001problems public comment. We will call people in the order they signed up. As you begin, please state your name and address for the record. Each person is permitted to speak for no more than two minutes. A bell will ring when you have 30 seconds remaining. Again, at the end of the two minutes, I ask that you please respect this limit. Inappropriate behavior will not be tolerated. If exhibited, we will turn off the microphone and the person will be asked to leave the meeting. I'd like to remind everyone here that during public comments, the board is in listening mode only and as such board members do not respond to the comments. Written public comment may be emailed to lawrence.k12.mma. us no later than 2:00 the afternoon of our meeting. And we will begin with Mr. Marley.
002Good evening honorable members 53 Chester Street in this important and last meeting of the year. We the citizen are grateful and proud that Lawrence public school with the impeccable leadership by honorable superintendent Ralph Guerrero on the road to become the best public school in the nation. We are united to support teachers union. Lawrence public school is great because of our awesome teachers, because of our hardworking professional employee. Nelson Mandela said, "Education indeed the most important weapon to change the world. This change is only possible if we support teachers union in this great nation. When the number one responsibility of every citizen is support of the teachers union, Laurentian are the champion in the nation to support the teachers union. The teachers who inspire the whole world. The teachers who educate the children of the world.
003Lawrence teachers because of your hard work and sacrifices. We have another triumphant academic success in this important collective bargaining year. You must know 80,000 citizen are behind you. Lawrence always strong. Lawrence always unite. We are proud to support Lawrence Teachers Union. We wish the best summer vacation. Thank you, Mr. Molly. Next person is Raymond Nunees. Good evening board and community members. Ray Nunes, 121 Union Street. I wanted to take this moment to congratulate publicly Mr. Mark Aenciano for his commitment to the kids and families of Lawrence. For over 35 years, Mr. Jens known to the kids and families. He left a lasting impact, positive impact in so many students just as his mother doc and his father Dr. Jansiano did. To his very last day, Mr. Jens preached and practiced humility to all alike, kids,
004families, and colleagues. On behalf of all the kids in the city, because I am one of those kids you helped along the way, I say thank you. Have a blessed retirement, Mr. Jens. Thank you for all you did and continue to do. Thank you, boy. Thank you, [Applause] Taiisha Hernandez. Good evening. Good evening, members of of the LAE board. My name is Taiisha Hernandez and I'm at 33 Hamlet Street. I'm a proud parent and advocate of the Frost Elementary School. I'm here reaching out to you because issues like the one I'm addressing here matters deeply to us as parents and members of the community. I'm sharing um an email that I sent to Mr. Carrero. It's incred it's incredibly disheartening to hear that we are losing one of our most valuable and impactful staff members
005at our school. Mr. Dr. Dan Thornton, who's our principal, um joined us during a time of instability following the departure of two principles and has made a significant and positive difference not just for the students but also for the parents and the community as a whole. His dedication and connection to both children and families have got have not gone unnoticed. We have plenty of workers. We have plenty of employees at LPS that are dead weight or even collecting just a paycheck. It's frustrating to see someone as principal Thornton let go, especially when there are concerns about our staff members who have not demonstrated the same level of engagement or support. For instance, there are other staff members in other higher positions who um who for in uh who are unaware of who families are unaware
006of who who they are and what role do they play. We should be supporting and retaining the individuals who actively advocate for our students and teachers, not removing them. Recently, we had a Tuvos meeting where we discussed the importance of transparency, communication, and community centered decisions. This news coming shortly after that meeting was deeply upsetting. What avenues are available for us to appeal is the reason that I chose to bring this letter to you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Rihanna Terrone. Good evening members of the LA Bo LE board and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Brianna Tyrone, 20 Washington Street, and I am a teacher at the Frost Elementary School. I have been teaching there since 2005. Not only do I teach there, but I am also a Frost School graduate,
007an LHS graduate, class of 2001. I have so much pride working for this city and am honored I have been able to serve so many incredible students and families. I must admit I am a bit out of my comfort zone speaking here tonight, but I feel as if I need to practice what I preach to my students, which is to speak up and let your voice be heard. As a veteran teacher in my building, I also feel the need to be the voice of my colleagues. I am here to speak on the non-renewal of the Frost Elementary principal, Dan Thornton, after just one year. In the short time Mr. Thornton was principal. He gained the respect of his staff, students, and families. Our school community was shocked at the news a few short weeks ago
008that he would not be renewed and a new principal would be appointed. In the year he was here, he showed incredible leadership and made coming to work each day a true joy. He was in the classrooms daily interacting with students and teachers, out talking with families, and doing all the things that make a great leader. Mr. Thornton took over a school where both the principal and AP left the district for other opportunities. There was little to no transition of power. Mr. Thornton came into this building and district blind and did the best he could with the little time he was given. I am hopeful that Mr. Thornton was given all the things a firstear teacher would receive such as mentoring, timely and explicit feedback, and multiple opportunities to show growth. In Mr. Thornton, you had
009someone who loved his job, his staff, students, and the city of Lawrence. To say Lawrence has just let an incredible educator and human go is an understatement. The entire Frost community is grieving what we feel is an incredible loss. This fall will be the Frost Elementary's third principal in just three years. This amount of turnover does not help build climate, culture, and morale among the members of our school community. We know how important consistency is to our students. It's also important to the staff. Schools with inconsistent leadership fail to make consistent progress. In closing, I think back to our very first welcome meeting that we had with Mr. Thornton in August. where he said to the staff that we do not work for him. He works for us. He certainly lived by this every day.
010We are so grateful for the short time he was with us and wish we had more time. Whomever is appointed will ultimately be coming into a building where morale is down. A healthy culture and climate is critical to the success of a school. We hope our new leader takes on the role in the same way Mr. Thornton did with grace, humor, respect, and kindness. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Rebecca. Um, I'm sorry, I'm going to mispronounce this. Rudel or Ryel? Good evening, members of the LE board. I'm Rebecca Rudell, 221 Farwood Drive, and I'm finishing up my 11th year teaching at the Frost. This year was a breath of fresh air thanks to our new principal, Dan Thornton. He was charismatic, personable, kind, humble, hard-working, and most importantly, passionate about his job. He
011truly cared about the teachers and the students, and it was evident in every decision he made. Ralph Carrero said in his message, "I bring a belief of your value and input and will work tirelessly to gain your trust and support as we collaborate on behalf of students. I can say with certainty that Dan lived those words every single day as principal of the Frost. If this is not the kind of person you are bending over backwards to keep at your school, a person who embodies the goals of LPS, then I am at a loss. The moment he shared, he was not asked back and replaced with someone who was chosen for us and not with us. The morale that Dan inspired and cultivated during his time at the Frost was shattered in an instant. This
012year, Mr. Thornton, despite everything he was put up against, was a wonderful principal. However, he started a brand new role with no overlap to transition with the prior administration and had minimal support and mentoring through his first year, if any at all. And still, he thrived. It disheartens me to see how undervalued Dan was. A principal who could have offered so much more than he already has if he was given the opportunity, was one of the best SQRs we've seen in a very long time. I commend him for speaking out for what is right, standing up for his staff and students, and working diligently to get them what they need and deserve to succeed. Whether this change was pre-planned and intentional or not, it has caused a rift in our community and a distrust in
013our district leadership. My hope is that this can be an unfortunate lesson and that Lawrence can work to mend what has been broken in our community. I teach my students that everyone makes mistakes, but how we address the harm and work to improve in the future is truly what matters. I know we would love to see LPS work to retain and support valuable staff members and take steps to regain trust, morale, mutual respect, and move forward with transparency. Even though Dan will not be returning next year, I hope that some of his exceptional leadership qualities will be a lesson for those who follow him. I will forever be baffled, disheartened, and skeptical of how Lawrence could let ever let such an asset go. The next school who gains Dan Thornton as a team member is
014incredibly lucky, and I hope he finally gets the appreciation and support he deserves. What a huge loss for the city, children, and families of Lawrence. Thank you. Thank you. [Applause] Emil Chromemer. Oh, I'm sorry. I mispronounced it. Emily. Yay. It happens. Emily Cromer. My name is Emily Cromer and I have been a school counselor at the Frost Elementary School for the past 33 years at 33 Hamlet. At our school, we teach our students our Frost Lion pledge. As a Frost Lion, I celebrate myself and others. I matter and belong. We value our differences and speak out for what's right. I want to highlight one specific line of our Frost pledge. Speak out for what's right. We teach and expect our students to use their voices when they notice injustice. So, it's extremely disheartening when staff
015members are being punished for doing this exact same thing. For the past two years, the Frost Elementary School has been targeted for speaking out and advocating for our students and families. The fingers have been pointed at us. What's going on at the Frost? Do you not have control of your students and families? A leader of the Office of Student Support actually called my boss to check in on my mental health after I advocated for a student in an IEP meeting for what that child needed. A number of our staff and family members have asked me have asked for support only to be met with criticism, judgment, and roadblocks. We are being blamed for students not accessing a free and appropriate education when in reality we are the ones that are advocating for that exact same
