Meeting summary:

  • The budget crisis is an ongoing and complex matter. The Cincinnati school board appears to be using every available resource to make informed and precise decisions for the budget based on collected data and recommendations from the treasurer, superintendent and audit team. 
  • CPS is proactively working to educate and prepare students and educators for a future with AI. There are still lingering privacy and data security concerns, thought as expressed by board members, teacher unions and the larger community.  
  • There appears to be a positive trend or benefit in the CPS push to provide students with laptops/the tools they need to succeed.

Documenter’s follow-up question:

  • Personally I fear that the President may not understand that AI is capable and recently has often been misreading data sets and providing improper answers. If the work is not properly checked due to a need for convenience over accuracy, will future decisions may become skewed by improper or false results?

 Notes

All current board officers, board members, central office treasurer and superintendent were present and seated at the front of the auditorium in the following order: Kendra Mapp (on the far left), Ben Lindy (next left), Kari Armbruster (left of center), Board President Brandon Craig (center left), Board Vice President Kareem Moncree-Moffett (center right), Eve Bolton (right of center), Jim Crossett  (next right), Treasurer Michael Gustin (second to last on the right) and Superintendent Shauna Murphy (far left). 

There were 21 people present in the combined media and administration section of the audience seating. There were also roughly 20 people present in the visitor seating that night, including community members and media.

At times it was difficult to properly hear the board members from the audience seating despite the board members having microphones. 

Guest Speakers: 

First guest speaker: President Julie Sellers of the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers/Cincinnati’s teachers’ union. Sellers spoke frankly on the current state of the budget moving into the 2026 school year as a non-growth budget. She said current information was limited and clear communication will be required over certain subjects such as how “high priority” is defined, how staffing would be distributed across schools, and who determines priority and accountability over the process. Sellers said the board should focus on program reduction, rather than staff reductions.  Prior cuts to staffing resulted in additional nonlocal staffing contracts, she said, and nearly $1 million was spent without any demonstrable returns on those investments. Sellers also recommended that budget decisions not be made based on unpredictable/yearly student scoring. Next Sellers spoke on the bankruptcy of the AI company ALL IN and how student data was sold to third-party vendors. Sellers appeared to have a strong stance against AI, as the risks to student data and the use of student data as a sellable commodity appear to outweigh the potential benefits. Sellers said the current budget issues were imposed by the state of Ohio, but that the public needed to be educated on how previous tax levies did not fund public schools, and how a new levy would be pivotal to the budget. Finally, Sellers called for clear communication with the public and for all unions to have a seat at the table for budget cut decisions. She does not want a cookie cutter approach to cuts, she wants all to be aware of unequal school impacts and the consideration of unintended consequences before any decisions are made. 

Carlos Davis, a community member and parent, expressed concern about the safety of students walking to and from bus stops. He encouraged the board to consider hiring security guards to ensure student safety. A large section of the visiting audience appeared to have been present to support his presentation to the board and departed with him after he finished his comments.

Board Presentations/Discussions:

Bellwether (an education sector advisory nonprofit) presented their early findings and updates for the recommended Strategic Plan. Bellwether conducted group listening sessions with CPS staff, students and school committees, as well as one-on-one interviews with school board members. Bellwether seeks to expand their current data collection through community stakeholders’ advisory committees across the city to pressure-test their early findings. 


Bellwether’s school quality framework consists of three phases. Phase 1 (current phase) assess current state of affairs; Phase 2 is strategy development; and Phase 3 is a plan for Implementation 


Early data from stakeholders has revealed that CPS offers a wide range of programming, learning environments and supportive community partnerships for students. Stakeholders expressed a desire for clarity on how programs are interlinked and a need to strengthen students’ pathways to secondary education. Early data also revealed that the community wants clarity on the financial pressures and greater transparency on how future resources will be allocated.   


Next steps include engaging with more stakeholders, including parents, and the audit committee. Bellwether will construct some early shaping strategies) for how to address their findings on budget issues. Bellwether expressed that they intend to provide the board with the most comprehensive yet flexible plan to address budgetary issues, clarity on tradeoffs, and how a steady state budget and a declining budget would function and scale based on different financial situations.  

