last speaker from the Hogan Group is Laura Ro, speaker number 16. for me kindergarten.
for confident. If I would before conclude Gracias. Thank you. We'll have the um statement translated. >> Good morning, dear Chicago Board of Education. Thank you for this time you have kindly given me. We at Hogan are a
varied, inclusive community which cares for each and every one of us who make up its membership. I personally have been adopted as a grandmother figure by special education students, as a friend by preschool and kindergarten kidlings,
as a confident by pre-teens. I sometimes get greeted on the street by students I don't recognize, but they recognize me. I feel very proud of belonging to the hoging community. I'll be brief. Please, our school needs space to operate.
We could give classes in hallways. We could cover our need for a varied and up-to-date library by carrying 80 to 100 books from public libraries to our classrooms every free week every every three weeks. We could try giving physical or language
therapy in a closet. We seek confidentiality at a corner down the hall from the school entrance. We lug furniture. We move. We make accommodations. And we welcome with open arms everyone who has arrived at our building. We've made do.
I know that district personnel has been analyzing the pros and cons of what to me feels like an obvious and beneficial solution to our growing and soon dual language community. However, that empty that empty floor in another building will remain empty. We were told it
wouldn't be possible but not told why. But our space problem persists. Please help us. Please lend your support so that we can continue being that community where you will also feel welcome and proud to be a part of. Thank you. >> Thank you. We do have one more speaker
from the um Hogan group, Zachary Kavitt, speaker number 22 who is joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. Uh, good morning. My name is Zachary Kavitt. My daughter Ezra is eight and has been at Hoggin since preschool.
Every morning she walks into school and greets her preschool teacher because of the continuity of care, relationships, and the community built here by principal UT and the incredible staff have shaped her life. But that community is being strangled by overcrowding. We have teachers providing IEP services in
hallways, closets converted into classrooms, administrators giving up their offices for social services. This building is maxed out and not because of mismanagement, but because Hogan is out of space. This isn't just unacceptable, it's disgraceful. The proposed removing
dedicated rooms for specials classes, eliminating preschool programming, a pillar of our neighborhood. Returning shared rooms into classroom just to handle more bodies is not just an assignment. Excuse me. An asinine solution. It's cowardly, shortsighted,
and cruel to the students. And anyone who genuinely believes this is a better solution is out of touch with the community they serve. Meanwhile, a Spir Hogan, a purpose-built junior high, sits massively underutilized. This building was designed for middle school students as the capacity, infrastructure, and
specialty rooms that Hoggin's upper grades simply don't have here. North River has little to no weight list, and they won't fill close to capacity. The idea that sharing resources between two schools in one building is too complicated is insulting. All schools share resources. Administrators already
coordinate schedules, rooms, and services. That two rooms or two schools can't function under one roof is not a real concern. >> You have 30 seconds remaining. >> Deny Hoggins middle schoolers access to a modern building that was built for them is backwards and harmful. The Spiro
wasn't meant to be a lottery school. It was built to serve Hogan. It was built to serve Albony Park. Denying this proposal is egregious and punishes our students and community. Our families trust CPS to make decisions that lift up our children, not hold them back. You're stealing opportunities from the children
you serve. You're erasing programs. You're denying our dignity and safety. And you're sending a clear message that CPS is willing to let overcrowded kids make do in closets while a modern building sits half empty down the street. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. Before I
call the next speaker, I do want to recognize that member Bannon has joined the meeting at 11:37 a.m. The next two speakers are from the Academy of Global Citizenship.
Brian Sodto, speaker number five. toos. Good morning everybody. It is a honor and a pleasure to be here. My name is Brian Sto and I'm the health and wellness teacher at the Academy for Global Citizenship, an international balorate school on the southwest side of Chicago. I began my teaching career
there 11 wonderful years ago and since then I've become a parent to a beautiful curious little boy who I happily enrolled in our school's prek dual language program. It is with great pleasure to be here in representation of the Academy for Global Citizenship. I spoke here in front of the board almost
7 years ago during our last charter renewal when we received an almost unprecedented in length renewal that was instrumental in getting us to where we are at today. As we speak, students from Little Village, Brighton, Gage, and McKinley Park, back of the yards in the llair courts, are currently sitting in a
state-of-the-art learning facility that was unheard of when I was growing up in Labita, very close to AGC. Having a 7-year seal of approval from the CPS board was instrumental in getting us access to grants, loans, and donations from various funders who support our
mission and vision for public education. Those resources that our students have access to are vast and the experiences they have within our walls are felt outside in all of the communities where our families have a presence. At AGC, we teach students that their voice matters and that they have a role in shaping the
world they want to seem. Our kids are encouraged to dream big, to be courageous, and be brave, and to know that when they're working to be the best version of themselves, the entire community wins. Through our rigorous program of inquiry, our students learn about big topics like climate change and pollution. But they also learned about
environmental justice and what it means to be an agent for change. Our educators encourage our students to take action in a variety of ways from doing trash cleanups around our our campus neighborhood to engaging in cooking activities where we use locally organically and seasonally grown produce. Our students and their families
have direct access to our school through our on-site through our through our onsite have direct access to healthcare through our on-site espiransa uh clinic and the entire community has access to our on-site grocery store. cafe and our love fridge where we place surplus food from our self-managed school food
program. Our school has five teaching kitchens where students discover that food is the conduit to our health and that their journey can be as delicious as it is beneficial. When I mention all of this to somebody outside of our organization, one of the first questions about >> how can a public school bring so much
while still maintaining a free education to our students? The answer is trust, fiscal responsibility, and a lot of love. We implore the board to once again extend us the same love and trust you did seven years ago by granting us the longest possible charter renewal so our
community can continue to inspire and focus on bringing the magic to our children's learning journey. Thank you very much. >> Thank you for your question. >> Tommy Rea, speaker number 21. >> Good morning. My name is Tommy Raina and
I'm here to advocate for the Academy for Global Citizenship AGC to get the longest charter renewal you can give and explain the impact AGC has had on my family. I am the proud father of six children. One is an AGC alumni and he is
currently studying accounting at the University of Illinois Orbana Champagne and the other five attend AGC in grades pre preK through 6th. For my family, AGC is much more than just a school. AGC has brought access to amazing opportunities
for my family in the dual language program. They are learning in two languages which will open doors for them in the future. With IB and learning through exploration, they are always motivated to learn. At AGC, my children don't just learn academics, but they
have also learned to care about their community and the environment. I see the amazing kids they are, and I know the school plays a big part in that. They have learned to work as a team and respect others. They have learned to care about having clean communities for all.
More importantly, at AGC, my children have learned that their voice matters. They've learned that they can make a difference and that and that has motivated me to come here today and ask for the longest charter renewal so AGC can continue to do the amazing work they
do for the community. As parents, we always worry about whether our children are being prepared not just for test but for life. At AGC, my children are being raised with purpose, with compassion, and with a sense of responsibility for the world. >> 30 seconds remaining. >> This school does not just educate
students. It builds character and hope. When you support AGC, you are not only renewing a charter, you are giving opportunities to families like mine and investing in the future of our communities. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments.
The next speaker is Hannah Mala Malasi, speaker number seven. Good morning, President Harden and members of the board. My name is Hannah Maly and I'm the director of external affairs for Concept Schools and I'm here today to speak on behalf of the students and families at Chicago Math and Science
Academy or CMSA in Rogers Park. I am asking this board to face a harsh reality. The city has a chronic documented habit of underfunding its charter schools. By law, the state of Illinois narrowed the funding gap to ensure charters receive 97% of the per
pupil funding that district schools receive. Yet, the reality is that our schools are consistently funded at about 83% per pupil. This is a massive gap, but despite being shortchanged, schools like CMSA continue to outperform local neighborhood schools. We are literally
doing more with less. We are delivering highquality STEM education, high graduation rates, and a safe environment, all while operating on a fraction of the budget that the district schools enjoy. It is time to stop the political games. The Chicago Teachers Union cannot continue to blame charters
for the district's broader failures when the facts simply don't support their claims. The data shows that families choose schools like CMSA because they work. Punishing successful schools by withholding funds or threatening their existence doesn't help a single student in the city. We are asking this board to
support CMSA with a favorable long-term renewal. Our track record earns it and our families deserve that stability. Lastly, I would like to remind board member Debbie Pope, who's no longer her chair, that our invitation to visit CMSA has been extended multiple times and
remains open. As the District 2 representative, we urge you to hear directly from the students and families you serve before deciding their future for this renewal. Their lived experiences matter. They are CPS students and CPS families and your constituents whose voices, stories, and
communities should be at the center of this decision. We invite you publicly, although you can watch us back, um to come to CMSA, see the students you represent before you vote on their future. Thank you and uh happy holidays. >> Thank you for your comments. The next two speakers are from the Illinois
Network of Charter Schools. Num speaker number eight, Jessica Rofino. I was going to say good afternoon, but thank you so much for putting public comment at the beginning. Uh good morning. My name is uh president and members of the board. My name is Jessica Rafino and I'm the director of charter
school growth and support at the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. I'm also a very proud Pilson community member and a and a public uh public school graduate. I'm here on behalf of the tens of thousands of families who rely on Chicago Charter Public Schools every day. Soon you will vote on the
renewal of 15 campuses serving nearly 8,000 students. We appreciate so much the board members and CPS staff who have visited our schools and seen the great work happening every day. programs from IB, as you heard earlier, uh dual language, bilingual education, uh and
STEM, um are present every day and built by teachers and families together. On behalf of our students, your engagement matters for everyone uh up for renewal as well as those that are not. Charter Public Schools are community anchors. They provide safe,
supportive environments where students are known and where their families build strong relationships. They strengthen the neighborhoods that they serve. But short-term renewals undermine that stability. When schools are forced into renewal cycles every other year,
um disruption is instruction is disrupted due to the uncertainty that that causes for families, educators, um and community members. Excuse me. Um short-term renewals are not about quality and harm student success. Families deserve the same
stability as any C other CPS. 30 seconds remaining. >> Our ask is simple. Grant schools a minimum of five-year terms and seven to 10 year renewal terms for schools demonstrating the highest quality. A long-term renewal allows schools to regain retain teachers, make meaningful
investments in student programming, and plan for the future with confidence. No students can thrive with so students can thrive without disruption. On behalf of the charter community, I urge you to prioritize stability, continuity, and equity. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next
speaker is Allison Jack, speaker number nine. >> Good morning, President Harden, Dr. King, and members of the board. My name is Allison Jack, and I'm here on behalf of the 55,000 charter public school families across Chicago who continue to bear the consequences of a funding
system that does not treat their students equitably. We know that we know that Chicago has a painful history with Chicago with uh school closures. You've heard more details about that today. It's heartbreaking. But what's often overlooked in that is that these closures aren't happening because
communities have turned away from their schools. They're happening because charter schools in Chicago have been chronically underfunded for years. CPS has funded charter students at just 83 cents on the dollar compared to district managed schools. But this board can do
something about that. Charters want to pay their teachers fairly. Charters know that t that teachers are the lifeblood of any school and you can help them do that. It is almost impossible to survive on 83% of what a charter needs and is owed according to state statute. The
math doesn't work. And unlike CPS, charter schools cannot borrow against future revenue or take on debt in the same way a district can. And when budgets break, the only option is to cut programs, lay off staff, or worst case scenario, close their doors. Charters
are committed to their teachers and communities. They're not failing their students. They're being failed by an inequitable system and not being supported by their partners. Every single charter school that has faced closure in the past few years is a unionized school represented by the
Chicago Teachers Union. If only the If only the CTU would advocate for fair funding for charters instead of calling them failed experiments. Instead of coming up here and and begging them for jobs for their teachers, please support your your 33% of charter school teachers
work in unionized schools. We want the CTU to to advocate for those teachers. Funding schools equitably is not a budget problem. It's a value statement. Chicago students attending charters deserve the same investment, the same opportunity, and the same stability as
all CPS students. Funding charter schools equitably isn't about politics or adult interest. It's doing what's right for children. >> Please conclude your remarks. >> If you believe every student in Chicago deserves a fair chance, then equitable funding for charter public schools
cannot wait. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Joanna Smith. Speaker number 11. >> Good morning. My name is Joanna Smith and I am with the Illinois Network of Charter Schools. Thank you for the
opportunity to speak today about the value of strong collaboration between our charter schools and the board as well as CPS. Chicago is home to approximately 119 charter schools, each deeply committed to partnering with this
board to ensure every student in our city has access to a school that meets their needs and helps them reach their fullest potential. That commitment is strengthened when we have opportunities to connect directly with you in our buildings. To date, board members have
visited more than 65 charter campuses across the city, and our school communities have been truly delighted to welcome you. These visits matter. With 95% of our students being children of color and 85% qual um qualifying, excuse
me, for free and reduced lunch, the charter model was designed to ensure that students who have historically been underserved can access schools that respond directly to their strengths, interests, and aspirations.
Charter schools open doors for children by creating learning environments that are intentionally designed around who they are and who they can become. And they demonstrate what is possible in public education by piloting innovative
approaches that when successful can be scaled to benefit students across the entire city. >> You have 30 seconds. >> We are especially grateful to board members Dr. Smith, Miss Biggs, Miss Bole, Miss Mr. Rivas, Mr. Gutierrez, to name a few, for your extraordinary
commitment to spending so much time getting to know our schools. Your engagement sends a powerful message about your commitment to our educators, students, and families, and it helps build the trust that makes true partnership possible. We appreciate the
opportunity to collaborate with board members and smaller working groups on critical policy issues such as goal CPS, uh, equity and school funding and renewal processes that provide the stability our schools need to remain strong. These conversations deepen our
shared understanding and move us closer to a district where every child, regardless of background, zip code, or school type, has access to a supportive, high-erforming public school. Thank you for your
continued partnership and for your commitment to all of Chicago students. >> Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Maris Marisella Salazar Villa Realel. Speaker number 17. Chicago,
the CPS Accessual. CPS. Fore instruction. The CPS concludes. Fore that is before. Thank you. Will have the statement translated.
Most respect respectful greetings. My name is Marisella Salasar, member of the Chicago Multilingual Parents Council. I am here today once again to represent the more than 97,000 students enrolled in bilingual programs and their families who face difficult challenges in the
current education system. that the number of students unable to obtain passing scores in the access test only increases with time should raise loud and worrying alarm bells to you CPS leaders. It indicates that bilingual programs require immediate improvements
and updates. implementing high quality education with adequate material and curriculum taught by staff members with the necessary qualifications from the first years of de of child development is the formula that will prevent the problems that are
evident at CPS schools nowadays. For example, students that remain at the programs for three, four, or even five additional years, students with academic and linguist linguistic disadvantages. Classrooms where teachers don't have the
required certification. Classrooms without adequate materials. High school students who are required to have credits for Spanish language classes at schools without the curriculums to properly teach them. This year you decided to make
considerable cuts to OME funds which will widen the gaps faced by our bilingual program students. One of the most significant losses was the cancellation of the program that provided support and instruction for 16 weeks to students with educational
delays. This program was available in 157 schools which no longer have it. Please note this number, 157 schools. We urgently need you to hold a detailed review of CPS's bilingual programs. It
is imperative that you get to know the children and families whom you serve as well as their needs. That way, you can make the correct decisions. Today, we ask that you restore the funds for the affirmation tutoring and that you assign funds for acquiring the
curriculum for high school students. We are at your disposal for an open and constructive dialogue. We will not rest in our advocacy because what motivates us is justice and equality for all the children at Chicago public schools. I invite you to our next meeting at
December 11th at 9:00 am at Malcolm X School. Thank you. >> Thank you. Our next speaker is Jacqueline Lewis, speaker number 19, who is joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute.
Hello, President Harden, Dr. King and board members. Uh, thank you for this opportunity to speak. My name is Jacqueline Lewis, a retired educator of the Chicago public schools.
Over the course of my 34 years of service, inclusive of librarian, gifted instruction, and math coordinator, I developed a deep appreciation for the importance of education and the transformative power
of learning. Of late, it has been brought to my attention that so much has changed in our schools that has been caused by factors such as the interruption of educational progress during the COVID
pandemic, advances in technology that bring reliance on the internet and telephone and the removal of basic curriculum in language arts, math, social studies, including civics and character traits.