016thing. Teachers and staff that work with students every single day are being disregarded when we recommend what a child needs. We bring data. We dot our eyes. We cross our tees. And we're still not being heard. Last year, a few particular students were finally provided a specialized program only after a parent threatened a lawsuit. Our two years of data collection asking for support, behavior plans, and safety plans were not enough. A few more data points I just want to mention. Our educational team facilitator left before the school year started. We were left without an ETF until October and had three different ETFs covering our school at different grade levels. Our BCBA was pulled from the Frost the day before school started. Was anyone hired to replace them? Nope. For a building that falls in the
017top five of students legally requiring BCBA support, that doesn't make much sense. Our principal was given a non-renewal letter. Coincidence? The data shows otherwise. We started the year without an ETF, BCBA, and a brand new administration who were not provided the adequate training. Mr. Thornon was doing his job by asking for support, advocating for our students and his staff. We are being punished for speaking out for what's right, and asking for support. Fingers are being pointed at the wrong people. Our students are at risk because a few adults do not respect the work that staff in our schools are doing every single day. You can take away our supports in principle, but we are not going to be silenced. We will continue to speak out for what's right, not because we have to, not because
018it's part of our job, but because it's the right thing to do. We are never going to stop fighting for the students of Lawrence, and we're never going to stop helping our families find their voice and advocating for what their kids need. Thank you for your time. Thank you. [Applause] That concludes uh public participation for this evening. Um under my chair's report, um it's not too often that we get to recognize special people in our district. And um I have the honor this evening to recognize a group of our longstanding employees who will be retiring at the end of the school year. When we call your name, please come to the stage to receive your um certificate. To get where I'm going to read them from here and then we'll go. All right. To get
019started tonight, we want to celebrate some special guests, longtime employees of Lawrence Public School. we will sadly be saying goodbye to the to at the end of the school year as they embark on a very welldeserved retirement. First we have Mark Aenziano, ESL teacher at the Bruce School retiring after 35 years. Would you please come up? Congratulations, Mark. I had the distinct honor of working with your dad in this district and I know education is very very important to you and your family. You mind? I'm going to sit for a little bit. Thank you. Valerie Cahill, prek teacher at the Breen School, retiring after 10 years. Congratulations, Eileen Castle, senior specialist with accounts payable at central office, retiring after 35 years. [Applause] I lean for 35 years. How many phone calls did you take from
020me? I hate to see you go. Take care. Jean Fathergill, special education teacher at the Hennessy, leaving us after 30 years. Congratulations. [Applause] Congratulations, Dorene Frigie, nurse at the Weatherbe, retiring after 24 years. [Applause] Good luck, Dorine. Lynn Ellen Garcia, LPS director of teacher diversification, recruitment and development, leaving us after 38 years. [Applause] You make Maria cry. Good luck with it. Amos Gallesian, physical education teacher at the Tabox, retiring after his 26th year of service. Congratulations, Nina Piro, teacher at the Tabots, retiring after 32 He is of service. Congratulations, Nancy Walsh, LPS director of health services, retiring after 30 plus years a [Applause] All right, we're going to have a photo with the board members. So, would everybody go to the front of the stage? You just want some color. [Applause] Congratulations everyone. Bye. Congratulations.
021Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. I miss you too. I know. I know. It's okay. We got to move again. So that's It's all right. Congratulations to all, Madam Chair. We do have several other retirees that couldn't make it uh this evening with us, but I believe we have a total of 16 retirees um that are to be congratulated for their years of service to uh Lawrence Public Schools. So, congratulations to those that couldn't make it. Also, thank you. At this time, I'd entertain a motion to move into executive session for the purpose of negotiations. Could I have a motion? So moved. Thank you. Seconded. Thank you. Um, any discussion? Hearing none, Maria, please call the role. Egard DeLeon, yes. Arlene Garcia, yes. Wana Matias, yes. Maria Müller. Yes. Chair Patricia Mariano. Yes. We are now
022in executive session. Thank you for being patient while we were in executive session. Um, at this time I'd entertain a motion to come out of executive session and return to our regular session. So move. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Um, any discussion hearing? None. Maria, please call the role. Deleon, yes. Arlene Garcia, yes. Wana Matias, Maria Müller. Yes. Chair Patricia Mariano. Yes. Thank you. Motion passes. Um, at this time I'd like to entertain a motion to approve theou between LPS and the Service Employees International Union 888. So move. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Maria, please call the role. Edgar DeLeon, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Garcia. Yes. Maria Müller. Yes. Chair Patricia Mariano. Yes. Could I have a motion to approve theou between LPS and and the um National Conference of Firemen and Oilers 32BJSIU. This
023is channel three and the cafeteria workers. So move second. Thank you. Any discussion? Hearing none. Maria, please call the role. Ega DeLeon, yes. Arlene Garcia, yes. Maria Müller, yes. Chair Patricia Mariano, yes. All right. Next on our agenda is to um to approve the SY 2026 amended budget. And I'll ask Jason Cabrera to please come up. I think your mic is off. this. All right, I'll repeat. Uh, good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board. We are here tonight and and you should have, if I can go to the second uh page of that document there. Yes, right there. So, you should have this here with you. Um it's last time we were here in the our last meeting, we had voted on a on a proposed budget um which was in the amount
024of what's on the right here, 20 uh 37 million 26,144 the school uh for for for our district. uh some de developments uh uh in the process uh have changed that number a little bit and I'm trying to explain here what what those adjustments are. Um if we start from the top, we see that uh adjustments to the charter tuition uh changed that amount um decrease that amount by $1,856,886 and that is the updated cherry sheet that is sent to the city. When we do our budgeting, we do it based on the proposed governor's budget and that goes to Ways and Means and it gets voted on and changed and at the end uh we get a cherry sheet that gets sent to the city which tells the city the amount of money that they'll
025be getting through state aid and state funds. So that number changed a bit from the number that we had on the charter tuition uh on the right over here which was from the uh governor's proposed budget. So that is uh discount on that and then the uh theou with the city of Lawrence the calculation on thatou we had talked about it extensively about it in our last couple of meetings theou is the agreement that we have it is an agreement that that superintendent and I feel we need to work work out so that for the benefit of everyone but it is what it is now. The calculation is correct as it stands today based on what thatou says. That number increased our municipal related cost by 1.1 $1,485,77. Now when we move to the second
026part on what we're adding the cherry sheet um cherry sheet number for charter tuition reimbursement is uh a bit different by about $900,000. uh transportation, it's uh also lower based on contract negotiations that we have going on as far as transportation and and superintendent or or Odan's uh the our chief operating officer can talk a little bit about that if anyone has questions about it. And uh and then the leases, it's the $350,000 is the commitment that we have from the city and the commitment that meets the city's minimum contribution to our schools. And that brings us to the 305 thou 305 million26,144 where we made up those $2 million after we did we did the uh the adjustments. We, as you can see, we have a about a million dollars um a million34,000 in
027transportation and then we decreased our extra duty line by 966,000. Some of it is coming from the facilities end uh and facilities extra duty. Some of it is on on the teachers side extra duty. And that is what we have tonight to present to you and asked to vote on on this new amount of 35,26,144 and I'm more than happy to answer whatever questions you may have. Any questions from the board? Sorry, can you repeat again what what is the reduction on the leases? The leases uh the commitment from the city on the leases is $350,000. that amount and this is a conversation that that we expanded on and and I'm sure we'll continue to expand that and in our other meeting with the city council the 350,000 is the amount that meets the city's
028minimum contribution. So that is what we're getting from the city. the minimum contribution of uh the state says that the city has to contribute minimum a minimum amount of $16 million and some change that $350,000 gets them to to that point of what the minimum contribution is and and then the municipal related cost the increase in that is is just additional money that we pay the city for their services. Yes. And I have the last slide in case anyone wants to see it. I can show the the the calculation of on how we got there. But um that is the what the memorandum of of understanding from 2013 uh says we owe them we pay for things like uh administrative costs. uh some of the costs that the their the city's payroll department has uh
029some of the cost that the personnel department has uh the controllers's office has, DPW has, we get a share or or we share some of that cost with the city. And do we have that itemized? Do they give that to us itemized in terms of u calculations? Can you bring that slide up? It's on your It's your last slide. Yes. I I'll show you I'll show you what itemized means. Um go to the Yeah. Yes. So, can you zoom in on that if at all possible? Okay. So, this is the city side spending on school schools based on the on the agreement dated June 2013. Um and the formula calculates you have an actual turn 34 budget turn and then a projected turn 26 which is not here and that gets multiplied by the u
030municipal growth factor which is provided by the department of revenue uh which is uh let me see it's not here one of the years was 8.88 88 is usually, you know, around 3% uh growth for most uh uh cities that are growing like the city of Lawrence is. These are the items that they have. Um right now we're in the process I'm in the process of engaging with with our auditors for this year, our annual auditors. And this is one of the items that I want to look at and and reconcile what we have um and see how we move forward with this with this agreement. That's great. I think that that I would love that for that to be a pri priority. I would love for that to be a priority for next year.
