Lawrence Alliance for Education Board Meeting May 14, 2025

001Science for Education Board meeting for May 14th will now come to order. The time is 6:10. Maria, please take attendance. Present. Would we um all please rise for the pledge of allegiance? This is going to be difficult. I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. [Music] All right. There currently there are no items for executive session. So we will move on to public participation. The board welcomes public comment. We will call people in the order in which they have signed up. As you begin, please state your name and address for the um for the record. Each person is permitted to speak for no more than two minutes. A bell will

002ring when you have 30 seconds remaining and again at the end of the two 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 microphones and the person will be asked to leave the meeting. I'd like to remind every during public comment the board is in a listening mode and as such board members do not respond to comments. Written public comments may be emailed to lurence.k12.mma. us no later than 2:00 in the afternoon of our meeting. So we're ready to begin. Mr. Maliun Mali 53 Chester Street. Good evening honorable members. We the citizen are grateful and proud for the Lawrence public school with the impeccable leadership by honorable superintendent Raph Guerrero on the road to become the best public school

003in the nation. We the citizen in this important collective bargaining negotiation demand the best compensation for our hardworking cafeteria workers. Lawrence public school is great because of our best teachers because of our professional employee and our hardworking cafeteria workers. We stand united to support your union in this in this war in this challenge in support of our teachers and the union. The greatest responsibility of every citizen is to support the teachers union. We the Laurentian are number one champion in the nation. Support teachers union. The teachers who inspire the whole world. The teachers who educate the children of the world. Lawrence teachers you are number one the true guardian angel for the bright future for the Lawrence. Lawrence always a strong Lawrence always unite in this important collective bargaining year. We the citizen are behind

004all the union of our teachers cafeteria workers and par prof professional employees. Thank you for excellent job. Uh, Jen, I I'm going to apologize in advance if I mispronounce your name. Gioanes Trinidad. Please make sure Can you guys hear me? Can you hear me? Um, good evening. My name is Yiovanni Trinidad and I am a cafeteria worker specifically for the this school, South Lawrence East. And we are here because we will need a fair contract. You guys hear me? Can you hear me? Um, good evening. My name is Trinidad and I Jack,ch. Fled the ambassador. And so it's been a while since we've been trying to negotiate a fair contract and we are here so that our voices are heard. Um our cost of living has increased. Our salaries are stuck in the same place

005and we have more work. We have more regulations that we need to abide by. we've been uh increased the work and so we are here in this beautiful room so that you can consider our needs and we could negotiate and have flexibility on both parts and so that we can speak a proposal that benefits all. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you Raymond Nunees. Good evening, Buenardes. I would like to highlight the opportunities Superintendent Cedero provided the teachers and par profofessional with the Dominican Republic immersion program and also the PAR professional toteer program. Thank you for the opportunity providing the teachers and also the par profofessional for continue professional development. Have a good night and thank you. Thank you, Miss. Sorry, I apologize. I forgot to mention my street address. 121 Union Street.

006Uh, Bonitez Vertilio. Mhm. school. Joano forchech. [Music] My name is Bertilia Bonitez. I live on 18 Beacon Street. have been working in the frost for years and right now at this moment I get paid $18 and we really need a salary that is fair for all of us. We help all our children and we h how would the children survive without us? We help them with their brain. How would they be able to study without us feeding them and we don't get what we deserve? We need more support. We need assistance with our salaries so that we can help each other. Thank you. Thank you. Arielis. Um, Pug Reyes. is school. No, Good evening. My name is Ariel Buho. I've been working for the school district permanently. I've been in the district for 20 years.

007I work at the cafeteria and um we don't show that we are evolving. We do not get we do not have a fair contract at the moment. We're getting paid $1876. How is that fair for us as cafeteria workers? The cost of living increases. Um our work increases, our responsibilities increase. Why do we get treated like that? Why do cafeteria workers get treated like that? We deserve better. Thank you, Wana Espinosa. Good afternoon. My name is Juana Espinosa. I live on 47 Adam Street here in Lawrence. I am want to thank the um Mr. Carto, the superintendent as well as the LEA board and all the team that made it possible for us to be able to go to the DR immersion program. It was a great opportunity. It was a great learning experience for

008all that attended to that theor immersion. It give us an opportunity to understand the student that we working with where are they coming from and what can we do better to help them here in the Lauren public school. So I want to thank you in the bottom of my heart for all the work done and all the work of the team that went with us to the DR to really understand the academic and also the needs that they are they are having academically and to be able to support them here as we best can. So thank you and thank you again in behalf of the team that went with us and we want to continue the work because there's a lot of work that needs to be done and we can do it together. Thank

009you. Thank you, Anna. Common Diach. for coming. Gracias. Hello, my name is Carmen Diaz. I've live at 12 Actton Street. I work for the cafeteria Lawrence High School in Lawrence. We feel that we've been discriminated as workers. We've been dealing with this since 2022. Um we would we need a better salary, we need a better income, we need better benefits, we provide quality work for our students and we need to be valued as as such. Thank you. Ram is Gonzalez. is Hello, my name is Rosai Gonzalez. I've been working at the Partam School for 15 years and I'm just asking for some compassion towards us. We work hard for our children. We work hard for you guys, for the teachers, for everyone. We've been having to uh do pickets and we've been having to speak