Also, preparing students for testing may limit time for a broader level of instruction in the various subject areas. However, with all of the test preparation, recent data shows that approximately only only 22% of 11th
graders were proficient in reading on state exams in 2024. Because of these unfortunate shifts, it appears that more students have behavioral issues and don't seem to be thinking critically. >> You have 30. >> We might agree that
>> Okay. We might agree that people will need to read, write, and think, engage meaningful discussion and use basic math in order to participate in living full productive lives, good jobs, healthy households, financial security, etc.
uh and self-esteem to name a few desired outcomes are all at stake as we grow into adulthood. Some suggestions would be learning cursive which would allow them to sign legal documents. Uh reading list for each grade level will encourage
the love for reading. Also incorporating writing with technology and assignments will develop those skills concurrently. Computers at public libraries are available. I'll end by saying that CPS in this day and time is still doing a terrific job and I am just looking for ways to help.
So, I'd love to join discussions with others who care. Again, thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Lanetta Thomas, speaker number 20. Good afternoon, members of the board. Chicago Public Schools is violating the
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. specifically title 34 CFR section 300116 and title 34 CFR section 30146 by refusing to revoke my daughter
Angel's parentingly place status and by refusing to consider her Catholic school as a legitimate district placement where her full IEP including Aika must be implemented. My name is Lanetta Thomas. I am a CPS graduate, an Army veteran,
and the mother of three children, all of whom received special education services. CPS has failed each of them. My oldest daughter has autism. She struggled with severe social anxiety and early reading delays. She was bullied because she couldn't read at first, and
CPS did not intervene. Her emotional well-being collapsed so badly that she had to finish her remaining years. She's only 11. So her remaining years that she was in CPS in CPS virtual academy. What makes CPS's conduct worse is that when
my oldest transferred to the Catholic school, CPS promised that after a 10-day observation, they would assign her a SECA at the Catholic school and her licensed therapist formally recommended seeka support in writing. CPS never
delivered it. a written medically supported service was simply ignored. My middle daughter never attended CPS >> 30 seconds remaining >> never attended CPS in person only in um CPS virtual academy.
30 seconds. Okay. My my youngest daughter, she has uh SLD, specific learning disability. CPS has refused to give her a seeker at her Catholic school, saying that it's not available.
That is a lie and is illegal. I am letting you know and putting you all on notice that I am going to file a federal lawsuit against CPS if my daughter is not allotted her SECA and given her Catholic school as a district placement
because I am a master student in special education. And I know for a fact that IDA does not stop parochial schools from receiving public education special education supports, but CPS has refused
to give me a prior written notice so that I can get that. I have an appointment December 10th, another IEP, December 10th with CPS because they're refusing the prior written notice which is illegal under IEDA law. will be
filing this lawsuit if no one >> comes to that meeting and make sure that my daughter has her SECA assigned at the Catholic school she's at because CPS that let kids go into these schools that kid that mother and her children just
got their butts beat at that school and the only option CPS has for me is for my child my seven-year-old to go to a neighborhood school by herself that doesn't open till 8:30 and my other kids got to be at school at 6:30 a.m. I will not leave my child in no
neighborhood school by herself and she has never been in a neighborhood school. I will not pray CPS does not care about the kids like you all pretend YOU DO. I WANT MY kids in a god-fearing school. >> I don't want her to get the ideology. I
know from when I was going to the school board and running for the school board on behalf of CTU that Planned Parenthood is planning to put um LGBTQIA history inside of CPS. And I will not allow that for my children. That I want
them to be in a god-fearing school. They're in a Catholic school and that school is the best thing for my kids and it's the best thing for a free and appropriate public education. Stop denying my seven-year-old her Sika just because she doesn't go to your driven
and manipulated public school system. >> Thank you for your comments. The next two speakers are from Aero Charter Schools. Tiffany Negron, speaker number 23. Good morning. My name is Tiffany Negron and I'm the case manager at the Acero
Fuentes and Clemente campuses. I'm also the vice chair of elementary schools for the Acero Council of CTU educators. I'm here today to thank you and to ask for your continued support. Because of your help, five of our campuses have the opportunity to move forward as they transition into CPS. You showed your
care for our hurting communities and commitment to our children by passing a resolution to move us forward with CPS. However, we need your help making sure these communities can remain truly whole as intended. I'm pleading with you to urge CPS to expedite the interview process for our current qualified
teachers and staff. This will allow staff to make educated decisions as we embark on our layoff meetings with the in the coming weeks. In order for our school communities to remain whole, we need as many of our current certified educators as possible to stay. This starts with knowing whether or not
they'll be offered a position. The five advisory councils were were able to work with CPS on an expedited process to interview and select our principles. So, why will CPS not agree to do the same for interviewing and hiring our teachers and staff? We've heard every excuse in the book for why more time is needed.
Why is it that the parents were able to move quickly per CPS's request to choose new principles, but CPS cannot move quickly to solidify the rest of the staff? Why is CPS not holding themselves to the same standard they're setting for parents? The physical buildings are not what keep our school families whole.
It's the people inside. Parents want to keep as many of our staff members as possible. You've shown us before that you do care about our communities and you're committed to protecting our children. Please show your support once again by forcing CPS to do what is best for our kids and get these interviews
going. We need to move forward with answers now. This year, I also became a CPS parent for the first time. My son is a prek3 student at Denver Elementary. I'm watching. I am taking note and I'm networking with other CPS parents. CPS, now is the time to show me what you are
made of. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. The next speaker from Mero is Olga Ramirez, speaker number 29, who is joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. >> Hello, I am Olga Ramirez, the second
grade bilingual teacher at Rufino School. First and foremost, I would like to thank the board of education for their support. Last year, the board played a vital role in our school's transition to CPS. As one of the Ato charter schools set to transition to the
CPS next year, Tamayo is at a critical point. A resolution was passed with the goal of maximizing student and staff retention during this transition. However, we have not received any assurance from our future employer regarding our job
security for the upcoming year. Having worked at Tamayo for over eight years, I had the opportunity to build a strong community with students, their families, and I am also proud of my colleagues commitment to providing our students with the necessary support.
So, when our students ask me about my future plans and being here after the transition, I am unable to respond. And I know that my colleagues are facing similar challenges as they're asked the same thing. As a former CPS student, I
drew comfort and a sense of security from the sense of community that I belong to and with the presence of familiar teachers that make the school a place where I felt supported. Therefore, I would like to request clarification on our job security for the next year. Our
students do deserve the best and their teachers and advocates that we are. We want to ensure that we can continue to provide them with the necessary support. Thank you so much. Thank you for your comments. The next speaker is Danielle Carter, speaker
number 24. My name is Danielle Carter Walters and I'm here speaking on behalf of the people in this city continue. This city continues to overlook while it reaches
deeper into their pockets. Property taxes aren't going up because our neighborhoods are improving. They're going up because the city of Chicago continues to treat taxpayers like an
endless resource to tap into every time political pressures rises. In the Chicago's teachers union, they have this city so locked down that families are barely able to keep their
homes. While CTU leadership is taking international trips funded by the very people struggling to stay afloat. While homeowners fight just to survive, the city is funneling more than half a
billion dollars in tiff funds, money that was supposed to rebuild neighborhoods into CPS just to maintain unsustainable contracts. That money was meant to strengthen our communities, not prop up
a system that refuses to change. And now CPS is expanding capacity for illegal alien enrollment, asking taxpayers to support an entirely separate school system.
>> 30 seconds remaining >> while our children schools are overcrowded, unresourced, and falling behind. That is not compassion. That is exploitation. Plain and simple. If you want to
understand a city's priorities, just look at who they invest in and who they ignore. And right now, Chicago is ignoring home owners, working families, seniors, the very neighborhoods that are
being taxed out of existence. Meanwhile, the political insiders, and their allies are living off the benefits. Please keep deserves better. We deserve a government that respects
us, not one that treat us like a bottomless ATM machine. We deserve schools that put our children first. We des we deserve tiff dollars that actually rebuild our communities and we deserve leadership that is honest,
transparent, and accountable. I'm Danielle Carter Walters and I'm telling you right now, Chicago Flips Red will continue to demand answers, expose the truth, and stand with the people who
fund this entire system. We will not stop until residents of this city and fairness they deserve. And one last thing, we need those CTU audits because we need to know where our money is
going. Our problem is not a billionaire not paying their fair share. Our problem is the Johnson administration and CTU have a stealing and mismanagement problem. That's the problem.
>> Thank you for your comments. Our next speaker is Alexandra Usher, speaker number 27. Good morning. My name is Alexander Usher and I am the director of data and research at the Two and Through Project, part of the Kirsten Institute for Urban Education at the University of Chicago,
previously the Urban Education Institute. Each year we report high school graduation, college enrollment, and college graduation rates. We wanted to make sure members of the board and members of our city are aware of this report and our findings, which we just released yesterday with our colleagues
at the Chicago Consortium on School Research. First, we continue to see nearrecord highs in CPS students graduating from high school, immediately enrolling in college, and in the number of CPS alumni who are graduating from college with degrees or certificates.
7,368 students from the class of 2018. High school graduation and college enrollment rates are on par with national averages. And CPS's college enrollment rate, 66% is actually 5 percentage points higher than the
national average. Many neighbors, families, and even educators across our city aren't aware of this success. It's important to recognize the big improvements CPS has made in post-secary advising and enrollment support. in collaboration with many local organizations. Together as a system and
a city, we have created the conditions that allow these students and families to access higher education. But there's also room to improve. The most recent college completion rate for CPS graduates, 48% is below the national average of 64%. This means many students are starting
college and not finishing with a degree or certificate within six years. >> You have 30 seconds. PS can improve support here and we know they're working on it. But students also need a lot of support from their higher ed institutions and our city's resources more broadly for things like housing and basic needs for them and their families.
83% of CPS seniors say they want to earn a post-secary credential and it remains the best path path to a sustainable income. Let's celebrate improvements that help students meet these goals and the success of CPS students and alumni. In the face of today's local and federal challenges, we also need to sustain and
deepen our collective support for Chicago's students. We're here as a resource to the board and all Chicago community members in these collective efforts. Thank you. >> Thank you for your comments. Our last speaker from the speakers list is Ashton Leang, speaker number 30, who
is joining us virtually. Please enter star six to mute. hi. Um, I'm Mashian Lang. I'm a junior at Walter Payne College Prep and I'm here today to propose a a practical costneutral policy shift that strengthens student well-being and supports CPS's long-term attendance
schools reclassifying legally protected mental health days as their own category separate from the district's but about but eight sick days. Under CPS policy, a student who uses a safe protected mental health day loses one of their limited sick days. This forces students, especially those with chronic illnesses,
disabilities, or family caregiving responsibilities, to choose between tending to their mental health and preserving days from unexpected illnesses. By forcing students into an unflexible ultimatum, we discourage students from taking mental health day until their stress escalates into school avoidance, disengagement, and ultimately
more absences. We know the board takes attendance and tourency seriously, and so do we. This proposal actually strengthens attendance in three important ways. One, early intervention reduces chronic absenteeism. Allowing students to take a mental health day without penalty helps them manage stress
early. Preventing the burnout and multi-day truencies that Wong NL 2025 found occur when support is delayed. Two, clear categories improve data in and interventions. Separating mental health days from sick days give CPS clearer insight into attendance
patterns, enabling more targeted and effective support. Two, students return more, more ready to learn. A single intentional mental health day helps students reset before problems escalate. One well-time day can prevent many future absences and keep students engaged.
>> This proposal does not increase the number of excused absences. You have 30 seconds. >> Ensures the five mental health days already granted by Illinois law are correctly classified and used Speaker of 30, Ashton Lang. Are you still on? We'll reach out to that speaker to get
her statement um and submit it to the board. I do want to um we do have one elected official who would like to address the board. Alderwoman Janette Taylor from the 20th ward and education chairwoman
who's joining us virtually. Please enter star six to unmute. >> Good afternoon everybody. This is Alderwoman Janette Taylor. My apologies for the noise in the background. We are getting ready for a housing meeting. I wanted to address the board today about
the sales of CPS schools. There is no real legislation and collaboration with Chicago public schools in order to make sure that the process is safe, that the process is inclusive to the community and that the process gives everybody an opportunity to repurpose these
buildings. These buildings have set vacant in the community, a lot of them since 2013. And it is time for the city to take the city and Chicago public school to take action to get those schools repurposed. What I would appreciate is a real conversation, real
collaboration, and a real commitment from Chicago public schools to work together of how these buildings are repurposed. Um there was an an attempt to do that with some of the schools. Um the process was open and I was notified
two weeks after. That is a collaboration. That is Chicago public schools doing what it's done historically, which is ignore the elected officials and the community as a whole. I want to see us do something different. I want to see us have a conversation. Through my office, we took
the time to take people to see the space. We had conversations with young people. We also have data of what the community wanted those buildings to be purposed for. And so what I'm asking from the board today is to have a conversation. We create legislation and we come up with a way for those schools
to be repurposed in a way that repairs the harm that was done with those builders was closed. Thank you. I hope you all have a good holiday. >> Thank you for your comments, President Harden. This concludes public participation.
>> Thank you. We'll now proceed with the business portion of the meeting. Interend CEO Dr. King. We're ready for presentations. >> Good afternoon. We'll begin with the presentation from the Office of Student Protections and Title 9 Update.
>> Good afternoon. Uh, President Harden, board members, Dr. King. I'm probably going to mess this up when I'm responsible for the clicker, so I apologize in advance. Uh, my name is Elizabeth Mendoza Brown, Chief Title N Officer in the Office of Student Protections and Title N and Equal
Opportunity Compliance Office. I appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you this afternoon to discuss OSP's work in school year 25. Um, so today we'll primarily re review school year 25 data since we were supposed to present in October. uh the
next time we meet uh in the spring, I'll provide school year uh preliminary information for school year 26. So today we'll go over reports that our office received in school year 25 um the investigations we opened. We'll talk about cases um broken down by
investigation type, some uh student demographics, also talk about our school year 25 training data, and then what we did to prepare for school year. So let's dig into the data. As you are already aware, OSP uh receives reported
incidents of sexual misconduct between students, bias based harm between students and staff to students, and physical abuse, corporal punishment, and or verbal abuse allegations by staff towards students. OSP also receives incidents of sexual misconduct from adults to students, but those are
reviewed by OSP and then ultimately referred to the Office of Inspector General for additional review. And what you see on screen is you'll see a three care three-year comparison comparison for school year 25. You will see we received approximately 12,000 reports.
While it is a 46% increase from school year 25, you will see that it's a slight decrease from school year 24. Over the three years, you will see the trends are similar with where incidents uh increasing around October, again around February and March, and then again at
the end of the school year around May. Those are the reports we received. So of the reports received, we opened uh in school year 25, OSP opened about 4,100 cases, a 6% increase from school year 24. So while the number of reports
slightly decreased, the cases opened are slightly higher. And the cases opened can be cases led by the office of um by our office of student protections or um delegated to the school for school-based investigations. Typically OSP
investigators handle higher level higher level harm or complex investigation. So here's a comparison from school year 24 and school year 25. You will see a 9% decrease in reports received from school year 24. A 6% increase in cases open.