031which is you know obviously transparency is super important and uh you know just encouraging the city to invest uh beyond the minimum on on this you know in our schools. So, we would want nothing else, nothing less than than that. Um, you know, some of you ask for itemization. This is what what I have at this point. I'm hoping that we can get to a point where if if the cities are um if the city is charging the schools um $395,000 for controllers's office uh that we know what that actually means actually means I'm sorry I don't mean to that we know that what that actually means uh what $395,000 Yeah. And this this again, this is back from 2013, so I know it's going to take some time to for us to like catch
032up. Yes, ma'am. So, thank you. Yes, ma'am. And and I I would like to mention we we had a uh I'm not sure if you have it, Madam Chair, the our new uh letter of NES school spending um our meeting our NES school uh NES school spending requirement. There was an updated uh letter that was submitted by Desi for the last four years. Um and that's something also that that plays into um where we want to get with the city and you know the funds that that are coming to us and the the costs that that we share. Okay. Colleen, anything? Yeah. Um Jay, um Edgar. Yeah, I have a question. I'm sorry. Um first off, if you guys been talking to Mike is this in I got a degree in history, so I don't
033I don't know math, but I have to ask this question. The three the the least amount that the city is giving, you said it's and I'm asking honestly because I I couldn't hear. That's the that's the minimum amount that the city has to that can give, right? That is correct. Yes, sir. Yeah, you said it. Okay. I'm sorry. Yes, sir. That that is correct. That that is the the minimum amount that they need to provide to meet their minimum requirement. I guess my confusion in is that I don't and I think that and just to be clear that decision is not made by you guys. That's made by the city deciding that that's how much they're going to give the school system. Right. That is correct. Yes, sir. They can give the 700 if they
034want. Yes. And they did this year. Yes, sir. So, I guess my question is and and my confusion and I don't this is I don't even know if this is you're the appropriate person to ask, but we've been talking a lot in the last two years and and superintendent, especially when you uh came in, is that there was a growing population of kids coming to our our school system and yet the city then decided that the amount that they gave last year, we're going to reduce the amount by x amount of money. And I that that's to me I don't understand it and I don't I and I'm I'm asking you honestly. I'm not even asking you. I guess I'm doing the the all the conversations we had for the last year in my mind
035that has nothing to do with you guys in terms of because you you know it was just general conversations and then we do the math and then the city decides to give the Lawrence public school system less money way less money than they did last year. the as my mother says the math tells the math sometimes and I just don't understand that decision and so that's that that I guess that's not even a question that's just me making a statement that doesn't make any sense to me your uh your assessment is correct okay Mr. Dele um and it um matches with our assessment and we've gone before the budget and finance committee uh of the city council and they've asked us those types of questions. Um there's a logical answer for that and I think
036we all know what it is. Um this is why as Miss Mueller said that we need to make it a priority to look at thisou the memorandum of understanding that we have with the city that went into effect in 2013 and we need to update that. Um right I've instructed uh our administration um to pay very strict attention to the services being delivered so that we can track them so that we can calculate them at the end of the year so that when we go into budget season next year and we ask the city to produce their calculations and if they can't we can give them our calculations then I think it's time for a very honest an open and frank conversation because um Mr. Mr. Cabrera mentioned that um we just received correspondence from
037the department of revenue or the department of education desi department from the department of education they did their audit and they and they looked at all of our spendings spending um over the course of the last three years and it's just as Mr. uh Cabrera mentioned there's a $7 million gap that is public school dollars that but through the course of the last few years because of the um tracking of dollars the the leaving open purchase orders um and the closing out of years instead of that money coming to the schools the city has chosen to use it for its side and we have uh a very frank and serious conversation that we have to have. Our role is to educate and inform the LAE board. Our role is to come before the city council,
038provide them the information. The administration's role is to justify what those dollars are. That's that's probably as best that I can answer that for you. And I hope that you don't feel that I'm I'm dodging the question. No, I and I and I hope you know I hope you don't think that the question is actually for you. I I I think the question is for the city. I think what you're saying is right and I know superintendent you've been talking a lot about um especially early on and you're in and your team about hey we have we're facing an increase in in population. Correct. So to to me it's to me that it's just doesn't make any this just doesn't make any sense if we're going to say and we I mean as a city
039we're committed to our families and our kids and then we're taking away $400,000 of that for something else. So again, you and your team uh are are are amazing at coming at the budget. So I I hope that what I the frustration that you're hearing from me is not a commentary on the on what you guys are thinking. But we we we are aspirational in terms of retention of recruiting with more families come. All this stuff is happening and then the city is then saying, "No, we're not going to we're only going to give you bare minimum." But you know, I'm you know, I I don't do math. I do history. the math ain't math thing especially for the aspirational things that we're trying to do. Um and so again my frustration is not with
040you and your team um to be honest and and be frank I just I just don't understand it. So to be continued. Anything further madam chair? Yes. Any further question? I I actually have one question. Superintendent. Do you feel comfortable if with the money deduction that's happening and everything that's happening with us and all the plans that you that you and your team have to say, "Okay, that $400,000, which is a lot, can we still functionally run and do all the things that we want to do? Or is it in your mind use this as data and then go back to the city and say this is not we need the money?" Like, you know what I'm saying? like is this something that that Yeah, I guess that's my question. Well, I don't know. I
041don't know what my question is right there. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. That's okay. I think those are good questions. Um, as we get signals from the city side of what they're looking at, what our dollars amounts are. Obviously, we started this process by dreaming with all the dollars that we were going to have and we presented that to you folks. we went back and we made a second cut um and cut back probably by about 50% of what our initiatives were. But we still are looking at those initiatives. Um let's also remember that um we had to take into consideration what any anticipation of potential federal dollars that we might be cut. So, we dived into that and looked at how do we support and defend uh making sure that we have dollars for every
042employee. Uh, and I think that we feel comfortable with that. Um, that being said, yeah, we it it's a tight belt, but I think that our team has really grown. Um, and under Jason's leadership, um, Jason doesn't say yes very often. Yeah. So, we're trying to work around him to see if somebody else would say yes to us. But he his his colleagues, he has them convinced and they say no, too. So, he's conditioning us to make sure that we're making wise choices and decisions as to where our expenditures are. So, we do feel comfortable. We with this budget, there are no layoffs. Yeah. and we're able to expand the initiatives that uh we felt that we needed to make our kids and help our kids grow. Um our challenge is going to be busing
043obviously. Um and transportation always is. Yeah, definitely. So, uh, and and our COO, uh, we went into our negotiation, um, and we tried to hold the line with the busing contract to just have one year, but they came back at a 10% increase. So, we went back to the drawing board and we said, "Okay, this is what we we will be interested in three years, but we need some strict performance guidelines." And we're still hashing those out. But because we're looking at three years, they were able to bring that 10% down to 2% per year. So that if you look at it, uh we believe that it's tight, but we should be able to to make ends meet. So we're comfortable with the budget right now. Thank you, Super. Anything else? Um Edgar, you're fine.
