Ready to go.

Well, good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us for this hearing on juvenile safety.

This afternoon, we'll have a conversation that is comprehensive where we talk about uh safety enforcement and law enforcement side, but also about our continued investment in youth programming.

This is not an either or, but a both and when we talk about keeping our young people safe.

This conversation comes at an important moment.

Over the past several years, Columbus has made real progress in reducing overall crime, but there is one area we have not seen the same level of success, and that's when it comes to the safety and well-being of our young people.

Too often we treat this as something that we focus on in the summer months when school ends and young people are out and about more.

But this is not a seasonal challenge.

It is a year-round responsibility, and it deserves sustained and serious attention.

What I've seen and what many of you have seen have been some troubling trends.

We've seen large gatherings that have turned into fights and turned into shots fired.

We've seen incidents organized over social media like takeovers, young people that have uh been perpetrated by uh guns, perpetrating with guns and uh uh injured by guns and putting themselves at risk.

Over the past year, we spent time digging into this issue, not just as council, but as parents.

We've been talking to uh young people, to judges, to prosecutors, to police, to faith leaders, to community leaders and others.

We've been meeting with partners, reviewing data and asking hard questions.

We all know that we've made significant investment in youth programming to keep our young people occupied and out of trouble.

Those investments matter, and they have made real differences in our community.

But funding programs alone is not enough.

And as COVID dollars dry up, we'll be challenged to sustain that funding.

We have to be honest about the broader context.

Many of the challenges we are seeing are rooted in deeper systemic issues.

Poverty, segregation, systemic racism, and systems that have not always prioritized prevention and rehabilitation.

But none of those can be excuses for keeping us from intervening aggressively and early when a young person is going off track, and before they re-offend after the first time, and before they end up in jail or even worse, dead.

Initial contact with the justice system, even if it's a misdemeanor, and school truancies are early indicators that a young person is going off track.

And is relatively a small number of young people who are responsible for a disproportionate share of serious incidents.

I think that it is critical that we highlight that.

When we talk about youth violence, we're talking about a very small number of young people that represent a disproportionate amount of the issue.

But our systems always don't talk to each other to identify and interrupt those patterns.

So we need to be more focused, more strategic, and more intentional on how we intervene and support those most at risk.

I've also heard that collaboration has weakened in recent years at a time when we needed it most.

Connections between schools, law enforcement, families, and community organizations have frayed.

For example, until 2018, the city had a partnership with the YMCA where our police would engage with young people who were out during the day and who should be in school, picking them up and taking them somewhere safe.

Maybe we need to recreate that program.

Another example is school resource officers in Columbus City Schools.

That partnership lapsed in 2020.

And what I've heard repeatedly was that it was those officers that played a role in addressing incidents that no other people have stepped in to fill.

Maybe we need to take another look at that as well.

So today's hearing is about grounding this conversation in facts and solution.

We want to better understand the data.

We want to learn from best practices, and we want to take stock of the assets we already have in this community.

No option is off the table.

Maybe we need parental responsibility laws that holds families accountable for their kids and their actions.

Or maybe we need a curfew in effect this summer.

Or we need to the CPD to restart its juvenile unit to help us enforce truancy.

But just as important, this is about action.

Because at the end of the day, we're talking about our young people and their safety, and we can't afford to be afraid to have any part of this conversation.

So I am grateful for you being here today.

I'm so grateful that I get to join the chair of this committee, Councilmember Remy, the vice chair of this committee, Councilmember Ross, and my colleague, Councilmember Day Achauer.

And Councilman Deakauer is uh chair of the Recreation and Parks Committee who oversaw the youth summer programming for this uh this summer.

And so I'm going to turn the podium over to Councilmember Remy.

Chair Remy.

Thank you very much, Council President.

Good afternoon, and thank you for well, thank you to President Hart and thank you, Vice Chair Ross, and Councilmember Dayekauer for joy joining us today.

As chair of public safety and criminal justice committee, I'm grateful that we are bringing together partners from law enforcement, education, higher education, and the broader community for this conversation.

Juvenile safety is not something anyone institution can solve on its own.

It requires strong partnership, on honest uh collaboration, and a shared commitment to making sure young people are connected to the right resources before a crisis becomes worse.

Early this week, thanks to the coordination of my colleague, um, Councilmember Ross, Council President, and I had the opportunity to speak directly with youth from the boys and girls club and hear firsthand about the challenges they see and face as young adults.

It was enlightening.

What I took away from that conversation is at the end of the day, our city's young people want to be seen, heard, valued, and cared for.

Not simply because we want to prevent violence or truancy, but because they inherently deserve that from adults and institutions around them.

As father of three teenagers, I have a personal appreciation for the complexity of what many young people are facing today, and for the important role that support systems play in helping them thrive.

And that is why this hearing is about more than public safety alone.

It is about whether we, as a city, are coming together as a village to give our youth the opportunities they deserve to stay engaged, grow as people, and contribute to our community in ways that are meaningful to them.

For me, today is about taking an honest inventory of where we are, where we have seen progress, where we where challenges remain, and what opportunities are in front of us.

It is about hearing directly from stakeholders, learning what is working, understanding where stronger coordination is needed, and reflecting on the best path forward for our city's young people and their families.

I am grateful to each of our presenters here today for being here and for helping us with this conversation.

My hope is that today moves us closer towards towards practical solutions, deeper collaboration, and a clearer understanding of how we can better support youth in Columbus so they are safe, connected, and able to thrive.

Thank you again to everyone here, and I'm looking forward to the conversation.

Good afternoon, everyone.

I certainly want to thank everyone who has come to gather in community with us.

Uh, which is the voices of our young people.

I'm a strong believer in the phrase nothing about us without us, and I think we as electeds, we as leaders of this community can oftentimes have conversations about what we think our young people need without actually asking our young people what it is that they need.

And so I am very proud of the work that we as council have done, proud of the work of our division of police, proud of the work of Dr.

Jones and all of our community partners that have worked to really center the voices of our young people so we understand exactly what they need.

They actually know what they need, um, and it is about empowering them to be able to communicate that and articulate that to the folks that are making decisions.

We have a system of many parts.

And in order for us to solve this issue, it is important and imperative that those many parts remain aligned, that those many parts are continuing to work together.

It is not just the responsibility of Columbus City Council, it is not just the responsibility of the division of police.

It is not just the responsibility of parents, and it is not just the responsibility of our young people, but it is the responsibility of this entire community to think about what the needs are for our young people to provide enough necessary resources upstream and to also have a nimble response to the issues that we are seeing.

And I don't think any of us would counter the data.

We know that engagement with our law enforcement system, engagement with detention centers are generally not helpful for young people.

But we do need to have a system nimble enough to respond to incidents of severe violence in our community.

It starts with community, it ends with community, and I'm grateful that the community is here and to have these critical discussions.

What I hope is that this is not the first or the last discussion, and that we continue to have discussion, that we continue to center our young people's voices, and that we really think about what it is to create a comprehensive solution to what we are seeing.

And so I'm so very grateful to each of you for being here and look forward uh to the discussion to come.

Councilmember Day Echo.

Thank you to my colleagues for um convening this hearing.

Now, as we talk about juvenile safety in our city, it's impossible to do so without bringing up the role of youth programming.

Earlier this week, council passed $7.5 million in grants for nonprofits putting on youth programming this summer.

Council was also able to amend the budget to ensure that our own recreation and parks department summer programming was fully funded.

But we know that there is still need out there in our communities.

The city was only able to fund about half of the youth programs that applied for these grants.

And though the summertime is a crucial time for our young people, a time when they are not in structured classroom settings, but do have the opportunity to gain new experiences.

Every young person should have equal access to safe and enriching program in their respective community.

And so I'm proud to be working on surveying our nonprofit youth programmers across the city to see where there are gaps in our youth programming ecosystem, be that gaps in program location, gaps in types of programming offered, or gaps in what age programming targets.

This initiative will ramp up with the hosting of a youth programming summit where nonprofit programmers will come together to learn about our findings, and then together we can brainstorm how we can work to fill these gaps.

I look forward to the conversation here today.

And as we discuss underlying factors that the city can target to stem youth violence and keep our children engaged, let us remember the vital role equitable access to youth programming plays in this discussion.

So thank you to everyone here this afternoon.

I am so grateful that you prioritize the youth of our city.

Thanks.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Dayakauer.

Um we'll get into the presentation.

And so our first presenters today are the Columbus Division of Police.

I would like to welcome First Assistant Chief Potts, Officer Lutz, Sergeant Johnson, and I'll turn the floor over to you.

First Assistant Chief.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, uh, Council President Harden, uh, both Safety Chair Ross and Remy, and thank you, uh, Councilmember Day Akaur.

Um, this issue is near and dear to the Columbus Division of Police.

Uh, it is something that we know uh is a problem that we need to address.

Um, before I get into the presentation, uh, I did want to um have Officer Lutz say a few words because he eats, lives, and breathes.

Um not only youth violence but prevention in the city of Columbus, and we depend heavily on him next GN uh to give us the data.

So before I start, I just want to have him say a few words, and then I'll start with the presentation.

Thank you, Council President.

Thank you, Council Body.

Okay.

For me, this has been a difficult challenge in my career.

I have now served the Columbus Division of Police for about 10 years.

And as I've watched the data trends, as I've worked through some of these challenges with the family, as I've experienced some of the trauma alongside our community members.

It has become glaringly apparent to me that our youth are really truly struggling, and I really think that you guys are having this conversation.

You're including these community members so that we can get to a sustainable solution, not just one that's punitive, a sustainable solution.

So I appreciate all of you and your time.

Okay, I'll start with the slide.

So let's let's take a look at our homicide numbers.

Um, we all celebrated the fact that in 2025 we saw our lowest number of homicides.

And that was great, and it's a collective effort by everybody where we saw that decline.

But there was something troubling in our data.

In 2025, 28% of our suspects were 21 and under.

Those are suspects who have committed homicide.

And even though overall crime is trending in the right direction, our youth violence remains a grave concern for not just the division, but also our community.

Columbus has seen a significant decline in overall violent crime.

However, our juvenile crime continues to increase.

Nearly half of our homicide and felonious assaults, suspects are 21 and under.

So not just those committing murders, but those who are shooting people are under 21.

Gun violence is driving much of this issue.

Juvenile involvement in shootings and weapon offenses continues to be a major driver of our arrests and victimization.

We are seeing younger offenders committing more serious crimes.

Cases involving teens charged with homicide and violent felonies highlight a shift in not only severity, but our volume.

But what we're finding is guns are becoming more apparent in the hands of our young people.

When you look at our homicides, and you look at the total number that we had, it's astounding.

So I thank you again for having this conversation because there is no reason why our kids think that homicide and pulling guns is the answer to solving their issues.

Nearly one in five violent crime victims in Ohio were under the age of 18 years old.

There is opportunity for trauma-informed care and violence interruption strategies.

The data tells us that the system, schools, courts, social services, police often operate in silos.

This is a time for Columbus to be a real-time data sharing and joint intervention models.

No single system can solve juvenile crime alone.

Law enforcement encounters youth at the point of crisis.

We do not encounter them at the root cause.

Youth violence is a public safety and a public health issue.

It requires alignment with our police, our school district, our juvenile courts, our community-based organizations, and our mental health providers.

Patterns show that repeat contact across systems.

Many of our offenders are known across multiple systems in Columbus before the offense occurs.

We need strategic coordination that leads to measurable results.

The recent decline of overall crime is tied to proactivity, collaborative efforts, and strategies that focus deterrence and community engagement.

If we coordinate earlier, we prevent later.

If we stay silo, we stay reactive.

Next slide.

These are just sides in motor vehicle thefts, we are moving in the right direction.

We saw a sharp decline.

We saw increase in thefts by vehicle, but we also know that the data tells us most of our offenders start right there.

They start with the car.

And then when they don't have severe consequences for stealing that car or stealing from that car, they've matriculated up to more violent crime.

And so this is one of our indicators that we're watching very closely to see how can we, as a division, with the help of community, your help, the mayor's help, city council, and public safety.

How do we use this data to have programming that targets them at the core?

What we are seeing is encouraging.

But there are some concerning indicators.

A disproportionate amount of juvenile crime is driven by a small number of repeat offenders.

These individuals often have prior system involvement, chronic absenteeism from school, and exposure to trauma, violence, or instability.

They often have warning signs that are observed, unsupervised late-night activities, early contact with low-level offenses escalating over time, youth associating with known offenders or groups, and signs of untreated trauma, mental health challenges, and family instability.

Next slide.

Some of the changes the division is attempting to make.

So we're working extremely hard to bring down their numbers.

And again, I have to give credit to mothers of murder Columbus children in collaboration with us and all of the stakeholders across this community that help us reach 2025 with 81 homicides.

One life loss is too many, but we've seen a substantial decrease, unlike most major cities in this country.

And it's because of collaboration, community involvement, getting rid of the silos, and having honest dialogue about how do we decrease violence here.

Some of our initiatives have been Operation Unity, working in collaboration with Safe Streets, Operation Moonlight, which targets those juvenile components in Easton, Operation Turn Up the Heat, which targeted juvenile and adults with stealing cars and stealing from cars.

We've done several youth warrant roundups.

As I said, we had gang enforcement indictments of offenders that were 21 and over, and tackling those quality of life issues.

Next slide.

Some of our safety initiatives, I won't go into detail, but we are really working extremely hard as a division to look at holistically approaching to getting juveniles to stop doing the violent crime that they're doing.

These are some of our collaborations.

We're working with everybody from Office of Violence Prevention to Mothers of Murder Columbus Children to Columbus Violence Reduction.

And we've included Department of Fire, CCS, everybody that we can collaborate with, we have.

Chair, can we just jump in?

Sorry about that.

I appreciate it.

Thank you, first assistant chief potts.

Um I'm gonna turn it over to you.

Does anybody have any questions before I get into some?

Sure.

And thank you, Chief Potts, for walking us through that.

I think some of the um slides that you show where it highlighted that again, we're we're not talking about a large number of young people who are are uh who we are focusing on, but it sounds like you're talking about being more strategic about the small number of folk young people that are having uh multiple interactions with law enforcement.

Absolutely.

Has what over the last in your data that you just talked about?

What has been working?

You've talked about um uh trends that have been good, like I was really excited to hear, and I would love to hear more about uh auto thefts going down, and we need to celebrate that and maybe like why what we thought worked there, but also in the last say 24 months, what trends have we seen going the uh wrong direction?

Okay, I would say that what has been working is collaboration across all different sectors.

Um we have a really good relationship with our coroner's office, something that CBD, you know, and the coroner's office thought was important, especially because they're seeing these young people in a morgue.