010to the council to get some help. I actually earn at 1872 per hour and I've been in the district for 15 years. Thank you. When I is Anna Sanchez. for superend. Superend. Hello, my name is Anna Sanchez. I live at 31 Pillow. I've been working in the LPS district for 8 years and we've all been affected with our salary for years. We're just This is a calling for the superintendent. Um, I know that you found this issue already because we've been trying to negotiate since last year and we would just like to ask you to analyze our contract. Um, we've been very discriminated in the previous superintendencies and what we have been told is that we're currently in mediation and we haven't been able to get an agreement. So, we have our hope on you,

011Mr. Superintendent, so that we can um go into an agreement for all. Thank you, Myra Ortiz. I'd like to welcome Mrs. Ortiz. She's our school committee district representative for district A. Thank you for being here, Myra. Thank you so much. Good evening. Councelor Myra Ortiz, present school committee member from Prospect Hill, 45 Norris Street. Um this evening I come before you for public participation. My specific interest is learning how we are navigating our FY26 budget and what we are doing. Hoping to hear what we are doing to um navigate these difficult times that we're in with all the federal cuts, state cuts, and and all the different things that are happening here in our city. What I did find is is these wonderful people here from the cafeteria workers from I'm not sure what what

012um chapter 3 union and I stand in solidarity on equity and payment for all of our workers and I know that that's difficult. So that's just an added an added bonus to know that advocacy is happening everywhere in our city and we are here as a school committee I'm here as a school committee member to listen and to advocate. What I've heard in our last school committee meeting last Wednesday was a lot of parents, teachers, and um students that are frustrated this year. And I believe a lot of it is just um not being well represented in a way where if we're only talking to each other and we're not talking and having everybody come to the table and talking here in this space, then it just becomes murmuring and we can't take any action.

013So, I'm looking forward to to taking that listening posture and seeing what the board has um and the superintendent has with this specific budget and overall listening to uh everyone as we're going through these really difficult times with the federal government. Let's just take some ease in our city is what I'm looking for. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you, Denise Molina. I apologize. It's been a very long day for me. Good evening. Sorry. Good evening, distinguished guests, um, planning committee. I apologize. It's been a long day. Superintendent, Mr. Caredo. I know that you are familiar with my name. My name is Denise Molina and I stand before you as a mother, an advocate, and the founder of Spectrum Support Collective, an organization that was formed out of necessity as a parent to

014support families of children with autism and those navigating the school system, including English as a second language. I speak for parents who feel voiceless. For those who are overwhelmed, ignored, and tired of waiting for change that never seems to come. I want every parent in the Lawrence public schools to know you are not alone. We are stronger together. You can reach me directly at SS Collective now atgmail because our children deserve more than silence. I have sent over 31 emails to this district, including to some of you seating before me right now, the school committee and this board. Yet, the only responses I've received have come from individual school employees and a few school committee members, not from leadership entrusted with ensuring our children's safety, dignity, and education. As a primary voice and protector of

015my son who is autistic and recently suffered a concussion, I must ask, what will you do to ensure this never happens again? I am not the only parent who is suffering through this. Lawrence has one of the highest percentages of autism and special education students in the state. And yet the staff entrusted with our children are clearly not equipped, not trained, and not supported to meet their needs. I want to be clear. This is not a statement against our teachers nor our principles. This is a statement to say that this cannot be fixed with compliance checkboxes or vague commitments. We need a strategic, systemic, and humane response. We need proper training for our schools, not just in crisis response, but in autism competency, traumainformed care, and language access. Because when the system fails to equip

016the adults responsible for our children, our children pay the price. My child's fear of going to school, his pain, and his ongoing recovery are scars that could have been prevented. So again, I ask, what is this district going to do moving forward to ensure that the people responsible for our children's care and the care of students like him are properly trained? We are not asking for perfection. We are demanding accountability, equity, and action. Thank you for listening. Thank you, Antonio Ortega. Number Ortega Good evening. My name is Antonio Ortega and I represent the Arlington School. I would just like for you to take a bit of your time and just evaluate our work, our compromise with the our with the kitchen and with the children and we that you value our work. We need an

017increase in our salary. Our rent is going up and I would just like our time to be valued in the school in the kitchen and just as we show the good work that we do within the kitchen, it also shows in our school system. Thank you. Thank you. Um, is there anyone from the public that's on uh Zoom that we know of? No. Okay, that concludes our public participation for this evening. Thank you all for um voicing your concerns. Um, at this point in the chair's report, um, I'd like to ask Dr. um Jen Perry to come up and just give us an update for the curriculum subcommittee. Um there's not much of one for this month because we were not able to meet in May. So we will meet on June 5th. I believe

018it's a Thursday at 5:00 PM. Um that'll be our last scheduled meeting for the year. Um and we're looking forward to wrapping up and having a good discussion then. Okay. Thank you. Um, that's a good segue into um what I'd like to discuss this evening with um members of the board and the and the public. Um there will be um presentations from the policy and budget and finance committee later in the agenda, but I realized that my absence for quite some time has hindered the progress of the subcommittees. So, I would like to take some time over the summer to regroup with the board, look at what has worked and what may have caused some to be absent for these meetings. We will begin to survey you again to determine which times work for you

019each member of the subcommittees and we will plan accordingly. As a subcommittee member, once our schedules are set, we must be at the meetings each each time that um they're posted. Our responsibility is to be present, ask questions, and be aware of the role these different groups play in the school system. And I believe many of us in on this board requested more involvement in the district's operation, day-to-day operation last year. So, we're going to try it again and make it even better as we school year. All right. Um, any comment from the board? Maria, anyone on Zoom? Okay, hearing none, we'll move on to the next section section of the agenda, which are votes. The um the first vote we have is the uh Quest Collaborative and Superintendent, could you give us a brief