044Oh, my rant my rant for the day for the the month of June is done. I I just don't understand it. But it's not anything that is not a it's not a uh this group thing in my opinion. But okay. Thank you. If I say Mr. Don, the questions that you're asking are not questions that or issues that have not been raised before. So these are things that it's not the first time that superintendent hears it or or I hear it. So um we understand we understand where you're coming from. Um what I if I you know ask if there are no other questions what I would ask is that this budget be voted on I think it provides us with what we need for this coming year. Um to the superintendent's point, there are
045no layoffs because of financial uh shortcomings, right? And and if you see when I presented where the money came from, we didn't take it from salaries. We didn't take it from uh supplies or educational materials. We didn't take it from professional services. So those things are still going to be provided under the budget that we originally presented. So those things are still going to happen with our staff, with our materials, with our professional services, um so that the kids can get the best education that that we can offer them. Um question. No, definitely. So the recommendation, Madame Chair, is uh uh for the board to uh accept our amendment of uh the total appropriation of 305,26,144 the SY uh 26 budget. All right. I just have one comment to make. Uh Jason, I wanted to
046show you just I had come prepared. I don't know if you could see them from there. I can see the thickness over here. U sticky notes in the budget, but I understand where um how the city and the school department kind of worked their their things out. But if we look at that of 2013, Yes, ma'am. Um, we've been our kids have been cheated 12 years of money of budgets because we've had to cut right along. Um, I would hope that we would start right now and negotiate with them right now to to clarify that there's no way we should be operating under anou that's dated 2013. Agreed. So that would be my recommendation that we start working with them and correcting a lot of mistakes that were made through the years and and and
047that is what that is what we're working on. Uh, Madame Chair, uh, not only with theou with the letter that we received from the department, uh, with the new net school spending, it was years of wrongful reporting. That's what the letter addresses as far as net school spending. So, we're coming in, we're looking at at the information that we have, and we're making sure that information matches to to Mr. Deleó's uh, comment that the math is mathing. So, math after math. And Jason, seriously, you're doing a great job, man. I I I don't want you to think that frustration is on you. I really do think that you've put in a lot of work, you and your team. So, just to put that out there as well, ma'am. I understand, sir. Thank you. Okay. We
048ready? Okay. Could I have a motion to approve the um FY26 uh Lawrence public school budget at the um at the total of 305 million uh 26,144? So move. Thank you. Second. Thank you. Any further discussion hearing? None. Maria, please call the role. Agar deleon. Yeah, I guess. Alen Garcia, yes. Maria Müller, yes. Chair Patricia Mariano, yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening. Thank you, Jason. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Jason. All right. The next item on the agenda is the um approval of facility rentals. Mr. Hernandez. Good evening, Madame Chair and members of the board. Alanis Hernandez, chief operating officer. We have four um requests for facilities use to present to you for your approval. um they have all been um vetted for the correct paperwork and also to ensure that
049the school facility that they are requesting is available for the dates that they are requesting. The first one is the Boston Crusaders. They come every summer in August to do their drums um competition. They used the South Lawrence East gymnasium here to um stage and then they also use the high school campus fieldhouse um upper and lower cafeterias um for their groups to sleep and then they have their weekend um activities at the memorial stadium. So we present that to you with uh recommendation for approval. The next one again um is again the Boston Crusaders. This one is specifically for the high school um and is for the day the day of the actual event. They use the not the entire high school but again the fieldhouse which is the gymnasium and locker rooms. Um
050and it's also for their um the first one I presented is for their rehearsal. The second one is for the actual competition. They arrive at 4:00 a.m. in the in the morning and they stay till 11:30 p.m. the next day. um and we present that to you with a favorable recommendation as well. The other one is a um event in collaboration with the city's uh recreational department. It's um India's team is a volleyball tournament um entertaining multiple um volable volleyball entities um from around the Commonwealth and also nationally. They are going to be using the Lawrence High School Fieldhouse from 9:00 am to 6 pm on Saturday and Sunday um in July. We vetted that against our summer school programming and there are no um interruptions to summer school since this event is taking place
051over the weekend. We present that to you as well with a favorable recommendation for approval. And the last one um was submitted to us late in the process in the not late in the process but it was submitted when we had already come before you in May um for for approval. Um so that's why you'll see the kind of the short turnaround in terms of when we're presenting and when this event is happening. It's um Canela. It's a dance um academy and they will be using the performing arts center at the Lawrence High School. Um they're rehearsing on Thursday, June 12th. That's tomorrow. And their event will take place on Saturday, June 14th, and it's for their end of the year dance performance and we are presenting that to you with a recommendation for approval
052as well. Thank you. Any questions from the board? hearing. None. Could I have a um a motion to approve the facilities rental as presented? Some move. Thank you, Maria. Second. Thank you, Alen. Um any further discussion hearing? None. Maria, please call the role. Edgar DeLeon, yes. Arlene Garcia, yes. Maria Müller. Yes. Sher Patricia Mariano. Yes. The next Thank you. The next item on our agenda is to um present to you the meeting minutes of May 14th, 2025. Are there any omissions or corrections? Hearing none. Could I have a motion to approve those minutes? So move. Second. Thank you. Any other discussion? Edgar, anything? Okay. Hearing none, Maria, please call the role. Edgar Deleon. Yes. Can you repeat that? You say yes or pass? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes. Sorry. Arlene Garcia, yes. Maria Müller, yes. Chair
053Patricia Mariano, yes. Um, the next item on the agenda is the student learning time waiver. And I believe we have someone here that's going to speak to the um the w the waiver. Yes, that would be Principal Coddero. runs our RISE Academy. Madame Chair, members of the board, um Mr. Cordderero came before us. Uh if you recall, uh we were experimenting with trying to have and open up more opportunities for our um students at Rise and uh we worked with the Department of Education to submit an application and it required a vote of approval from the LA board. um he has reported out to them. They've worked with him um and they've I believe uh had a favorable recommendation as to um the success of the program. But I will let Mr. Cordderero um go
054ahead and uh present that quickly and have you answer ask any questions you might. Welcome Mr. Cado. Thank you for having me. Um Madame Chair, members of the board, uh good evening. As the superintendent said, my name is Carlos Duro, principal of Rise Academy. This will be a quick uh six or seven slide presentation. The first portion is I'm going to give you an update on the pilot program, the night program that we have just uh almost completed for the semester. Also towards the end, the last couple slides is basically an approval for submission of the um student learning time waiver for two more years and that will be finally approved through Department of Education. Next slide, please. Um these numbers are a little bit hard to see from here. Um this is basically program
055demographics. Um this kind of gives you a breakdown of this the referrals we had when we started the program back in semester 2. Uh and there were students that we were able to review for potential candidates for the program. on the left, uh, re-engagements. Those are 10 students that were, uh, had dropped out and we were able to bring them back into the school system for potential graduation or to get back into cohort, uh, year, which I'll explain in a minute. uh upper schoolmies which is 11th and 12th graders from Lawrence High School who need those referrals or our newcomer program. HSC referrals high school learning center rise referrals uh those are day program students that wanted a different flexibility in the evening. Um so total referrals made or basically applications were reviewed 69 students.
056Out of those 69s we accepted 45 total. Um if you look on the next column on the radar 153 students that we were uh reviewing but somehow did not make the application process because of the timeline that we had. So total number of students we either reviewed or uh were referred is 222 just to give you a picture of the need of the program. So I wanted to make sure that that was up here. Next slide please. Uh I want to draw your attention to the middle column here the yellow highlighted yellow those are the total numbers by cohort year. So cohort uh desi defines as graduation class. So in other words, cohort 2025 were our current seniors. 2026 cohort is our juniors and 2027 is our current sophomores. Majority of our students in our
057program were our seniors. Um 26 followed by 20 uh correction eight and five sophomore. These are students that actually started and completed the program. Um on the left of the yellow column um talks about the cohort by grade level. Um some of you are wondering what is off cohort mean. That's for example on 2026 our juniors. We have seven students that are about to complete the program that now are back in cohort. So they're back on track to become seniors just like their um classmates. So that means that um they're not behind uh in graduation uh potentially graduating next school year. On the right of the yellow column, you have demographics by uh multilingual learner students. We had a total of 20 mostly seniors. We had two students in IEPs. Uh one student on 504.