Our case types are broken down in three buckets or categories. Student to student student sexual misconduct bypace harm and general staff misconduct. You'll see the case compos composition stayed relatively stable with sexual misconduct remaining the most frequent
type of harm addressed by OSP and slight decreases in bias based harm and general staff misconduct cases. So now we'll talk um by each case type by broken down by case type for studentto student sexual misconduct
cases. OSP opened investigations in school year 25. In the top top right corner, you will see the breakdown of cases investigated by OSP and cases investigated by the school or like I said, school-based investigations. There were 246 OSP
investigated schedule sexual misconduct cases. And like I said, those are typically the most severe or complex, but it's important to note that all sexual misconduct has varying degrees of impact on our students and school school communities. We continue see to see allegations of
sex-based harassment as the highest percentage of cases at about 50%. I do want to highlight one comparison from last year. Our dating violence cases have experienced a 70% increase from school year 24. This is u something that our team is looking into. We're also collaborating with other other
departments and particularly we're looking for partner organizations um to help us conduct intensive workshops with students who are engaged in this behavior. Now we will move on to bias-baseda harm cases. Bias-based harm occurs when a student reports harassment or
discrimination by an adult or student on the basis of a protected category. These allegations include racial discrimination, gender orientation based discrimination or national origin based harassment. In school year 25, OSP opened 1,117
investigations. While overall bias-based harm cases decreased slightly by 2%, race related harassment discrimination allegations accounted for 63% of cases open. This is a 26% increase in that category from school year 25. National
origin discrimination and harassment case cases experienced a decrease of 18% which is promising. General staff misconduct is a term that encompasses several different types of adult to student harm including corporal punishment, physical abuse, and verbal
abuse. This also includes failure to report cases. So if during the review of an incident or during the course of the investigation, it is found that staff potentially did not report allegations mandated by the reporting of child abuse policy. In school year 25, OSP opened 998 investigations of general staff
misconduct. Approximately 20% of those investigations rose to the level of OSPled investigations. While we saw an increase in failure to report cases from school year 25, about four 4.8% increase over the summer. OSP
collaborated with our law department to provide additional training to all administrators during the mandatory summer law law conference to prevent future instances of failure to report. As for case findings, OSP closed a record number of 435 cases in school
year 25. It should be noted that those investigations are also include investigations opened in prior school years. While we implemented measures and metrics at the start of school year 25 to increase our team's accountability and completing investigations in the t timely manner, I do really want to
commend our investigators and our director for leading those efforts in providing resolution to our students and staff. Despite the continued increase of investigations that were assigned to them throughout the year, in addition to the closed cases, 16 Title 9 cases were resolved through
informal resolution. It is a process afforded by the title N um a um regulations. It's an elective restorative process in lie of an investigation that provides students agency and choice and balances support and accountability between both
students. So now we'll u do some brief um demographic uh on our complainant. So for this purpose complainant is a student for our for our office is the student who experienced the harm. So overall for school year 25, Latino
and black students were our most represented students as complainants in all OSP case types and 35% of our complainants identified as students with disabilities. We will dig a little bit deeper in the next three slides.
For all OSP case types, 50% 57% of our cases occurred in fifth through 9th grade. Fifth and 9th grade represents 36% of the CPS student population. This is similar to school year 24 where the highest level of incident incidents occurred in middle school.
So now we'll go through each case type and the complainant demographic. For our studentto student sexual misconduct cases, you will see that race and ethnicity shifts here with Latino students representing 44% of our complaintants. 60% of our complainants
identified as female and 30 32% of our students identified as students with disabilities. and aligning with our overall complainant demographic. 52 complaintants were in fifth through eighth grade. With our bias-based harm cases, our
complainant demographic profile changes a bit. 40% of our complaintants identified as black, 36% as Latino, and 14% as white. Different from our sexual misconduct cases, 56% of our complaintants identified as male. And
again, our complaint complaintants were concentrated in fifth through 7th grade. For students involved in staff misconduct cases, we again see some variations. 50% of our students identified as black with only 8% of identifying as white. Males experienced
higher rates of alleged abuse at 62% and 32% of our complainants identified as students with disabilities. While several prevention me measures have been rolled out over the years through awareness campaigns, training and staff training and policy updates, we still see there's work to be done on
preventing abuse to our students and staff. We are in preliminary discussion with the office of students with disabilities and OCD to discuss additional training and support opportunities for our staff. Um, regarding students with disabilities, our our team didn't find any trends in
grade level for this case type, but the highest number of alleged abuse cases came from students in kindergarten, kindergarten, and third grade. So for school year 25 as you know um OSP creates and disseminates the annual mandatory protecting Chicago ch children
training or PCC training as we call it for all staff um and covered individuals adults in the district and we also track compliance for DCFS mandated reported training. We ensure compliance with state and and and district pol state law
and district policy for school year 25. Approximately 82% of district-wide district-wide staff completed the mandatory training and we want that number to be higher. So this year we are doing an a actually the audit is currently underway on um tracking the
completion rate completion rate for that PCC training because I would like to get as close to 100% as we can. We're also partnering with the office of network support to help us push the messaging to have our staff uh ensure they take the training. uh OSP also creates and disseminates
mandatory by bystander intervention training for staff and compliance rate for that was 72%. While not included in this slide but I also would like to note OS uh the conduct the corrective actions training conducted by OSP employees are referred
either by the office of inspector general or the law department after receiving a report of concerning behavior of staff. This training, the corrective action training, is designed to stop problematic behavior exhibited by staff that could lead to policy violations or more serious harm if the
behavior continues. In school year 25, OSP conducted 115 individ individualized training for employees. So what we did to prepare for school year 26, um, one of our core strategies in prevention is awareness. For school
year 26, we updated our awareness materials, including information on staff obligations on how to report harm and postcards for students to take home or to carry with them on how to report directly to OSP if they don't feel comfortable reporting um to a school staff. These materials were delivered to
schools in early August to ensure posting and availability by the start of the school year. For school year 26, we updated our we updated our PCC training to include to include title six and bias-based harm
content and including um sta general staff misconduct to reduce the number of trainings district staff need to take. We heard from we've heard from staff that you know we require a lot of trainings which we should um but we we combined the trainings to in hopes to
ensure uh to increase compliance. Our team also created specific equal opportunity and compliance trainings for staff and managers. We updated our student protection school representative um training and that training is specifically designed for school administrators conducting school-based
investigations. We trained over 169 school bas school protection school representatives over the summer. And in addition to our mandatory staff training, our team also created and rolled out our annual studentf facing OSP training which educates students on
how to recognize and report sexual misconduct, bias-based harm and abuse. We are also al also able to continue our expansing expansion of training educators in prek through 12 bystander intervention curriculum with 45 schools trained in the curriculum to introduce
bystander intervention principles as early as possible to increase students sense of belonging and reduce bias-based harm. Finally, um over the summer OSP held our annual cohort of our civil rights scholars program. The civil rights scholar program is designed for students
10th through 12th grade to learn to prevent, interrupt, and respond to bias based harm through social justice topics, skill building, project developing, development, and participating in experiential learning opportunities and fostering a sense of community. We also held our civil rights
and action cohort cohort, which is the only adult bias-based harm prevention programming through OSP designed for school administrators and network leaders. The program uses exper experential learning to connect this US civil rights movement to both racially disappro disproportionate rates of
discipline and bias based behaviors in schools to help school leaders inform their practices. Uh the next two slides will just provide a quick snapshot of our preliminary um school year 26 data. Some good news. We do see a small decrease in overall
reports in cases opened for school year for for the first quarter of school year 26. The only increase we see is in general staff misconduct cases. So, we'll continue to to monitor that and again uh through hopefully increasing our compliance efforts u for training. We'll we'll hopefully see that level off
or decrease hopefully decrease. And then this is um just to show you of OSP investigated cases uh where we're trending and you'll see for a while well September August and September were relatively lower. We see in October of
this year we go right back on track for previous years. That wraps up my presentation. I'm happy to take any questions. >> Thank you board members. Are there any questions or comments? Member Smith. >> Thank you. Thank you for such a thorough
report. uh when we talk about biasbased harms and I saw the high number of boys who are experiencing bias-based harms. I didn't see the demographic uh we showed demographics of other types of harms but
what was that demographic of boys who are experiencing bias-based harms as well as uh the the types of harm bias-based harms we see uh those boys receiving. Thank you. >> Uh, thank you for your question. I can
get you the breakdown um after later today. I can get you the breakdown of what type of um arm those boys are experiencing. We didn't break it down like that. We just wanted to provide a quick snapshot that just requires just a little bit more
digging, but I'm happy to provide that to you later. >> Okay. And then the demographic of boys who are receiving that high number of >> Yes, I will add that too. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I have one question to Barry, please.
>> I just want to use this time to make a correction. Um, Rogers Park School, um, CMSA, Chicago Math and Science, is actually represented by me, Ebony Deberry, and not Debbie Pope.
>> Thank you for the clarification. Question for you. Yes. Uh, your awareness campaign, does it include social media? It does not at this time. Thank you. That's a We did last year. We haven't this year yet. We had to cut our marketing budget if I'm being u totally honest. Um but that is something our
team has talked about like what we can do internally to help kind of push that forward that aligns with the with the district's um overall marketing um protocols. So uh that is and what I really have been asking the team to think about is um specifically like
their sexual assault awareness month and uh dating violence month and really that's an opportunity to really engage with our kids and promote awareness. So thank you for that question and >> yeah really encourage you to use social media obviously becomes a medium for connecting with students. >> Yeah thank you.
>> Any other questions or comments from board member Lopez? >> Thank you board president and thank you for the presentation. Uh definitely a lot of work that still needs to be done, but thank you for uh that information. And one of the other items you mentioned at the beginning of school year, there's
material that gets sent um you know home with students wondering if how often does it happen throughout the school year and also what is the information in parent engagement um when it comes to the trainings. Thank you. >> Uh you're welcome. So last year we
rolled out our very first um OSP parent video that's publicly available on on our website. Um so and that discusses uh how do I recognize abuse by uh staff, how to recognize any bias-based harm, sexual misconduct between students and
also on how to report and talks about the process that students go through when reporting to OSP. So we do have that parent training. We did last year um I think we held eight or 10 parent workshops to talk about that work. Um
but we didn't get a lot of um participation and we offered it in different parent universities and hoping to engage but we just we didn't uh get a lot of participation from parents. So we're trying to rework for this school year on what that can look like because
it did it it seemed like we didn't quite hit the mark we wanted to hit last year. So that's still in development for this year. And then for the students, um, it it goes out in the beginning of the year with the back to school bash. They get our postcards. Um, throughout the year,
we work with our our SPSRS, which is the student protection school representatives to help um, bring awareness on how to report to OSP or that we exist because I think, you know, we want to make sure students know that we are a resource. >> Member Brown.
>> Thank you very much for your report. >> Thank you for your time. Our next presentation will be an update from the Office of Inspector General. Thank you, board members. Uh, my name is Phil Wagen. I'm the uh inspector general
and I'm presenting today with an update of our sexual allegations unit cases that we uh provide twice a year. So this first slide in the presentation provides our case intake numbers. Uh it
presents them over the last four years. Uh I I spoke a little bit in the spring about uh the fact that our sexual allegations unit narrowed the scope of the cases that we are taking at intake uh to ensure that we're prioritizing
sexual misconduct cases. Uh for the first several years of the sexual allegations unit since its inception in 2018, uh we took a a high number of cases where sexual misconduct wasn't actually alleged. And so uh about a year and a half ago we
narrowed that scope in this uh table uh sort of reflects that reduction in intake numbers over the last two years. As you can see the the top two lines for fiscal years uh 23 and 24 similarly track higher numbers and then this year
and last year uh are are on a similar trajectory. Uh last school year we opened 246 cases and closed 336. Uh so you know for for us and our
efforts to manage our high case volume uh that was uh a strong effort on our part to uh to reduce our case volume and and uh make a larger dent into our backlog of cases uh by by closing you
know nearly a hundred uh more cases than we opened. Uh in this current fiscal year, we've opened 51 cases and closed 84 cases. And the total numbers since 2018 when we began the unit, uh we
opened uh 2,700 cases and and closed 2400. We also uh track uh job categories of uh the the subjects of our investigations. Uh here we present the top six job categories that uh over the last three
years. Uh we monitor these to identify trends uh and and suggest improvements and or concerning changes and share those observations with the district. Notably years ago when we in in the early years of the SAU uh we quickly
recognized that there was a high number a disproportionately high number of security guards that were frequently uh subjects of our investig subjects of our investigations and uh that's something that you know we worked with safety and security on and and made improvements in
that area. Uh, you know, I'll note that for this current fiscal year, 41% of cases involve teachers. That's a lower number than the overall proportion of of teachers. Uh, this also, just to be
clear, these are not just ju the sexual allegations unit does not only investigate uh CPS staff. Uh we we investigate any CPS affiliated adults in cases where a student has been a victim
of sexual misconduct. So of course that includes charter school employees, it includes vend CPS vendors, charter school vendors, volunteers. So you know just just to be clear, this is not simply a reflection of like CPS staff.
This is uh you know a an aggregation of data across several different employers and uh and different uh job types whether those are employees or contractors or volunteers. Uh
one number is for this current year is is a uh significantly lower. It's substitute teachers. Last year they were 13% of our cases were substitute teachers. This year so far it's 2%. So, I'm just sort of noting that uh it's a relatively small sample size at this
point. Uh so, we'll see what that looks like uh at the end of the year, but so far there's fewer cases involving substitutes. Uh we also track uh our allegations across high schools versus elementary schools.
uh uh on a per student basis, the high school allegation rate is 3.7 times higher than the elementary school rate so far this year. Uh last year uh we had 26 individuals pulled or blocked uh from
high schools uh which was 60% and uh 18 individuals from elementary schools which was 40%. Uh so far this year we're at a similar ratio. Uh this chart shows the top 10 categories of allegations uh so far this
year that we've received in our sexual allegations unit upon intake. uh the uh the majority of these cases uh are in the concerning category uh which is where the uh the report is not
specifically alleged sexual misconduct per se. Uh but but the uh concerning behavior alleged is concerning enough that we've you know opened the matter. Uh as you can see in this chart, so far
this year we've we've opened nine cases where sexual abuse was alleged. Uh two cases where a sexual act was alleged. Uh so collectively those cases with sexual abuse or acts uh actually articulated
uh those have been about 22% of our cases so far this year. Uh so far this year we've substantiated uh 19 cases. Uh again these aren't uh the cases the last slide presented cases
coming in the door this fiscal year. This is cases that have gone out the door this fiscal year. So most of these cases would have been initiated in previous school years. Uh but so far this year we've substantiated 19 cases with reports issued to the board and uh
issued 25 nots substantiated reports. So we've had more uh reports of unsubstantiated cases than substantiated thus far. We've also referred 20 cases to other departments and uh closed 20 additional cases without a report uh
based on the uh level of the conduct in those cases. Uh so far this year we have 31 staff members that are pulled uh removed from the school while the investigation is pending. Uh uh
five individuals have been pulled or blocked uh following I'm sorry. five individuals that were pulled or blocked. Uh uh I'm sorry, five of those individuals were pulled or blocked this year since the school year began. Uh and
uh 14 individuals so far this year have been reinstated uh after the uh at the OG's recommendation after initial fact gathering in the case. uh eight individuals who were subjects of an o an o investigation have been fired or
resigned or retired so far this school year. Uh one thing we've spoken frequently about in public presentations is the number of teachers who have been removed from the classroom uh while our investigations are pending. uh with the
obvious disruption to the school uh when when teachers aren't there and and schools have to make do uh with substitute teachers. Uh we we realize that you know that of course that's very challenging and we've done we've tried to prioritize those cases to minimize that disruption as much as we can. Uh
and those efforts uh have been effective over the last several years as you can see in this chart. uh in in early 22 uh we had as many as 38 teachers removed from the classroom while our cases were pending. Uh currently that number is is
down to 10 uh uh CPS employed teachers uh as of as of today's date. Seven of them are uh some seven of those cases are currently involved in active fa uh fact gathering and three of them are in our uh final stages. Uh we're preparing
reports. This is our overall case inventory. Uh as of November, we had 178 uh cases where the uh investigations were active and an additional 150 cases uh where the fact gathering was substantially
completed. and uh they're in what is our attorney review phase where we're reviewing the case files and and preparing those reports to the board. Since the beginning of the sexual allegations unit in 2018, uh we've substantiated uh with reports to the
board a total of 471 cases. uh the uh the primary type of finding at the conclusion of those cases was was something less than sexual misconduct. Uh often often boundary crossing or or a
policy violation that that falls short of of actual sexual sexual misconduct. Even though in many of those cases uh they sexual misconduct could have been alleged uh when the case came in. Uh as you can see here though uh there have also been many substantiated reports
that did involve sexual misconduct. Uh 26 involving sexual acts and 22 involving sexual abuse. Uh when we say sexual act here we mean penetration and sexual abuse uh groping or fondling for
sexual gratification. Uh this slide presents uh uh gender and age data for victims in those uh sexual act and sexual abuse substantiated cases. Uh so so since 2018
uh 21 of those victims have been male and 43 have been female. Uh the the chart on the right just further breaks that down amongst the sexual act and sexual abuse subcategories.