020overview? Sure. Before we take the vote. Um, Madame Chair, members of the board, um, am am I being heard? Okay, thank you. Um, the the Crest Collaborative is the regional educational service and training center. Um, for 18 schools that include Lawrence public schools. Uh, they provide services, very specialized services to our special education students. um those are students that can't be serviced in district and um the collaborative is able by collaboration of pulling a lot of dollars together to provide those services for our kids right here in the uh town of Andover. Um I serve as the member of the Lawrence uh public schools on their board along with the other 17 uh communities. We meet on a monthly ba basis and discuss all of the policies um services for students um and oversight of

021the operations. Um annually the crest board just like we're doing now uh go over all of their policies and it is required for them to receive a vote of affirmation from each of the communities that they serve. So the um package that you have in front of you, if you had a chance to read it, I asked that they had highlighted in yellow cross out and what have you. So it would have been easier for members of the board to look at. I've reviewed them. Uh the team's reviewed them and we feel very comfortable with the recommendations that they're making to make it much more accessible and feasible to provide the services to our students that attend uh the Crest uh collaborative. Just as a of of point of of reflection, madam, uh Lawrence does

022have the most children uh participating at the crest board. They currently have 171 total students and of that the majority happens to be uh students from Lawrence public schools. Any questions from the board? So uh when you uh think about the benefits these students get what would you say? I well they they are professionals they specialized in special education and as I mentioned um our students uh through the special ed department uh they meet with the team and if we can't provide the specialized services that they're requiring and they're especially older students that are there may they're recommended to uh participate and attend the crest school we provide transportation for them and actually they're right down the street from the greater Lawrence Technical school. Uh if you keep going on the left hand side, um

023they're in a beautiful new building that used to be a business that was there. They've been there now for approximately 5 years. But uh the services that they provide for our students, the surveys that we see from we receive from our parents uh regarding the quality and the services and how they pay attention to students um has been um very beneficial. So, so these are all the ages. Uh, yes. So, the correct and as I mentioned on your second page, I believe all of the um school committees from Amesberry, Andover, Boxford, Georgetown, the Greater Lawrence Technical School, Hville, Ipsswitch, Lawrence, LOL, Mascanomit Regional, Mthuan, Middleton, Newberry, North Andover, Pucket, Topppsfield, and Triton. Mhm. I um Arlene, are you able to shed any light on the collaborative? Okay. I don't I don't believe um Mr. law

024is that um the services that we provide to uh all of the kids reach down to that particular age level. Okay. Can you hear me better? Any light on the collaborative? Okay. I don't I don't believe um I mean Mr. Loris that um the services that we provide to uh all of the kids reach down is spooky. Yeah, I'm not I'm not totally specific with what age span it is because I knew that I know that they provide a lot of service to middle middle grammar school and all the way through uh what we refer to as postgraduate but obviously it's a service that we have and I believe through our educa special education department families can request that service and again if we don't provide the services in district because we can't we pay

025a fee to the collaborative but is a plus that we have. Yes, absolutely. Yes. Okay. So, Madame Chair, your vote is uh I have the Okay. Thank you, dear. Um what is the the cost? Do we know the cost for the collaborative? Is it is it per child or is it a blanket amount? Mhm. It's it's it depends on the uh services that are needed. Madam Chair, it it depends on there's a transportation cost as well to a tuition um cost as well. And then there's reimbursement around circuit breaker. So it can vary from 55 to 85 depending on 55 to 85,000. Correct. Yep. Okay, thank you Elen. I appreciate that. Any other questions of the board? 85. Anyone? Um, can you guys hear me? Yes. Okay. I I had a process question for this.

026So, it says each uh school committee and China school board executive executive agreement shall annually appoint the superintendent of schools or one school committee member. So, is there a process for this? Does this mean that if we're going to be a part of this, which I think we are already, does that mean that every annually we have to make the decision who goes? I I believe the their bylaws uh indicate that the superintendent represents the school district, not so much the school committee of each uh community. So I've participated in the meetings and everyone that is uh part of the board is either the finance director or the superintendent of schools. So I I don't believe in the bylaws it actually mentions um the actual governance board of uh each of the communities. They do

027it superintendent or it's superintendent or exactly one or the other. One or the other? Yeah, I would I give up my seat. No. Yeah. I'm just asking a process question, not a like I want to go. But I just I just want to make sure that it I'm asking if annually does that mean if are we making votes on who goes in terms of the process of the of this of the LE board or school committee or whoever? Um more of a process question than correct. page five you could make up at the top. I didn't know that. That's good. I got drafted. The governance structure. Yeah, that's correct. So that's done annually. Anything else? Any further questions or comments? I'm personally okay with you being the person that serves, but it's actually I do

028allow I do appreciate the flexibility that that allows. So, I'm fine with that. Meetings are once but meetings are once a month there and they're at 8:00 in the morning and they're usually on Zoom or at the collaborative. But I think as a board maybe we should establish some sort of a system in terms of like like Garc said like a process in terms of like when do we we supposed to do that once a year. So, when do we determine that? You know, maybe put it on the agenda for some meeting throughout the year. I'll find out when the when their annual is. Like I said, when I first came on, I I was visited by the uh superintendent of the collaborative and I'm like, okay. Yep. That was and I got signed on.