058Um we had nine students uh who were either court involved previously or currently court involved. This is uh something that Desessie wanted to know. So we put it on the slide here. Uh, and then we had two students that were either um a parent or expecting um a parent. Uh, just to kind of give you a breakdown of the demographics of our current um program. Next slide, please. I need my glasses on that one. Uh, go back one, please. Oh, no. Sorry. Keep going. Um, so I met with Desi regularly. Uh, want to I want to thank that team. They provided us crucial feedback as we were going along in the in the programming. We discussed things that were working well, things that some of the challenges we were facing. They provided critical feedback that
059we implemented right away and that actually helped us uh write this new um SLT waiver for the next two years. Um but one of the ways we were able to measure progress is through these three goals. The first one being 75% of 12th graders of enrolled students will complete the program. I'm happy to report that we exceeded that goal. uh 85% of um the seniors did complete the program. Uh 22 out of 26 the four students that have not completed we are expecting to get them completed by August graduation. So we're we're expected to be at 100% of the students that um seniors that were in the program which is amazing. Uh goal number two uh we're also on track to meet or exceed at 85%. Um that's the progress. The goal is 75% of
060students who are behind in cohort year. In other words, they're not if they're a junior, they're behind some classes, and we want to try to catch up these kids so that come senior year, they should have no issue graduating. Um, and 85% of those kids um are able to to meet the goal. And if you want to know the raw numbers, 11 out of 13 students were be uh completed. They're now on track. And last goal, students will achieve 75% attendance. Um the night program actually has achieved 85% which is amazing. talks about the dedication of of not just the staff but the students that are really um have this opportunity to to see the light and and complete their education. Next slide please. Um I wanted to add some pictures because sometimes we talk
061data and numbers and we don't talk about the humans involved in and the impact we're making through this program. Um this is uh one of the parent night events we have up here. Lower pictures. Um they were doing some group projects on the right. Um they were in math class on the left. Um now I believe that was science class there in the middle. Next slide please. Uh this particular slide talks about our virtual reality career exploration uh process. We have a partnership with NAMCI which is Northeast Manufacturing Consortium. Uh they partner up with Mass Hire and what we want to do is to give students um uh career technical pathways experience. So, with these virtual reality headsets and these pictures you see up here, think about um giving kids an opportunity to be in
062a job site and a high-riser on the 20th floor working with tools and you look down and you're afraid you're going to fall off. Um so, really gives students an opportunity in carpentry, um electrical, HVAC, uh job sites, like if they're really there in person. Uh so, that's some of the uh neat things that we were able to do with our students and through career exploration. Next slide, please. Um this is another picture of our students uh going doing community service. They went to Coronium. Part of the program is that they have to either be working or complete some community hour service that are counted towards a learning time. Um so that's a picture of that. That's actually here in Lawrence in the Coronum um facility. Next slide please. And lastly in terms of the
063program progress, these are some pictures of our graduates uh in graduation day. um just bring tears to to our eyes and and and the team that's been working with these kids tirelessly to get them through the finish line. Next slide, please. All right. So, these two uh next slides are really what what our asks are moving forward. Um we want to continue operating the program to 40 students. Um priorities obviously we're going to be giving to juniors and seniors, our upper classmen because uh we really need students who are working. This program is designed for students who are either um trying to maintain themselves or have a job. That's part of the program. Um we're using competency based education and part of that is the grading. We want to add some additional programming with the
064feedback we got from Desi in terms of literacy um intervention. As we were going through this process, teachers realized that there's a gap in literacy. So, we wanted to address those issues moving forward. uh and added a world language um class. As we all know um native language skills really supports MLS's uh multilingual learners. So we we've added those supports. Um and then what we also have added uh for next year is um more PAR professional support for the one-on-one the small classroom. Right now, the ratio we're looking at is 10 to1 for co core teachers, but imagine also having a par profofessional for those students that need additional support or those 10 kids that we re-engage and have been out of school for months or longer and now they need additional support. Um having
065an ESL teacher there to support uh those um multilingual learners and spent teachers uh to also be there to support uh spent students. Um next slide please. So the waiver is required our program based on our our the way we have designed it for the next school year um it's going to have 106 days uh this requires 185 um inerson learning days will be total 945 hours time on learning um that's requirement minimum requirement is 9000 so we're going to be short about 45 hours um the waiver that we are that we submitted last week and hopefully you had a chance to review it. It's about 20 pages long and talks about how we're going to address these shortages. Um, and we need your approval. We're going to send it to the superintendent's office for
066for his signature. Ultimately, it goes to Desi by Friday and they make the final decision whether or not our program is approved for two additional years. and and I want to thank the um Department of Education for collaborating with us to ensure that we this is a smooth process um and and give opport continue to give opportunities to students to graduate. Uh if you have any questions, more than glad to answer them at this point. I don't have a question, but I'd like to make a comment um for the work that you do um in in capturing uh those students that that need that extra push, you know, because sometimes, you know, they they don't have that that will if I would say, or not that they don't have the will, but they they feel
067that it's so overwhelming and for them to, you know, get over there and do this and for you to offer, you know, at night and, you know, give them those opportunities unities. I think that's exemplary and, you know, making them well-rounded where they're going in volunteering, community service. That's absolutely awesome. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Cabrera? Was it um did I hear correctly? Did I Cordero? Cordero. Well, it sounds the same. It's, you know, when you get to be my age, it's me and I Yes. Um, Madam Chair, was there a significant increase in the graduates this year from your program? I am so glad you asked that question. So, for those of you that know, last year was my first year as a principal. We had one student walk in graduation, fastest graduation
068ever. and and I have that picture on my wall as a reminder that we have to do better. Uh this year I can say we graduated 31 students which is amazing. That's great. Congratulations. Um I have no further questions. Anyone else? I want to take the time, Madam Chair, to uh compliment and recognize uh Mr. Cordero. Um, when I first came into the district, you know, Arlene and Maria know me pretty well and I saw that dismal one. I said, uh, don't unpack. I, uh, made sure that, um, Mr. Cordderero knew that um we needed to do a lot better, but I also understand that uh he has a challenge and these are some of our most toughest students because of their experiences that they've had. Um he has been able to set uh criteria
069so it's not a dumping ground uh to work with the high school. Um has a relationship with the court system. as he mentioned, 10 students came back to us that were nowhere. They were just on the streets. Okay. Uh his staff has come together under his leadership. Um and they really really made the efforts to put together a program where kids believed in them. Um but he still advocates for them because he understands their needs. And these are students that uh need jobs, work, sometimes they have habits. and he's very tough on them and lets them know what expectations about and he puts them out and the after the evening program allows him to move them uh to bring them back in when they're ready to come back in when they can follow the norms.
070Um and next year uh because of the movement that we have in our buildings, RISE will be moving from the building Edgar that we rent, the lease line up there. You guys are talking about that's at the uh uh over on Broadway, the adult learning center will be moving there. But um Rise will be moving to the Lannard school because the Leonard school will be closing because they will become part of the Ley complex um that has a full kitchen that's getting redone for him, a gymnasium for the students uh and on the first floor really create some vocational career tech programs for the kids. I fully believe that um I have no doubt that um next year's amount of kids that he will have will probably be doubled. And I think that that's a
071good thing. But his role is to make sure that kids don't get there. But if they do get there, that they have a meaningful experience and they have a su a successful high school life and move on. So I commend him for the work and his advocacy that he does on behalf of those students and his staff. Thank you, Superintendent. Thank you. Quick question though. Um, Madam Chair, so is now that we have such a higher number of students graduating, do we have goals in terms of placement after graduation? And are we are we planning to track any of that? That's something that we want to um implement and add to our forecast. What what happens to these kids after they graduate? Every every successful um high school program at least, it's not just measured
072by graduation, but what happens after? Yeah, that's something that should be the north star for sure. That's something that as we build partnerships for career technical pathways um with NAM seeing some other partners that we're working through right now. We want to be able to eventually do some uh internships, right? We're going to be at the Leonard which is next to the hospital. I'm already thinking General Hospital. There's internships opportunities there. The Lawrence Family Lawrence um Great Lawrence Family Health Center is right down the street. So try to potentially develop some partnerships for internships that could lead to a job. So those are the things that I I I forecast and want to see moving forward to give more hands-on opportunities uh to the kids and figure out how can we build build these pathways
073so that we can um create opportunities for kids including we know a percentage of students got a job or they end up going to college or military whatever they choose to do. So yes, any other questions? Edgar Ed, but congratulations on all the work you've all put in. Okay, thank you. And then lastly, I just want to say I have to shout out to the staff who um understand that they work during the day. They have a full-time job and they're doing this at night, working 12-h hour shift, three times a week since January, February. This is this is not easy. Um so definitely want to want to um uh give them allocates because without the the teachers in the classroom making sure that this is engaging support staff that's um making sure kids are
074in the building when they don't come up we got to go do home visits at night and making sure people are in the building. It takes a lot of work. Um so definitely want to want to give the the um shout out to to the staff who who make this possible. Thank you Mr. Cordier. Yay. I will never forget that. I will never forget you either. Um, I want to congratulate you. I think this is a wonderful program and hope that all your goals are met for next year. And as the children cross the uh stage to get their diplomas, let's hope they're 100% from Rise. Oh, we love that. Thank you everyone. Good night. Thank you. At this time, could I um entertain a motion to approve the student learning time waiver as presented?