This presents the age data for those uh same categories of victims. uh and it reflects how old the victim was when the perpetrator began to engage in the misconduct toward the victim. Uh so in some of these cases uh they were
the age shown here uh at the time of the sexual abuse. In others uh you know the victim may have been uh for example 13 years old when when grooming behaviors began but uh perhaps could have been 14
when the actual sexual abuse occurred. Uh in those types of instances, we've logged the age uh for our purposes here as 13 because that's when the grooming began. The last two slides in our presentation just are reference materials with the definitions of uh the categories that
I've discussed here. That concludes my presentation. Are there any questions from >> member Rivas? >> Uh thank you, Mr. President. Uh thank you for your uh very thorough presentation. Um as we've discussed in
um our 5x5s, I just want to say publicly how important it is that uh we have timely investigations uh not just um for uh the victims uh but also for the staff uh anyone involved. Um you know that that timeliness and and whatever we can
do to ensure that um your office has the capacity to have more timely uh investigations. Uh I've heard of stories of folks who are, you know, waiting two or three years uh to get to a conclusion. Um and so uh especially when we have situations where you're pulling
a staff member that's a school community then that doesn't have a staff member uh during the duration of the app investigation. And so, um, I'm just, uh, whatever we can do to ensure that we have more timely and faster investigations so that we can get to a resolution and then ensure that our
schools have the the staff necessary uh, during those investigations. >> I appreciate that. >> Member Wallace, >> uh, I believe is on page six. Could you just explain a little bit more about what administratively closed means?
>> Yes. I'll flip back to it for reference. administratively closed. So here we we indicated that we closed 20 cases. Those are cases where uh I mentioned earlier that that we we open
some many of the cases we open here. I'll back up just for reference. Uh >> thank you. >> Like in this Yeah. So, these are the categories that like came in the door at intake. So, uh even though we've narrowed the scope of
our cases to try to focus more on sexual misconduct cases, we still take a significant number of cases where sexual misconduct isn't actually alleged. And sometimes after we frequently after we open cases and and work them for several
months and engage in fact gathering, we we are able to reach a point where we can make a determination that uh that significant misconduct has not occurred and doesn't warrant, you know, the lengthy investigations of the type that
board member Rivas just mentioned. and in in our efforts to to sort of quickly resolve those uh if if we can close cases early uh uh we do on cases where where there hasn't been serious misconduct. So those administratively
closed cases are just cases where we've closed them. They have not resulted in a report to the board. the types of reports you get where we're we're detailing uh the extent of the misconduct or the alleged misconduct and whether we substantiated it and why or
you know in the unsubstantiated cases you receive where uh uh they we explain why why we did not substantiate serious allegations. >> All right. I I just wanted to clarify for everybody that administratively closed didn't mean
like, oh, we didn't get to it in 20 days and so we just closed it or for some other reason like that. I it's administratively closed could look different to other people. And so I just wanted to clarify. >> I appreciate that. Yeah. So to be clear, that's what you just described that's absolutely not the case. So, uh, you
know, we make great efforts to vet all of these cases as best we can and, uh, we do not, and to board board member Rivas' point earlier, uh, some of our cases take quite long. So, we don't we don't have like a time period where the
30-day clock is expired and we have to close cases. So we're very conscientious about working providing whatever work is required and following the ball as much as we can uh in in providing the level of in investigative resources that are
necessary for the cases. >> Member Roosevelt. >> Um I'm just cur I'm really curious about root causes. So based on your investigations, based on the time your office has spent looking at this, um what systematic failures or what
vulnerabilities do you see in the district that where whatever preventative measures we have just aren't working? So what as a district can we do better to get the I mean I I like member Rivas. I appreciate the thorough report and your hard work, but it's obviously not where we need it to
be. So, I think about the root cause and what you've uncovered. >> That's a that's an awfully challenging uh question that you've put to me. I I wish I could say we've we've identified the clear root cause and here's what it
is and here's how to solve this problem and here's how to prevent sexual misconduct in the district. uh we haven't unfortunately we haven't been able to identify a a clear root cause that that is solvable. Uh I think
unfortunately there's uh there's there's bad actors uh out there at at all districts in in any place uh where where where people can have proximity to children and uh and and Chicago public
schools is no different. And we do everything we can to res in the office of inspector general. we do everything we can to respond after after we hear of of concerning behavior or or a serious
misconduct. Um I know OSP has made great efforts uh on with respect to to training and outreach uh on the prevent on the prevention front. Uh certainly I think the school district is is in a far
better place than it was in 2018 when when the Office of Student Protections was formed and when the Office of Inspector General formed our sexual allegations unit. So I think we're in a far better place. Uh I think uh reporting is is encouraged and there's
good awareness uh and high numbers of reporting which which while arguably a a bad thing in in the respect that it's concerning that people are making reports. It's a good thing that people feel empowered to make reports.
Uh so I think great strides have been made. Uh, and I think the more we can just continue uh with with outreach and training and awareness uh the more we can protect children. But I realize uh
I've not identified a clear root cause. >> Member Brown. >> Sir, thank you Mr. President and thank you for your presentation. I'm um I'm blown away, just kind of shocked by both presentations in regards to the high
number of complaints. Um the racial disparities in those complaints um and it just says, and again, I'm I'm not uh I don't I don't know if this is absolutely true. It just it
it feels worse than a bad apple situation where you know you see abuses and you say that's a bad apple but then the system that exists just it maintains it continues. It feels like
um young people that are uh black and brown who may appear or are assumed less supported are prayed upon um as opposed to their white counterparts who may appear or are assumed more supported. And so my
question and I mean this is so I think for if we if we're talking I we use the word equity a lot. It's a buzz word all over the country now. Um, one of the things that that that my my
experience teaches me is if you are trying to get in equity, you got to peel the onion back and you and you got to deal with the stink. You can't run from it. You can't make an excuse for you got to deal with the stink. And so I'm wondering
what type of infrastructure are we building on the ground to make that type of behavior uncomfortable. I agree with you that it is good that people feel comfortable coming forward. I I I do think that's a
positive, but I also think you can create an environment where folks who are who who look at children that way understand it's not safe for them there. It's not safe for them to conduct themselves that way. Um, I
it reminds me of the situation with with um I don't want to go too far into this, but with Bright Elementary School, it's very easy just to look at that situation and as horrific as it is to just throw those young people away because that's the band-aid approach.
But there there's we got to peel the onion back on on why this is happening. It's it's like I'm not it's like it's bothering me as you all are giving these reports. So again, thank you for the thoroughess
of the report, but I am interested on sort of the on the ground infrastructure that we're putting in place to make that type of behavior uncomfortable for people to let them know this is not a safe space for you to abuse our children. Um,
and then also I I'm also interested in in in an analysis of why almost 95% of the people 96% of the people that are reporting are black or brown. I I I just think there has to be
a brave analysis of that and so I just want to share that. But th those are my thoughts. >> Thank you. I uh with respect to the infrastructure uh question uh
the OIG tries to do what we can but I in our independent role uh we're we're not we're not positioned and I and I realize you were sort of asking this question I think sort of generally but the OIG is is not really positioned to implement
infrastructure or policy or make decisions at school levels. And so I think uh those those types of of questions while while I'm happy to uh contribute to them are are are better
suited for OSP uh because that's the department that is involved with with uh policym and and training and outreach and implementation. uh uh but uh
I I think we all share your concerns and I can say that from the office of one thing the office of inspector general can do is to is to get to the bottom of what's going on in all those cases as best we can and issue reports about it and and and make public presentations
like this uh and uh and and and issue you know speak publicly in our in our annual report about these cases and try to raise awareness about this and to try to uh coordinate with law enforcement as best we can uh uh so that uh there can
be serious consequences in these cases. >> Are there any comments or questions? Thank you for your presentation, >> Dr. King. I just wanted to respond to board member Brown's uh comment question and board member Rosenfield's question. I think that the I think I understand
you're asking for more to better understand the the story behind the numbers and so I can partner with um our teams. I we usually take the recommendations from the OIG. we do actually meet there are recommendations that are made and then our teams
normally follow up with the next steps and the story behind the numbers and what I can do is uh follow up with both of you all and ultimately the entire board to provide um a better understanding of what we understand at at this point with the n uh the numbers
that you're seeing today. >> Thank you. Thank you for your time. The next presentation will be a FY2026 audit plan by the Office of Internal Audit and Advisory Services. Good afternoon everyone. I'm Shelley Banks. I'm the chief internal auditor
here at CPS. And with me today is uh Dela Hernandez who's audit director and we're going to be presenting on the internal audit and advisory services giving an overview and kind of some highlights for the fiscical year 26 audit plan. First of all, our authority. So, we're
established under the board bylaws. This establishes our mission, our duties, our responsibilities, our reporting structure. It requires that we adhere to the Institute of Internal Auditors auditing standards in the work that we do. It provides us an unrestricted access districtwide to do our work. It requires that we develop and implement a
riskbased annual audit plan. It requires that we partner with management on riskmanagement activities and as part of that facilitating a risk management committee which we established in May of 2023. And then with all this, it requires that we submit an annual assessment on the audit plan and results which is this presentation. In addition
to the board bylaws, we point out that our audits are not public and they're exempt from FOYA. >> Our mission. So our mission is basically that we provide assurance and advisory services through these independent objective reviews to help CPS in achieving its mission. Our scope, our
scope covers all areas, all the departments, programs, offices, schools, systems, contracts, vendors are all under the audit perview. The programs within the office. So we have our school audits which focuses on the internal controls within particular
schools. district-wide audits which support central office and looking at um controls and processes that tend to reside in central office but have a larger impact across the district. Um information technology audits. So we work with our information technology services department and helping to assess high-risisk areas and how we can
support there enterprise risk management. So that's our our program where we facilitate a risk management processes across the district as well as the risk management committee continuous monitoring audit program. So this is our audit program where we look at particular processes or controls and sample transactions to test
those processes and controls. Internal control training. We provide control training across the district. One main area that we focus on is our school internal control quarterly training program. And then special projects. So as things arise or management or the board brings reviews or audits to our
attention, we'll prioritize accordingly. Types of audits. An audit can fall under one of these areas or multiple areas. Financial is more accounting, financial transactions, financial reporting. Operational use of the district's resources, looking for efficiencies, effectiveness. Performance, maybe
looking at a particular pro program and how that program is performing and meeting its objectives and its mission. Compliance, adherence to board rules, state, federal laws and policies. Information technology, looking at the information technology infrastructure,
data, assets, policies, procedures, all under there. And then in addition to e internal audits, CPS also has external audits which are by third parties. An example is the annual comprehensive financial audit of the single audit and ISBY conducts several audits on CPS. So we work to coordinate our internal audit
efforts with those external audits. This slide just presents an overview of the activity the last two fiscal years and then what's planned for this fiscal year. And it's it breaks it down by our district-wide audits, our school audits, information technology areas. Some of the highlights of the things that we've
worked on is when we look at like contracts and holding vendors accountable, making sure that they're complying with the contracts, uh reconciling billings, um updating policies and procedures or recommending new policies and procedures to ensure controls are in place. Um improved efficiencies efficiencies and effectiveness with processes, looking at
ways to maybe streamline things, automate things, um resource allocation if if training is needed in a particular area. And then through our school audit helping with strengthening those controls over financials in the schools, bringing more awareness to the internal controls and the policies around those
controls. And then our enterprise risk management, we finalize the internal control monitoring policy. We can continue to conduct our risk assessment annually. We conduct our quarterly risk management committee meetings. And we continually contra track our management action plans, both our internal action
plans as well as the external action plans. And then we have our school internal control training. We started this quarterly training program in fiscal year 24. So this is the third year that we'll be conducting this. And then our student fee committee which was established from we had a student fee assessment audit and through that we formed and are leading the student fee
committee to focus on policies, procedures, standardizing student fees, the data and systems around around that. Now I'm going turn over to Dela. Good afternoon. So uh a component of part of our activities is the enterprise
risk management. Uh so the ERM um is a process to identify, assess, manage and monitor risks across the district and the first component of the ERM is the risk universe. Uh the risk universe is an inventory of identified risks. Um so
the first area of the risk universe is the annual risk assessments. It's a questionnaire. Um it's given out district w districtwide and it um helps in uh developing our annual audit plan. Uh a second component of the risk universe is assessing risk. So we assess
risk by impact and likelihood. Um and also depending on how the uh risk is assessed will determine priority. Um mitigation plans. So mitigation plans either reduce or uh eliminate risk exposure and it provides a more
structured approach in addressing risks as well as um making better informed decisions. Um and then the last um area for the risk universe is the internal control assessment. Um so in accordance uh to the internal control monitoring
policy um it is given out annually. It's given out to schools as well as central's offices. Um and then it contains key controls and policies that need to be implemented. Uh the second component of the ERM is uh the risk management uh committee. So the
RMC was established back in May of 23. Um as you can see the there's a a list here of the members that are involved. Uh the objective of the RMC is to provide oversight and guidance on um the uh erm program. Um and then the
processes with the RMC include um having a charter uh providing quarterly reports, having um quarterly meetings as well as continually assessing the risk universe and providing feedback on um
other audit activities. The last component of the ERM are management action plans. So management action plans are uh significant specific actions that um need to be addressed by
observations. Um and with the observations or the what we do with these um management action plans is we um monitor them across um the the district internally, externally um and then we report them back to the RMC to
to kind of help us um implement these um action plans. Um the areas that we monitor and track are the district-wide schools as well as external. Uh the portion in the middle are the areas that we review and then the last column um
are um examples of the management action plan. So I'll turn it over to Shelley. Now the audit plan approach, how do we go about putting together an audit for the year? So the first part of it is annual risk assessment process. One component of it is our annual questionnaire to central office to get
feedback on them and identify high-risisk areas. Then internally we do a school risk assessment where we pull data looking at prior audits on the schools budgets, expenses, um staff numbers, enrollment numbers to assess the schools and and develop a population
for the school year. And then information technology risk assessment. So we work with it on developing the high-risisk areas there. Once we have our high-risisk areas, we look internally what are our resources? what are our staff availability, the experiences and skill sets that we have to focus in these areas. And then we'll draft an audit plan schedule and align
that with our core risk areas. Once we have that draft audit plan schedule, we work with management to get their feedback on it. Then we present the draft to the risk management committee to finalize that and then present it to the board. Our audit plan is a very high level plan. And so once we actually implement an audit, that's when we'll
further work with management to kind of further define that scope and the risk and where we want to focus the audit resources on. The next slides are just pull out the audit plan area, the areas from the audit plan. So the first two slides are the district-wide audits. You'll see on
here the audit name, a very high level description objective of what to focus on in that audit area, and then a targeted start date. And that's very flexible depending on how long one audit may take or not, and then also we prioritize our resources based on any management requests that may come up through the year.
And then addition to districtwide, we have in our audit plan our school audits for the year and then IT audits to provide that IT support. The other other audit areas, we have our enterprise risk management program where we continue that with continue leading the risk management committee, our annual risk assessment, conducting the
internal control assessment and continually to track and report on the management action plans. We have our continuous monitoring audit program which is in three parts with our schools with um districtwide and then we have a separate one on procurement where we look at executed transactions and test against compliance with policies and
procedures there and then special projects and requests. We continue our school internal audit internal control training. We have a quality assurance and improvement program and this is where internally we ensure that we're meeting the standards that we're supposed to uh comply with in conducting our audits. And then also any special
requests that may come up. The last slide is the team, the small but mighty team. I just want to throw out a thank you to them. It's through their dedication, their passion that we get this work done at CPS. So, thank you and I'll open up to any questions. >> I think we might be letting you off the
hook easy. Thank you for your presentation. >> Thank you very much. I appreciate the time, >> President Hart. And that concludes our presentations for the day. >> Thank you. >> Is now um an appropriate time to ask uh questions or make comments given that we didn't after public comment.
>> So we're we're not >> Okay. >> If you care to make a comment now, you can. >> Okay. Go ahead. >> Keep it short. Um just related to the uh many comments about um Hogan there are some questions that I have and if it's okay if they now is not the time for a
response but um just around clarity related to the decision uh reading some of the insight that was shared in terms of the different factors related to um analyzing the collocation. I'm reminded of what is in our five-year strategic
plan. One of them is increasing the percentage of students attending their neighborhood schools. So, the fact that we have this increase in attendance at Hogan, many families and more families within the attendance boundaries choosing to send their kids there, that is a great thing. Um, so I'm I'm I'm
hopeful that the district can find a way to encourage more of that across the district and at Hogan. So, to that end, I have two questions. one is um we received information about the current utilization rate at Hogan which is 93%.