029But I'm glad to hear that you can have the the superintendent um school board member as his designate. So, I will find out when the annual meeting is in. Remind the board, Madam Chair. All right. Are we ready to move on? I'd like to make a motion that the LE hereby approve the amendments to the Crest articles of agreement as approved by Crest board of directors on March 12th and March 26, 2025. I'd like to make that in the form of a motion. So move. Thank you, Maria. Second. Uh second articles of agreement as approved by Crest board of directors on March 12th and March 26th, 2025. I'd like to make that in the form of a motion. Thank you, Maria. Second. Can I call the role, Suzanne? approved on March 12th and March 26,

0302025. Thank you, Maria. Second. Can I call the RO, Suzanne? Yeah, I'm all right. Hearing no further discussion, Maria, please call the role. Yes. [Music] Motion passes. Correct. Thank you. Um, next I'd like to call up um Jason Cabrera. um and he's going to give us an explanation of the budget that's going to be submitted to the city council with our vote. Welcome, Mr. Cabrera. Good evening. Um Madame Chair, members of the board, superintendent, um there's going to be a presentation coming up. It's a short presentation. Um we had our meeting last month where we talked about uh about the budget where we were at. Um uh we have had meetings, public meetings since January, at least five or six of them. Haven't had a quorum. Haven't had any members of the public participate just

031like we did last month. when when we opened it to the public, no participation. And here we are today presenting the budget um the best budget that we can present um for the benefit of the children of of our schools. Um a couple of things that I want to highlight and um Suzanne, can you go to the first slide? I don't know if you're projecting that, but we're in that's towards the end. No. Yeah. So uh couple of things I want to highlight before I go into the presentation. In this budget we have budgeted for every position that we have today. So there is no um cutting funds for salaries you know for positions. So every position that we have today is budgeted for for the next year. the initiatives that the superintendent talked about

032and Suzanne, if you can go to the first to the first key initiatives, these commitments that we talked about in in our last meeting and that the superintendent highlighted in his letter to the mayor, uh those things are still uh being funded. things like uh the enhanced curriculum. Um we're expand the expansion of the early childhood program and and some other programs. Um the uh redesigning of themies and the summer opportunities, enrichment opportunities. We're expanding the uh visual and performing arts center getting we're getting a few more teachers for that. We have a dean um for that position. So we're expanding that. And then uh facilities and uh school building improvements. We have allocated funds uh anticipating that uh next year will be a lot more costly to maintain our buildings and our new buildings

033and and keeping them uh the way they are. Um so that's number one. Number two, uh we have um we are prepared to meet our contract obligations. We have 10 unions with which we are negotiating right now. Um we are we we've budgeted budgeted for that. Of course there there is there's always a limit on what we can do. Um, let me see. So, we factor in the contracts into this formula. Um, let me see if we can go to the next one. I just want to talk about the assessments and the receipts. Last time I was here, we talked about the uh the chapter 70 uh funding for the city of Lawrence, which comes up to about 333 33,930,425. This is uh I want to in amend the record. The I had sent a

034booklet to the board and the numbers here are a little bit different than the booklet, but the bottom line is the same. So, it's a couple of things like uh charter tuition that is different in the booklet that you got, but the total appropriation remains the same. Last time we talked about the differences between what we felt we needed to get everything that that we wanted to get accomplished accomplished and what the reality was. We have landed somewhere in the middle. Um from the 333 million and almost 334 million we are deducting the things that are static right that that we have to deduct such as the charter tuition, school choice, special education. We've had conversations with with the city and and the department of education about this uh municipal related costs and we are

035working on on um memorandum of understanding to to um button that up a little bit more. Um and then we add the charter tuition reimbursement which is a static is a number that comes from from the state based on our enrollment. And then we have transportation, adult education, leases and uh some reimbursement for uh CT. That gives us the 307,26,144 total appropriation that we're hoping that the board approves and when superintendent and I go in front of the city council, we can get that um also approved so that we can uh get to work. Next slide. a lot of numbers, a lot of this is in in the booklet. Um it's just uh for your information what we're spending on salaries and benefits, utilities, um facilities, transportation, tuition contracts, etc. Uh all that totals the

036307 million uh that we're talking about expecting to to get approved. Next slide. A little bit more of that. Um let me find it on mine real quick. See if I can see this. So yeah, so this is the departments by by expenditures or not expenditures, what what they're getting budgeted uh for um starting with, you know, the largest and then working our way down the list. Um budget and finance uh with 46 almost 47 million. budget and finance holds the funds for um health care, Medicare, uh dental, all those benefits. We also hold the accounts to pay for our utilities. So, uh gas, electricity, water. So, that number is is a little bit higher than than most. Second, we have uh the special learning services um which um yes special learning services which is

037our special education and student uh support. We have facilities management uh curriculum and instruction and high school transportation and our school for exceptional studies students. Um, all those round up the top top six as far as funding goes. Next, Mr. Cabra, could I stop your phone? Yes, ma'am. Um, in this packet that you gave us this evening, um, why is the SCES annex blacked out? We included it in the SCES. So we're including the annex and the SCS in one in one line item. Okay, ma'am. Yes. Okay. So if you see instead of separate them, they put them together. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. If you see um let me see school for exceptional studies. Yes, we have it in both. We had it last year and and last year they were both combined and this

038year they're also combined. If you if you look at 22 or 23 24 is about 6 million and then it goes up to 12 11 million. Thank you for asking that. The next All right. Uh we saw this uh last time in April. Uh this is just grants. You we're reading this from left to right. Um we haven't had any changes in in our grants um thus far. So we're counting with those funds um to supplement the what we bring to the children. is not part of our day-to-day operation as far as um we use it for the operation, but we use it to supplement the operation. And out of those funds, about $6 billion are salaries. Can I just um interrupt you there for a second? Yes, sir. Um grants, although they're not part