And so building that collaboration, we have quarterly meetings with them.

Uh we have a robust uh relationship with mothers of murder Columbus children.

As you know, most of their mothers have lost their children to violence.

Um, but also working with our interventionists and interrupters in the city, making sure that we all are on the same page, because the ideals we're all trying to obtain the same goal.

It is to grease to decrease violence in Columbus, but specifically when we're talking about our children.

As a black woman who happens to be an assistant chief, overwhelmingly the victim and offenders of violent crime look just like me.

And so this is personal for me.

It's personal because every time we have to look at our young brown and black men and women go to prison or be buried, it is if I'm losing my son or my daughter.

And so, on behalf of Chief Bryant, this is personal for us, which is why we're spent at least two to three years since we've been here looking at our data.

It is why we reached out to Franklin University and Dr.

Jones to scrub that data.

It is why we created Beyond Enforcement, which is not a scare straight program, because we know that doesn't work.

But what it is is teaching our kids real life situation with real life consequences and scenarios.

It is why we continue to go into prison systems and talk to men and women who have been in prison for multiple murders, robberies, rapes, and everything we can think of and ask them those important questions.

How could we have intervened earlier as a law enforcement agency that would have prevented you from being here for the rest of your life?

This is why we sit here today and thank you, City Council, for bringing this to the forefront.

This is personal for each one of us sitting here because we all love, live, work, and play in Columbus.

And even though we've seen strides, we have a long way to go.

Thank you, Chief.

Um, do you know can can do we have a specific number when we talk about how many young people we're actually talking about?

Because again, there we have two council member Ross, uh, we were talking earlier.

Um, this has to be a comprehensive conversation.

Absolutely.

You you bring up the community partnerships with uh uh mothers of murdered uh Columbus children and those investments that we have to make in all of the youth programming, and that to me uh focuses on the top of the funnel.

Yes, but at but at the bottom of the funnel at that point, there's a a smaller number that uh of young people that need different types of interventions to literally save their lives.

What kind of numbers are we talking about?

Are we talking about 2,000 or or about you know what what are we talking about?

So we were trying to pull that data.

I'm going to punt this over to Officer Lutz.

Um, we were trying to look at from the last couple years, what was that demographic of 21 and under?

Do you have that number?

So, what we're looking at uh for people who would be court involved would be about 7600.

So, but if you were trying to isolate those numbers down to individuals who were chronically involved with the justice system, uh you'd probably be looking at around like 200, if I were to give you a good guesstimation, and more always coming into the fold.

Basically, what we do predominantly is a lot of social network analysis, so we can see these trends kind of emerging over time.

And what's been problematic is that that early level intervention needs to be consistent and it needs to be identified.

The problem is is the identification.

This is why it's so critically important that we're becoming interdisciplinary with the way that we're approaching these issues, why we're leaning on a university heavily, because our data sometimes that we get, we cannot make sense of.

And because we're still siloed, and there are legal reasons behind that, but that's what a lot of the the projects that we're doing right now are trying to address, so we can actually give you more I would say suitable numbers or more accurate numbers, because anything involving juveniles is so complicated.

And sometimes I feel like that's built into the system, and there's reasons for that, but in order to get an accurate picture of where we need to go, we need to first identify what the problems are.

I'm I'm gonna ask this to to multiple folks.

When you say better coordination, what does that mean to you as an officer?

Um talk both about data, talk about where opportunities are with legislation, also talk about where coordination amongst community partners looks like.

What does better coordination look like to you?

So a lot of it really comes down to the legal barriers that are put in place and responsibly and respectfully so.

I'm like to guard youth's information.

And so that is really the biggest struggle because when we're trying to build a community, which I think is going to be the best solution for our youth, is to have a community wrap their arms around them, be able to lift them out of the circumstances they are, provide mentorship.

There are things that we are unable to share even internally, there are things the courts are unable to share with us.

So that's when I'm talking about when we're improving systems.

We need to address what we legally can and cannot share so that our providers, our community members, all can work in better tandem because when we have kids that are continually getting put into a carceral system, but none of us are really allowed to talk about it, or we have to issue subpoenas, or we have to go through the court process.

That's all slowing down the real trauma, the real impact that's happening in youth's lives minute by minute.

And let me just answer what we do know is working.

We know that violence interruption programs do work if they're funded appropriately, if we make sure that the standard and procedures that we're reviewing them are strategic and into data driven analysis.

Before you move on, can you just define for everybody what you mean by violence interruption programs?

Okay.

Those are the programs where we have people employed who have a holistic approach to why someone is committing a crime.

So they look at family dynamics, they look at education, they look up their substance abuse, or they look up their financial illiteracy.

All of the core roots that cause people to commit crime, those with those interrupters and or interventionists and uh life coaches are going granular, trying to figure out how do we turn this person's life around because we know that people don't just wake up and commit crime.

A lot there are so many factors that are why you commit a crime.

Um looking at those from a holistic approach and then having the funding to help those programs, and then having a real honest conversation about mental illness in our community and what does that look like and how does mental illness affect the family to the point where kids are committing crime at nine and ten years old.

But where we need strengthening is our data sharing and coordination.

I can tell you one of the most frustrating things for us as we continue to fight violent crime is not being able to see the data from other resources.

And I'm happy to say that we've had some robust conversations with some stakeholders, and we see the rainbow at the end.

But data sharing has been a real issue, and I understand why you want to protect, but we can't help what we don't know exist.

The other thing is clearer roles and accountability across our partnerships.

What is the real role of a police officer?

Because it's not just enforcement, and people like to pigeonhole us in a small box.

Our goal is not to every day wake up and just lock people up.

We have a role that plays in community engagement that significantly helps the community have legitimacy with us that entails then gives us the resources to reduce crime.

Faith-based initiatives and neighborhood based engagement.

It starts at the front door.

Really, it starts at the womb.

Our kids are coming into houses where they are already behind the eight-ball as it relates to their mental health and stability.

It also means having clear roles and accountability for our partners, sustainable funding, and alignment of those goals.

An effective response requires a holistic approach to juvenile trauma and crime, where all of the stakeholders are working together and not in silos.

I personally don't care who gets the credit.

It doesn't matter to me if you never say Chief Brian or First Assistant Chief Lashawna Potts.

What I do care is that I continue to see the numbers of our young boys and girls decrease as it relates to sending them to prison as it relates to attending their funerals.

Where are we advocating?

Are we we talking state laws?

Right?

Now I'm gonna ask you questions.

I already know the answer to, but I just need to make sure we're talking about it.

So state laws that determine what data can be shared.

Yes, is there advocacy going on in that space already?

I'm trying to just figure out where we as council members can support in that advocacy.

Um, and and I will tag my partner because there's there's local conversations that are having um with uh Columbus City schools, a lot of our stakeholders who do hold that data for us, because what we do understand is that truancy is the number one indicator of youth violence.

Kids who fall out of school and don't have adequate supervision become those kids that end up in our handcuffs.

Thank you.

Uh welcome, Councilmember Rosa de Padilla.

I know you have a question.

Thank you for being here today.

I do, thank you, Chair.

Um, so first of all, thank you, Assistant Pots, for being here.

Thank you all.

I think um I also want to say hello to so many friends who are here today.

This is um uh uh an exciting hearing for me.

I am I have been a certified youth worker, and for 30 years of my career have worked with young people, and um so this is so critical, I think, for us to have this conversation.

I remember talking to um council president Harden when I first came on to council talking about what are we gonna do for our young people and actually thinking about is there a committee that we could have or where does this work lie?

Because it is complex, right?

It's it's so many different strategies, and you know, I believe every young person is at risk, right?

One bad it doesn't matter what family you come from, where you live, one bad decision can change the entire course of your life.

But one question that I have, and you started to talk about this a little bit, is I think that um we can do all the work with young people, but if we don't change their environment, if we don't help to support that family, if we don't give to the supports to that family, I mean, one of the things you know, in in my work at City Year is that you have this positive role model near peer who's continuously working for you and cheering you on, and you build that within the school, but at the end of the day, they still have to go home or go somewhere, absolutely, right?

And so if you're continuously going back to a place that does not support your mental health, does not support your security where you don't feel safe, or where you're given the same choices over and over again, you know, we're we're trying to essentially break cycles that are really difficult for people if you've known nothing different, right?

I mean, I've talked to young people who are like, I'm not I'm not investing in my life because I don't think I'm gonna live to be 18.

And if you've decided that at 13 and 14, if you don't care about your own life, you're not gonna care about anybody else's, right?

And so what are the work what's that work look like?

And and I certainly don't think this is just on police officers, but what is that um network look like?

What is that referral look like?

What do those partners look like that actually help to support the family and actually help to provide that additional support to that young person as we're trying to essentially eradicate them from what they believe is our destiny?

Absolutely.

Um I will let Dr.

Jones talk about some of the um resources that we know.

We wanted to jump to Dr.

Jones.

Oh, okay.

Real quick before you mentioned um the prevalence of guns in our community.

Yes, is there data around how children are receiving the guns, where children are receiving guns from, and if so, can you give us a little insight into that?

So absolutely, most of our guns that involve children come from stealing them out of someone's car.

That's where they're getting them from.

And uh we've spoken at nauseum to adults about the responsibility of gun ownership.

And as long as they continue to lead them in the car, those thefts from auto, which often involve guns, that's because that's what they're looking for.

It'll continue to happen, and then now those guns are in the hands of our youth.

Okay.

Another question, and I I apologize because I know folks have to be places, but we sat in here for seven hours talking about ice, and I think we need to allot a good amount of time to our young people too.

I um the 200 chronic offenders, is that what you said?

We have 200 young people that are committing.

How are we defining chronic?

Is that two or more?

Is that three or more?

What does that look like?

So, though not an exact number because we're still getting into the data set.

It's it would be for me would be individuals that would commit three or more.

Three or more.

Because I and most of the research that I've seen across the nation, some of the things that we started to dive into from the project that we're trying to build out locally here, they had uh their offender maps set on a certain amount of offenses within a certain time frame.

Got it.

And so for us, it was it was three.

Thank you.

I actually do have a follow-up question for POTS.

Uh Chief Pot.

Oh, you're fine, sorry.

Um sorry.

No, you're fine.

Uh no.

Chief, you brought up actually two or three times truancy, and this is a conversation that we have been having with the schools and the impacts.

Can you talk about the city's engagement with uh with the school district on truancy?

I I highlighted that we used to have that uh a closer, I think a closer relationship uh than we do.

It sounds like this is important and sounds like some this is something we need to at least bring back to the forefront of a conversation.

Absolutely.

Um we've been researching at least the last two and a half years, um, and the grade level that we see um where students start to veer off is seventh grade.

And so when you look at the data, seventh grade is that marker for truancy.

That's where they're starting to make that decision to go right or left.

Um, I will say, and I've said this, we have a really great relationship with Columbus City Schools.

We're having these conversations with them right now about how do we look at the data and and data share.

Um, and I think we're at a place now where we feel very comfortable with each other.

That wasn't always so.

And that took time, communication, and us just realizing we are all in for the same goal.

And in order for us to meet that goal, we gotta talk.

And we have to talk realistically and do it in a way that still safeguards what they need to safeguard, but gives us as a division accurate data so that we now can have those markers where next gen can you know, kind of go in and and uh Franklin University can look at the numbers and see how do we get that seventh grade where the numbers are where they start to go left and right.

What do we do in the schools in support of community uh police department education, the juvenile justice system, our uh interventionist interrupters, what do we look for in seventh grade that stops them, and we know resources on family dynamics is heavy.

It's so interesting.

Uh, on Tuesday, Councilmember Ross pulled together uh young people at the boys and girls club.

And when it came to truancy, it was so interesting because we I think I went in there thinking about truancy as an enforcement, like the city, the police office police department needs to go back to doing one thing.

They said it'd be nice if somebody just sent us a text to check in on I am.

Yes, and they said it is a it's about caring.

Yes.

Do you even care that I'm not here?

Absolutely.

And um, and I know what we have the school district here and they're doing a lot of that work, but it just made me feel that we am not all have a deeper responsibility to take this truancy conversation seriously as a community-wide responsibility and not just put it on uh the school district alone.

Absolutely.

I think even to pinpoint that a little bit, the young people were saying not the like the people in my school, like the leaders in my actual school that I'm actually in, it would be nice to get a text from.

And I know that we we've got systems and district ride um programming, but it just to put a finer point on that.

They were like, you know, my principal sometimes I don't see, I don't know, an assistant principal.

There are many not sure what they're here for.

Um, and so that that is also like some of the work I think we need to try to do.

I thought it was really remarkable about the talking about the principals, you know, they were talking about many didn't see them, they didn't feel and and we know in education that principals are tasked with you know a multitude of of assignments, but they didn't feel they they looked at them as you know, most of them looked at them as not leaders or they they weren't quite sure what they did.

And so, but a couple had engaged principals that actually looked after them and cared for them.

But you know, this is a this that was really remarkable, you know, having that conversation about we asked one of the questions we asked was do you feel like there's somebody that cares for you at the at the school?

And oftentimes, you know, there there were several that didn't, you know, that didn't have anybody that asked about them or you know what what was going on in their lives, and so you know, changing the dynamic within our school system, you know, would do wonders for in a lot of cases.

Um, you know, and I think those are important.

My partner is uh as a school principal, so I want to also stand up for our school principals.

There's great.

School systems are not set up.

I was hearing council president to do that.

That's why you have programs not for nothing, absolutely like a city air that has core members that have a focus list of students that are calling 30 minutes after the bell rings.

And so when we have programs that are in schools, as I'm looking at a former city year core member who's sitting here working for our district, as I look at one of our teachers who had a core member in their classroom, it's those sorts of programs that investing in them that support the school support system and helps with some of the things they're talking about because there is a direct correlation between attendance behavior and coursework.

Yes, and those things all work together.

And those are already the indicators that we have.

So if you have folks who work in those districts, but if you don't have, it's not the district's fault.

Our system is not set up to support those students, period.

And so that's why you need other programs and community partners that then provide those other supports in an intentional way for a subset of those students who we can already identify because they're already giving us those markers.

So can I speak as the parent of a former truant?

So when my daughter was in high school, um, she was a chronic truant, and I didn't know after I commuted 45 minutes to San Francisco to work, and after the end of a nine, 10 hour day and that 45 minutes back, I didn't know she was a truant.

And um the school had this was before cell phones.

I had voicemail, and the school had left messages on the voicemail, which she of course deleted.

Um so she was a chronic truant for a good six weeks before I found out about it.

Um that semester, her GPA was not in whole numbers.

And in a conversation, she felt well, there was nobody noticed her, nobody cared, and there was nothing for her to even be engaged in.