075So moved. Thank you, Edgar. Second. Thank you, Alene. Um, any further discussion? Hearing none, Maria, please call the role. Edgar Deleon, yes. Arlene Garcia, yes. Maria Müller, yes. Chair Patricia Mariano. Yes. Motion passes. Congratulations. Thank you. I will now turn the meeting over to the superintendent for his reports. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Um, I'd like to uh ask Miss Gutierrez from our ML department to come up and present our annual uh English language profic proficiency assessment. I think that you're going to be extremely pleased with the work um that her team and our teachers have done uh with our ML students. Welcome, Miss Cutes. Thank you so much. Good evening, members of the board. Um I'm just here to give a brief update on preliminary Access 2025 results. Um, so access
076for else is an annual English language proficiency assessment that students designated as English learners in the state need to take every year. It measures English language skills in four domains: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. This year, the test window opened on January 6 and closed February 14th. There's a typo on the slide. We tested 5,795 students on regular access and 98 students on alternate access uh which is an assessment for those students with severe cognitive disabilities. Preliminary participation rate for the assessment was 94%. However, this number is likely to increase when we get final results in the summer because this accounts for students who uh withdrew after the October 1 SIMS deadline. So, the participation rate um will go up and we expect it to be around 98 or 99%. Access report scores in a
077scale from one to six where one is very beginning proficiency and six is near native fluency. the test report scores in each domain as well as a literacy score which is a reading and writing combination and an overall score. Like I mentioned, these scores are preliminary. Um final scores will come out in August. This year we have seen slight increases in the average in every single domain and focal points continue to be the productive domains of speaking and writing. When looking at access results, we study two indicators of achievement. One is whether the students are meeting their individual benchmark. Unlike the MCCAST, there is no set score that a student uh in a specific grade level should be achieving. We uh students can arrive as newcomers in grade one or grade 11. So instead we
078look at individual growth. After a student first takes access, Desi calculates an individual target for the following access administration. This target is calculated taking into consideration uh the students last score, their grade level, the number of years the student has been in the EL program, um and other indicators. If the student reaches this score or higher, they're considered to have made progress. If not, then they have not made progress. It's a binary and it doesn't take into consideration how much the student may have actually improved below that target. Um, Desi also sets a percentage target for each school in the district and for the district overall of how many students met their progress targets. And this is part of the school accountability system. The other indicator is the percentage of students who reach the score
079needed to exit the EEL program and become redesated as former English learners. Ideally, this should be happening around year six in the program. Let's have a look at both of those a little more closely. First, let's consider the district. So, in grades K through eight, the non- high school grades, 38.7% of students met their progress targets. This is up 7.3 percentage points from 31.4% in 2024. Our accountability target was 33% which means we have exceeded our target. At the high school level, 12% of the students met their target up 3.2 2 percentage points from 8.8 in 2024. The accountability target was 10.1% which means we have also exceeded our target at the high school level. At the school level the results have been very positive. 55.6% of our uh schools exceeded their individual target as
080well. 5.6% met their target. 16.7% improved but below their target. 11.1% had no change and 11.1% declined. In total, 77.9% of our schools improved. Those that declined are some of our best performing schools and only saw moderate decreases. Now, let's have a look at the students who met the exit criteria. The scores that a student needs to um achieve in order to exit the EEL program are 4.2 overall and 3.9 in literacy, which again is the combined reading and writing score. As a reminder, the scale is from one to six. One is beginning, six is near native. This year, 8.1% of our EL students met the exit criteria. This is up 2.1 percentage points from 6% the previous year. Again, there's a difference between K8 students and high school students. In K8, 8.8% of the
081students met the exit criteria, um, which is an improvement of 2.3 percentage points over the previous administration. And at the high school level, the percent was 2.4 4 up um half a percentage point compared to 2024. So this was the brief update in preliminary access 2025 um data and please let me know if you have any questions it was a lot of numbers. I know. Can I So, what's what's next on this? I mean, these are these are great results and and I'm sorry for you know, I'm excited about everything that went forward, but in terms of the ones that declined, is there a plan for those schools to obviously um address that? Yeah. So um so in general our hope is that every single school in the district will exceed their target every year.
082Um the targets continue to increase. Um so next year even those that exceed it will continue will need to continue to grow. For those schools that um declined um we need to study better what the reasons for the decline might have been. But in the meantime, those particular schools are working on implementing high-quality instructional materials for ESL um in particular with the newcomers. We're always also revisiting how services are delivered and what the best instructional approach for the students is um and whether the school is actually properly adhering to the instructional approach that they um that they reported. In addition to ESL, there's also um you know LSA the responsibility of everyone. So there's a big component as well on SEI um and those schools um will have the opportunity to receive professional development on
083shelter English immersion techniques so that um instruction for English learners can be improved in all content areas and not just in ESL. Right. Any other questions, superintendent? Surely I noticed uh Miss Gutierrez, the two declining uh schools is one whole complex, the Partha. Correct. Um that's interesting. So, and I'm sure that you and your department will look much and delve deeper into what's going on there with lessons, whatever have you. Um, but I'm I'm also going to stick up for the part and even though they declined, if you look at their percentages of where they are, they were pretty high. So, trying to get higher, you're squeezing and it's a little bit tougher. So, um, we are compelled to be critical and looking and and and push, but I want to compliment also the part.
084But, uh, obviously um, if we're going to repeat as champions, we got to get stronger. But overall, I want to commend um, you, your team, and all of our uh, ESL teachers. This is impressive. You don't normally see school districts do this type of work. Um, and it's to be commended. Um, so obviously there's some good things happening in Lawrence public schools and but we we should take the time to uh commend and celebrate the successes uh because teaching English on top of working with ML students um is not an easy task and with our ML students is always a moving target if you will. Correct. So absolutely. Um and this is you administered 5,795 Um that's uh that's almost like what 75% of our ML students because we have 7,800 7,900 students. So that
085number includes the preK students that don't take access. So correct. Okay. But I think obviously um it's important to let our schools know they've done a great job. Okay. Thank you. We'll do. Thank you so much. Congratulations. Thank you. I have one question. I focus too on the um schools that declined, but I was wondering did that school get not an influx but a lot of newcomers into the city. So newcomers are not accounted in this data because students need to have taken access once in order to get a target to be accounted in this um in this computation. That was my next question. How they get the target? Yeah. So when the students first take access, then Desi calculates this individual target for each student based on their age, their grade level, um how
086many years they've been in the EO program, and how other students with similar um demographics have um performed in the past. We don't set the targets. We receive those from DESIE. um we'll see those probably around August and then we distribute that information and the teachers know at the beginning of the year what targets the students are working towards. So the newcomers are not accounted because they haven't taken access yet. So it's usually students in their second year and beyond. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Miss Kutias. Thank you so much. Um good news. Um followed by more good news. We have our headmaster from the high school here, Mr. Kalago to come up and uh give us some highlights. Uh the chairwoman was present at graduation with myself too and Edgar uh had missed it
087but it was uh it was a wonderful wonderful experience. Welcome Mr. Karavajo. Thank you superintendent, Madame Chair. Um uh thank you for allowing me to be here members of the board. Um, again, this is always a wonderful opportunity just to showcase the great work that we're doing, not only at the high school, but K through eight. Um, and this image really highlights what we're what we're doing here, right? Uh, we're really celebrating student success. We're celebrating the work. We're celebrating our staff. Um, if we can turn into page two, please. So, in terms of graduation, uh, on May 30th, we had over 789 graduates. That is the largest graduating class in the school's history. compared to 674 for the 2024 cohort and 589 for the 2023 and I wanted to add those numbers just to
088show you that progression over time in terms of a student achievement. And I do want to take the time to also highlight uh the great effort that is being done. and Carlos uh you can't get enough credit in terms of you know uh those numbers from Rise are adding up right and they contribute to this and this is the overall partnership that we're having when it comes to the main campus and our alternative school principles that is allowing us to get a lot more graduates right to be able to enjoy this experience and again for us to be able to celebrate this great achievement uh today um just a few snapshots as well which are are critical to to this conversation so what happens after they graduate and So what we're seeing now across the
089board um our students are being admitted to top schools from Brown University, UPEN, Boston College, Barnard, Boston University, Northeastern. And uh when it comes to some of these names, again, I I could go on and on, but we're getting multiple admissions. Not one, not two, but Nor Eastern, for example, we got over seven to eight students. And before whenever I presented this kind of list, we would just highlight ALA students, which they're part of our exam school, but now we're just highlighting the vast majority of these students are from upper school. And so it is important to know that when it comes to this degree of excellence and standard and just preparation, right, we're spreading the wealth and there are a lot more students that are graduating from Lawrence High School with a greater level