039of the uh foundation budget, we do receive them from the federal government. The total amount of grants that we receive from the federal government is approximately how how much? So in title total is about 17 $17 million and they go, you know, they go in two year, you know, two year cycles. Correct. Um, and I think it's important because I know that we had a member of the public also ask regarding grants. And I think that when um the new administration um the Trump administration um announced uh his desire to abolish the education department, um people got a little bit um concerned about our federal funding. Lawrence at that particular time um receives approximately 14 million dollars in grants. What's important to understand is the grant cycle at the federal government is different than the

040funding cycle at the state or the local level. At the local level, we're discussing our budget for the next fiscal year, which is July 1st. However, the federal government's grant cycle is October. So, we receive our grants in quarterly payments. We're now going into the last quarter, which will be our last payments of grant funding, and we don't anticipate any decreases in that last quarter. Where we would start to pay attention potentially if there's any reduction would be in for the next cycle, which would be October. I think you So that being said, uh I asked the uh CFO how much of those grants, actually I didn't ask him, he already mentioned how much of those total grants equals direct salaries for employees. So there's approximately $6 million out of the 14 to$17 million that

041comes in in federal grants that are directly for salary for staffing. So, what that means is that, God forbid that we uh experience a shortage in dollars, our priorities will be to save as many jobs as possible and work toward cutting down on all of the other areas that are support services for our students and our buildings, such as professional development, such as our facilities, um such as specialed services, and some of the other services that those grant funding provides for us. Okay. So, the last the last piece if we experience it all the way down to the bottom, it would be at the last $5 million that it probably would affect staffing. I don't anticipate that and I don't see that. I also know that we have been uh in meetings with the Department

042of Education. Um we as a state stand very firm financially that most school districts through the expanded government um auxiliary dollars that is to the tune of 1.4 billion. We can probably supplement a lot of the dollars that some of your major urban communities would experience. Okay. So, I hope that that clarifies any anxiety that folks might have regarding the federal government and the grants that we receive. But the grants that we receive is totally apart from the budget that we're discussing now. Correct. That that is correct. And and you know, as of right now, things you know, status quo uh remains. Um, one of the things that, uh, superintendent, we are doing, uh, and you're aware of this, we we have engaged with our director of grants and we're trying to find ways, more

043creative ways of utilizing grants for to maximize the benefit, right? Rather than than using dollars as we have in the past, how can we use that money to really supplement the things that the kids need based on the priorities that we have set? So, that's a conversation that we have ongoing. We had a a good meeting um last late last week and and we're going to continue those conversations so we can maximize these dollars to supplement some of the things that we may be um struggling with financially in in in funding. Jason, are we at the end of the third quarter? I missed that. I'm sorry. Are we at the I'm sorry. Are we at the end of the third quarter? Third quarter closed uh April 30th. No, I'm sorry. So, have we encumbered that

044money or do we still have money left? The money that we have the money that we have left, she was a principal. The money that we have left is not going to be there for long, man. we have um and I don't want to get into into so we are doing things a little bit different now where we are trying to live within our means right so the money that we have for this year we're using this year um I think in the past uh and it may have been I don't I can I couldn't tell you exactly why but in the past there was a tendency to roll over, you know, incumbrances to next year. Um, and kind of live, you talked about a quarter, living a quarter behind. So, bills were getting paid

0454 months in the future. Right now, our bills are not going past 30 days, right? So, we're spending today. If we got to you have to pay $150,000 for electricity, we're paying that today. We're not letting four months get piled up and then worry about it four months later. So, um the encumbrances that we have, I believe we have about 50 I'm pretty good with memory. It's about $56 million that we have encumbered as of right now. Um and we have about for the next two months actually for a month and a half. Well, for the next two months, we have about 17 million, but I have we got to pay. There is some stuff that I healthcare. There's some things that need to be taken care of. So, um we are addressing we're addressing

046those things now and I know we're going to make it, you know, throughout, you know, after this year just just fine. Now, here's another question. if we don't spend the money or encumbered it um in that quarter, does anything have to go back to the feds? So, with the feds, good question. So, with the feds, if we're talking about grants, we get reimbursed, right, by the by the feds. So, we use the money and then we file for a for a um reimbursement. So right now, I'm telling you, we are pulling out everything we got to to to make sure that that money is spent meaningfully and that we spend it as required by the law. 85% of the title grants, title one for example, 85% of title one has to be spent before September

04730th. So, title one, which is our biggest, is about 7 million uh of the federal funds that come in. Um, and that covers a lot of salaries, too. That's Yeah. Yes. That's about Yeah. of the 7 million uh five and change go towards salaries. And then we have some that goes towards curriculum and instruction and and the thesemies that we're doing and and summer school. Yes. So, that 85% needs to be spent. Um, so we're making sure again one we we you know we continue to get audited. One of the things that I I want to make sure is that that we spend those funds as required by the law and that we meet our obligation when it comes to you know how much we have to spend by by the by the deadline. And

048right now we're, like I said earlier, that's one of the conversations that we've been having with our director of grants in talking about how can we leverage our community partners, for example, in utilizing these funds and providing our kids with with with the best. Okay. Hopefully that answer your question, man. All right. Go ahead. Um, the next slide is just a a spending overview. Um, I think we talked about this last time. uh salaries continues to be the the highest uh the highest spending. Um 194 million or so. Um benefits, it's uh comes next. That's health insurance, um Medicare and dental. um facilities. We have uh put some funds into facilities, making sure our our buildings are remain in the shape that they're in. And uh and then instruction, which includes things like uh you