She lived in we lived in a community that did not have a recreation center, did not have youth programming.

The only way a kid got engaged in these things if your parent um could take you to a for-profit organization for programming.

She felt there was nothing for her in her city.

Her city didn't care about her, and State and her friends expressed the same thing that the community didn't care about her, so what?

Um turned out my house is where all the truants hung out.

And I didn't know that for a long time.

So it's very challenging if you're in a school district where they feel, and it's not say the schools have a lot of responsibilities.

Um but if a kid's in an area where they feel like nobody cares.

It's easy to just yeah, real quick, chair if you don't mind.

I'm sorry.

And I know we have to move on to Dr.

Jones, and I think I just want to qualify this.

Our young people are attend that came to this round table, attended both Columbus City Schools and charter schools.

Here's what I want to say.

Whatever the district decides to do, we need to encourage alignment amongst our charter schools as well, because it's gonna need to have some consistency across the board.

Um, so a lot of these issues are not necessarily specific to the district, but it did um highlight the need for consistency across several different types of educational institutions and and and what we need to do to work together in both spaces.

I do want to call out one thing with Columbus City Schools because you know, my wife's a teacher there, she's been a teacher for 23 years.

One of the things that I notice is is that they do not there's no notification if somebody uh if a child's not at school, and that is concerning, you know, because they have not invested.

I think at one point in time she said that they used to have notification, but you know, some schools a minute at 805 at the school starts at 8.

They they they get an we get text and call, but at Columbus City schools that doesn't happen.

Now my wife said it's because they they don't have the cell phones change all the time or numbers change, but I think there needs to be a more concerted effort, you know, to make sure that there's notification of of an adult that when the kids don't show up at school.

Um I I do want to um uh I do I want to go back to Officer Lutz because I think you mentioned um First Assistant Chief Pots about you know it starts with the the with the vehicle vehicular thefts.

But I want to talk, I want you to go through the progression of like what happens when we don't do anything, what happens with those kids and how you see it evolve, because I know you know you know intrinsically how that happens like any learned behavior, it just keeps reinforcing.

It's a feedback loop.

And what's really been sad as we've started to investigate some of these repeat offenders, we have seen that they're providing for their family members, they are accounting for every single policy failure that law enforcement is the first responders to, and that's just the sad reality is that in some cases these kids are actually sustaining their parents' rent.

They are feeding the families.

Uh and this comes out in the interviews, even when they're telling us that they're selling the guns.

They exactly they they will break down mathematically how the money is being distributed amongst their family members.

And so when we think about like, well, what policy prescription will help alleviate that that's a glossal undertaking.

And sometimes we just have to sit with that and be very intentional with what kind of information that we are getting from our kids, because again, to councilwoman's point, we need to listen to the children.

Well, they are telling us loud and clear that their life, their home life, is unsustainable.

But then at the same time, they're engaging in behaviors that we have to hold them accountable to.

And to threat that needle is truly difficult.

You know, we we are not benefit poor in this community.

We are benefit rich, but a lot of times it's about making those connections.

And so, you know, I applaud the work that you guys are doing to connect the dots and try to get people talking and working together because that's that's it's utmost important that we do that.

Where are the gaps that city council needs to know about?

Where are the things that we can we can help you know close the gaps with by policy or with financial um backing?

Curfew enforcement is one of them, and that's on a division level, a city level.

Um, because it can't just be us, right?

It has to be a collective uh level with parents being parents.

They have to know where their kids are.

Um, but also facilities, right?

Once our officers do the curfew enforcement, they're right back out.

And I can tell you it takes them hours where they have to sit, and it takes them away from more violent runs that they could be handling only to see the juvenile beat them back at the precinct where they just left.

It's a revolving door that somehow needs to change.

I don't know if we look at our judicial system um as a whole, but curfew violators, we have to do something with them because we do understand that a lot of our crime that's happening um in our after hours are happening with kids who should have been at home after school.

Um the expectation for enforcement on our police officers.

It's a real conversation of what does that look like?

Because if we overenforce, we'll be having a different conversation in city council.

If we underinforce, we'll be having a conversation at city council.

And the lack of awareness for our families, the lack of parental education for our people who are raising our young people.

And I'm speaking as a teen mom myself, who thank God I had a village.

So I'm speaking from somebody who probably shouldn't have been sitting in this seat based off of circumstances that would have labeled me, and I agree.

I was truant, I had a child in high school, I was a single mother who was raised by a single mother, my sister was a single mother, and so how do you stop that repetitive behavior?

It started when I reached out to other people who poured into me who had different circumstances that taught me something different.

And I think that's why it's so important that the schools have programming where they can see success stories every single day, because when they go home, that may not be their case.

Officers often use discretion, but consistency is a challenge for a multitude of reasons.

We want legitimacy in our community, and so we don't want to seem like we're over enforcing.

Clarify enforcement authority in our procedures.

What does that look like when officers do come across somebody who is truant or curfew and establish graduated consequences and diversion pathways that actually hold these juveniles and their parents accountable?

That's the key.

And as they matriculate through their crime pattern, now we're sentencing to life in prison when we could have made decision making early on, a little heavy hand in the beginning saves them from death or mass incarceration.

Strengthen alignment with our juvenile courts and our social services.

We often think we all separate in different silos.

We actually are all doing the exact same thing, dealing with the exact same kids, and also ensure that our families have the support that they need.

People are struggling just to live day to day.

And so those are just real discussions that I think we have to have.

Thank you so much.

Chair, see you let us keep asking questions now.

No, no, no.

But what I just heard, Chief, was a very actionable place that I think council has a role in.

You talked about curfew uh laws, and we know we have curfew laws on the books, but uh it sounds like we need to look at strengthening them.

It sounds like we need to uh have a a broader conversation of how we even communicate what the expectations are around the enforcement of those curfew laws.

And so I just want to put a fine point.

I just I heard that as a because some things are police in the administration role, some things are familiar's role, but there are some things that are legislative that council can codify.

That is something that council can codify.

I know we know other communities have uh strengthened their uh uh curfew laws.

Uh, and and I and I wanna invite counsel, I would ask council to um to partner with the division around uh how we can strengthen those laws so we can bring clarity.

So I just want to close out with that.

Thank you, Chief.

Certainly, we hear you loud and clear.

This committee will make sure that we're working closely to to make those changes.

Chair, thank you very much.

Chair, can I also say one other thing?

I think just in partnership with policy, though.

I think you know, I think about back in the day, one of the things that we can also work on in partnership with administration is things like midnight basketball, other things, so that when kids are out and you do have a curfew, you're at least giving them a safer alternative of a place for them to be.

And we a lot of those things are now gone away.

And so that's one thing as we think about even in a tight budget.

I know that we gave a lot of money to youth programs, but I think there's certain things that we can also work on that can be creative that can also allow for those spaces where they can have proximity to positivity, where they can be in a safe space, where they can be signed out, there is accountability, but you're offering them also an alternative because I think well, this is probably gonna be a bad uh this is like um this is like uh telling people about abstinence without giving them like safe sex options, right?

Like you have to do both because you because we're we're fooling ourselves if we think one strategy is the only answer, like it has to be both.

And so I think council president, yes, there's a policy question, but I also think there's an there's a question of how we find partners, how we find funding to allow for things that work in in concert with some of the things that we talk about.

Because I also think with with the enforcement without alternative, I don't think that we're setting ourselves up for either.

And for some children, being at home is not necessarily the safe place.

Right, right.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the work that you're doing, and thank you for your presentation today.

It's it's always valuable to report out what you're seeing day to day on the streets, and so we really appreciate it.

Let's move on to uh Dr.

Chanel Jones, who's the assistant dean of community engagement and chair of the public safety programs for Franklin University?

You've got a lot of data to share with us today, and certainly look forward to your presentation.

Dr.

Jones, the floor is absolutely um well, good evening, Chair Remy, Vice Chair Ross, Council President Hardin, uh, Councilmember Rarosa De Padilla, and Councilmember uh De Acar.

It is so um I'm so thrilled to be here and to have the opportunity to speak with you all today.

Um, this is an issue that affects the safety, stability, and the future of our city here in Columbus, and a lot of the topics that first assistant chief potts had discussed.

I had already, I also prepared to discuss them.

So our our words are pretty much aligned.

So it's gonna parallel and mimic some of the things that that she uh mentioned already.

Um but I am gonna go into depth a little bit about the curfew truancy as well as parental responsibilities a little bit more in detail than what she did.

And so I want to start with just talking about um what we do every day, and every day we ask our youth to make good decisions, but at the end of the day, we must also ask ourselves are we creating the conditions to support those decisions?

Are we setting clear expectations, providing structure and reinforcing accountability at every single level that we can?

Are we doing all that we can to protect the safety, well-being, and future of our children here in the city of Columbus, Ohio?

I personally think that this is an opportunity for us to do better because this is not just about crime, this is about protection, this is about prevention, and this is about partnership, and it's all of our responsibility to play a role here.

When we think about juvenile safety, we're not just talking about statistics.

And I know Chief Potts had, or at first assistant chief pots have provided several different statistics.

But what I want to remember remind everybody is that those statistics represents children, children who are either on a path towards success or a path towards risk.

Children who are either on a path towards success or a path towards risk.

The reality here in Columbus is that we have made significant progress in reducing crime overall.

In fact, as she had previously mentioned, serious categories of crime decreased by about 14% in 2025, and homicides are at some of the lowest levels that they have been in years, thanks to mothers of murder at Columbus Children, as well as the division of police, as well as many partners that we have, elected officials, city, council members, and all of those working together.

But I also want to remind everybody that beneath that progress is a concerning trend that we just simply cannot ignore.

The number of individuals, 21 and under of suspected felonious assault, that increased by about 33%.

As First Assistant Chief Potts had mentioned, most of that is driven by gun violence.

When we think about homicides, a significant portion of our homicide suspects are under the age of 21.

And in some of the years, teenagers have been charged multiple times in homicide cases.

And this highlights the severity of the youth that we have involved in violence.

And at the same time, we know that our kids are not just offenders, they are also victims.

Across Ohio, one in five victims of violent crime, they are under the age of 18.

And many of those incidents, they occur in their homes or they occur in their neighborhoods.

And here in Franklin County, 25% of children live in poverty, and that is a known risk for both victimization as well as system involvement.

When we think about all these issues, they are not isolated issues, these are systemic risk factors that we have.

So the question before us is not whether we respond.

The question is do we respond early or do we respond after the harm has already occurred?

Because when we have kids out late at night for every student who stops showing up at school, every situation where accountability is unclear, that is an early warning sign.

And early warning signs, they demand early intervention.

So I want to talk a little bit about curfew.

We have a curfew ordinance in place, but a curfew, a strong, clearly defined curfew ordinance, that is not about punishment.

I want to be clear.

We need to reframe our thinking about strengthening our court our curfew ordinance to be about protection.

So when young people are unsupervised late at night, their risk of victimization, violence, as well as negative peer influences, all of those increases significantly.

We already know a large portion of youth-related incidents, they occur during the late night hours.

Specifically, they occur during that second, towards the end of second shift, the beginning of third shift for police officers.

And so if we could do something as simple as making adjusting adjustment to our existing curfew ordinance so that minors under 13 years old are not out in public spaces from one hour after sunset until 6 a.m.

in the morning.

Our current curfew ends at 4:30.

That little adjustment to just extend it to 6 a.m.

could make a huge difference.

When we think about minors who are ages 13 to 17, if we just change that curfew ordinance so that they're not in public spaces from 11 to 6 p.m., that would also make a significant adjustment as well, and decrease their likelihood of engagement in crime.

This adjustment in the curfew ordinance, it gives us the ability to intervene early.

It also allows us to redirect youth to safe environments as well as reconnect youth with their families or a support system that they may need.

Strengthening our curfew ordinance, it would it have what it would do is align with most major cities.

When when I looked at the research and did some research around this, most major cities, their curfew ordinance reflects those hours that I gave you to 6 a.m.

in the morning.

Columbus is one of the only cities that has a curfew that ends at 4:30.

We are not in alignment with most cities.

We are not in alignment with best practice, and that is an opportunity that city council could do so that we are just doing something better to protect our kids.

So when we also think about curfews, they are most effective, not in isolation, but they are most effective when they are in coordination with a comprehensive prevention strategy.

That strategy also needs to include youth programming, family engagement, school-based interventions, and community partnerships.

Again, I'm going to reiterate I said when we started this, this is about prevention, protection, and partnerships.

And so this is not about criminalizing youth, it's about protecting them before they become victims and or offenders.

So that's my spiel about curfew laws.

I want to talk a little bit about truancy as well since we discussed that.

So truancy is not just about attendance.

As Chief Potts mentioned mentioned, truancy is one of the strongest predictors of future system involvement.

Most studies that you would see and read and the research consistently reflects that fact.

When a young person is not in school, the research consistently shows they are more likely to be unsupervised, they are more likely to be exposed to risk, they are more likely to disengage from opportunity.

And we must be clear, a student who is not in school during the day is more likely to be in an unsafe environment later that night.

And so we address truancy.

I'm talking about early identification of at-risk youth, a stronger collaboration between schools, family, community organizations, and law enforcement.

And then pairing that with accountability and support.

Because when we think about school, it's not just about education.

School also provides structure, it provides stability, and for many kids, it provides safety.

We just did uh I gave a survey to some of our kids in the TAPS program at uh Hiltonia Middle School yesterday, as a matter of fact.

And one of the questions was do you feel safe at school?

Many of the kids said, I feel most safe at school.

And then I asked them, I said, Well, do you feel safe during the TAP session?

Most of them say, Yes, I feel safe, very safe during the TAP session.

I then asked them another question.

I said, How do you feel?

Do you feel safe when you are coming to school and when you are going back home?

Many of them said, I don't feel as safe as when I'm at school.

And that lets us know that school is a place of safety for many of our kids.

So that therefore they need to be uh in school.

So this is not to just blame response blame anybody, but it is more about shared responsibility.

And when we think about parents and guardians, they are oftentimes the first line of defense and keeping kids safe.

But we also recognize, as we have been discussing here, that many families in Columbus, they really do face real life challenges, economic pressures, time constraints, limited resources.

They're dealing with a myriad of things on their own.

And this is what's going to take me into parental responsibility laws.

This is why it's important that we have them.

But if we do implement a parental responsibility law, it needs to be paired with support services, education, as well as community resources.

Similar to the curfew law, we should not be doing anything around parental responsibility in isolation.

And so I want to be clear though, accountability, it does matter when expectations are clear, when supervision is consistent and when engagement is strong, our youth outcomes improve, juveniles are safer, and when juveniles are safer, our community, the Columbus community is much safer.

This is a smarter approach to public safety.