But there was also a mention that that will change given the new methodology that is going to be used for the 2526 school year. So my question is is that rate over 100%. I think it's odd that our um benchmark for overcrowding is 110
instead of 100. But I am curious to know if that 25 26 projection is over 100. And then the other question I have is um what is the main factor that drove the decision? I know there can be multiple but um is it that the util utilization
rate based on site visits was found to be manageable? Um, we heard a lot of stories today about how a number on paper could be different from actual experiences. Is it the financial implications? Is it feedback from the potential receiving school? And I asked because a vast majority of the financial
costs that were outlined in the materials that we received do not seem unique to a route where collocation is pursued. For example, building repairs that would need to be done regardless of whether or not a collocation um were to happen. So, those are the two questions I have and I look forward to a response.
If not now, later. Thank you. >> So, we'll process a response back through the board office. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> member Gopez. >> Thank you, board president. Um, sorry, recovering from a cold here. Um, I also want to mention regarding the
collocation. Thank you, CEO, superintendent. Um, I had the opportunity to attend those community meetings. I also want to thank I ini for hosting those two community meetings. um community members across the board were not um happy with the proposal and one
of them they felt it was rushed. Um so thank you for listening to their concerns uh concerns that were put forth by the principles um including the parent uh community organizers um students and also we heard from teachers. That being said, we know we
need to find a solution for the families at Cisneros. the conditions they are in right now. They are not uh to say the least perfect, but it's where we need to work together with the community to find a solution where we can find a space for
them where they can learn given all the situations that that building has um that we know that many of it has been lack of maintenance uh for various reasons before it became now uh part of the transition with the CPS becoming a
managed school. So working with the community and also calling on the district for us move quickly on a solution for them. Thank you. >> Member Brown, did you have a comment related to which topic?
I'm going add a comment related to the uh presentate the public comment. I mean, if if if this not the place to do it, I can do it later. >> Yeah. Could you hold that, please? We have a very dense agenda. I'd like to move us ahead.
>> We'll now proceed with the potential board reports to be considered at the December 18th regular meeting. After each item is presented, board members will have the opportunity to ask their questions and make comments before proceeding with the next agenda item.
Board members, we will begin with the following education items numbers one through three. I'll read titles for items number one and two and the subject matter expert will present on those two items. One, authorize a new agreement with various vendors for early childhood
block grant services. Two, approve entering into an intergovernmental agreement with the Department of Family and Support Services. Sorry about that. Good afternoon. My name is Leslie McKenley and I'm the chief officer with the Office of Early
Childhood. Uh we have three items uh seeking uh approval today. Uh I will present items one and two. Deputy Parker will present item three. So, in September, you may remember you
approved um items uh associated with the final renewal of an IGA with the Department of Family Support Services uh to uh offer prenatal to five uh program
services within our community- based organizations. That is uh expected to conclude June 30th, 2026. So, the approvals that you will hear today is an extension of that IGA, but also it's an
updated funding structure that will support six of Chicago's Head Start grantees. So the first item we are seeking is approval to enter into a new early childhood block grant funding
model for five of the six Chicago Headstart grantees beginning July 1, 2026 um in the not to exceed amount of $ 49.7 million. Uh this would be a one-year
contract with four one-year renewal options. The second item uh we are seeking approval on is to enter into a new IGA with the department of family support services which is the
sixth city of Chicago Head Start grantee beginning July 1st 2026 in an not to an exceed amount of $49.1 million. And similarly, this will be a one-year contract with four one-year
renewal options. Both uh funding in within these agreements support approximately 7,000 children from birth to five across Chicago through our network of 84 community-based organizations and child
care agencies across the city. So, I want to start back and just give some historical context. Prior to FY27, within the Office of Early Childhood, there was two arms of our work. One arm that focused solely on supporting school-based programming and then a
second arm that supported community- based programming. We we provided the oversight, the scholarship, um coaching and fiscal um support and technical assistance. And in 2017 is when we executed an agreement with the
Department of Family Support Services um with an IG to shift that oversight from CPS to uh DFSS. And at that time DFSS was the single Head Start grantee within
the city of Chicago. But since that time the landscape has shifted. We now have the six Head Start grantees. And this change provides us an opportunity to more equitably fund uh across the city using our early childhood block grant.
So under this revised funding model, uh there there will be um Head Start agencies which will support um administration of our early childhood block grant and they will then provide
that funding to their uh early childhood block grant funders. So one organization will provide both funding sources. And so the hope behind this is that it will reduce administrative burden for organizations. It will also provide
cleaner reporting systems. In addition, it will also reduce redundancies. We also see that this model strengthens cross collaboration and build stronger partnerships between schools and agencies. We also know that the
effectiveness of this model will be uh evaluated through looking at child outcome data, looking at um fiscal trends, uh quality indicators and also looking at the access that is being
provided across schools and neighborhoods. So if this item either item is not approved, then CPS will have no structure in place to provide early childhood block grant funding July 1, 2026 to our community-based
organizations. This model advances resource equity as I talked a little bit about by distributing funds equally across the six Head Start grantees. It will be aligned to their geographic region to
their partner CBOS. It also ensures that families in every community has access to high quality early childhood programming. It strengthens our mixed delivery model within the system and advances our district's five-year vision, providing
more inclusive um opportunities for children entering the district from prek or kindergarten. And lastly, the recommendation reflects feedback from uh stakeholders in the field who will be most impacted. We
started having conversations last year in joint town halls that were um in collaboration with department of family support services and the mayor's office. And it was at those convenings that we heard both from grantees and also um community- based organizations the
desire to have their funding come directly from uh CPS. I will now turn it over to Deputy Parker to talk about option three. Thanks, Chief. Um so good afternoon. Um,
the third item that we are seeking approval for is our $2.5 million intergovernmental agreement with >> Can I interrupt for just a moment? You are you on item three right now? >> We Yes. >> Okay. I just need to announce it then.
>> Number three, approve entering into an intergovernmental agreement with the City Colleges of Chicago. Thank you. >> Thank you. So, um, approval for $2.5 million intergovernmental agreement with city colleges for our Chicago Early Learning
Workforce Scholarship. And this is to support our early education aspiring educators with earning the credentials and degrees needed to enter the early childhood field. So by reducing financial barriers, the scholarship strengthens the um pipeline of qualified
teachers and promotes a diverse workforce that reflects the children and the communities that we serve. This new IGA provides the funds directly to city colleges rather than passing the funding through DFSS which was done in the
previous IGA. Prior to this agreement, the structure of funding for the scholarship was set up so that Chicago public schools contributed $1.5 million and DFSS contributed $1 million to the scholarship using our early childhood
block grant funds. This IGA once approved will allow us to directly send all funds um for the scholarship to city colleges and then they would disperse those to our college partners which are inclusive of UIC, National Lewis and
Roosevelt universities. We have had approximately 1,200 applications for the Chicago Early Learning Workforce Scholarship, showing strong demand for our workforce support. And this year, we awarded 205 scholarships.
Of the recipients to date, 90% identify as African-American or Latin X, reinforcing our comm commitment to a diverse early childhood workforce. And since launch, the program has supported more than 800 completers, the majority from historically under reppresented
groups. The risk of not approving this IGA is that it will further exasperate the teacher shortage that we have across Chicago, leaving us without qualified educators needed to staff our early childhood classrooms. This also aligns with our vision to
expand access to highquality early learning by recruiting, retaining, and developing exceptional and diverse early childhood educators who can meet the needs of all our youngest learners. And also this work advances our resource equity by addressing educator shortages
that disproportionately affect underresourced communities where higher turnover and longer vacancies limit access to strong early learning opportunities. So we thank you for consideration of these items and
a question. Thank you. Um I have a few questions regarding these items. One is around uh what data do we receive from DFSS with the IGA? Does it give us the ability to track attendance? Um which students obviously participate so that we can
track their outcomes when they're in CPS later on? Um and then the questions that I have related to the um like the scholarship program, are there any additional incentives for bilingual certification as there's a special shortage for um for teachers who can
both do early learning and bilingual? And um we have a shortage of prek teachers all across the city, but that shortage is definitely more pronounced in some areas over others um especially serving black and Latinx communities. Is there has there been an examination or
analysis of what it would look like to target scholarships and supports specifically for teachers who serve and commit to serving in particularly underresourced areas? >> So I can start with the first question around the information that we receive
from DFSS and the community based organizations. So we do receive child outcome data. So we do at the end of the year receive an analysis of their um student outcomes and teaching strategies gold. We also have um enrollment data,
not necessarily attendance data, but we are able to see how many children enrolled across the city. Um and we also receive quality data. So we receive class data which tells us about the student interactions that happen within their classrooms
>> and you can track them and when students are later in CPS you know who was and was not enrolled in um >> so we do have student ID numbers uh each uh early childhood uh student that is enrolled in a community based program is
identified with a CPS ID. Um so there is an ability to track right now we are not tracking um teaching strategies go data from a community based organization into the district at this time. >> Thank you.
>> So and I'll I'll try to address I know you had several questions around the scholarship. Um, number one is as far as the um, you know, reaching out around pulling people in for specifically bilingual prek or early childhood endorsements or any of the marketing, we
do do work really closely. Um, Chief is actually an expert in um, getting marketing out and collaborating with college um, city colleges in order to make sure that we are um, trying to reach as many people as possible. But I don't have any data around that
specifically. Um what what was one of your other I know you had a couple questions. >> Yeah, I think my assumption was that you have a lot more people in interest in the scholarships than you have funds available. So I was thinking about if you had looked at narrowing who would be eligible based on the communities that
they that they are serving or commit to serving. But it sounds like if you're like really trying to market and get more applicants that may that may not be the case. Mhm. >> I think right now for us um it's really about that exposure and really getting the information out about um filling the seats that are vacant within our
community based organizations specifically within the district. We do look at um areas where we need that specialized um approach to teaching which uh right now we're really focusing on ensuring that our teachers who have
um special education background receive some type of scholarship. And so that is something that we've identified within our office of early childhood as a need specifically looking at our vacancy data. And so that's one of the things that we're working with our talent primarily out in community based. It's
really about that 04 just really getting that teacher to be highly um certif qualified and certified based off of the um ISBY requirement right now. >> Thank you, >> member Paul. >> Thank you for the report. Appreciate the
information that you've shared with us. Uh I too had a similar question uh that board member Thodakura raised in terms of bilingual and also special ed being possibly prioritized on those scholarships. And I have another
question that I don't expect that you'll have an answer off the top of your head, but I am interested in whether large numbers of teachers from the community-based programs end up transitioning into CPS preK and early
childhood positions. Obviously, the pay and benefits are generally much better. And I'm wondering whether a lot of people use that as a stepping stone. Let me tell you we have been uh looking at that data and um what it has changed
over the years. So previously when we first initially started the scholarship maybe eight years ago that we we saw a that was the case like teachers were getting certified and then they were coming into the district for the higher pay. But as we are um looking at the
data now and working with Truman and city colleges to do um interviews with teachers when they transition who are up under the scholarship because there is that commitment. Um we're noticing that they're transitioning within community-
based organizations and not necessarily transitioning into the district. But what we are also noticing too is that community- based organizations have are also increasing their rate of pay to um be more aligned to the rate of pay that
that's being offered here in the district. >> Thank you so much. >> Are there any other questions or comments? Thank you for your presentation. Board members, we will continue with the health and wellness item number four.
Authorize the public comment period for the automatic external defibrillators policy. >> Good afternoon board members. Uh President Harden, interim CEO Dr. King Cedo Carmona
and General Counsel Barton. Good afternoon everybody. My name is Tashanda Green. I am the deputy chief for the office of student health and wellness. We are recommending the board to authorize for public comment an amendment to the policy for automated
external defibrillators, otherwise called AEDs. In 2024, Governor Pritsker passed House Bill 5394, which requires school districts starting in 2025
to introduce a cardiac emergency response plan and provide information on handsonly CPR as well as information on how to use AEDs to all schools and school staff.
OSHW is amending the AED policy to reflect these changes and these requirements to align CPS practices with the law. We have updated the policy to include
requirement of CPR and AED certification for all athletic coaches and athletic directors. And we have disseminated information and resources on handsonly CPR and use of
AEDs districtwide and will continue to work to finalize the cardiac emergency response plan in consultation with our nurse leaders, our external partners Luries and Project Atom.
The change in policy will have some financial implications as it will now require additional staff and personnel to be certified in CPR and AD aed use. If this amendment is not approved, the
district will not be in compliance with the law. This amendment provides for direct resource equity and fair policies and systems by increasing the knowledge of life-saving methods across the district
and ensuring consistent responses to cardiac emergencies and creating safer school environments for all students. OSHW worked very closely with nursing leaders and we also consulted our
community-based partner lures and project atom and all are aligned to state laws and best practices and OSHW is working with the American Heart Association to increase lowcost or
no cost trainings for certifications to increase access across the district. There may be concern that we will not have the ability to comply with state law, but with the amendments made to the
AED policy, CPS will have the ability to meet student and staff needs while continuing to implement permanent solutions such as a required cardiac emergency response plan for all schools within our district.
We are connected to the organizational vision with this amendment through connectedness and well-being, academic progress, and financial stability. I'll take any questions at this time. >> Member Smith.
>> Uh, yes. When this law was created by the governor, were there any funds included in that? >> No. >> Okay. And how much is it? The cost for certifications will vary based on the amount of individuals that
we will need to certify. So with the changes in the law, essentially the dissemination of information is the most important thing. Meaning what we've already done, which is push out resources and information on handsonly CPR and how to use an AED.
What we've done is to take it to a step further to make it even safer for our students by requiring additional personnel such as coaches who would be our first line of defense at sporting events before and after to receive a
certification in CPR and AED as our first responders. >> Okay. Thank you. And my question is maybe not for my question is not for you but maybe for board staff because we had the internal
auditor here earlier our audittor um to figure out u to board member Smith's question right these are unfunded mandates uh and it would be really good for us as a board to really get a handle on the number of unfunded
mandates that are being imposed on the district that will require additional dollars. So, just something I think for us to keep at the forefront because there is a bunch of them. So, thank you, >> member Wallace.
>> Uh, so there are some schools that don't have coaches or athletic directors. Have there been additional staff members that have been identified for those uh groups that might not have sporting events but could have an emergency? >> Yes. So in our current AED policy, there's a requirement that two staff
members per every AED device in the school that that the school must have at least two staff members certified. So at minimum, you have two staff members and a nurse in every school that's certified. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> You're welcome.
>> Thank you very much for your presentation. >> Thank you. Believe this concludes the first portion of the board reports on public agenda and we'll now move into short recess. Member Pope, do you have motion? >> I move that the board take a 30 minute
recess. >> Is there a second? >> I second. >> Thank you. I'll proceed with a roll call. Member Lozano. >> Yes. >> Member Smith. >> I. >> Member Lopez. >> I. >> Member Wallace.
>> I. >> Member Kuster. I >> member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rosenfall. >> Yes. >> Member Reebas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Yes, ma'am. >> Member Rio Sierra. >> I. >> Member Bannon.
>> I. >> Vice President Baltista. >> I. >> Member Gutierrez. >> I. >> Member Biggs. >> I. >> Memberura. >> Yes. >> Member Blae. Hi.
Member Dberry Berry I. >> 17 eyes's zero nazs. This motion is adopted by the board. We will now go into a 30 minute recess. of the board of education is reconvened.
Board members will now proceed with the second group of potential board reports to be considered at the December 18th, 2025 regular meeting. After each item is presented, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions and make comments before proceeding to the next item.
Uh before we proceed with the items, I do want to note for the record that board member Bole has joined the meeting at 212 p.m. Board members, we will continue with the following talent items numbers 5 through 7. I'll read titles for items number 5
through 7, and the subject matter expert will present on those three items. Five, authorize the public comment period for the drug and alcohol-f free workplace policy. Six, authorize the first, second, and third final renewal agreement with
Healthc Care Service Corporation and authorize funding of health savings accounts in agreement with Webster Bank NA. Seven, authorize the first and second final renewal agreement with Canon Cochran Management Services, Inc.