049know, some of the contracts and and the uh materials, educational materials that the uh the schools use. Um some of the variances. If you can go to the next one, Jason, I'm sorry. Can you go back to that um grant page? Yes, ma'am. We can go back one. Yes. All right. You don't have a total or maybe it's someplace else in the book that I haven't found. But your projection for FY26 is there a total for what you're expecting? Correct. And they again they so we fund the positions the years overlap, right? So, um, there are positions that are funded with 2024 grant money and positions that are granted with 2025 money, but they all come from this from the same grant or from the same title. So, when this one expires, we move them

050to 2026. So, for the 24, we still have some funds that that, you know, we're in year two of the 24. So, those teachers and those costs, we move to 26 now. Um so it's not like they add you know if you say oh you know 25 26 is 14 million they they're overlap and they you know they uh they get used up um year-over-year. All right. So we have in in the projection we have seven grant different grants that show a variance in the negative. Correct. Yes. All right. Minimal but minimal but yes chance that that money can be adjusted or is that etched in stone? Yes. No, no, no, it's not edged in stone. So, one of the things that the director of grants does is look at remember our population keeps changing

051on a constant basis. So, we try to amend grants on a on a rolling basis. It's not, you know, I mean, there's a deadline for it, but we work on making sure that they know what our population is at at any given school, for example, right? Like we do that uh we were doing it once a year. We're going to start doing that twice a year. So if a school uh for example gets whatever many number of children for example that are English language learners we can try to amend the grant submit that and make sure that we get refunded for that. So that number is not static from the beginning to the end. It changes when you amend based on the population and the new needs that the district may have. All right. Maybe

052when all this is settled down and um we're into FY26, maybe um Chris and you could do some presentation on the grants because I think that's very interesting. It's something that we should know about. Yes. So sometime in the fall maybe, right, Superintendent? Yep. Yep. So Jason, I'm I'm I'm following up of with the chairwoman on FY26 it says projection but we don't have a total of what is the projection but yet in FY25 it was 27 million. No isn't read it left because Okay. So you you didn't total them up. You just put them by categories. Correct. Correct. Gotcha. Yeah. the 27 I think we had that we're reading left to left to right. Suzanne, could you turn these up a little bit? So, gear up, Jason, is the um support services at the

053high school for working with families and and our senior students moving on to college. They provide grant funding. This p this year's grant funding was 487,931. Have they not made a commitment yet for the following year? They do after we haven't reached that point yet, but we're expecting we're expecting that. It's a little different than the federal grants, but we're expecting at least that. Yes. Correct. Yes. Okay. Yes. There there is no varian negative variance on that. No. That might make a difference. [Music] Yes. Uh yes. Yes, it may make a it would it would make a difference if we if we didn't get it. Yes. I I don't have any any signs that point at us not getting it, but we should be getting it. But we have had good results in the past,

054right? So there there's nothing that says that we should not get it. No, there's nothing that there's nothing that says that. Gearup has been a partner of ours for approximately the last 10 years. And they will continue to be. In fact, we've had discussions of them trying to expand down to the seventh and eighth grade. Okay. Yeah. So, so no, no, I don't have a worry about it. I haven't heard anything about it, but uh the board will be the first one to know. Uh, Miss Mariano, any other questions about about this the grants, ma'am? No, I'm I'm done. Thank you. Right. Uh, if we can go to various I'm sorry for the moment. All right. All right. No, we I got all night over here. Um, if I can go to the variances. Um,

055yeah. So, this is just some some things worth noting. Um, as far as increases, um, we, uh, almost $9 million in salaries is what's being projected as far as an increase from 25 to 26. um $3 million in in some of the instruction stuff like educational supplies, uh $2 million in professional services, and then for the English for for the ML department or multilingual department, uh their budget is is going about 200 uh 200% up um to three by so it's increasing by $3.3 million just about. So, um, for that's for our English language learners. That's something that the superintendent had put on as a priority and it's something that we're funding uh, very aggressively. Um, just as a point of clarification, Jason. So, all of these c these four categories as you indicated on

056the chart are increases. Correct. All those are increases that that are more than most. Um, so I think it's noteworthy and thank you for for simplifying that. um close to $9 million in salaries. That's an increase from our current our current level of spending. And obviously, we know that we have um commitments to our uh 9010 unions that we've settled with three of them and we still have seven of them that are outstanding. Um educational supplies, obviously, professional services, but more importantly, the $3.2 2 million in expanded services for our multi uh English uh learners. Okay. Yeah. So the the when you get a chance to look at the book at the tables um it has for if you go to the let me see if you go to p oh gosh there is no

057page number ML department um the multilingual department for example the their staffing is going from 8 to 21 right so that's part of of that um you know 3 million and that includes uh um professionals that will be assisting the other teacher you know the the the schools and coaches etc etc. So that's uh again one of the areas that that is being funded heavily. Um that is all that I have. I hope you had a chance to look at at the tables. I want to say one thing. I I want to thank all the principles, all the departments heads, everyone who has worked cuz it's been a long and difficult process trying to align our priorities with the money and making sure that we're doing it in a responsible way. People, you know, folks