090of expertise, right, that are allowing them access to these very competitive institutions. Uh the other piece of good news too is uh when it comes to scholarships, a lot of these students are receiving great financial aid packages and so we have taken a lot of time uh to support our counselors to work with partners like Gear Up and YDO to ensure that we do a good job in terms of uh ensuring that um their financial aid packages are well done in order for us to maximize the uh the money that students are receiving. And so, you know, we have, for example, two POSI scholars. If you don't know much about POSI, um 17,000 students apply to this nationwide. Only 5% receive it. Two of our students this year received our POSI scholars, which is a
091great celebration and again testament to the work that is being done across the board. Um to do this right, it takes a lot of coordination between the service providers, our partners, counselors, but at the same time too, the work, the daily work of the principles just to ensure that kids are doing what they got to do and the teacher supporting them. A few campus updates and things that I believe that are pertinent that are also allowing us to create this greater degree of access. Um when it comes to the SEO biteracy, which is something to note, um we're really placing emphasis and particularly with this administration, I got to give credit to the superintendent, there's a huge emphasis on celebrating culture and diversity and language. And so when it comes to um our students, one
092of the the big highlights too is um a great number of our students are now attaining the seal of biteracy. So every year we're adding about 25 more students to that list which is a tremendous achievement and the SEO just highlights their proficiency in both English and Spanish which is something that we want to highlight particularly uh for community like Lawrence. AP access is huge as well. We have over uh we administer just over,200 individual AP exams. I have a great problem now on campus. Who's going to monitor all of these exams? Uh and to be frank I just want to share this short story. I just had a visit from college board because they were wondering how we were doing it too and they wanted to learn more and so you know too often
093when it comes to these exams you have 200 300 kids testing in a space and so logistically right now you know we're working things out in terms of like how are we going to cope with these growing numbers which is a great problem to have. So overall we have over 867 students taking uh AP courses. Uh you know there are skeptics out there in terms of what Lawrence High School is and what it can provide. And so when we started uh a few years ago in terms of the AP expansion okay kids are taking the exam but are they passing it right and the idea is that we are expanding in double digits in terms of the amount of students who are also passing the AP exams across the board which is also maximizing college
094credits. And so we're very proud of that too. And you know, it is a process. It takes time, but we're getting to that level of achievement. Early college enrollment is over 450. Our graduation rate remains over 98%. Uh we expect our early college enrollment to surpass 500 students at the start of the school year. Uh which is fantastic. Again, we are one of the largest uh programs in the state. And we have a phenomenal again um uh graduation rate and success rate across the board which is good news. Um I'm also excited uh just to announce that you know this spring we just launched a dual degree program for our kids. That means that a kid in Lawrence High School will now have the ability to be able to graduate with an associates uh degree
095and a high school degree. We're also going to be extending that opportunity to Abbott Lawrence students and that's part of the superintendent's vision in terms of really expanding those options particularly with Marramac College and fostering that experience for families. And so when it comes to college affordability in Lawrence, Lawrence will become very attractive to a lot of folks because this will be a place in which not only you can get a good education, but at the same time when it comes to that financial component, right, of making that decision in terms of going to schools, that's something that you don't have to you will not have to worry about if you're a Lawrence uh public school student. So, I said a lot, but I know it's not o'clock, so I'm trying to be as brief
096and informative and concise as possible, but I just want to open the space for questions. Thank you, Mr. Cabayo. Did I say that correctly? Karavayo. Oh, you can use the hyphenated one, which is Carayo. I need I want to come to the high school and get a lesson on all the names. Um, if I could comment a minute. Um, you you all know and I speak about it all the time about letting the community know how successful our kids are. Um, Chris Markins has forged a relationship with the Lawrence Police Department. And no more will you see this child committed this crime. what they and actually they posted something this week about all the exciting things that happened at Lawrence at Lawrence public schools from I would say from April to about now graduation and
097um the chief of police spoke to me and and had no idea that the kids were so talented and what is going on at the high school and the other Grazy Elementary. So, um I think Chris has a new friend and if you get the Tribune today, they had an insert called Real News in Schools and on the front page is um Heather's group that performed on the camp common. So, we're getting noticed and um it's important that we follow through with all these great things. So, thank you, Chris. And superintendent, that's for you if you need it. Well, your validictorian uh was um on WBZ. They they did a you know a spoke about him and his uh scholarship and all that he had accomplished. Well, we got now we have to let them
098know about all the scholarships and everything that the kids have gotten, but um we're on the move and thank you. Questions from board members? No questions. Thank you. Questions? Thank you. Um thank you uh Mr. Anderson. Um I want to uh compliment um uh Mr. Karavajjo and the team at the uh at the high school um to be able to post that 98% of your students that are at high school and also taking early college and of the the graduation rate is 98%. That's not impressive. Okay, that's a trailblazer. Um and that's what Lawrence High School is supposed to be about. that people really start to notice what's going on there. One thing that um Mr. Karavajjo forgot to mention um graduates that graduated from the Greater Lawrence Technical School that graduated with their with
099their certificate in in CTE, career technical ed. Um we have approximately 90 students a year. They take 50 and 50 at the junior and senior year. And those students have to commit to staying in the program for two years so they can obtain the 900 hours in the vocational program of their choice and then they graduate. Um, and I think it's something that we need to make sure that we highlight next year at our graduation. We know that they participated in the vocational technical school, but those are our students here from Lawrence and they've done a tremendous job. Um the other thing real quickly I wanted to mention we set a record this year in our LPIN. What was our total LPIN um graduation? the highest in the in the school's history also. So the
100the things that are happening at the high school is just absolutely remarkable um for our kids and what's going on there. So my uh compliments to uh you and the staff there. Um I still will keep you apart from Mr. Cabrera, I noticed that you sit close to him. You sent him a signal because we are having a challenge with exams for biiteracy and that's a good problem to have. So once again, congratulations. Um you have students coming to summer school that credit recovery uh missing some things. Those total number of students, how many are there? 110 plus 700 um 89 equals so before we uh come back to school at the beginning of the year we will have graduated 899 students madam chair um that says a lot about the city of Lawrence and
101what's going on so congratulations Okay, thank you. Um, one last one last presenter. They say we saved the best for last. Uh, assistant Superintendent Aosta to, uh, present our, uh, empowering schools through family voice, uh, the family experience questionnaire. Here's where we ask our parents to really get down and and dirty with us and tell us what we need to do to improve. Good evening. You know, family engagement is is key. We we we all work hard for it. I know our schools are working hard for it and it's because it's important to get parents involved. But giving families a voice is most important because they're telling us where are the challenges, what's working, what are the next step that we need to take. So when we look at the uh the family um experience
102questionnaire is one of the tools that we use uh to look at that data. And so uh for us um this is an annual u questionaire that's given to families usually is in March. Um can we go to the next slide please? Um but this time uh we this year we did it in April. We uh we launch in April 28. Um and then we we usually give families a couple of weeks um to really complete the u the questionnaire. And so if they need a little more time, so we extend it to we can extend it to another week. So um we closed it on May 9th. And so what happens after that, we look at the data. The respond rate this year was a 6,513. The district gets the data and as well
103as the each individual schools get their own data. Next one. Good evening, madame chair and members of the board. If you can please go back to the previous uh slide. Um if you see the response rates uh 6,513 uh compared to uh the district student population which is about uh 13,800 plus that is about 47%. So the research indicates that for a survey to be valid, you have to uh get a response rate of at least minimum 30%. So this year we score 47%. Just wanted to make that clear. So and then as Mr. Aosta was uh alluding so what is it that we do with this data? So we bring these results back to the schools so they can analyze their own results and from there they get the team to also work with
104them. So we look at challenges and strengths, the parent sense of connections and partnership because one of the things about this survey is that the questions that are posted are basically about the family experiences in the school system and the communication in the schools with the families. These are like two main topics that are covered in this survey and that's why you see that we have to look at what is working and what is not as Heraldo was uh saying and what are the priorities for improving families um family engagement in the schools. Yeah. So what we did here is we used last year data with this year data and we have just selected seven seven questions just to give you an idea of what some of the questions were and so for example u
105here when it says I believe that my child likes to participate in school um it went from 92% to 93%. And what that entails like partic you know that like to participate it's like the student really likes to to go to school. It's just the environment is very positive. There are adults in the building that they can trust. Um they have interest topics for example they have sports, they have uh arts, they probably uh have great math programs and also they have a supportive uh environment. and and so uh here she shows is that a lot of schools have been working hard on that to create that safe environment so skill can students can feel safe and go to school on qu so go to the next one question eight my child has at least