It's not about choosing between enforcement and prevention.

We don't have to have one or the other, but what we can do is align them so that they work together.

And the data tells us something important.

Youth crimes trends, youth crime trends, um, they tend to rise when risk factors go unaddressed.

And they decline when communities invest in early intervention and connection.

We always say we can't arrest our way out of this problem.

We can't rely on the Columbus Division of Police to arrest their way out of this problem.

But what we can do, what we all can do is we can prevent our way out of it.

And so this matters because the stakes are way too high.

And every statistic Chief Potts showed, every statistic that I mentioned, that represents a life.

A young person who could be saved through early intervention, it represents a family that could be supported before a crisis even occurs, and it represents a community that could be safer through prevention.

We simply can't afford to be reactive and wait until another young person becomes a suspect in a crime or they fall victim to a serious act of crime.

We must learn how to reframe how we address this, and we must act when kids are not in school or when they're out late at night or when they're disconnected from support.

So if I were to close, I would say Columbus has already shown what is possible through collaboration and innovation.

The division of police through all of their programs, city council through funding several youth programs, a lot of the community organizations and the work that they're doing, a lot of the collaborations, it's all great.

But what we have to do now is we need to take the next step.

The next step is strengthening that curfew ordinance that I mentioned, improving how we approach truancy and reinforcing parental responsibility.

We don't want to just pass policies, but what we do want to do is we want to create structure, we want to reinforce accountability, and we want to show that we are truly, truly investing in the future of our youth.

It's not about prevention, it's not about it is about prevention, it is about protection, and most importantly, it's about partnership.

I want us to be more proactive rather than reactive.

I want us to intervene early rather than too late, so that we can ensure that every young person in Columbus that they have the support, that they have the structure that they have the safety that they deserve.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dr.

Jones.

Are there models from other cities?

You mentioned that we do have some work to do on this curfew, but are there models from other cities that that we should be emulating out there, you know, that you look at most closely, like what's working and what's not.

Yeah, so most of your major cities, uh when again, I I kid you not.

We are Columbus is a unique kind of unicorn here when it comes to curfew laws.

We are the only one that has a curfew law or time that ends at 4 30 in the morning.

Most of your major cities that have lower crime rates, well, some of them have lower crime rates, um, their curfews end at six o'clock in the morning.

And so I think there is an opportunity for us to better align ourselves with some of these other cities are doing.

And so, you know, if you want to meet a throughout some cities, your Chicago's your Nashville, Chattanooga, um, I think Detroit might be up there, uh, Houston, most of your major cities.

But beyond curfew, like when we're talking about the holistic approach.

Who are some of those cities that you know that that are doing it right?

Yeah.

So there are several cities that are doing it right.

We actually have researched several cities over the last two and a half years.

Um, Chattanooga stood out as one of the most comprehensive cities that is actually doing it right, that has a model that we can adopt.

Um, however, they still had some gaps, and so there's still some opportunities.

And one of those we had been talking about was better coordination between law enforcement and the schools and all the systems, better data sharing, which is something that we have been consistently working on.

Um, along those lines, and I kind of asked this before, and I think you were about to answer, and then we change course.

But when you look at those models, I think one of the I agree about um the responsibility of parents and the the thing I worry about is how do we help that single parent, right?

Who might have multiple children who was working a second job, you know.

I mean, we've seen this before with some of the kids that we work with, where you know, you might have a parent who's working a second shift or a third shift, and so the old the older um kids in the house are helping the younger kids or taking them to school or taking on some of those parental responsibilities.

And so I I clearly see the the like how do we have those support services for those parents so that it's not punitive but helping them, but I'm wondering in those models that you saw.

Yes, is that part of it?

And yes, and is there anything that you can kind of point to for us to look at?

Absolutely.

So for Tennessee, they have a parental responsibility law, and this is a statewide law.

But one of the things that they do is they account for that very situation.

We know that there are some parents that are struggling that are single parents that are raising multiple kids, working multiple jobs.

However, they're not able to supervise their children the way that they should be supervised.

And so, what a lot of other states have done in their statewide legislation, they have allowed room for the judge to have some discretion rather than just throwing the book at a person, slapping them with a fine, or locking that parent up.

They're able to look at the entire situation, the context, what's going on in their environment, and not and then align them with some supportive services.

Those interventionists that we mentioned, they're not just interventions for the kids.

Those interventionists are also serving that family so that they can take a holistic approach and understand the family dynamic, do some case management and some case planning, help them to connect them to the resources that they need, um, and then work that plan.

And if there are any issues, they can then step in and make adjustments along the way.

So, yeah, I completely agree with you that just implementing parental responsibility laws as a punitive measure is not effective.

It will not be effective, it would absolutely do more harm than it does good.

But if you craft a parental responsibility approach that allows for that support, those connections to the resources, those are most effective.

No, and I appreciate that because I think in hearing, you know, we we work a lot with organizations like Motherful and other organizations that there are parents who are like, I need help.

I'm identifying that this is a problem.

And I'm uh I am lost at what to do.

And so how are we also reaching, which is why I asked a holistic question about how do we also help families?

Because I think to your point, um, you know, people don't make enough money, right?

You have to find a way to do it.

We have a legislature that's not letting us raise the like minimum wage, right?

There's so much that is happening, child care is incredibly expensive.

So a lot of people aren't sending their kids to they they can't send them to child care, right?

And so, or they don't have a vehicle, even if you find free child care.

So as we work through all of these problems, I also want to make sure that we are, you know, and and I knew I know I hear you saying this, but just pointing to those good um examples that we can look at of how we adopt that and making that commitment of doing both.

Absolutely.

Which you know was the earlier point that I was making because I feel like um we are in such a time where I do think that there are people who want to who desperately need that, they can see themselves losing their children and want to support them.

I mean, even working with mothers of uh murdered Columbus children, you've hear heard moms who have said that who who wanted to do more.

And so if we can if we approach it with that holistic approach of how are we ensuring that that's both and not just relying on a system like okay, we did our job, we hope y'all do yours, right?

Um, is not gonna work either.

Right.

And that's not a promise that that I think the community is going to believe either.

Like we have to build that trust that you're going to have it holistically.

Absolutely.

I have two questions for you, Dr.

Jones.

Thank you for providing that information.

One, parental responsibility.

You mentioned that this you've looked at states.

You've also looked, um, have you are these laws laws that a city could implement in the event that the state was unwilling um to partner?

As you know, we oftentimes have a little tension between state house and and and municipalities here in Ohio.

So I want to make sure this is feasible for us as a city.

Yes.

Okay.

So when you think about parental responsibility, um, you could do it on a statewide level, but you can also do it on a citywide level in in terms of implementing city ordinance or just whatever.

Um it would the I guess the approach would be slightly different, but it is very well, it is very much doable.

Absolutely.

Excellent.

And then in these states or cities that are doing a good job with this.

I'm always um, I'm always careful to uh really ensure that the service providers that we are partnering with are meeting the metrics in which we intend.

Yeah, and are safe spaces for our young people and are actually effective.

Are there um implementations, programmatic implementations regarding compliance, regarding data about whether or not these organizations that are partnering with these laws are actually doing well by our children?

Yeah, so what I would recommend is that anything that we do that council or council uh uses a third-party entity or something to establish some metrics for any of these organizations, especially if funding is going to be tied to it, so that way there are true metrics as well as um outcomes, and those could be measured, and then council can actually get a report on whether or not that program is effective based off of the metrics that have been established.

We are resource rich here in the city of Columbus.

What we are not is good at is obtaining the data to actually see what is the return on our investment.

Right.

We give out a lot of funding to a lot of organizations, but perhaps what if we were more strategic about that?

What if we found organizations that specifically provide services to parents?

And then we say, hey, as a city of Columbus, we want to make sure that you are not only supporting parents, but you are linking them up with job resources, that you are connecting them with child care, that you are uh we are understanding what their needs are, and we are meeting those needs, and then we track and measure that, and then we are able to demonstrate, yes, we invested in ex-organization.

This are this is their outcomes, so that way we know that this is a good organization.

When you come across that kid or you uh pick them up at night, I don't know, at two in the morning.

Um, when you return them home or wherever they go, you also stop by their parents' house, drop off this card, and this card has this resource that they can call, and we're gonna follow up.

That's some of the models that other cities are doing that we are not doing here in the city of Columbus.

And I think there's an opportunity that we can be more strategic and better at linking people with resources that work, resources that work.

Yes, that work.

Yes, resources that work.

Thank you, Dr.

Jones.

I appreciate that.

And those metrics are those metrics that we can pull and look at and almost mirror absolutely and tweak as it makes sense for our city.

Perfect.

Thank you so much.

Yes, House President.

Thank you.

Uh Dr.

Jones, when we think about curfew, some someone actually from the media asked me earlier.

Well, if if a young person is not listening to their mom or to and it's just out there, why do we think a curfew law works?

How can you tell me kind of what is the philosophy around curfew, uh just in general and how and how we use it?

Yeah, so the philosophy is if you establish a curfew, that gives some structure around what time a child should be out versus which time a child should be in the house.

When children are in their house or a safe environment, just not out on the street, they are less likely to engage in crime and they are less likely to be victims of crime.

When we have lax curfew laws, that allows more leeway for that child to be out unsupervised, and it allows the opportunity for them to engage in behaviors or more violent crimes that they perhaps should not be doing.

This also gives a mechanism for officers to go and enforce and do their jobs.

We don't want to rely on enforcement, but we do want to make sure that our children are protected and not just out running the streets late at night.

And so that is the philosophy.

But again, I want to reiterate, I can't reiterate this enough.

It's not enough to just strengthen a curfew ordinance.

It has to be strategically paired with services and resources.

So maybe there is an after-hour center that city council could fund so that way it provides some structure.

So maybe that kid can't go home, but there's an after-hours facility that they can go to where they are going to get some structure, where they are going to get some food, and then there's going to be some case planning done after that to make sure that child's needs are met.

That's why we have curfew, but that's also why many cities have stronger curfews than what we do.

I would I would just offer to say it's not necessarily about the not having the law or having the law on the books, but having the appropriate enforcement coupled with the law.

Correct.

Otherwise, the law means nothing.

And I think that over the course of the last few years in our community, we have not had appropriate enforcement and programmatic efforts to partner and pair with that enforcement.

That's actually going to work.

And so I think there, I think it is not a maybe.

I think it is a must.

If we are going to change the law, we also must have appropriate enforcement and appropriate programming paired with.

Absolutely.

That's good.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

Thank you, Dr.

Jones.

We appreciate the presentation and of course the work that you're doing within the community.

It's been uh very enlightening and helpful.

So move on to Columbus, our Columbus City Schools partners.

Um today we have Monique Jacquette, uh, the chief of whole child services, and Lauren Lopez, the director of attendance, climate, and culture.

Mr.

Jackette, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon, and thank you for the invitation to um be in conversation with you all today.

Um, joining me, as you said, is Ms.

Lauren Lopez, our director of attendance climate and culture.

And so it's a perfect segue from our conversation about truancy because we would love to share with you all um some of the great strides that we are making in CCS um in this space and other.

Monique, I hate to interrupt you.

Can you move a little bit closer to the microphone?

Okay, sure.

Better just on pro tip for everyone if you talk too loud as a Talo talker, it'll make that noise, but a little bit louder for the more vintage ears.

Okay, thank you.

Uh again, um, thank you for the invitation to be um in conversation with you all this afternoon.

Um I have with me Miss Lauren Lopez, as you introduced her earlier, and she is our director of attendance climate and culture in Columbus City Schools.

Um, we're very excited to share the strides that we are making in the space of truancy.

So I do feel this is a great placement and segue in the conversation.

Um, and with that, I will turn it over to Miss Lopez.

Thank you.

Hello, good afternoon, everybody.

I think we have some slides.

Um, and then uh was there a little clicker up there that I can thank you.

All right.

So I'm just gonna start with a couple definitions.

Um, one, a lot of my work uh stems around chronic absenteeism, and the difference between chronic absenteeism and truancy is important.

So chronic absenteeism tracks both excused and unexcused absences with the hope of putting a number to how much instructional time students are missing, whether excused or unexcused, out of the classroom.

Truancy, however, focuses on unexcused absences, and those laws are specific to the state.

So 30 or more consecutive hours, which is about five school days in a row, 42 or more hours per month, which is about seven school days per month, and 72 or more hours per year, which is approximately 12 school days per year.

So I'm gonna jump right into our data at CCS.

So right here we have numbers tracking our chronic absenteeism starting post pandemic.

Um, as you can see, many schools had high rates of chronic absenteeism coming off the pandemic in 2020-2021 school year.

We were sitting at 74.6% of our students, so three quarters of our students were chronically absent.

So again, that's missing more than 10% of the school year, so about 18 days.

Over the course of the last five to six years, we have dropped about 25 points.

So that is drastic change, and it is something that we are very excited to continue making strides towards.

Um, that 49.6 is where we are sitting right now as of the end of March.

So that is the up-to-date data as of two days ago.

Uh, again, we're really excited about this number.

Um, and we'll head into the truancy filings.

So, two years ago we were sitting at 375 truancy filings for CCS.

Uh, last year we were at 316 filings.

That is a 15.7% decrease in truancy filings.

Quickly, I'm just gonna overview some information, and I have I took a lot of notes as you guys were talking.

So, some responses to what was said.

Um currently, we are sitting at 194 truancy cases that have been filed as of uh the end of March.

Um, and last year at this time, we had filed 215.

So, again, we're down almost 10% year over year as of April 1st.

Something that's really important to point out um, I have a lot of information about our attendance practices and why that's important.

So the state just shifted the attendance law.

And what's really key about the shift in the attendance law is that it is allowing a bit more discretion to schools and to districts to decide when truancy cases are filed.

So essentially, it is on the onus of the district to provide early prevention and intervention services to students who have by been identified as at risk of being chronically absent or truant, and by providing those interventions, we can then make a case.

If parents and families are responsive to those interventions, we can hold off on filing truancy if they are working with us in partnership with us, um, even if they hit the threshold of that truancy number.

So if we head into our attendance practices, um we're focused on tiered support, so I organized some of the things that we're doing in our practices based on that.

So our universal supports are tier one supports, and those are opportunities that are provided to every student and every school across the district.

So we have monthly attendance campaigns.

Um, so that is like attendance challenges where we're tracking um prior uh average daily attendance to the average daily attendance that they receive for that challenge time, and we're recognizing schools and students who have improved their attendance over the course of that time.

We are offering comprehensive professional development and training to teachers, um, support staff, school leaders, and central office staff around both the new attendance law clarity and implementation practices as well as just standard best practices for attendance tracking and monitoring.