Good afternoon, uh, board members. Uh, hope everybody is well. Uh, I'm going to introduce you to, uh, our executive director of health and benefits and wellness, Carla Kirkling, who is a force to be reckoned with. Um just very
briefly, I think it's important, you know, that we are framing some of these contract items um in the broader context of the talent offices strategy that's outlined in the five-year strategic plan. We've committed to a much uh to a healthier and and um a healthier
workforce and uh there's a lot of commitments to really dramatically expanding our wellness strategies to make sure that we're supporting our employees so they can do uh excellent work on behalf of students. Uh and Carla is uh going to talk about some of those
pieces that are some of the cornerstones of that strategy today. Uh so I will turn it over to her. Thanks. Good afternoon, President Harden, Dr. King, and board members. I'm Carla Kirkling, the executive director of healthcare and benefits in our talent office. Hope everyone's doing well
today. Uh the three items will focus on three areas to strengthen our district's holistic health and wellness strategy. As Ben just mentioned, first we'll review the proposed amendments to our drug and alcohol policy to ensure clarity, safety, and consistent
expectations across the district. Second, we will recommend renewal of our medical provider contract to maintain high quality, affordable, and accessible health insurance options for all of our employees and their eligible dependent.
And finally, we'll review we'll recommend renewal of our liability insurance as part of a comprehensive approach to safeguarding staff and operational well-being. Each of these items reflect our commitment to equitable access, diverse and supportive
resources, and maintaining a health, sustainable work environment for the CPS community. Now, I'll proceed with item number five. The talent office recommends that the board authorize posting of the amended
drug and alcohol work-free policy for public comment. This amendment was required as part of the bianial policy review of the board bylaws 1-2. Today, I'm presenting an amendment to our employee drug policy that modernizes
and strengthens both our compliance posture and our commitment to employee well-being. The revised policy introduces three key updates. First, we have included updated language and practices to adopt a progressive
discipline approach aligning with recent legal developments and best practices to relevant state and case laws. Over the last couple of years, a handful of employees have tested positive for a low blood alcohol concentration level,
for example, 0.02. 02 following a reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol test while on duty. Previously, any positive test, including very low back levels, led to automatic termination.
The new policy follows a progressive discipline framework that allows graduated consequences ranging from counseling, written warnings, suspension, and up to termination with the exception of CDL drivers and
employees under the age of 21 where termination would still apply automatically in accordance with state law and relevant case law, including the right to privacy act, drug-free schooling, Communities Act and the Illinois Human
Rights Act. The Talent Office in partnership with the law department has shifted to an approach that considers lower level discipline rather than strict zero tolerance. A couple of key drivers behind this change is one, the evolving legal
landscape, particularly around marijuana. With recreational use legal in Illinois, we're shifting from automatic termination based on test results to evaluating actual impairment in the workplace.
Positive marijuana tests may detect past and not present use. So decisions will now rely on observable behavior impairments and context. and second uh just supporting the relevant state and
case law with respect to lower levels of back levels for alcohol consumption. This change ensures compliance with Illinois law and federal standards while maintaining our top priority workplace safety. Second, we've added new language
creating a clear self-disclosure pathway for employees who voluntarily voluntarily disclose substance use concerns. This addition reinforces our responsibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act and affirms that
employees seeking help will be treated with dignity, confidentiality, and access to reasonable accommodations or support resources. This helps to ensure that individuals who are proactively addressing a health
condition are protected and supported rather than penalized. Third and final change outlines standardized search and seizure procedures connected to reasonable suspicion drug and alcohol testing to be conducted in partnership with our safety
and security team. These procedures establish consistent legally compliant steps for conducting searches, securing evidence, and ensuring due process. This strengthens fairness, transparency, and risk mitigation across the organization.
Together, these amendments balance employee support with organizational safety. And the policy is now more clearly communicates our expectation for a safe work environment while also promoting a culture where employees feel secure seeking assistance.
The equity focus here aligns to design fair policies and systems dimension of the CPS equity framework shifting from a punitive zero tolerance model to a more just and proportionate proportionate disciplinary approach. The new framework
supports progressive discipline and recognizes that rigid policies can disproportionately affect employees, particularly those from vulnerable or historically marginalized groups without improving safety or accountability outcomes.
The vision connection is connectedness and well-being. It aligns with the district's priority to create robust support systems and align resources to meet staff's diverse needs, ensuring a safe and supportive school community.
This revision promotes fairness, consistency, and compliance while recognizing the importance of employee well-being as a foundation for a thriving educational environment. This balanced and supportive approach emphasizes prevention, education, and
access to wellness resources that assist staff to be equipped to perform to perform at their best and model healthy behaviors. In doing so, the updated policy strengthens the district's overall vision that every member of the school
community, staff, and students alike feels supported, valued, and empowered to contribute to a culture of safe, healthy, and belonging. the from a community perspective, we are um obviously will receive comments from
the public posting, but we do have a survey for some of our primary so stakeholders, which are school leaders and managers um regarding this change, and I will provide a comprehensive um uh uh response to what that feedback
is at the conclusion of the public comment period. If this policy um is not approved, the amendment is not approved, it would not align with the current shift that considers lower level discipline or efforts to allow more
flexible disciplinary decisions that do not disproportionately impact vulnerable employees. Therefore, continuing to enforce a strict zero tolerance approach could expose the district to unnecessary litigation costs and resource burdens.
Defending outdated practices in court would divert financial and administrative resources that are better invested in supporting our employees and maintaining a work a workplace safety environment. That concludes my presentation and I'm
open for questions. I guess my I question um when you talked about um the positions that would be up for termination would be CDL. Why would you not have included or looked at uh heavy
machinery? You know, if you have forklifts in the warehouse, ladders if you're in a kitchen, knives, and things of that nature and and bucket them. >> So, um I believe our warehouse folks deal with all of that stuff. their drivers as well as dealing with the
forklifts. So, we can't change those policies because that's federally mandated. So, we can only adjust what we can control at the state and local level. >> Right. But what I'm talking about is that you in in your current policy, you said that the PE folks who could get
terminated immediately would be a CDL driver. >> Correct. >> And and you could group heavy machinery as a category. >> Okay. which would include all those things is what I is what I'm saying given given right the different spaces that we're working in. If you're in a
kitchen and you have knives and or uh other heavy machinery things that you're doing the warehouse, right? You you're driving forklifts, you know, or hand jacks, right? You can if I'm impaired and I drop a load on someone, it can cause a lot of damage. So, that just
something that I I I find a little odd to not have included that in in the policy. Thank you. >> Okay, I will take that back and figure out how we can get that into the policy. >> Member P. >> Yes, I'm happy to see these changes uh
being proposed and discussed. I think though that as we propose and discuss them, it would be important to have explanations to the public of beyond what you provided to us here because otherwise there may be a knee-jerk
reaction against this that I think would not be helpful to the implementation of the policy. So, I hope that we'll be considering how I don't know a PR roll out of it or whatever would would be
accomplished because I do think that these are very reasonable proposals that you're making and I am at least initially in support of them, but I can see how they would be misconstrued or even deliberately twisted in some ways.
>> Thank you. Um for clarity I believe we have already shifted to um progressive discipline in certain cases. Um so it's been implemented to a certain extent. This is really us
formalizing it in writing um and just making sure that there's trans transparency associated with our procedures and our protocols. But I hear you loud and clear and I'll make sure that I um analyze all of the
feedback and make sure that we highlight and address any concerns that the community members may have about this change. >> I think the fact that it's already been in large part implemented maybe could be stressed and people could see that no
harm has resulted. >> Yeah. And I also want to clarify I agree with you. I'll definitely do that. And I just want to be clear like this is not a real widespread issue at TPS. Um, last school year alone, we probably had about a total of 25 phone calls about
suspicion of someone potentially being intoxicated. After evaluating and looking at what was submitted to us, we probably administered 13 tests and about half of them came back positive. and a subset of
those fell below the legal limit for alcohol. So, it is not a widespread issue. I just want to make sure everyone's clear about that. >> Member Lozano. >> Yes. I have a question uh for those people for example that have already
been terminated uh and now this this is ch this changed for example right before marijuana was legal a lot of people are were doing a lot of time incarcerated for it and then after it became legal it seemed like why are they still being
held right so what what is the um process for those people >> anyone that was formally termin terminated due to um a failed drug test was uh put on our do not hire list. And so there is a process to petition to get
off of that list. And so they would just submit, you know, their rationale, their reasoning for wanting to be removed and then we would allow for them to apply for any open positions that they are qualified for. But we wouldn't do outreach to any
anyone. I understand. But what department do they go to for that? >> They will go to the office of administrative hearings. >> Okay. Thank you. >> It's on our public website if someone wants to look to figure out how you can be rehired. >> Thank you very much.
>> Thank you. Moving on to item number six. Um this is the foundation of our health care strategy which is our health insurance, our medical insurance.
And the talent office is recommending the board authorize the first, second, and third which serves as the final renewal agreement for the HMO and PO healthcare administrative services agreement with the healthc care service corporation which their legal name is
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and funding the health savings account with HSA Bank, a division of Webster Bank for HSA and FSA administrative services. The term of the agreement will be for three years from January 1, 2026 through
December 31st of 2028 in the amount of $1 bill820 million. These costs cover core administrative fees and all medical claims and ancillary services. You may be wondering why this is such a high amount, but CPS
is a fund self-funded organization. That means we pretty much cover the full cost of all of our all of our medical expenditures. The vendor provides administrative services for the following CPS plans and ancillary services for the board
employees and their families. We have a traditional PO plan which is a preferred provider organization. We have a HMO plan and we also have a health savings, a PO with HSA which allows you to do investments.
Um, we also have a wellness program, disease management, utilization management, mental and behavioral health, substance use, and then the employee assistance program all gets wrapped under those core and ancillary services.
We cover approximately 80,000 lives on our plans. Um, so that's a lot of people, a lot of expenses, a lot of different conditions, which um is contributing to the the costs. Um, Blue Cross Blue Shield has committed
to indirect participation with minority and womenowned subcontractors and they've reported over 8.25 million in spend to MB and WBE dates this contract. The equity focus here is resource
equity. By negotiating and designing our group health plan with an equity lens, we ensure employees have access to affordable, culturally responsive, and inclusive health care that meets diverse needs. This strengthens staff
well-being, stability, and retention directly supporting equitable learning ready environments for students. The vision connection is connectedness and well-being. The approval of this contract for employee benefit medical benefits directly supports our
district's priority to create robust support systems and ensure safe, healthy, and supportive school environment. Providing high quality, accessible health coverage is one of the most important ways we can care for our staff so they can in turn can be best support
for our students. This contract strengthens our commitment to staff well-being by maintaining comprehensive benefits that promote physical and mental health while keeping plans affordable and equitable. If this agreement is not approved, it would have
serious consequences by leaving staff and families without access to essential health care and financial wellness support. It would create significant hardships, risk non-compliance with benefit obligations, and undermine employee trust and stability.
That concludes my presentation, and I'm open for questions. Comprehensive report. No questions. Right. >> Moving on to the final agenda item. This is item number 16. Um this is a
collaborative um contract between talent and risk management. Um and we're recommending the board to authorize the first and second final renewal agreement for thirdparty claims administrative administration services with Canon
Cochran management services. Um this it um it basically encompasses workers compensation, comprehensive liability, auto employment practices claims, sexual misconduct,
property and equipment, intercolastic and cyber liability claims. These services provide essential coverage and claims management for our employees, students, vendors, and visitors. The term of the agreement will be for a total of four years beginning in January
1, 2026 through December 31st of 2029 in the amount of $7,900,000. These costs cover the administration fees for both programs. This contract provides continuity of
monitoring and managing the various CPS insurance claim services programs. It includes claims investigations, medical management, loss trending, risk transfer analysis, all reporting, tracking, work, subregation,
settlement negotiations, and settlement payment processing through secured escrow account services. The reporting work done by CCMSI is also a contractual function with our insurance carriers and it's an important part of our annual
submission to them when securing our new insurance policies. The prime has committed to the overall district goals of 37% with all MBE partners. In addition of any subcontracting partners will be monitored by the office of business
diversity and environmental social governance and will continue to partner and engage to reach the 37 MBE aspirational p participation. The focus here is equity f uh fair policies and con and systems. Um, by
operationalizing equity and CPS claims administration means ensuring that every individual involved in a claim, regardless of identity, background, or circumstance, receives fair access, responsive support, and impartial pathways to resolution. Equitable Claims
Administration strengthens CPS's responsibility to create learning ready safe environments and aligns risk management practices with CPS's commitment to fair systems and positive outcomes for all stakeholder groups. The vision connection is connectedness and
well-being. This aligns with our priority to ensure a safe and supportive school community for both staff and students. Maintaining comprehensive liability coverage is essential to protecting our people, our schools, and our resources. It reinforces our
commitment to safety, accountability, and responsible risk management, which are key elements of a healthy, well functioning district. If this um agreement is not approved, our liability insurance agreement would
expose the district to significant financial and operational risk. This could leave the district vulnerable to financial loss and legal risk related to property damage, workplace incidents or professional claims. Timely renewal with
is essential to ensure uninterrupted administration of coverage, maintain compliance with state and contractual requirements, and protect the district's financial stability and reputation. Thank you. Open for questions.
You batting a thousand. No questions. >> Thank you everyone. I hope you have a great holiday. >> Thank you. >> Board members, we will continue with the following procurement items numbers eight and nine. I'll read the titles for item numbers eight and nine and the subject matter expert will present on
those two items. Eight, authorize the public comment period for the department policy. Nine, authorize the public comment period for the indebtness policy. >> Good afternoon, President Harden, Dr. King, and members of the board. My name is Leticia Lopez, and I'm the deputy
chief of procurement. As part of the district's bianual review process, we are requesting authority to post amendments to to two procurement policies for public comment. The debarment policy and the indebted indebtedness policy.
The first policy we are requesting authority to post for public comment is the amendment to the dearment policy. The purpose of this policy is to outline the circumstances and procedures used for the department of vendors and individuals. Debarmment is a remedial measure designed to protect the
integrity of the board's procurement practices and the public's confidence in the board's fiscal responsibility. It is not intended to be punitive. This policy protects the board from engaging with dishonest, unethical, or otherwise irresponsible individuals. This policy
has a reciprocal debarment provision, meaning we debar vendors or individuals that are debarred from other governmental agencies. We have cleaned up some of the language and the updated and updated district staff titles referenced in the policy. If the request for posting for public
comment is not approved, it'll delay our efforts to make the required updates to ensure the policy reflects current district language and policy formatting. This policy language is focused on transparency and due process through the description of a clear appeal process
which ensures that the district's commitment to protect the public's interest is balanced with a fair and equitable process for vendors. Throughout the revision process, procurement engaged with various stakeholder groups to collect feedback on the current policy and how it could
potentially be improved. We met with the principal advisory council in May through a focus group session and a feedback survey. We met with the community action council in June. Sent an email blast to our um minority and women based uh assist agencies in July
for support with distribution of a survey to those agencies and an invitation for a focus group. And we also sent a survey to central office staff and school-based purchasing staff in October. We also met internally with the law department, the equity office
and the face team for their input to our proposed revisions. The proposed changes are connected to uh the vision every community policy design. The policy is reflective of the voices heard from our stakeholders. There are no financial implications of
the proposed changes. Any questions? >> No questions. Moving on to the next policy. The second policy we are requesting to post for public comment is the amendment to the indebtedness policy. This policy outlines the
mechanisms for ensuring that employees and those who do business with CPS are compliant with financial obligations such as parking violations and child support and also ensures that the district is compliant with the city of Chicago municipal codes. The policy has
two separate sections. one section owned by talent that pertains to CPS employees and one section that is owned by procurement pertaining to vendors who do business with CPS. The requested policy changes are required to ensure that the policy reflects actual practices of the
district. Um updates to CPS staff titles and formats to uh CPS policy formatting. The implications of not approving posting for public comment is that it will delay our efforts to make the required updates to ensure that the policy reflects current district
practices and includes current district language. Section three of this policy is a requirement per the city of Chicago municipal code. While procurement acknowledges that the 8% penalty on bid prices for vendors with delinquent child support might be a barrier barrier for
small, minority or womenowned businesses. Without changes at the municipal level, we are unable to make changes to this requirement. Similar to our engagement for the department policy, procurement engaged with various stakeholder groups on this
policy as well to collect feedback. We met with the principal advisory council. We met with the community action council um sent an email blast to the minority and women based um assist agencies and also distributed a survey to central office staff and school-based purchasing
staff in October. Additionally, we also met internally with the law department, the equity office and the face team um for their feedback. The policy revisions uh are connected to the vision every community fair and equitable policies. Policy design policy
is reflective of the voices heard from our stakeholders >> with this policy. There are also no financial implications of the proposed changes. Any questions? >> I just had a quick one. >> Yes. >> Um just a minor question. the um the
parking ticket violation search, is that already part of the CPS process? >> I would have to punt that to talent because that's part of their >> and and the only reason I ask is just I I don't know how much added bureaucracy
we're adding to our process for something that's off mission for our function. That's that's my only concern. >> Yeah, we'll follow up. Okay. Thank you for your presentation. >> Thank you
>> board members. We will continue with the following information and technology items numbers 10 and 11 and begin with item 10. Authorize the public comment period for the information security policy. >> Uh good afternoon uh President Harden,
board members and CEO Dr. King. My name is Ed Wagner and I'm the acting chief information officer from information and technology services. We recommend the board authorized for public comment the amendment of the information security policy. Um this policy was last updated
in 2019 um and needs revision to reflect updated personnel changes within IT and to ensure alignment with the latest IT IT industry standards for cyber security frameworks. Um the IT information
security team has expanded uh to include a recently created role of executive director. Um, since the information security policy authorizes the CEO and relevant information security staff to implement guidance to protect CPS systems and data, it is it is important
um to ensure that all the appropriate personnel are reflected in the latest information security policy. An additional design was um included as well in the event of vacancies. This way there's always an there's always an
individual who um can provide the necessary oversight to ensure that CPS is protected against emergency cyber security threats and risks. The second change made is to include additional industry standard cyber security cyber
security frameworks. Alignment with these frameworks is necessary to ensure we have appropriate standards, requirements, procedures, and control measures in place to secure our systems to accommodate new technologies such as artificial intelligence and to ensure to
ensure legal compliance and to align with um cyber liability insurance expectations. This will help CPS avoid financial and legal implications pertaining to protecting staff, students, and their families from data breaches.