Bellwether believes that the most important part will be the planning for the implementation of the strategic plan as to who needs to make decisions, who needs to be informed and how to report and measure implementation are all keys to the plans success.  

CPS Chief Information Officer Jeremy Gollihue presented different models for providing students with laptops and iPads –  the cart method – of keeping devices at school, or the take-home method. He also presented community feedback on the school’s enrollment system, where parents said there was a lack of clear communication, missing information, and a lack of answers to questions. Gollihue suggested shifting away from an announcement-based system to a proactive educational system for parents on how to enroll their students. Finally, he said a districtwide system upgrade from a phone system to a cloud-based system for telecommunications was nearly complete, with only 11 sites left. It is projected to save $1 million in expenses.  

Debra Fricke presented Future Ready: Artificial Intelligence. She praised the adoption of a new board policy on AI. The new policy helps to set a clear foundation based on student privacy and security. It requires that all vendor policies be reviewed. She also presented on how the district has created AI intro courses for staff, which serve as a shared foundation among the district educators and are providing AI lessons for students from nationally approved vendors, including partnering with University of Cincinnati for a summer AI academy. The department is also engaging the wider community about AI at meetings and summits. The department has also created Quick Connect, a program that allows one to ask a question and quickly receive an answer. Possible questions included how to find busing for school field trips and related questions. Fricke ended by emphasizing that AI is a support tool and is not meant to replace thinking or learning.

Board members asked follow-up questions about Quick Connect, but the overall consensus appeared to be positive toward the use and implementation of AI. The board vice president personally uses AI but expressed overall concerns about privacy and potential risks. The board president expressed excitement at the implementation of AI and extolled the benefits/convenience that AI allows them to review data and make predictions in minutes rather than in hours.

  • uncheckedSuperintendent Shauna Murphy presented on the Code of Conduct recommended changes/updates for 2026-2027. There were minimal changes, but she clarified certain words and language. She also discussed the school-tiered approach to discipline and escalation policies.   
  • uncheckedThe board president spoke on how restorative practice in terms of discipline practices was newer in school settings and there  was a learning curve. They could use the current code of conduct as a teaching tool. 

Budget Report: 

  • School enrollment is down, revenue is down and costs are rising with inflation. Therefore, there is a need for a strategic plan to address budget issues. 
  • The administration treasurer and superintendent presented three possible pathways for moving forward. 1) Decentralize operations, 2) Return to pre-Covid staffing and programing, 3) Leverage partners and iInvestments. The district also could combine any of the pathways. 
  • Overall the board agreed the decentralization would result in the dismantling of the central office. The transfer of central office duties would be passed on to the wider school districts. These negatives outweigh the potential positives. 
  • Overall the board also appeared to lean towards a mixed approach or combination of the pathways. 
  • It was confirmed that the current numbers/data reflect only in-house staffing and did not include extra or external contracts.  

Budget Items:

  • The budget process is incomplete and certain items have yet to be determined. A full vote on the budget is scheduled for June.
  • The board voted and passed two administration recommended budget items: School-based staff, federal compliance and school CBA compliance. 
  • Both of these line items are required by state and federal regulations. 

The board voted and passed amended policy 51 (which moves away from a punitive policy)

Last Presentations: 

  • Charter school recruitment strategy: In response to a decline in enrollments, CPS has collected data from the community that shows parents are responding to perceived behavior and busing issues. A districtwide redirect strategy would create standard office hours and equip schools to share their stories and engage with the wider community. 
  • Dr Houssen presented the difference between Truancy and Constant Absenteeism. The courts are trying to offer support and move away from jailing parents for their students’ truancy. The policy language has been changed to be less threatening to parents. The board passed the changes.

Final Notes: 

  • There are currently three open board positions. Recommendations will be conducted offline and decided on in the next meeting. 
  • The city is proposing a youth football commission to discuss costs over using CPS sports fields and buildings. Largest expenses were for Cincinnati Police Department presence and security. 

Roll call vote for the consent agenda with revisions was passed.

If you believe anything in these notes is inaccurate, please email us at documenters@signalcincinnati.org with “Correction Request” in the subject line.

Find more Documenters’ notes here.