We are also then providing consultation and support to schools with embedded attendance interventions within those tiered support protocols.

And then we look at our targeted supports at priority schools.

So, one, we recognize that our secondary schools are where we see the highest rates of chronic absenteeism.

So we're talking grades six to twelve.

We have identified priority schools across the district that receive targeted support from an attendance program specialist.

So those that attendance team is responsible for an entire caseload of students that have been identified, and those students received small group interventions from that team member.

Those interventions are tracked, monitored in our system, and then they're reviewed every six to eight weeks to determine does the student need additional supports, another round of tier two interventions.

Do we need to move them to a tier three intervention, which is more intensive and more one-on-one, or are they ready to be removed from that process and head back into the universal supports?

We also host report car conferencing at those priority schools.

So that is an opportunity for every student in those priority schools to meet quarterly with trusted adults in the community where they talk about their behavior attendance and grades.

So we're reviewing with them what are the potential barriers that are keeping them from succeeding on in their grades, their behavior, and their attendance.

And then what our teams are also to do supporting our tier two teams.

So that is like your multi-tiered support teams, your PBIS teams, matriculation teams at the high school level.

So our attendance team members are sitting on those teams and helping those team members ensure that if it is an attendance intervention that needs to be provided, that they are the ones pulling those students off of the caseloads of other people to ensure that we're doing a proper root cause analysis to make sure that students are getting the right supports that they need in order to show up to school on time and every day.

And then we continue to support the truancy process alongside our school social workers, which also sits in our office of whole child supports.

So we work in collaboration with our court liaison, who's a social worker, to make sure that she has everything she needs from our team if we get to a point where families are not being responsive and we do need to file truancy with any of those students.

What I also wanted to emphasize, which are not in the notes, but from the responses that I wanted to make sure I addressed, um, we talked a little bit, or you all talked a little bit about climate and culture, right?

So we've been taking an annual survey around climate and culture for many years, and especially the last three years, we've noticed significant um increases in our students' sense of belonging.

And this year, we just wrapped up our spring survey, and we had the highest secondary, sixth to 12th grade sense of belonging score ever since we started tracking that score.

So we do know and we believe in our district that everything starts with positive relationships.

So if our students do not feel connected and engaged, they're not going to come.

And that is part of the root cause analysis.

So there are many barriers, transportation, home life, lots of things.

Academics, so feeling like there's no point to go because I'm already so far behind.

But at the root, if students are not engaged and connected to adults in the building, they don't want to be there.

So this is something that we track to ensure that we're monitoring it closely.

What I also wanted to emphasize is I heard something mentioned about mental health supports.

So we have more than doubled our mental health supports in our school-based sites.

At the tier two level, we have gone from 11 sites to 82 sites just in a year.

So we've had some strategic focus on expanding our mental health supports and mental health school-based sites.

And then at the tier three clinical care, we've gone from 54 school-based sites to 103 school-based sites for mental health supports.

So we're just really excited about what we're doing and how we're being more strategic about the work that we're implementing and the ways that we're hoping to impact our students at the district, and we are really open to working alongside everybody in this room to continue to see those improvements grow.

Thank you so much for your presentation today.

What are some of the barriers that keep some of the students from getting connected to the right resources early on?

And what can we do as council to help facilitate for Columbus City schools?

Thank you for your question.

I think the first step is awareness.

Every minute counts, and it starts at the pre-K level, if I'm being honest.

Our chronic absenteeism at the pre-K level to kindergarten level, these transition points.

So pre-K to kindergarten, uh fifth grade to sixth grade, eighth grade to ninth grade.

Um, it's very important that we are building awareness around with our families and in the community about how important it is to come to school.

As little as two days a month can immediately make you chronically absent.

So you're losing out on important instructional time and learning for the students.

So one thing is just awareness.

So helping us spread the message.

We're posting a lot about our attendance campaigns on our social media sites.

So that would be really helpful.

I think the other piece that we've noticed, and I'm sure you have all seen uh with the district is transportation.

So really figuring out a way that we can navigate our transportation struggles.

Um big issue.

Um and then I go back to student engagement, right?

So that is something that we're doing on our end to train and develop our our teachers and our school-based staff to make sure that they have all the skills and the resources necessary to really be able to understand our students, understand their backgrounds, and to be able to engage with them and make their classroom and their schools a place that students and families want to be what um partnerships have you seen either with the city or community-based organizations that have been successful but need to be strengthened and in you know more support given.

Can you think of any at this time?

Okay, sorry.

Um I'm not sure about necessarily strengthening.

We've had an amazing partnership with the Columbus crew and stay in the game, which has been a game changer for a lot of our students.

They are really enjoying.

We just had a stay in the game attendance activation today at Champion Middle School.

Um, so being able to see students excited about the opportunities to be recognized, um, that has been one of the the best partnerships that we've had.

Um and I also're working closely with United Way, their success by third grade program, focusing on that um elementary level work.

Chair, I have a quick question.

Um, and also I want to, for the record, Lauren is a American.

She was in Teach for America.

I was just claiming her for our organization.

She was a part of AI, though, so see.

Um can we go back when you talk about transportation, right?

Um so just a level set for everyone.

Um also, you know, CCS is a choice district, so transportation is a big deal because you might not be going to a school that is within walking distance or um a school that uh that is easy for you to get to, right?

When you start seeing transportation problems, is there a particular middle school, high school, um, elementary where we're seeing the biggest impact of transportation?

If there's one that you can name, I'm not sure if you have that data or not, but just thinking about as we are in the in the conversation now of what transportation could look like for CCS in the future.

I'm just thinking for for our own edification for us to know where is the biggest impact.

Yeah, I don't have that information right now, but um, if you give us time, we can get it for you.

Yeah, that would be great because I think um, you know, where we're especially as we again think about the future of transportation for our students.

Um, if that is an impact now, then what does that look like in the future?

And I know, you know, again, from working with some of our students, if they're relying on parents again, if parents aren't available, parents can't take them, parents don't have reliable trans transportation, that's affecting their ability to go to school, even things like not having a winter coat when we have bad weather and not wanting to stand outside to wait for our bus.

Um, so I think those again, I think it just goes back to the ability of families to also be able to transport students.

And so I think as me and my our colleagues continue to have conversations about how we support our families, this will only continue to be a growing issue.

I would say, you know, in our experience, we certainly see it, especially with older kids because you tend to um, you know, I think all of us as parents, you you're you're there and present.

You know that a kindergartner can't get to school on their own, right?

So you figure it out.

But as they get older, you start to put maybe some of that responsibility on them, or it it starts to, you know, have competing challenges for families.

And so I would just at some point if we could see that, I think I'd be interested to see where that impact is.

I have a question about, and we talked in council member um Laura's uh had some really good comments about the importance of resources coming into the school um to bolster that connectedness and that impact and provide resources where there aren't family resources or even school resources to support.

Can you um tell us a little bit about who chooses what resources are coming into a building?

How does that is there a standard by which um service providers is there a standard that service providers have to meet in order to come into the building?

Who gets to choose that, and then how are their success metrics measured?

I know I asked a bunch of questions, and I can repeat them as you need it.

So one, who gets to choose what resources come into a building?

Yeah, no, you're fine.

Um, as a former high school principal, uh, I can I can help you with that.

Awesome.

Um, so in terms of resources, um, in Columbus, we are fortunate to be very resource rich and um we have several community partners who want to be boots on the ground supporting um in all those meaningful ways.

Um and so from my lens as a former principal, um, I had a lot of autonomy in choosing a partnerships, um, and those were decisions that were made with our school community.

Um, so you know, there was a time when we had um site-based decision making.

I'm not sure how many people were here in the city when we were really focused on that as a system.

Um, but there is quite a bit of autonomy, and a lot of times those partnerships have to do with uh where we're situated geographically uh with our uh faith uh-based um organizations and things like that, um, as well as our social organizations that we have around the city.

So there is quite a bit of autonomy, and a lot of it sometimes is based on relationships that organizations have with the person who is the leader of that school community.

Are there any is there any sort of standard standardization across regions or areas that that principals can use as a guiding point to to know kind of what I I think that there is importance in relationships and importance and understanding and connectivity and proximity to the community that I think your principal principals have, but I also think that there is importance around a level of standardization so that we know you know that the organizations that our principals are partnering with are good organizations and not just based on relationship but are actually kind of meeting our metrics.

And so I didn't know if the district provided any guidelines or or things like that that the principal can at least refer back to to understand which organizations are good partners or considered good partners by the district.

Okay, thank you.

And so from my current lens, it's been a while since I've been in that seat.

It's been it's been about 10 years since I've been in the principal seat.

Um, and so I can't speak to what our chief of transformation and leadership, who is our chief of schools, Dr.

Grubbs.

Um, I can't speak to what's going on in that space currently, um, but I know that from my personal lens um as a principal, I did have a process by which I uh measured our um return on investment, and it started out with being very clear about what our needs were and hearing from the partners what they can guarantee in terms of support, and then that was measured, you know, at the end of that engagement because every year you have an opportunity to re-engage with partners or you know, maybe take a look in a different direction if um if it turns out that that resource is not really meeting the needs uh that you're hearing from your parents and your students and your um school community.

Sure.

Thank you so much.

I asked that question just for like the community who is here just because we had a lot of young people say, you know, that they're they would oftentimes see programs come into schools where they felt like they were just in the school in order to raise their programs platform versus to actually um build true connection with the young people, and so it caused me to think about you know what what are we doing to ensure that the appropriate vendors and the appropriate partners are coming into our buildings and actually um getting the results that we want to see with our young people?

So I appreciate that information.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Council President.

And I'm only gonna ask one question because I we do want to get to the community.

Um it's funny, though those young kids this week, they really opened up and and they were very um, as young people are when you ask them, they do tell you.

Um so they were very frank and it was a very um enlightening conversation.

But um Lauren or Doc, you you listed 10 or 12 intervision interventions that are happening within the schools around truancy uh and absenteeism.

What are can you talk about any partnerships that are external to the schools to keep kids in school or get them to somewhere?

Do we have?

I mean, I I I talked about pre-2018 where the YMCA and the division was engaged in that work.

Is it who is doing external work once our kid is just not there?

Who who is doing is that happening right now?

Um I'm not sure what happens once students leave buildings, so I will I will say that.

Um I I name some of the partners that we're working with.

Um, a lot of the partnerships that we have, the way we're strategically working with them is to focus on how can they help incentivize a lot of the campaigns and the work that we're doing?

So Ohio State has been a partner, um, nationwide children's uh children's hospital, butterfly guild has been a partner.

So working with a lot of partners to help incentivize the growth, the improvement, and the steady uh positive attendance rate that students have had.

Um, and then to Monique's point, any school-based partnerships is up to the discretion right of that school leader.

So they may have additional programming that they're offering through their PBIS team.

But do we think that there is a pro so if if there's a 10th grader that we see at um 11 a.m.

Um at Easton?

Yeah.

What what organization is tasked with caring that that child is not inside of a school building?

Something I forgot to mention was the notifications.

So that was also talked about, and I wrote it somewhere in the notes.

Um, so parents do receive a notification every time a student is marked absent or tardy on the parent portal.

So that can be by period attendance for secondary students, so they might get a notification if a student is not in school all day, they might get up to eight notifications that day for every time that student is absent, and for elementary that one time in the morning.

Um so that's one thing that we're doing in terms of notification, and with the new attendance law, we are working on a comprehensive solution to also provide um automated letters that will be pushed out through the parent portal that will then require a parent signature to have acknowledged that that notification was sent, and that notification is an early notification at the 4.9% mark prior to the 5% early, early notification for at risk of chronic absenteeism.

So that is something we're doing on our end.

I can't speak to what uh organizations might exist.

Yeah.

Because I think for us to really be comprehensive in this conversation, it's not about uh thinking that this is just on the schools.

Absolutely.

I'm asking this question because I think it highlights a gap an opportunity for the community to be actually supportive here.

So I it was it's not a gotcha.

Uh, because the answer I think that we are hearing, and I don't want to be um flippant about it, is we don't right that's anybody that is working throughout the day uh to make to identify a child and get them back to a safe space.

And is that understood by everybody here?

That's correct.

I think I think the answer is they go a hundred different places, right?

Depending upon the building.

I mean, if you're playing sports, if you are you know involved in an after school activity, then we know.

But if we if you're not, unless you're involved in, you know, you're going to the boys and girls club, you have a job, you have someplace else you're going, you're going wherever you're going.

So I wonder if as we get to the community uh uh groups if if they are seeing this work being done in different ways.

And I I would just I know everybody has pre um pre um uh written remarks, but it's just something that I want us to think about as a community as we try to identify this this gap is do we see this as an issue and how do we collectively work to fill that gap?

So thank you.

Oh, do you all and this is a question I'm asking of the city as well.

Do you all does your technology um is it synced with WhatsApp?

You got it.

Or is it compatible with WhatsApp?

I'm asking that because there are a myriad of immigrant families that use WhatsApp as their primary form of communication.

And I know that we are Evergreen when we send out text messages, I I know for a fact it is not compatible.

So I'm offering that as just an opportunity because that is a huge way that some of our immigrant families communicate with one another.

And I know when I was doing work with the city attorney's office at Wedgewood, um Wedgewood Middle School, that was literally the way that they were able to communicate with families, and if they weren't communicating in WhatsApp, those parents were not getting notifications, period.

They had no idea what was going on.

So I will just offer that um as an opportunity, and I know that it is it is a global uh method of communication, you know, American global sometimes.

We just like to be unique.

Unique unicorns, that's what Dr.

Jones said.

Um, on that point, is the parent portal in different languages?

It can be translated.

Yes, so parents can change the language as well as the climate survey can be done in their language, and our district uses talking points, which is an app similar to WhatsApp that can be it automatically translates to the language of choice.

Cool.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Sarge.

Absolutely.

Yeah, no problem.

That was it for me.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate the testimony today and certainly the conversation.

Um I think right now we're gonna move into public testimony.

We've got uh a group of speakers here today, and so we'll start with uh my good friend uh Melissa St.

Clair, um's of murdered Columbus children.

Welcome back to council.

Um looking forward to your remarks.

Good afternoon, Council President Hardin, Chair Remy, Chair Ross, Councilmember Barosa de Padilla, and Councilmember Dan.

I am Melissa Thomas and Claire.

Here with me is also Audrea Hickman, and the founder and CEO of Mothers of Murder Columbus Children, and thank you for allowing us to speak today on juvenile safety, because for us, this is not just work, as you all know, it's personal.

I do want to, before I get into my written remarks, because Chuan C was right on the top front.

I am Oz you know, a 28 veteran educator with Columbus City Schools.

Shout out to the program at Champion Middle School today.