058didn't get everything they wanted, right? When you go to school planning, folks have great ideas and they come to the table and they ask for what they feel they need. Uh, and it's been a a difficult process, but everyone has been um understanding and and we continue to push through. Yes, sir. Can I ask you a question, Jason, for the public to understand and and and I think the board does, what would you say if you look at the special ed student, ML student, and regular ed student, if you were to find a medium score, not score, expense, what is each student's per pupil expenditure? Yeah. So, a a student with no services with no services would be about 21,900. And if they were ML students, ML students, you add between 2800 and 3,000 depending

059on the grade. Elementary gets 28. Um, middle and high 30,000. Special ed. Special ed is it costs about 31 $32,000. So, is it fair to say if I was going to just do some rough calculations, um, if I incorporate all those together, would it be fair if I that I say for each student that comes into the district, it'd be about $24,000? That is a fair statement. Yes, sir. I hate to put you on the spot, but you're the guy. We don't we deals in in chitos and dollars. You deal in millions. I got new to the district 569 brand new students after October 1st that weren't accounted for. How much is that in our new reimbursement for next year? If it happened after October 1st, zero. No, no, but for next for next year.

060Oh, for next year. Uh, hold up. Reading. I can't even do math. I know about 300 is about $6.5 million probably just about. So 500 586 students at 24,000 is 14 million. I was going to say 14. Wow. Okay. And there but there's a reason I say that because I think that as a superintendent and having neighboring school boards and and hearing some of the challenges that they've had and everybody hears and reads the newspapers and then they look at Lawrence and they say Lawrence doesn't have that problem. Lawrence is getting all of this money. When you have 586 new students, most of them coming from out of the country and they're coming into our school districts, right? And it's $24,000 a piece. Now, you can understand why we have an increase to the amount

061that we have and why we can put those dollars to work for our kids that need all of those services, right? Whether it's more staff, whether it's more cafeteria individuals, whether it's more power professionals, whether it's more specialized services, whether it's more transportation. Correct. So, so our increase in our budget, let's remember because I'm I'm Madam Chair, I'm speaking to the audience out in Yeah. Do they still have TVs or Zooms? I'm speaking to that audience that we educate starting next year approximately more than 14,000 students with 2,600 staff members. We run a large school district and in order to meet the needs of our kids, that's why you see the increase in our services. But when you see such large increases is because of the new students coming into the district after the budget

062has been set and we didn't account for those new families that have come into the district. It was not flat. Correct. Correct. So I just I just want to make sure that folks don't think that Lawrence is rich and we have all this money in the world. No. Lawrence Lawrence guards their dollars and tries to invest it where it needs to be. But we also have to account for all the new families that keep coming. Yeah. Moving into the district. And you're 100% uh right. I don't I don't think uh folks a lot of people understand that. Uh superintendent. I think that um I understand why the state does it that way is a finite, you know, is accounting. Um but it doesn't take into account the growth. Again, we I think last time we

063talked about it, only three cities, three districts have grown larger than Lawrence, right? So, while everybody is either remaining the same or going down, um Lawrence is increasing by by the hundreds, right? And and when I look at it and I I see, okay, we increase by 300. We're getting 300 students worth of money more this year than last year. With 300 students, I can probably fund, you know, 40 teachers maybe um if we're going to talk about putting teachers, you know, teachers to school. So there so there is a limit. There is a limit to in the increase of money how much money we can put towards some of those things. Jason, could I ask a question, please? Has um we've been talking about this October 1st report for years, years and years and

064years, longer than I've been around, I think. Um is has anyone approached the state legis legislature and had some kind of I know SP has a circuit breaker. Is there any way we can appeal to the state legislature that either the date gets moved up or at the end of the year if those kids are still with us, we have a reimbursement from the state. I don't know if the superintendent wants to answer that, but the answer is yes. We I mean we the superintendent has approached we have approached uh u um our senator our our uh representative state state representatives and and had long conversations about that very thing. Um I think I think he he when I say he I'm talking about our our senator for for for our state. How is the

065response been? So that we I just met with them recently and pointed the challenge that we have that if they can either amend or change the frequency of funding to allow us to get reimbursements for those new students that we have on a quarterly basis. We would be able to increase financial services for the amount of students that we have coming in throughout the four quarters. It just makes sense in a district like this when you're over 500 kids that enter the district brand new um with many needs um something has to give correct agree 100% that that's the you know the the comm that's what we have communicated uh I think the the idea that superintendent talked about you know I mean makes sense when you when you mention it right instead of once

066a here in the beginning of the year, why don't we do it quarterly or two times a year or whatever it is, right? Um so, you know, those are the things that that we have to work, you know, some of the guard rails that we have and and we're always in a city where the population, the student population continues to grow and it grows in a migrant city like ours, it grows exponentially throughout the year. Um it affects us more than than most other places. Are there any other questions, Madam Chair? Mr. I have generic questions. I don't know if Mr. Cabrera is done. Jason. No, no, listen. I'm done. I'm here for your questions, Miss Garcia. And I I believe Mr. DeLeon may be out there. I'm here for the questions and and just

067for um clarity purposes for the um for the public, could you explain to us why there's a version one and a version two? version one of you're talking about the proposed budget. Yes. Hopefully we don't get to version three, but we're we're ready. Um uh so the the the version right when we came here um last month, well actually we've been working on this budget for for a while now. Um when we sit down and I sit down with the assistant superintendent, with the superintendent, with the leadership, with the directors, with the principles, we go through school planning, there is a number that comes up, right? That's the number that if we did everything that we wanted to do for the children, it was it would cost us this amount of money, right? [Music] So