To give a little bit more context, these controls are meant uh to ensure we are addressing information security uh uh items like uh defining our password requirements um ensuring we are able to back up and restore our systems uh in in
uh appropriate fashion and and and are handling personal identifiable information and student data in appropriate ways. Engagement with relevant stakeholders included the equity office, office of student health and wellness, law, uh,
and family and community engagement. Additionally, it solicited input from the principal advisory council back in September. Its also compared CPS's policy with similar policies from several of several of the largest school districts in the
nation to ensure our policy wasn't missing anything. Uh, one thing to note that is that this policy broadly authorizes uh, uh, IT personnel the authority to uh, create detailed how-to guidance um,
that keeps our students data safe and protects CPS from cyber security threats. Behind this policy, we will be updating more than 40 separate guidance documents for things like data handling, vendor access to our systems, and what
to do when someone thinks they've clicked on something suspicious. Most of these guidance documents are behind the scenes um such as our password standards and how applications connect through single sign on. Those requirements are set at the system
level. So, those will be shared with uh the relevant IT staff. For general staff, um we will be sharing guidance relevant to them like how to handle student uh or personal data. These guidance do guidance documents will be created with extensive engagement with
relative stakeholders and will be drafted with the equity lens of fair policies and systems. An example of this is to allow for alternate login methods for young students or students with disabilities to ensure they are able to access our systems while still
maintaining our security. Once the guidance documents are finalized, we'll share it with staff in the clear and transparent way. Uh, thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Item number 11, authorize a new
agreement with BIF3 US aggregator. >> Good afternoon everyone. Uh board my name is Patrick Canard. I am the server operations manager for the from information and technology services. We are recommending the board authorize
agree entering into agreement for data center services with center square for an amount not to exceed 1.1 million for the term of one year beginning of January 1st of 2026 through December 31st of 2026.
These data center services include 247 security and monitoring along with highly redundant power to ensure our systems located there are highly available and secure. The vendor was selected through the single source process to ensure service
continuity for hosting our core network and systems while we develop a new solicitation and explore moving some of our systems currently housed in our data center into the public cloud.
These services in involve proprietary software technology. Consequently, this agreement is excluded from our MEW weebi goals and we will monitor the vendor performance through key performance indicators of 99.99
system uptime and 100% data 100% facility power availability. Failure to approve this agreement would highly disruptive to our schools leading to system and internet outages since
critical infrastructure and systems are currently housed at our current data center. This request aligns with the district's vision for financial stability and operational excellence. For the equity lens, this item supports
resource equity by ensuring staff and students have reliable access to the systems housed in the data center such as Safari Montage and key components of our Skyline curriculum and SSM, the system where we
manage our IEPs for our students with disabilities. I welcome any questions you may have about this agreement or about data Dr. BZ. >> Yeah. You mentioned here um in the term procurement side, you said January 1st,
2026 to December 31st, 2026. It should be 2027, correct? >> No, December should be December 31st, 2026 at the end of the year. >> Okay. Because the proposed is for two years, right? >> It's for an extension potentially a followup for but the current one is for
January 1st through 2016. It's it's it's for one year. You you might have a typo. We'll we'll we'll correct that. Thank you. >> Any other questions or comments? >> Thank you very much. Board members, we will continue with the
following facilities. Item number 12, authorize the first and second final renewal with various vendors for the purchase of maintenance, repair, and operation supplies and personal protective equipment. >> Good afternoon, members of the board,
President Harden, Dr. King, and happy holidays. uh facility. We are recommending to authorize the first and second which is the final renewal for maintenance, repair and operations vendors also referred to as MRO. We currently have five contracted vendors, Fastel, Northern Safety,
Safeware, Global Industrial and Thermos Systems. The MRO vendors are vital for the success of our engineering operations as we purchase tools, hardware, and similar items and equipment to perform repairs in house. In addition to our department's purchases, other departments and schools
utilize these contracts as well for various goods. For example, in the past, some schools have purchased um shelving units for their storage rooms to help organize. Um the not to exceed authority for the renewal is 27.5 million for the
period of January 1st, 2026 through December 31st, 2029. All of these vendors were sourced through various piggyback agreements. Our historic spend is low. However, that was only reflective of three of the five vendors, of which one was used more heavily than
the other two. We have also been working with the vendors to make sure they are set up in our e-commerce platform to make the cataloges more accessible and pricing more transparent for um not only facilities employees, but the entire district. In partnership with procurement, we are also working on
having all EMRO vendors contracted to secure the best pricing. Right now, there's still quite a bit of spend with non-contracted vendors, but with this change, we will see increased spend against this board report. This is tied to our 21st century learning environments as it provides a purchasing mechanism for cost-effective products
for engineers to use to maintain and repair the building inhouse. The equity focus is tied to resource equity. A centralized contract creates transparent pricing, helps eliminate historical inequities where schools in certain networks paid varying rates for the same
materials by utilizing non-contract vendors. So this would help eliminate that by standardizing pricing. If this is not approved, we will not have contracted emerald vendors, which will result in the these vendors being removed from the e-commerce system, making pricing less transparent and
controlled. Not having uniformity in the naming conventions when placing non-marketplace orders, which leads to not having transparency on what is actually being ordered or requested to purchase, and limited spending based on the $35,000 per fiscal year spending
caps for non-contracted vendors. Thank you for your consideration for this item. >> There to be no questions. Thank you. >> Board members, we will continue with the following capital items numbers 13 through 16 and begin with item 13.
Authorize the pre-qualification status of and new agreements with various vendors to provide construction material testing and inspection services. Good afternoon. My name is Shawn Newert and I am the director of planning and design for capital. We are recommending
the board approve at the December 2025 board meeting new agreements for various vendors to provide construct construction material and testing services. There are three vendors, design consulting engineers, flood testing laboratories, and Princeton
technical services. These vendors provide construction material and testing services to ensure compliance with building codes, project plans, specifications, and standards, specifically steel, concrete, masonry,
soil, asphalt, spray-on insulation, fireproofing, athletic fields, playgrounds, and other construction materials as specified in capital projects. Board authority we are requesting is to not to exceed $3 million for the
multiple vendors and for a term of three years from March 1st of 2026 through February 28th of 2029. The vendors were selected via competitive selection process with the following MWBE goals M of 30% and W of
7%. The actuals of the previous expiring pool have been 24.3% M and 68.2% W. The new pool consists of two MBE firms and one WBE firm. The anticipation
is that the actual MBE percentage will increase and meet or exceed the goal. Past performance in of the vendors in this pool has been satisfactory and with procurement's assistance billable costs for some of the services
by design consulting engineers were reduced between 7 and 21%. The requested board authority for these new agreements is consistent with the current capital materials testing needs of capital projects.
If this agreement is not approved, the board will not have reliable confirmation that the various materials installed in CPS facilities meet the district's minimum specified safety and compliance requirements and may not meet
building code requirements. It also eliminates potential conflicts of interests and provides objective documentation if problems arise later. Thank you. Any questions? Slightly related question. Has the new
uh guidelines around DBE at the federal level impacted our um contractors at the local level >> in terms of material testing or just contractors? >> Just contractors in general. >> You're talking about the disadvantage
enterprise. Yes. Uh it has not at this time because we don't really have federal dollars for our projects. uh we are working with the small business enterprise certification and working with all the certifying agencies. There are some challenges because now they've
made a new interim final rule and they did the announcement during the shutdown. So we're all trying to figure out what's next. But for now the MBE and the WBE is hardened and will be in place. >> Thank you. >> No further questions. Thank you.
>> Thank you. I'll read the titles for the capital items numbers 14- 16 and the subject matter expert will present on those three items. 14. Disposition of bids received for the sale of property located at 1241 West 58th Street. 15.
Disposition of offers received for the sale of property located at 1326 South Avers Avenue. 16. Disposition of bids received for the sale of property located at 200 East 99th Street. >> Good afternoon, board president Harden,
members of the board, and Dr. King. My name is Steven Stoultz, director of real estate for the Department of Capital and Facility Operations. CPS put 20 vacant school sites out for bid through a sealed bid sale process earlier this year, and bids were received for 12 of the 20 school sites.
We continue hosting community meetings for the sale of other sites that received the bid and those sales will be referred to the board in the near future. State statute guides the sale process and it requires that any site with a value greater than $25,000 must be put out to bid through a sealed bid
process. The two highest and best responsible bids may be submitted to the board for acceptance of one or rejection of both and any sale must be approved by twothirds vote of the board. The bid solicitation was released on March 14th, 2025, and bids were due on May 30th,
2025. All three sales being presented today include a deed restriction that prohibits the properties from being used for a K to2 charter school and prohibit the sale or manufacturer of alcohol or tobacco products. After discussions with local officials,
an additional deed restriction was included in the bid solicitation for the sale of the shed's school site, requiring that the site be used for one or more of the following uses: first responder training, youth recreational programming, educational programming and
support during after school hours, youth mentoring, vocational training and workforce development, and GED and financial literacy classes. So the first sale that we will be presenting number 14 on the agenda regarding the disposition of bids received for the sale of the former Ara
Wendell Bontmps Elementary School located at 1241 West 58th Street. We recommend the board authorize the acceptance of a bid from Bontmps Apartments LLC for the sale of the former Bontmps Elementary School. The property consists of a 2.6 acre parcel
improved with the 53,000 ft building. The building has no working plumbing, electric or mechanical systems and there is a significant water infil and there is significant water infiltration throughout the building. The property was most recently utilized as Bontammps
Elementary School in total 2013 and has been vacant since that time. One bid was received for the property in the amount of $75,000 from Bonmp's Apartments LLC. The the bidder proposes demolishing the the building and constructing a 72 unit
multif family affordable housing development that will include a fitness center, community room, rooftop terrace, and co-working space. In phase two of construction, the bidder proposes constructing a 60 unit affordable senior living facility offering modern modern
accessible residences for seniors who wish to downsize while remaining within the community. A community meeting was held on October 11th, 2025 where the bidder presented their proposal to the local community and the proposal received significant community support. The bidder also received a letter of
support for the project from local older person. That concludes my testimony for that matter. I move on to item 15, which is the disposition of offers received for the sale of the former Matthew A. Henson Elementary School located at 1326 South Avers Avenue. We recommend the board
authorize the acceptance of an offer from MKB Business Strategies LLC for the sale of the former Matthew A. Henson Elementary School. The property consists of a 1.7 acre parcel improved with a 64,000 ft building. The building has no working plumbing, electric, or
mechanical systems, and there's significant water infiltration throughout the building. The property was utilized as Henen Elementary School until 2013 and has been vacant since that time. One bid was received for the property in the amount of $20,000 from
MKB Business Strategies LLC. The bid failed to meet the minimum bid required bid of $25,000. So, the property was then advertised for sale outside of the bid process. Two offers were received for the property. An offer of $25,000
was submitted by MKB Business Strategies LLC and an offer of $30,000 was submitted by Calling Water LLC. A community meeting was held with local elected officials on October 16th, 2025, and both parties presented their
proposal for redevelopment of the site. The community members present were more receptive and supportive of the proposal presented by MKB Business Strategies LLC. MKB business strategies proposes demolishing the existing building and
con constructing 11 single family homes and 13 two or three flats. MK Business Strategies received a letter of support from the pro for their proposal from the local alder person. The last item is on uh for school sales
on the agenda is item number 16 regarding the disposition of bids received for the sale of former John G Elementary School located at 200 East 99th Street. We recommend the board authorize the sale of the former shed Elementary School to Peace for Preston Foundation, which which was established
in memory of fallen officer Ariana Preston. The property consists of a 3.6 acre parcel improved with a 14,000 ft building. The property was most recently utilized as a branch of Bennett Elementary School until 2013 and it has been vacant since that time. One bid was
received for the property from Peace for Preston Foundation in the amount of $25,000. The purchaser proposes redeveloping redeveloping the building for use as a community center that offers access to safe and equitable resources such as youth rec recreational programming,
educational programming, youth mentoring and counseling, mental health support, job ready job readiness, vocational training, wellness programs, access to healthcare support, as well as GED and financial literacy courses. A community meeting was held on November 6th, 2025,
and the community was in support of the bidder's proposal. Peace for Press and Foundation also re received a letter of support from the local older person. That concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions the committee may have. >> Member Rivas. >> Uh thank you, Mr. President. Um I
I want to acknowledge that uh Mrs. Moon is here today. Uh right in the back, um Officer Ariana Preston's mother um who I've known for many many years. Um, Ariana was my student at UIC College Prep um, beginning in the uh, 2015 2016
school year um, when she was on my case load um, when I was a college counselor. Um, her teacher as her college seminar teacher that year. Um, and then later um, when she went on to Illinois State University. Um she was such a a
determined uh young lady. Um and graduated from Illinois State in three and a half years because of her determination. Um and um she had such a bright um life ahead of her and she did u so much for her community. So
incredibly proud of her. Um she was set to graduate with her master's uh in juristprudence from Lyola University uh before she was tragically killed uh in the line of duty uh as a Chicago police officer. And I am so incredibly proud
that we're going to be honoring her um and using this building in this way for the priest uh peace for Preston Foundation. So thank you Mrs. Moon for being here. Thank you for all you're doing to continue to honor Ariana's life. Thank you for that. Member Rivas
Gutierrez. >> Um I'm just interested to know uh you mentioned alderman. Could you could you provide the three wards that >> Oh, sure. Um >> Alderman Beal of the ninth ward is where shed school is located. Uh, Alderman
Coleman of Stephanie Coleman of the 16th Ward is where Bontmps is located and Alderman Monnique Scott of the I want to say 22nd ward, 24th ward uh, for Henen Elementary School.
>> Thank you. >> Thank you, >> member Smith. >> Yes. You speak about uh, community engagement uh, and feedback on the properties that are uh, being sold. Are there minutes taken at these engagements and are they
available uh for board members to see what the engagement was? >> Um unfortunately we did not take minutes but uh we do at the next meeting we have we're going to be presenting a QR code so any members uh in attendance at the meeting can submit their comments via
the QR code that will be recorded. And who invites uh who invites community and what is the method of uh getting community to these uh particular meetings on these sites? >> We have posted on uh worked with communications to post the notice and
face and we have also helped gotten assistance from the local alder person's office to advertise the meeting. So, you know, we we had a call earlier from an alderman who said that she was not uh included until two weeks after
the bid uh went out. Uh how how does something like that uh happen if this is done uh beforehand? >> Yeah, I'll uh give a brief explanation. We did reach out to every alderman except Alderman Harris of the ETH ward
regarding school sales that we intended on putting out to bid. We conducted site visits with Alderwoman Taylor of the closed schools in her ward. Um I I think what we didn't do was ask for uh a permission or a green light to put the
bid solicitation out when we have so many different wards we're working with. If we need everybody to to check off before we put it out, the bid solicitation may never go out. So it is I accept responsibility for that for not while we did inform her that we intended on putting them out for bid. Um I failed
to inform her exact the exact date that we put it out for bid and two weeks after it was out. Uh we we started meeting with her. We attended several community meetings. Uh the bid was out for two and a half months. So the remaining two months of that bid period, she was fully aware and engaged with us.