It was very exciting with the crew.

And I did have in my notes as well.

There is a notification to parents in our student information system, but I think the gap there is the parents having the education on how to use the portal.

Every year we start our year off with parent meetings, and I asked the question how many of you are in the parent portal?

And many times, it's larger than 50% of our parents that aren't even in.

I myself asked my goddaughter, who I have, three grandchildren at Duxbury.

Did you check your parent portal?

Because the information is there, and it's vast information.

You even can get, correct me if I'm wrong, a text message when we put grades in in real time.

So the information is being funneled to our parents.

We now, I think should even dare I say, be mandated as educators to host parent opportunities to give them the education and awareness that this is existing, and it's very important that you use it appropriately, even if you're in, let's also check it.

Um, so I find that to be one of the gaps, but also one of the gaps that I'm seeing as an actual educator in seventh grade is our year, is that post-COVID, you now have these opportunities for homeschooling and still online schooling.

So when you have our students who are truant and our students and going to the library, I've spoken to library um spokespostons, and they say it's really difficult for them to now say to a child, hey, are you supposed to be here because of some of the online opportunities, not just with Columbus City schools, but outside, you know, state opportunities.

So there's that there's that gap there that we need to figure out how can we differentiate from the students that are supposed to be butts in seats, and then outside students.

So thank you for allowing me to have that gap in my in my conversation.

Mothers of Murder Columbus Children was born on August 20th, 2020, but the true catalyst came on August 12, 2020, when my co-founder Carla Harris and I both had simultaneously moments when we had our enough in enough was enough moment.

Just days before, one of my former students, he was then 14, now would be 20, was involved in a devastating tragedy.

My time's up already.

Oh, okay.

Was involved in a devastating tragedy while babysitting, he handled a firearm, he believed was unloaded and shot and killed his two-year-old nephew.

That moment made it clear our children are being exposed to adult level consequences without child level protection, guidance or accountability.

And then what do we think about that 14-year-old who's now 20?

Did he get the wraparound services upon release of knowing that he took his two-year-old nephew on accident?

But what does that do to his mental health?

And will he re-offend because of it?

Yes, this work is in the legacy of my son Anthony St.

Clair, murdered on April 29th, 2013.

His story has been told to hundreds of youth across this country, along with all of our mothers of part of this organization, and they continue to save lives today.

But M O M C C exists because we saw a gap, and we stepped in to fill it.

Since our inception, our work has been rooted in prevention, intervention, and engagement.

We have built strong boots on the ground relationships, including deep and consistent partnerships with the Columbus Division of Police, including Chief Elaine Bryant, first assistant chief Lashawna Potts, Assistant Chief Bacher and the Major Crimes Bureau.

We work closely with Franklin County prosecutor Sheila Favor, alighting our efforts to not only respond to violence, but to prevent it before it happens.

We are not separate from the system.

We are working with the system to reach the community.

We want to be reflective on those in power to use their work effectively, because when their power hinders movement, that's when we need to step in to reflect on how we cooperate with each other.

Our impact includes programs like Seymour Want More, Youth Initiative providing free structured programming, trendy trades exposing youth to hands-on career pathways, tales of two cities, helping youth understand different environments and choices, teen table talk, family firearm safety courses, fishing not fighting, community conversations and silence of violence walks, after school tutoring and academic support, digital distress and social media awareness, and I think probably most important is my daily impact in the classroom, where I build long-lasting relationships with our city's youth.

As a 28-year veteran educator, my God-given calling has built a rare lifestyle to hear and intervene in real time.

Because what was said here, I think said if you talk to him, they're gonna talk back.

Baby, I know the business, and they will tell it.

And I appreciate it because we can intervene, and if you have the relationship, you can intervene in a way if they do have a consequence, they still will respect you and love you.

Today I want to bring urgency to growing issues.

Teen takeovers.

This is not a future problem.

This is a current trend.

Our youth are organizing large gatherings through TikTok and Instagram and throughout the school day.

And I can tell you directly, my students see these invites daily.

While some attempts here have not fully escalated, we cannot ignore the warning signs.

Because we've already seen what happens when things go wrong.

Please remember on July 4th of 2025, a 17-year-old was killed and five others were injured during a mass shooting at an unauthorized Airbnb party on Wilson Avenue with over 100 youth present.

When you are a neighbor and you have a hundred youth next door to you, kicking it with guns, how did that not prevent a 17-year-old from being murdered?

This was not just a party, this was a failure in prevention.

Oftentimes, first assistant chief Lashauna Potts can attest to this.

I will text her at any given time of the day with a flyer.

And I will say, have you seen this flyer?

And she will say, Yes, and they've been on it.

I give much credit to the Columbus Division of Police and their social media team for being very proactive.

Whether it is something that the kids called trolling or not, they take it very seriously.

Mothers of Murder Columbus Children is actively responding.

We walked and engaged youth during Red White and Boom last year, promoting positive behavior.

We conducted short North safety walks during peak hours.

We now have going to deepen that relationship with Betsy Pandora and the Short North Alliance, making that an official partnership.

Partnering with Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction and Department of Youth Services.

Expanding our summer 2026 programming, including workforce training, mentorship, firearm safety, and community engagement.

We're going to be increasing our presence in the street.

That's why you see our different uniform.

We are going to be seeing, noticed, but more so for the positive engagement, using our stories to save lives.

In May 2021, after another tragic teen shooting, mothers of murder Columbus children called for strict enforcement of Columbus existing curfew laws.

We called this campaign curfews save lives.

Building relationships with our at-risk students takes the right people.

It takes the right people at the right time, doing the unique actions that individuals need, engaging those perpetrating is key.

We oftentimes see panels where students who are 4.0 students are on the panel.

We need the people with the guns on the panel.

So in closing, we are not here just to speak on problems.

We are here to with solutions, partnerships, and proven work.

We are here because we believe every child deserves a chance to grow up.

So as we approach spring break today for me and summer 2026, I urge this council, let's not wait for the next tragedy for the next mother to join this program.

Let's invest in prevent now.

We must stay out the mix and continue the fix.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate your testimony today and certainly all the work that you do in the community.

It's incredibly valuable, and thank you for turning your pain into passion and purpose.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Willa Jackson from No Pandemic Child Left Behind, Ms.

Jackson.

And then after that, we have Rhea Cunningham.

Thank you so much for the opportunity.

I appreciate it.

Good afternoon, Council members and distinguished guest.

My name is Miss Willa Jackson.

I'm a retired educator with 21 years teaching in Columbus City Schools.

And I've continued tutoring children since 2019 through my program, No Pandemic Child Left Behind.

In addition to my years in education, I'm a certified minority and women-owned business with the City of Columbus.

I have my sub license through 2029, and I am a graduate of the Accelerate Columbus Business Program through the Chamber of Commerce.

I'm here today because I do care deeply about what happens to our children, not just in school but in life.

We often ask how do we stop the violence?

And while there are many approaches, I stand before you with a simple proven truth.

The children can read.

When children can read with understanding, write with clarity and solve problems with confidence.

They begin to see a future for themselves.

And when children see a future, they make better choices.

I tutored a third grader for about a month, seeing him twice a week.

He was wiggly and it was a struggle at first, but he listened and did the work.

One day during instruction, he pushed his chair back from the Zoom session and ran around the living room yelling.

I can read, I can read.

Opening night.

The audience was filled with family and friends.

And then the spotlight shine onto center stage, dressed as an elder with the cane, walking slowly, all humped over.

The same little boy who could not read his name entered the light and spoke, saying, Oh, my hotep people.

As he stretched his hand out to include the entire audience.

He remembered his lines and was no longer afraid to shine, but chose to be the star of the show.

After hearing this, though, we have to ask ourselves how did these children even reach third grade?

Well, history has shown us the cost of gaps in education, but today we have the opportunity to do something different.

This summer I am launching an eight-week summer academic enrichment program for students in grades three through five.

I'm asking for funding to support 10 students, including materials and instruction, so that they can produce measurable academic growth and phonics-based reading, vocabulary development, writing, and foundational mathematics so students can build the confidence and skills they need to succeed in school and in life.

If we want safer neighborhoods tomorrow, we must invest in stronger education today.

Thank you for your time and your commitment to the children of our city.

We appreciate it.

Thank you so much, Ms.

Jackson.

We appreciate your testimony today.

Next, we have Rhea Cunningham, the CEO of the Boys and Girls Club, and Miss Emily joining us today.

Welcome back to council.

Good afternoon, uh council member Remy Ross, Council President Harden, Councilmember De Accor.

I'm Rhea Cunningham, Chief Executive Officer for the Boys and Girls Club of Central Ohio.

I've had the privilege and opportunity to speak to all of you about some of the work that we're doing.

I'm excited to be here today to share specifically around some of the challenges our young people are navigating as it relates to truancy and chronic absenteism.

Before I jump in, though, I actually would like to give Emily, really truly part of our community for today's conversation an opportunity to share her perspective with council and the community more broadly.

Thank you, Ms.

Cunningham.

I just want to say good afternoon to all the council members.

It's truly a blessing, and it's really wonderful to have this opportunity to speak, not just for myself, but for our future and children like me.

As a student myself, I know that getting students to attend school is more than just being present.

It's about creating an environment where students want to be at school where they want to learn.

And I just want to discuss some ways that we can reduce youth truancy here in Columbus.

So one of the key things we talked about in our meeting with our council president, Mr.

Harding and also members, Ms.

Ross and Mr.

Remy.

We spoke about the importance of making school a welcoming place.

If students feel safe, valued, and connected, they're more likely to show up.

This means fostering relationships between students and teachers and building a community within within our school.

It's also about creating an atmosphere where students feel like they truly belong, regardless of their background.

Another idea we discussed was a need for more engaging programs.

When students find school interesting, whether through arts, sports, or other extracurriculars, they are more motivated to come.

Offering activities that align with students' passions can help make school feel like a place of opportunity, not obligation.

This could also strengthen connections between students and teachers, making students less likely to skip.

A crucial point that we need to listen to is to hear our students more.

We can't solve truancy unless we truly understand the reason behind it.

It's important to create opportunities for students to share their thoughts and experience like surveys or forms, or you know, just having like an outlet to be expressive.

When students feel heard and supported, they're more likely to engage and show up to school.

And a big thing for me is mental health.

So students who are struggling emotionally might find it hard to attend school.

So I feel like schools should provide more resources, which I'm really grateful to hear that this hearing is really, you know, wanting to engage more and have more resources or you know, having an outlet.

Because you know, counselors they do pretty well, but it's like it's your job to care.

So it kind of feels like you're not really obligated to say you don't care because it's your job to care.

But I want somebody who wants to be there, not because they need to be there.

So I feel like that would be better, and I feel like we just need a space where students can get the support they need to thrive both mentally and academically.

So, in short, if we want to reduce truancy, we need to create a more welcoming environment, offer engaging programs by listening to our students, and provide mental health support.

By doing this, we can help students feel motivated, valued, and connected to our schools.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Emily, can I just ask one question?

Um when we did, when we were at the the Boys and Girls Club, we we asked questions basically through a um a survey.

Yeah, and it was kind of anonymous.

Do you think that do you think that it would be who you think it would be smart for us to do something like that citywide?

Because like we could post that those same questions online.

And before we vote or make new policy around truancy and staying in school, do you think the young people would take an online questionnaire like the one you participated in?

I feel like they would, but it kind of is similar to like the panorama survey where it's like, you know, students are required to do it in order to see like how schools are doing.

But it's like it's it's forced upon us every year.

So it kind of like makes me not want to do it because you're required to do it.

I would really like if we had surveys where you're willing to learn about the students or you want to hear about the youth, not just because it's your job or because you're required, or because you know the people who are higher up want to hear about it.

I feel like we want people who truly want to care and see a difference in our community.

Thank you.

Can I follow up on that?

Is there a better way you think?

And can you offer that?

Um I feel like social media is a very big influence in our youth.

So I feel like doing polls on Instagram or like um, you know, like hashtags or thing like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I feel like TikTok is another big influence.

My God.

You know, doing polls on there or like trends where it's like, oh, you know, skits of like how school should be, or skits where it's like, oh, how we would see school or things that would help them engage in school.

I feel like that would be good to influence the youth.

I like it.

Do you do you think you you have a very obviously very strong relationship with the boys and girls club?

Do you think partnering with those organizations who have really strong relationships with our students to help us get that information would also be helpful?

Or you you really just think we could just go hard on social media.

Because you know, the boys and girls club, they're not really how do I say this?

They're not really restricting, but they're more open about you being expressive, you know, you don't have a right or wrong, you know, your flaws don't define you.

Your flaws are what help you make you grow.

Yeah.

So I feel like um programs like the boys and girls club, they can be influential in the right way.

Okay.

Thank you, Emily.

I have a quick question.

Uh also for my colleagues, I would just like to remind you that um during snow, I did tag CCS, and they were very upfront with their feelings about going back to school.

So if you ever want to know what student engagement might look like, I invite you to look at that post.

It was actually one of my already did got a little bit more.

And if you'd post um also I'm never gonna wear a red coat and hat to any CCS event, or I might be like barred from any uh building.

A question for you.

So a lot of times, so I love the idea of social media.

One other thing that I was thinking of is that many times we have like these commissions that we do that is a commission to think about a particular law commission that you know we have policy that we bring people from different sectors.

What if we had a commission, right?

A special committee, it's not like a full-on like long term, but you know, a couple meetings where we had, hey, these are some things that we're thinking about, and we want to get your feedback on them.

Similar to the round table that you all had with students.

Do you think that that would be something that would be interesting for young people to come and be a part of?

So, to your point about asking them and giving them a forum, if we actually said, hey, here's some ideas that we're kicking around, what do y'all think?

Do you think that that would be something that folks would be interested in?

I feel like they would only because um sorry, this question is kind of long.

It's okay.

But I know we're asking you a lot of questions.

I'm sorry, putting you on the spot.

But I think it's better to provide some example things that would help the youth because something that I do realize is it's kind of hard for the youth to come up with ideas for themselves only because they don't know themselves.

I I see a lot of high schoolers still trying to figure out what they like or what are their hobbies only because it's like maybe their home life isn't as good as something that we spoke about a lot.

But having some guidance is really good, because you know, we weren't something that you can react to, yeah.

We can say, hey, if we're thinking about a policy and we're thinking about curfews going to six, and if there was some sort of reason that that wouldn't work, or something else that they would need to make that and you know, make that work, you could actually give us that feedback back, right?

And we can have that direct connection, similar that we do with adults pretty much all the time, every time we take a policy.

Okay.

Thank you.

And thank you for being here.

I'm always this is the second time.

Welcome back to council, by the way.

We gave you an invitation.