106one trusted adult in school once again this is building uh authentic relationships at the school with could be a counselor could be a teacher could be the clerk work and once again is that ability to just go into the school and knowing that there's someone going to be there that they can listen to. So if you see the the data went from 80 80% and 24 last year and it went up uh 83%. So we're doing something right. Question nine, how would you rate communication with your child at school? Once again, if you look at 80 I think see 86% I I just need my glasses and then it went up to 90%. And this is once again it's it's due to the work that the principles are doing at their schools. Um some of
107the schools have these open door policy where parents can come in if they have questions, they're looking for resources. Um there are more communication that are going out to families and so uh once again families are feeling more comfortable go coming in and and visiting the school. Question 13. My child's school I can be involved in decisions that affect my child and I personally have I've seen that look at here uh last year 89.7 almost 90. It went up slight a little bit, but it seems that we're doing something right. I think we can do better with this. And me personally, I've seen it. I I see more families want to be part of these meetings that it will be attendance or it will be academics or just looking for resources. Uh they want to
108be there and be a part of the process. Number 15, I have at least one person in the school that I can go for any concern. Once again, we and I think we have mentioned this here. We have uh 26 schoolbased specialists that work directly with newcomers and also uh families experiencing uh homelessness. And these are the family engagement folks that will, you know, talk to these new families coming in. And it's just not once they they tend to meet with them uh regularly. They tend to build that relationship with them. And so families tend to know who these folks are. Um so they feel very comfortable uh when it comes to having someone at the school level. And number 19, and this is a good one. Uh if you if you look at it,
109the data last year was 74% uh this year is 81%. This is my child's school provides training to to families. And this is um superintendent we we talked about this the high school uh parent uh university we have provide sort of safe training for families so they can get their certificates. We have ESL classes uh for our families and so we can see that uh we are heading the right direction when it comes to really providing these services and these opportunities to families and so we can see that on the data. So overall, I think that as a district, we're heading to the uh right direction. Uh we got some gains. Uh families are engaged. They're participating and they're being more connected in their schools. So we we're very happy with the data and so
110we'll continue the work. And um not sure what you want to say a couple of things or um if there are any questions. I just want to clarify that we have been and these are he was giving you only two years data information. The district has been collecting this type of data for the past five years and I believe this is going to be the last year because now we are going uh to implement to actually study the survey alone because this particular survey was composed of 24 questions and it was very lengthy. So imagine for a family that has five children having to have to answer for every child all these uh questions. So we are going to study that. The superintendent is already on it and um we are very pleased with the
111results. We are not where we want to be at but we are definitely moving in the right direction. Any questions? Anything from the board? Edgar, I was going to say thank you guys for getting the data, especially the one I was impressed by the communication piece, which I think says a lot about the Lawrence public school system and its attempts to communicate um with families. Um so yeah, but the I guess the question I have is when you get data, can you break it down by schools? So if the 93% is happy that all the communication is happening, that's district-wide. I know data is so important to impact planning. Can you then tell what schools are doing it better than others and and sort of that breakdown? And yes, we do. We uh have the
112capability of breaking this data by school. And this is how we go back to the school principles and talk to them about their own results. we can show the numbers very easily and from there they have to develop an action plan to work with during the school year. That's the work. Um Madam Chair, I want to congratulate um the F FRC center and the work that they've done. Um we've really seen a lot of increase in all of our schools of engaging parents. Um and the engagement of parents is about positive things happening at the schools, celebrating with their kids, having Thanksgiving nights. Um all of these things have a common denominator and that's to build trust because if there's a trust between teacher and parent, teachers can push push kids harder. And I know
113that we don't get to see this as often as we do. There's always a small portion because we're not perfect. you see parents come and they they're going to continue to challenge us. But last night I was able to participate with Maria in our virtual coffee. Um and we had over a hundred parents and and one of the things that when we asked this is the last one we asked any suggestions for next year. That was an oops on my part. Okay. Uh they said, um, can we have a separate one just like this just for parents of kids on IEPs? Yes. Because it's sensitive and they don't want to have those discussions. Uh this morning I I met with our assistant superintendent that also handles handles student support. She says, "Oh yeah, we can
114get this done." I said, "Oh yeah, and if I'm going, you're going to be there um to those meetings." But it shows you that parents are reaching out and we're giving them venues to engage with the administration with schools and at the end of the day is that as I said if we can create those opportunities for parents to meet with teachers and feel comfortable about their schools and that's what this is telling us. Um he only gave you a few questions of the increases that we're seeing. We're going to see that more next year and I think that that's one of the main reasons this year that we had such a successful school year. So, thank the thank the two of you and your entire department for the work you do on behalf of
115our kids and the relationship that they have with our parents. Thank you also for working with us and also for doing the virtual coffee hours and the divorce council because I think it's like the perfect perfect uh place for for you also to meet the families where they are at and to know exactly from them what is happening. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. One last thing, Madam Chair, is just uh around the horn, as I said, around the district, nothing but celebratory. Uh I think Mr. Karavajio uh mentioned that um we had 789 graduates. We got another 109 in summer school. We'll hit that 900 mark. And I think that that's something that we need to celebrate. But those are some pictures from graduation. That dude up at the podium looks like an
116old dude. I can see why now. um our two validictorians and our uh poet is that what we refer to that one as our essayist Victor the female on stage poet or the what honors essay the honor essay that young lady you were there um is only been in the country one year and three months um and she's of Haitian background um and she's part of our O'Neal's program. That young lady stood up and read a wonderful tremendous speech. But what was remarkable about remarkable about her is that she's only been in the country one year and two months. And the level of English that she has of command lets you know what's happening for the support that we have for our kids at the high school. Um, also around town, you already showed that
117um, Madame Chair, the first uh, annual um, concert on the on the common um, exemplifying and highlighting what our kids all over our grammar schools are doing. Um, out of that what was born or I should say reborn our choir. Um, one of the things that I've always said that we need to have a choir because we have over 180 uh places of wor worship here in in the city of Lawrence and many many of our kids participate in choir and the choir uh opened up the graduation and they sang beautifully. It was their first performance. Uh we're on the rise so we brought back a choir that I think is going to be uh famous as it was back in the 90s. our dance groups that they have kids participating. Um our Weatherbe Junior
118Achievement Day uh middle school students from the Bruce uh Allington presented their year-long u projects at Marry Mat College from STEM. These are all things that just constantly happen. Um our LPIN celebration I mentioned was a record year. Um one of our uh uh assistant headmaster Mr. Finn with students celebrating. Um we have students that had gone on to um the credential center, Miss Santiago's sophomore business pathway class. Um not only did they visit the potential center, they went into most of the businesses there to do interviews and have conversations about uh those professions through the their business venture. So that was a nice time for them. And obviously this year was a remarkable year for Lancers both arts and um our athletics. Uh we had you you honored the state champion two times in
119a row. Um Hillary who's our female wrestler. Um our Genesis uh our stu really the student athlete full scholarship to Brown University. Our valid Victorian and state champion on the disc. Um our boys basketball team. It says that we are a small school league. And you say, "How can you be small when you have so?" And it's because of the level of experience that we've just started with our volleyball program. I don't need to talk about the baseball team um conference champions. We we got a little bit tight in the tournament, but we got to let them know how to play under pressure, right? But um our performing arts students um anytime that there's any competition, every school in the Commonwealth shies away. They say, "Oh my god, the kids from Lawrence are here." They
120ran away with Tammy awards a couple of weeks ago. They ran away with the awards at the Theater Gil program and they brought home the hardware from Florida. That's the talent that our kids have. That's the reason why we're going to create a performing arts academy, right? Um, summer school's on its way. Okay. We have summer meals program this year. We changed up summer programming to make sure we have it in zones. I met with the assistant superintendent and um, uh, Ditza that takes care of summer. We have about 2,900 children enrolled in summer school and we'll be providing free meals. Um this year we're going to try to make sure that all of our kids that are in summer school um every at the end of every week they're on a bus going out
121to a wonderful experience to uh enrichment on field trips and I think that that's a wonderful thing. And last but not least, Madam Chair, it's nice to be on the front page of the tribute for the right reasons. And I think that those are the signs of times to come. So I want to thank everybody. I want to thank my team for an incredible school year. I know that we have a few more days. We're going to finish strong, but I also want to thank the LE board for all of the support that they've given me, your advice and working with me. I think we've gotten a lot accomplished and Lawrence Public Schools is on the move. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's my report. Thank you, Superintendent. And it's really nice to end the year
122off on a high note, and we've certainly done that. That concludes our meeting for tonight. The next anticipated LE meeting will be September 18th, 2025. Wish all I'd like to wish all our staff and families a wonderful summer and I'll entertain a motion to adjourn. So moved. Second. Second. Thank you. Um Maria, please call the role. Deleon, yes. Alen Garcia, yes. Maria Müller, yes. Chair Patricia Mariano. Yes. Our meeting is adjourned. Thank you and thank you again for staying with us so late.