Uh we were engaged with her attending community meetings as well. >> Thank you. >> Member Wallace. uh for the sale of Henson Elementary, you said that there was more support from the community for uh the MKB as opposed to the calling water bid. Could you give us more
information on why that was? >> Yeah, the meeting was a bit contentious. Um there were uh there were groups on both sides that supported both proposals. We did we got a sense that there was
greater support for the MKB business strategy proposal. Um, there are also concerns without the local elder person's support that we don't um there's concerns that the project won't get completed if there's a local
official who's not supporting the project due to things like zoning and other matters that really could stop a development in its tracks. >> And so, sorry, >> I'm sorry. I was going to say when you said that the you were working with the
alderman. Did you get a sense from the alderman if they were also in I I thought you had said that the alderman were also in agreement with it. So was the alderman also in agreement with MKB as opposed to the calling water? >> That is correct. So all three biders that were recommending or offerers um
did receive support from the local alder. >> Thank you. >> Member Lopez. >> Thank you board president. Uh can you remind us how much is it costing the district to maintain these buildings annually? >> We estimate depending on the size of the
structure somewhere between anywhere between 75,000 per year to $150,000. Some of our the smaller sites 14,000 square feet versus uh Cal High School over 300,000 square feet. So it really depends on the specific building, but that's the range that we've estimated.
>> We have 20 properties, right, that went up for vid bidding. >> 20. Yes, correct. Um, I also agree with the comments with board member Smith, I was actually had a question if there were any minutes or notes in particular any concerns that the community shared.
Um, the other question I have is uh since there's only three properties, is there a timeline for the rest of the properties? >> Uh, we have another community meeting tonight for Peruski School. Uh, there's two one community meeting set up in January for Fisk and Parkman, which 20th
ward schools. Uh we're still interfacing with two additional alderman who um we need to get in front of them to really get their buy in before we go forward with a community meeting. >> Okay. And I'm definitely keeping an eye out for the one in the seventh district on the 22nd ward. Um thank you. Those
are the only questions I have. >> Thank you. I I want to take the opportunity to expand not only on the financial piece but the safety piece that ties to it. Uh Steve, can you talk a little bit about that because there is a concern with these vacant buildings that just bad things happen and and so
it's important that we just really take the initiative to try to get these properties uh off our off our portfolio. >> Sure. Um the buildings are an ongoing liability. They are continually broken into. Several of them have had fires set inside of them. Um there's a safety
concern. We the longer we keep them there, you know, an open building is very dangerous. uh kids could wander inside and we really want we really want to put these but buildings back to productive use. The longer they sit there, the the more they deteriorate, the harder it is to redevelop them and
the less value that we can get for them. Um also it's they're it's really not helpful to the local communities where these buildings are situated. You know, it's nobody would want to live across the street from a vacant building. So, um we really need to do everything we can to get these buildings put back to
to productive use. Um they're they're they're really not helping anyone. There's no need for them from an educational or administrative standpoint. >> Member Brown. >> Yeah. I'm just curious um when we do community meetings, who are
we doing outreach to? Um because when I'm thinking about Woodline, um the strongest community organization over there, it's called STOP. Uh that's the the community organization that organized and made the University of Chicago build a trauma center. They
have a considerable base in that area. And often organizations like that are not the ones that are called when these things are done because we're not just talking about since 2013. I mean that that's kind of where kind of how we talk. But if you drive
down State Street, you you looking at we going to west side, you talking about schools that have been closed since 2004, right? And they're still empty. And so I think when my alarm is going off is and not in every case with with with
sister in the back with board meas talked about I'm I'm all for that work but my concern is the destroying of these basic quality of life institutions is what accelerated the removal of black people from Chicago. Black people have
not left Chicago because we chose to leave Chicago. We left Chicago because we lost housing and we lost schools. Basic quality of life institutions closed on purpose. And so my concern is who who does this benefit when these
developments come up? So if we're looking at an you know even affordable housing can now be put in quotation marks because they have something called the AMI. And so even that is a hustle that's that's that's imposed on our neighborhoods.
So I don't I I don't really have um that's just a feeling. So I I don't really have and it's not a critique towards you, sir, but it it I do want to say in front of this board that my third eye is open as
we talking about this. This is this and and I agree these these empty buildings are dangerous. But I think there's a way to engage the community if somebody would just ask. There's a way to engage the community
where you can actually get real stakeholders in the room and not pastors who get who got a contract on the side who come in and do whatever the district says. I think and I recognize I say things like that might make people
cringe a little bit but it imagine multiply that by 10 when that's happening to you. when that's happening in your neighborhood, multiply that by 10. So, I just think there's a way to do this that really engages people, that does a needs
assessment with that neighborhood and says, "Okay, what's needed?" It quick example, and I and I I'll step back. When Overton Elementary was closed, we convened huge community meetings. We did neighborhood assessments. People
said they wanted a youth center. It was over and over and over again. We want a youth center. We want a youth center in the third ward. And the people were ignored. And and and now that building sits there, some abstract artist residence place that doesn't
benefit the people that live in that neighborhood, but it just allows CPS, our our institution, to get that school off, you know, off our books. So when I'm saying this, I'm not saying this because I'm crazy. I'm saying this
because there's been a practice that has happened in our neighborhoods. And so I don't, you know, fool me once, shame. Shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. So that's all I got. >> Member Blaze.
>> Um, hi. I I just wanted to say um we've worked together before on trying to gather a coalition of folks to help unload the buildings. Happy to reconvene that group. But also just a little reminder um
since Alderman um ta Janette Taylor called in too like she's interested in being involved in those discussions. Don't forget to tap your board members. Um we all have community um contacts. We all have organizations that might be
helpful to you. Um and we can also reach out to elected officials in the area and perhaps they can they have some ideas. I CPS is in the business of educating students not necessarily being a landlord to darele properties. So, I
understand the impetus to to want to unload these properties and I and 100% Chief May I feel they're a liability. Um but um but we again we have to we have to move thoughtfully. Um and so if
there's any way that any of us can help you and I'm I'm happy to get that group back together. But I think even in this last this last iteration of when you when you put out requesting for RFPs, you sold three built or you got rid of three buildings or
>> last year we sold we were we closed on two buildings last year. >> Okay. So I mean it's not a huge number but every little bit helps. And so um in the face of more
maybe some of the charter schools closing and and that kind of thing that you might be inundated with more property. So maybe it it is good if if we reconvene that group of of real estate folks and try and um get you some
help that way. I'm happy to help that way. >> Definitely love to continue engaging with you on that. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you >> board members. We will continue with the following finance item number 17.
Resolution authorizing the issuance of general obligation alternate bonds of the board of education in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed $1 bill800 million. >> Hi, good afternoon everybody. Wally stock to district treasurer and acting
CFO. So today uh have in front of you this item which which is requesting authorization for alternate uh bonds in the amount of $1.8 8 billion. And let me unpack this a little bit for you. Um,
it's really a multi-step process that we undertake each time we sell bonds. This is really the first step, right? This is the base step is approval of this authorization in this amount and it is good for up to three years. And after
this would be approved, uh we would also have to hold a public hearing uh con uh regarding the sale of the bonds and give the public an opportunity to comment. Uh we would also need to take the resolution and publish it in the newspaper of general circulation. So we
typically do that in the Sun Times. It's then uh held over for 30 days, sort of a waiting period. During that time period, if a petition is filed uh and signed by seven and a half percent of the registered voters, um then the sale of
the bonds can be can be questioned and you can either drop uh the proposition of selling the bonds or you could ask for voters for the authority to sell the bonds. That's never happened. Um but that exists under the legal way that we go through this. So you get through the
the 30 days, you get through the hearing, you approve the resolution, and then the final step is what's needed that actually commits you more to selling the bonds. This is what we did in May where I brought before you the resolutions to sell the capital bonds and the resolutions to sell the
refunding bonds. the the capital bonds in particular were authorized by the same type of structure that was put in place by um same resolution in 2022 and and that was only good for for three years. So that is all expired and that's
kind of the reason why we're back in front of you is to sort of set the table for the next three years. We know that um each year the district approves not only the budget but we approve a capital plan. The capital plans are primarily paid for by bonds. So this is the
mechanism by which we need to do that. We know um we sold bonds. Um we have a little bit of money left, but that'll be gone within the year. And much of the capital plan that we just approved in FY25 or for FY26, excuse me, uh will
still need funding. So that's, you know, kind of the first step that we would do probably a year from now um if this was all approved. But again, it's just setting the table. um to have these further steps available and not have a hiccup in terms of not having this
available at our ability to be able to sell the bonds. um you know just looking at the the things here uh that we talk about um on this particular uh early set of approving things I I don't have any
community perspectives at this point because we we're not committing to selling the bonds really setting the table um you know connected to our vision it's an equitable funding model to maintain financial resources so bonds are used for projects all over the district we rely on the capital and the
facilities team basically to determine and and measure that out on where we need to make the improvements and then we just follow through and come up with the money for that. Um and then we think this is aligned uh with the equity framework and the fairness policy and the systems and um like I said they're
just used to uh help budgeted expenditures um that benefit the district as a whole. So if this is not approved we just don't have any authority to sell any new bonds. But I would hope that you would find it
um a reasonable measure to kind of help with the continued stability of what we need to do to maintain the district. Are there any questions? Just one one question. Um I recently read that the city had
some issues with the selling of their bonds. Do you anticipate any issues on our side? Well, what what I will say is um as I've been before um members before and talked about how um the bond market can
sometimes be unpredictable. Um I think that's a little bit of what the the city experienced. I also expressed expressed concerns about the amount of debt, the types of debt that are being taken on. Um, in our particular situation, we're still below investment grade, so that
limits the amounts of buyers that are there. Um, but, um, overall, I I want to I mean, I I had the opportunity to talk to some of the board members, but I'll say here in publicly that we did successfully complete the sale of two large major bond issues um, in the fall.
So, we sold the $650 million in bonds for the capital that was very wellreceived. Um, and then we went in and we sold the $1.1 billion transaction also for the refunding. And I will say that that wasn't as easy as the $650
million bond, but I think we timed it at a good um point in the market and we were able to execute it and achieve $130 million for fiscal year 26. So that was a major um accomplishment and um really helped with, you know, solidifying our
trajectory for fiscal year 26. But an issue of that size um very difficult I would say to replicate. You have to give the market some time to absorb that bond and and then get new investors and and kind of re reload. It's not it's not a
perpetual um thing that you can keep doing. And the city sells a lot of bonds. They sell way more bonds than we do. So, you know, not to speculate too much, but the headwinds that they're facing are kind of giving some push back by investors. um and um that may have been part of it,
but also, you know, I just want to say that it's not uncommon that bonds don't all get sold, too. So, there was a little bit of sizzle in that article as well. That happens often, but it is something that we're always trying to balance. So, it's something we're watching, but I'm I'm confident that given time, we'll be able to kind of in
just a steady eddy with the ship, we'll be able to navigate this. >> Thank you for clarifying. Member Boyce. >> Um, since we're talking politics, there's an alderman who's saying that the mayor is hiding hundreds of thousand, hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax increases in
CPS. Can you help us understand what that conversation is? >> Let me interrupt here, member Blaze. That's not appropriate for this discussion here. We we want to keep it germaine to the topics that are just before us.
Okay, we are sorry about that. Um our we have an annual Can you just explain one more time? I think you went over it with me um once. Um
the annual levy increase that happens and how long has that been happening? Well, separate from this matter, um >> you know, when we get into all of our financials, >> right? >> Um each year we're required to approve a budget, >> right?
>> And along with the budget, we also approve a tax levy. >> And so we have approved a tax levy for this year that was done in August. And we approved a budget and that was also done in August as well. So that's in place for this year. >> And do we do that every year? Yes, we're
required to do that every year. If we do not pass a tax levy, we will be missing at least 50% of our revenues. So, a majority of our revenues come from property taxes. And each year we pass a resolution to
extend those taxes and collect them. >> Good. And we'll have a briefing or some another briefing on that soon just to make sure that everybody understands internally. Uh we could we can work with the board staff to determine if there's additional
um education needed on the tax levy. >> Great. Thank you. >> Sure. >> Sorry about that. >> Thank you. >> Thank you boys. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. The following slides list the standard monthly reports and motions that are
listed in the agenda review committee meeting agenda and posted online. The titles won't be read. Uh this concludes the board reports on the public agenda. Are there any comments or questions or other items? If not, we'll move into executive session.
>> Lopez. >> Thank you, board president. I just want to inform uh for those that were watching and are interested to hear the one and 22nd word, the community has informed me that tonight that meeting is going to take place Wednesday, December 3rd from 6:00 to 7:30. It's going to be
over at Farragate Community uh career academy for those that are interested. Again, 6:00 this evening to hear from the community regarding the property sale in the 22nd ward. Thank you, >> Amber Brown. >> Yes, sir. Um, I just want to restate it
because I don't know if if if I was clear earlier, what I would like what I would like to see and and I can talk to my fellow board members is that we need to see like a needs assessment and how if there's additional development or a
property being sold in a community that has lost schools, how has the community informed what the the the institution that's going to replace it is going to So if they close a school in the fifth in the fifth district and that community
has endured blight for over a decade or however long, how have they how has that community been engaged? Not just an abstract report saying we met with the community, right? But we need to see on paper.
Um maybe some of these people can come here and let us know the community signs off on this. But I think if you if you gut a neighborhood and then you profit off the neighborhood that you gutted
and the community doesn't benefit, that doesn't sit well with me. That that that's to me that's that's weak on us as a body if we sit here and we co-sign something like that. And so that's my concern. Um, and I struggled with it
earlier because I was trying to be correct and I just felt I need to just say it candidly. That's that's what and I'll talk to other board members about it and we'll see what we have with it. >> Thank you. We'll now move into executive session. Board member Rivas, do you have motion
MO2? I move for the passage of motion number 25203 MO2 uh and the commencement of a close session to consider matters permitted under section 2C of the open meetings act subsection 1 and 11 as specified in
the motion. >> Is there a second a motion? >> Thank you. I'll proceed with a roll call. Member Lozano I. Member Smith I. >> Member Lopez I. Member VeZ.
>> I. >> Member Bole. >> I. Member Wallace. >> I. >> Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> I. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Brown. >> Yes. >> Member Rio Sierra.
>> I. >> Member Bannon. >> I. >> Member Gutierrez. >> I. >> Member Biggs. >> I. >> Member Thodicura. >> Yes. Member Blae. >> Hi. >> Member Deberry.
>> I >> I'm sorry. Uh, Vice President Bautista. >> I. >> 18 eyes, zero nays. This motion is adopted by the board. This mean we'll go into cold session. The agenda review committee meeting of
the board of education is reconvening. Board secretary, please proceed. President Harden, I'll continue with a public agenda item from the acting general counsel. This item does require a vote 251203 AR1 approve payment of
proposed settlement regarding Jane Doe versus Board of Education and Brian Crowder case number 2024 L00423. President Harden, this item does require a vote. >> Is there a motion? >> So move. >> Is there a second?
>> Second. >> Second. >> Thank you. I'll proceed with a roll call. Member Lozano. >> Member Smith. >> Hi. >> Member Lopez. >> Hi. >> Member VeZ. >> I'm sorry. He's not he's not here.
Member Bole. >> Yes. >> Member Wallace. >> I. >> Member Kuster. >> I. >> Member Pope. >> Yes. >> Member Rivas. >> Yes. >> Member Re Rio Sierra. I
>> member Bannon. I >> Okay. Member Gert Gutierrez, I'm sorry. >> I >> member Biggs. >> Yes. >> Member Thodicur. >> Yes. >> Member Deberry. >> I.
>> 14 member 14 eyes, zero nazs. This motion is adopted by the board. >> Thank you. Thank you. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> So moved. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor? >> We are journ. Thank you everyone.