We told you you can come back anytime, and I'm glad that you did.

And I'm glad that you're here.

And anytime there's young people here, I always commend them because I know this is not easy when you have like a camera on you and all these people and you're talking about things, and it's also difficult to sometimes be the voice of a generation.

So I know you're not being that, you're speaking for yourself and for people who you know in your community, but I appreciate you being here and having the courage to be here.

And you're even more comfortable this time than last time.

So the third time you come back, you're gonna be even more comfortable.

I can't wait.

Thank you guys for having this hearing.

This really um hit my heart, really.

Some of the conversations or some of the topics here.

They kind of felt like you guys were describing me as some type of point.

So I'm really grateful that you guys have this hearing, and you guys actually care about the youth and actually want to hear from the community instead of just going, you know, based on the statistics and you know, things like that.

We are so proud of you, Emily.

Yeah, we appreciate that.

I think we all are proud of Emily.

Thank you.

I I don't know that I need to say very much more.

Right.

So Emily is um, as many of you know, a youth of the year um award winner here for Boys and Girls Club of Central Ohio.

Um Youth of the Year program is our capstone experience for our high schoolers, and through that journey, we are able to evoke in them their highest and best selves and really pull through what do I want to do with this voice that I have.

In addition to youth of the year, we spend our time focused on academic success, use using nationally driven, research informed, and um excuse me, trauma informed, uh, delivery practices, academic success, character and leadership, healthy lifestyles, the avoidance of risky behaviors, and ultimately to get our young people ready for life after high school, whether that is to college, whether that is to a trade, whether that is to directly to the workforce.

Um, Emily, I'm really thankful to have had you here with me today because truly she embodies what we get to do day in and day out.

I'm thankful to council and the city of Columbus.

You all have been uh great partners with us in supporting the work.

Thank you for summer support.

Um, the data tells us nationally that the number of days that young people are in out of school time at boys and girls club, improvements in their school attendance, and attitudes about schools increase nationally.

The data tells us youth who participate in boys and girls club project learn experiences, building on skills and knowledge they learn at school, so double digit increases in overall GPA as well as specifically in math and spelling.

In 2025, nationally, 81% of boys and girls clubs of America reported, excuse me, members reported getting mostly A's and Bs of high schoolers overall.

76% of boys and girls club students report A's and B's outperforming high schoolers nationally at 72%.

I share these just to lend a bit of voice to what I know council knows.

Solving for the challenges for our community's youth isn't a single thing.

It is not solely your responsibility.

And I consider the work that we do at Boys and Girls Club part of the community of care for our young people, and I welcome further conversation around how we might deepen the partnership in support of more youth we get to serve here in Central Ohio.

I will also say a couple of shameless plugs.

We do still have some uh space for spring break.

Thank you again for the city supporting us for spring break.

We still have some uh spaces for spring break.

We are actively um enrolling for summer as well.

During the school year, we operate in nine sites here in Columbus.

Six of them are actually in schools.

Thank you for the partnership with Columbus City Schools.

Um, and then we have our three to do traditional sites.

So we're trying to cover the city, um, and we do want to be part of the.

What are the age groups for spring break?

What are the age groups for your opening?

Uh uh kindergarten through 12th.

Uh for spring break, we're at J Ashburn on the West Side, South Side down at the Reed Center in Milo here in Fifth and Cleveland Avenue.

Thank you for asking.

Thank you.

How do you sign up for spring break?

Uh BGC CentralOhio.org.

You can find us on the website.

Um, and registration is via the web.

B as and boy, GS and girls.

Thank you.

C as in club.

Yes.

Okay.

CentralOhio.org.

Thank you for the clarification.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate all the work that you guys do.

Thank you, Miss Emily, for coming.

We appreciate you.

Next, we have Diego Hansard bros mentorship and leadership program.

And Ralph Carter, you're up next after that.

Good afternoon.

How are y'all doing?

Good afternoon.

All right.

My kids just text me and tell ask me where I'm at right now.

How y'all doing?

I'm Diego Hanser with bros mentor and leadership.

It's um after school program in your district.

And uh, well, basically, with me, I think the approach with us, we need to hit the streets.

And um, in order for us to prevent whatever's going on, we should address where it's happening at.

Because you don't, is it's very seldom something violent happen at school or public place, or we need to figure out, get intel for people for the leaders that's inside of those neighborhoods, and talk to them, speak with them.

Because some of them have influence over these kids.

So and I'm gonna say, even when I was growing up, I wouldn't listen to my parents.

I'm I'm doing everything my mom telling me not to do.

I'm doing everything she's saying not to do, but I would listen to somebody who I looked up to in my neighborhood.

So I think hitting the streets, spreading awareness, and also just listening to the ones on why they're doing what they're doing.

And it's like even with we talked about the parents.

I can't stress it enough how much my mom tried to get so much help with me.

And then she tried to get it with my son.

And we had to break the law to get help.

We had to break the law to get help.

So we have to figure out a way to where they don't gotta go through that justice system.

They don't have to break a law and be like, okay, now let's get them the help they need.

We gotta address when the mother is crying for help, when the father is crying for help.

We gotta address that right then and there.

So once we do that, and we can change their thought process of these children because they feel like instant gratification is what they need.

Like we need an instant.

So, no, that's not the way life works.

So, to increase their quality of life, we need to change their thought process.

And by doing that, it's spreading awareness to them, getting into these streets, wondering out who's got uh issues with this person and that person.

And to what you said, Mr.

Harton, about the Eastern thing.

Something just happened yesterday.

I got a phone call, and um, they said, hey man, some of your boys is at East Market.

I don't know what they're doing.

They da-da-da.

They upstairs, they're they've been there for a little minute.

And the people who get those calls is the people that's in them streets.

That's who get those calls.

So, and it's like it might not be on the books who get those calls, and maybe that's what we need to do.

That's what we we need to figure out who's in this area.

Okay, I know if something happening with a kid with one of my kids.

I and it got something to do with somebody in the Linda area.

I know I can call Ralph and be like, hey, uh, what's going on with this?

Do you know anything about this?

And we can get to the bottom of it.

So it's a lot of like y'all said about the collaboration thing.

We need to collectively work together to change everything that's going on.

It's not gonna take one person, it's not gonna take one entity, and we have to we can create all these programs that we want to create.

We gotta get the kids in the door.

We gotta get them there.

We gotta find out how we can get them there.

We might have to take an unorthodox approach.

And that's what I feel like all of us need to do.

And I feel like the police should be the last people that's called.

And that's all I have for you guys.

Thank you so much, Mr.

Hansard.

We appreciate your testimony today.

Uh Ralph Carter from We Are Linden.

Welcome back to council.

It's good to see you once again.

All right, hello, counsel.

Um, I don't know, I need to introduce myself.

Ralph Carter, finance CEO, we are lyndan.

So today, um just listen to everybody's testimony.

I mean, I've been back and forth racking my head, like, man, all this stuff is happening.

The collaborations are happening.

Um, as Melissa spoke, as Chief Pop spoke, and I work collectively with them, uh, CPD all the time, right?

Um, we know that collaboration is needed across the board.

A lot of times, even with the collaborations, is we're worried about who gets the credit.

Right.

And for me, I always played the back seat.

Um, if you know me, if you talk to me, you know that I live by three things with working with these kids, and that's being fair, firm, and consistent.

I will not beg any youth to do what they're supposed to be doing.

I would not beg any parent to do what they're supposed to be doing.

Because at the end of the day, you had that child, that child belongs to you.

However, yes, we know resources are needed to be set for this family.

You know, we're when trauma happens, these are why we have these things happening for these kids.

I was a kid that learned on what not to do from what I seen, but that's because I mean, I was raised by a single mother and to this day and age, not so much.

We need our men in the household.

We know that.

Um, but however, if we are not gonna position ourselves into being able to share resources, we know again, legislation gotta happen.

We know these things happening.

When is it gonna happen?

How are we gonna make it happen?

I'm not a legislator, I'm boots on the ground.

I'm working with these kids and family every day.

Every certificate that is read, uh, these families is what I'm working with to pick up these pieces.

How they about to pay for this funeral?

How helping them out with with uh uh the repasses, things like that, picking up the pieces afterwards.

Once the news scatter everything across uh the media, who's left to pick up this family?

Outside of just a quick, yeah, we're praying for you and moving on.

This is day by day.

They have younger siblings, right?

Or even older siblings, right?

That needs that constant support.

So for me, I have changed that approach.

We I feel like us, even us as a city uh collectively, with anything that we're doing for the youth violence, we focus on the ones that are not doing what we're telling them to do.

For like we're begging them.

We're begging you to put the guns down.

We're begging you, oh, stop selling these cars, right?

When we're gonna focus on them kids that are doing what they're supposed to be doing, because they get lost in translation, or athletes, they're still they're leaders.

They may not pay attention to it because they focus on doing their sports, right?

Or scholars, right?

Even though a lot of times our scholars are put in the media, but and we're missing the kids that are in that community that really need their voice amplified.

So anything when it comes to we are lending, we know that I am there to try to amplify these kids' voices.

And so that's why, even with going into that, that's why I have um Helena here and her mother uh here as well to speak because you have a young lady, she's on track to graduate early.

She's in Linden, she stays in Linden.

Mother is advocate as well in Linden.

These are people that are not voices, they're not have this platform to speak because a lot of times they get looked over.

Right.

So without further ado, I'm gonna let these two come and speak, and I and I'll shut up for now.

Um, good evening.

Sorry, I have my stuff on my phone.

Um thank you, council for letting me speak.

Um, my name is Alea, and I'm a sophomore at Linda McKinley STEM Academy.

And even though we stated earlier we don't need the 4.0 students on here, I currently have a 4.1 GPA and I recently joined the dance team.

I'm a part of We Are Linden, the uh YAC Youth Advisory Council with Nationwide Children's Hospital, BASEP program through impact.

I share that to show that with the right support, opportunity and opportunities we can succeed.

But I also want to be real.

Um, urban legends, city year, and sports teams to help students stay focused and out of trouble.

I've been given opportunities myself, like help hosting an ice walkout with support behind me.

I've seen our band, the unstoppable mighty mighty Panthers travel, perform, and bring the community together.

I've seen parents show up, support us and be involved, and that's what I think we need more of.

We also struggle though to find jobs as teens, and that's why we value pay partnerships so much when we are given the chance to earn money the right way and gain experience.

It gives us something positive to work towards.

But support has to also come at home.

Some students live in homes where parents aren't fully able to guide or supervise them.

How do we make sure youth without our phone with without phones are scared to speak up are safe?

How do we make sure every child has someone checking in, even if they don't ask for help?

Because when people ask why are these takeovers happening or youth crime happen, the answer is as simple as there's nothing else to do.

We don't have any team spaces, not even always just programs, just safe, consistent places for teams to be around each other and stay out of trouble.

So instead of just asking how we punish youth, we need to ask how do we support them?

How do we hold parents accountable while making sure students feel safe to speak up?

Because when you are given opportunities, we have support, and when our community shows up, we for shows up for us, we rise to that.

We aren't just statistics, we are potential.

And if you continue to oh my goodness, if you continue to invest in us, you won't you won't just see change, you'll see success.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Jasmine Renee Parker.

Um, and thank you, counsel, for having us today.

And this is my daughter Alaya.

She goes to Linda McKinley, and I also have a 13-year-old daughter.

Um kids are something I'm passionate about in general.

I work with Columbus City Schools as a substitute teacher, and I also worked with Columbus Metro Library at the Barnett location.

And I have a nonprofit that I started called It Takes a Texas Village Nonprofit Resource.

Um, the purpose behind it is to be a resource to the community, to bridge generational gaps, mentor kids, nurture child parent relationships, teach life skills, and to protect the safety and the welfare of our children.

I know we're here to talk about the youth and about the role they play in our neighborhoods and the roles we play in shaping their future.

Somewhere along the lines, the balance of power between adults and children have shifted.

The too much power has been given to the youth, and now instead of kids fearing consequences, many adults fear their own children.

We have too many parents, or we have we see adults walking in fear of the youth when it should be the other way around, not fear, but respect both ways.

But balance doesn't come from punishment, it comes from example.

We, the adults, must take responsibility for the role we've played in the role in the world we've built around them.

We can't expect young people to feel pride in their community if we, the examples they look to, are littering our own streets.

We can't expect them to make healthy choices if they see us putting junk into our own bodies.

And we can't expect them to speak respectfully to one another when they hear adults using profanity and glorifying negativity in the music and in conversations around them.

They are mirrors, they reflect who we are.

So if we want to see better, we have to be better.

We have to communicate with our children, not just at them.

Children are not born bad.

But if you label a child as bad or stupid, even jokingly, we plant seeds of defeat that grow into the very behavior that we complain about later.

So let's bring back the village, the one where everybody looked out for one another.

That means if a child is wandering alone, not to turn in a blind eye, but to step in not just as authority, but as protection.

It means if a mother is working late, she can count on her neighbor to step in without expecting anything in return.

Kids may not always know what they need, but if they see something better, they will want better for themselves.

I've been a substitute at schools all around the city, and this is something I've experienced firsthand just from engaging with the kids and talking to them.

And a lot of times that's all they need is just someone to talk with them.

Kids will also push boundaries, and that's just part of growing up.

The problem is that many of those kids who were testing boundaries with no role model are now adults who never learned limits or found direction, and now they're raising kids of their own.

And the truth is that some parents need guidance as well and support.

Parents need just as much guidance and support as the children because some ch some parents are raising children while still healing from their own childhoods.

We have resources, that's not the issue.

What we need is connection.

We lack the active community that stands by, ready to step in, to listen, and to support.

If we want safer neighborhoods, healthier families, and stronger youth, it starts with us, the adults choosing to be the standard again to not only correct behavior, but to set the tone for the kind of behavior we want to see.

We need hands that reach out, voices that lift up, and hearts that refuse to give up on our kids.

The youth will follow our lead, but first we must start leading.

And lastly, I will also want to add that we need people in our leadership that are not just here for money or for a popularity contest, but people that are really invested in the children.

Thank you.

Well, really much in closing is the biggest thing for us is always continue to show up and ask what we do every day for our youth and our families.

Thank you.

For you leave, young lady, we are also proud of you for coming to council and for being an advocate, both for yourself and also for young people.

So thank you so much.

Congratulations on that 4.1.

I think we need both.

4.1 and the youth with the guns.

We'll have them all come together so we can talk comprehensively.

That's literally what we're talking about today.

So thank you.

Do not shy away from your advocacy and from continuing to raise your voice.

And please know that you're also always welcome to come back to city council.

We hope to see you again.

Thank you.

I also want to say mom, good job.

No notes.

10 out of 10.

Um, and thank you for I think I think this is I know that every parent cannot always be as present as they want to be, right?

I mean, there was a time in my life where my mom had to work third shift to support other family members and help my sister who was a single mom to raise her child.

And so, you know, she couldn't always be there at everything she wanted to be at.

And so I think when parents show up for other parents and talk and also hold that accountability, that's incredibly important.

And so I just also want to thank you.

And Ralph, always, I I love Lyndon.

I love Lyndon for this reason.

I love LMSA.

You know, we've worked there for work for City Year, we've worked there for a number of years, and it is a special school with incredibly special students.

And so, you know, as a CCS kid who grew up and I went to Eastmore, I remember what it felt like when people talked about us without ever knowing us, or without ever talking to us and and the things that we needed.

And so I appreciate you coming here and showing people that you know, kids at CCS, kids in Lyndon, kids at East Moore are not a monolith.

We we succeed at all different levels and at all different things.

And so thank you for being that voice for young people.

Also, she stole your whole face.

I don't know if you want it back, but um, thank you for being here today.

And thank you, Ralph, for the work that you do every day in Linden.

Mom, don't be mad at me if I still hashtag bring back the village.

I love that.

Um, and I think you're right.

I think somewhere along the line, we lost a neighbor out of neighborhood, and we were left with the hood.

A preacher that I admonish quoted that.

Uh, and he was absolutely right.

And I think that, you know, as you talk about people in leadership who are here for community, um, I think that's part of our job too.

Um, so please look forward to bring back the village.

At least in District 7.

And in District 4.

And in District 8.

And for our whole city.

Right.

Uh, thank you so much for coming down today.

It's a pleasure, and we appreciate you and and congratulations on your successes and look forward to hearing what's next.

So thanks, Ralph.

Appreciate you guys.

Take care.

Our next speaker and final speaker is Aaron Hathaway, the executive director of Epic Youth.

Welcome.

Good to see you.

Good afternoon.

Hey, friends.

Good afternoon, um, council, present everyone.

Um I was gonna do it, but and I'm not either gonna be before you on because everyone has said it all from the moment Chief Potts was talking, and then you all piggybacked and said everything.

Um, I don't have much to say, but to conclude um by show, well, first of all, I'm Aaron Hathaway, executive director of Epic Youth.

Um, and what I will say is the gap and the barrier that we see is that um the the community coming together.

Um, I think that just hearing these stories from these other nonprofits, what the police department is doing, what other departments of the city is doing, it's just disconnected.

And my optic of that is like a home that has two parents that have different rules.

And I feel like at Epic Youth, I'm sitting here and I'm implementing things.

The Columbus is the police department has all these policies and things.

There's a curfew that I don't even know the curfew.

Um, Sharome just he wanted to be here, but he just got out of court with a student who's been in jail for a year because he was at work.

We had them, we helped him get a job at McDonald's.

He came out, um, his mom picked him up, and there was a boy watching him, and it was a threat, some kind of exchange, and he shot at him.

And so he's been in jail for this entire year, and Shawn's been going back in court.

And so today he told me he said there were so many different people there to represent him.

There was another mentor organization, there was another case specialist, all these people, right?

That Sharon didn't even know was involved with this boy's life.

And so to me, there's just so many different stories and narratives and rules and standards that's being communicated in these different touch points and different places.

So when we're we're hearing data from Columbus City Schools, we are now under parks and rec, right?

For summer programming, um Columbus Police has these rules.

We all need to be unified, and I share this with you all in a proposal earlier.

All these rules and things that we're gonna come up with needs to be implemented collectively.

Yes.

Collectively from the same story, the same message, the same um be delivered in the same way.

Um and then I the last thing I'll add is um our kids, they're just not they're not naive to what the adults are doing.

And mom said exactly what I was gonna say too.

Um they hear and they see and they model what we're doing.

Um and so as community leaders, um we have to be the example.

Um we have to also um our greatest challenge is also our parents, right?

So when we are implementing and teaching in our center, it is so hard when the house has different rules.

And so when we do implement all these new strategies, we have to also retrain the parents.

Um, you know, like at Easton, when you walk in, they have that new billboard that tells you exactly their expectation, their standard.

And so in our community, we need to implement this standard, this expectation, and it needs to be very clear what it is, and the police needs to say it, I need to say it, all my mentors, everyone at Think Make Live, everyone at the mother, everywhere, the school district, everyone needs to be saying the exact same thing.

Um and we do need to bring back standards of how we implement things.

If this is the rule, this is what it is.

That's that's just what it is.

If this is a curfew, if we're gonna say I this is my girl, but if we're gonna teach abstinence, it needs to be abstinence.

I'm not trying to give you two options because I feel like we've been really lenient with our students.

And so we just need to just be reinforcing like what it is that we expect from them, and this is our standard.

That's all I have to say.

But the last thing I was gonna add was um I also feel like um she said the the mom says something about a popularity contest.

I feel like I don't know if it is the way that we administer grants here in our community, but it does feel like there we are resource rich, but it just feels like when we try to come together as a community, it's it's nervous a little bit because we're all fighting for the same thing.

And so I don't know how we can heal that in our community as well as people who are serving and trying to solve the same issue.

Um, but that that's just the energy, it's like a cloud that that kind of hangs over our city.

And so um, I think as adults, as community leaders, we have to set the tone and set the standard um and expectation of how we want our students to leave, and we need to share that message and needs to be consistent everywhere.

That's it.

Thank you, Dean.

Thank you so much.

We appreciate you.

Well, that concludes our public speaking portion of the the evening, and certainly uh we went over what we had intended, but this was too important of a conversation to cut short.

Um, and so I I appreciate the dialogue that we've had today on the dais, and certainly in the community.

Um, it's been really uh pleasurable to to have this conversation today.

I'm gonna throw it to Council President Harden.

I know he's got to get going, so thank you, uh Mr.

Chair, and um I just want to conclude with thank yous.

Thank you to Columbus City Schools for being here.

Like I said, when we were identifying gaps, um, it's not to point fingers, it's actually to to look inward or uh as a community about how we can be better partners.

And so uh thank you for being here.

Thank you to Dr.

Jones for the continued work that you have done, bringing the data uh because we this has to be rooted in something.

Uh and it has to be evidence-based before we follow it, especially when we're talking about youth and intervention.

So thank you so much to Chief Bryant, to Chief Potts in the division.

Uh, thank you for being a willing partner.

Uh, and then thank you to the community uh who is here.

Uh the challenge that I have for my my counsel is this is too urgent of an issue to just have this conversation and then not do something.

And so just because it is uh each one of the things that I think we heard to do uh focus on curfew, focus on parental responsibility and to focus on truancy, each one of those comes with a and I don't want us to not do something because we're struggling with the and we're gonna have to do all of it and uh and I want us to have this conversation in a in a not in a deficit mindset, but we have so many tools out there, we just might need to sharpen some of them.

Um and then Ms.

Hathaway, I mean you were preaching at the very end.

I and what I wanted to thank all my colleagues finally, because each and every one of them that are here right now, and those who are not here are working on this issue in some way already.

Um as uh speaking, all I could think about was uh council member Day Alcauers focus uh on making sure that even the funding that we do send out to our programs are structured, are you know um focused on the right things and on the right people.

I know that in conversations with Dr.

Jones, uh that point that you just made.

If we are going to send out, especially now when we don't have as many resources.

If we're going to send out those dollars, they sure as hell better be specific to the issues and challenges and the needs of the folks who need it the most and uh directly aligned with what uh the division says we need, what the community says we need, what the school said we need.

Those should be it should be written into the contracts that these are the expectations.

We are saying the same exact thing to every one of our organizations that we fund.

And uh I know that is a big part of the work that uh council member Day Akaur is working on.

Um you know, I could go around the dais the the the per sec the perspective that Councilmember Barossa de Badia brings from her long experience of working with you.

She does this for a living, and so that and part, I don't want it to be lost.

I think that you know, today we focused a lot on the the the connections to law enforcement and how we can strengthen those things, but that and is critical, and I don't want that to be lost today.

And I and in in the reporting that will go out, it'll say that we're talking about curfew.

We're talking about um uh truancy.

They won't talk as much about the and, but I want the community to know that we are focused on the and as well.

Um, and so just thank you to the chair and vice chair for having this conversation.

I think we had representatives from OVI from the Office of Violence uh prevent intermittent.

I want them everybody is leading on this effort, and like we said, this is not I I would ask the the chair, we need to have another hearing on this where we we bring in uh all of our other partners.

There are a million other people who could have sat out there who talked about the work that they're doing.

And I and I think that I would hope that this is a ever present conversation.

So thank you so much.

And I'm gonna run, but thank you so much to council members.

Thank you, Council President.

We appreciate your testimony today.

Uh any closing comments from my colleagues.

The the only other thing that I want to say that I think is also another thing that um just also struck me is um, you know, I it's interesting because I think when I was younger and started this work, I focused a lot on youth, right?

And then when I became a mom, it changed my perspective.

And now I think about that whole family.

And one of the things, and uh the mom who was just here from Linda and Jasmine named this is that I also think that we don't talk enough about the trauma that our parents have experienced.

And I think you know, many times when I was working in a school building, sometimes I will call a parent to tell them something good, and they would already be defensive.

And I'm like, no, but I'm telling you, I want to call you about something amazing that your student did today.

And so I think that that that and part is the part that I'm very laser focused on on like how do we first of all just prevention because I feel like I feel like my whole career has been about like preventing, but then like also on the other side.

But I think like how do we work way, way back with prevention, and then how do we also provide that holistically for that family?

Just because I feel like I feel that struggle of parents that want that, you know, you're getting an apartment in the place that's affordable, and it may not be the best place to live.

And you are trying to break generational curses, but that's difficult to do.

And how are you there showing up for your kid when this is the best job you could get, you know, and you don't have a car, so you can't wake up and you're relying on your kid to get to that bus stop.

And there's so much pressure that we're putting on people when we're not always supporting them on that other end.

And so I think the and to me is so critically important because the other part doesn't work.

Absolutely.

Right.

The other part doesn't work if we don't have the and you know, and so my my very unfortunate um, Aaron, you called it out.

My very unfortunate example of, you know, as speaking analogies, your girls bilingual, and this is how our bring cultures together.

But that was the point of it, is that I think that we need to figure out the both, and I think that's the greatest promise that we have to our community, and quite frankly, the place where we fail the most.

And that's the part that we need to figure out is the stitching together of all the things that we have to ensure that the whole system works for everybody who's part of that family.

Yeah.

I just want to thank all of you for coming.

I can repeat over and over again the comments of of my colleagues, but um, I think what council member Lord has says was was absolutely correct.

We are talking about one piece to the puzzle.

Um, but the puzzle has to have all of the pieces for this entire picture um to work.

And I think it is so important when we talk about young people that we understand that the devil is in the details.

It is in the how.

And we all think that safety is a thing that is important, but the how is going to dictate how successful we are in achieving that goal.

The who, right?

And we talk about our division, and we have rock stars here in this front row.

But Dr.

Jones and I and Chief Potts and Officer Letz have been working to ensure that we build a culture, even in our division of police where we don't have to be concerned about who is enforcing the law.

But the reality is we do.

And particularly when we are talking about young people.

I am so sorry, is working on it already, but everywhere there has to be a standard.

Everywhere there has to be a standard with an understanding that yes, personality and rapport and relationships are important.

But if there is no standard, then there's always a crack for someone to fall into.

And if we don't have a standard, then we don't have metrics.

And if we don't have metrics, we don't know what we're doing with folks' dollars, with folks' time, with folks' lives, right?

And we are talking about young people's lives, and the very metric of how well a community is doing is how well our young people are.

And so thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who are doing the work, who to all of you who came and gave us your stories, gave us your information.

Thank you to the council members who spent their time here.

They don't have to come to our hearings.

There's one one day you gotta be here, and that's on Monday.

So any other day, we certainly appreciate you thinking enough of this conversation to be here.

Um so thank you.

Uh thank you all.

Thank you.

Uh anything from you, Miss Nancy Day Hacker.

I'm the only person between y'all in dinner.

So I'll just say um all these things, you know, uh have have been been shared.

And um I just I appreciate that people are wanting to come together and collaborate because those of us who work with youth know our stuff, and we can come together and find solutions that are focused on what is best for our youth as opposed to what is best for our egos and what is best for um our fundraising.

Um we know how to reach youth, and together we can make real solutions.

Thank you very much.

Thank you to my colleagues again, echoing what the vice chair said.

This is obviously a very important conversation that really is paramount in the city today.

And I want to thank you guys for the presentations you gave, the the you know, amount of time and effort that you put into this every single day.

Um it's incredibly important, and we know um that it's a top priority for this council.

It's a top priority for the division of police, the Columbus City Schools, and certainly the organizations that were here represented today.

Um, you know, we we can't thank you enough for the work that you do on a day in and day out basis.

I do want to thank the council president's team, um, his aide Jessica Klinger and then the research our research team, Dr.

Tanisha Pruitt, um my legislative aide Pedro Mejia and my analyst Nancy Pryor Solley and our intern Evelyn Richards.

You know, it's this was incredibly valuable today with the testimony that we heard.

It's it's important that legislators and and then the city know what's going on in our with our youth today.

It sparks a conversation that we desperately need to have as a community, which again, you know, with everything that's going on on the national level and and this vitriol and hate that's being spread, you know, on a daily basis.

Um, we we have forgotten what it is to be a neighbor.

And you know, we've got to start looking out for each other to make sure that we are a community that thrives.

And you know, I talk about this all the time.

We've got to talk to our youth, ask them what's going on.

Just say hi, you know, for that matter.

And you're not always going to get a positive response, but it it does go a long way to show that you care.

Um, you know, we you we we rely on these things, and the kids, this is all they do.

And many times it's really hard to have a face-to-face, eye-to-eye conversation today.

And you know, I blame it a lot on you know, being buried in a phone, and you know, the only way you can get to them in the same room is to post something on Instagram.

So, you know, it it's it's an important conversation that we need to have as a community because you know, it's too important.

It's too important for our everyday lives, um, for safety in the city to make sure that we are working together, collaborating and talking amongst ourselves, like you said.

I mean, it's that that is I've always said that about organizations.

They they they are good at one thing and then they try to do seven other things instead of passing it on to the next one that's experts at that.

And we have to do more of that sharing and talking, working together, because if we don't, we're not gonna win in this space.

So thank you so much for um all everybody being here today.

This was incredibly valuable.

Um, one of the best hearings that I've seen in a long, long time.

And so uh we appreciate all the work that you uh do and thank you for uh the the day.

So that concludes our hearing.

Thank you, everybody.

Have a great night and be safe.