068that's one number. Then we talked about based on the formula the past you know the formulas that we've used based on on the past when I say the past I'm talking about as recent as this fiscal year. Um there is another number that comes up. So for example if we wanted to do everything that we wanted to do it would cost us $313 million. If we wanted to fund every single initiative give everyone what they want. uh when I say everyone I'm talking about the principles and departments if we gave a member if we gave them everything it would be close to about 313 million is the the uh number if we um fund in a way that is consistent with um past practice that number would have been about 309 right um the city

069came to us with a number of 305 5. So here we are. We have a 305. Today the number is 307. Um that is um that those are the funds that in in superintendent I go and talking to the city and negotiating with the city that's a number that that it's it's doable. um it's doable for them and it works for us um to cover the things that we need to cover, right? Not not putting shiny stuff on it, but making sure that the kids get everything they need. Uh it's a number that works for us. Um and that's why we have two versions. Um Madame Chair, we had three numbers last time. this today on May 14th, I'm presenting to you one one number. All right. So, version two is the version that we're

070voting on this evening to go to city council. Correct. That is correct. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. And that is the compromise if you want to call it that. I'll call it that. Between 107 million 26, 144. Yes, that is the, you know, the 309 and the 305. That's where we're at in the middle. All right. Now, um, should the budget pass here this evening, um, can the principles or have the principles started hiring and filling vacancies? Yes, that the vacancies haven't stopped. We we have been filling vacancies constantly, right? Um the the during school planning we came up with a number of positions right of that's the 313 million. So the 313 million in involves a number of positions. Uh but those are new positions not positions that that we have now. New positions whatever

071many they were will come up to that amount. We're cutting back on some of that while focusing on the things that are priority for this year, right? Uh early education, English language learners, um you know, the things that we're focusing on uh right now. Well, I've looked at the individual schools and um I was looking at version one and I was concerned about administration where some schools didn't have an assistant principal and um some of the schools with children totaling over 400, let's say. Yeah. Yeah. So, so but I've I've seen in version two that that's been adjusted. It it's been adjusted for for the most part, right? Every school is going to have the model that that that that has been presented as far as financing that model, right? When you talk to administration,

072just every school is going to have a principal who's going to have an assistant principal. Every school is going to have a dean uh that has to do with whatever it is, you know, curriculum instruction or or multilingual services. Um those are things that every school is going to have. No school is not going to have an assistant principal. And as a matter of fact, uh, one of the things that we identified this year, we have four schools that are the preK schools, the preK and kindergarten. Those schools never had an assistant principal for this upcoming year. Those schools will have an assistant principal. Well, the only one I found was the Rollins, and they're under 200 students. So, I found that um that they don't have an AP. They will have I believe I

073believe in our and again again madam chair we are we we have a lot of uh um you know some movement still going on as far as uh where folks are going to go. Um yeah they they have 157 students projected and um a principal no AP no dean but they did increase the three teachers um let me um Mr. Cabrera let me call in Arlene because that's one of our schools Rollins. Yes. Projected administration. They will have a principal and a assistant principal. What? An AP assistant principal. All right. Because it's not listed in the book. Thank you, Alen. Yeah. So So will that be adjusted before it goes to city council? Yes. Okay. On on the book. Yes. The the the finances, right? The number the finances remain the same. We're still working

074with HR. you know, we're doing a lot of a lot of things, you know, in HR and making sure that that everyone that we have now is it's, you know, it's with us. Um, so that is part of of the the box uh that has to do with with the um with the uh personnel, right? The the the uh teachers. When does do we have a date when we go before city council? May 28th, I believe. Wednesday, May 28th. May 28th. Yes. I urge um parents, staff, um take a look at this budget. Um it'll be on the website. I'm assuming the corrected version. Yes. And um if you have any questions, please come to that city council meeting. Um let's see. I think I've exhausted my time here with you, Jason. Thank you very

075much for the answers to the question. No problem. The rest of the board, here's your chance. Yeah. Very, very quickly on my end, if I can ask, and I'm sorry, I can't see anybody, so I apologize, but I saw that Gear Up in 26 has no funding. I know that the federal government has proposed a budget without supporting Gear Up and Trio programs. Is that why the 26 doesn't have gear up or is it a decision by the by the the uh by you guys to not like in terms of gear up which I know a lot of high school students use what what is the decision based on gear up. So um Mr. Deleon um I mentioned because uh Miss Khiff asked yeah sorry I think you said I think you mentioned superintendent I

076just couldn't hear you so I apologize I heard the number. So, Gear Up has partnered with Lawrence public schools through the high school and you know of their services for the last 10 years. They haven't they haven't given us their number of their budget that they're receiving and what the allocation is that's coming to Lawrence. I anticipate that their number for this year that they will be submitting for services for Lawrence public schools is going to be higher because of the amount of more kids that have applied and have accepted going on to higher education. But uh to make a long story short, we're waiting for that number from them because they received their money through grant funding obviously whether it's state or federal. So that's why we we didn't add that under the grants

077in the book. but for our intended purpose. Thank you. I just didn't know I I Yeah, thank you, Superintendent. I just didn't know if it was one I know that that the administration, the current um Trump administration is getting trying to get rid of G, but I just didn't know if that was us reflecting or projecting that or if it was them. So, I I thank you for answering that question. Okay, any further questions from the board? And the last question I had and I and again I'm sorry because it was in and out in terms of audio but the the jump in salary is that a natural jump in terms of the people that we have or is that an anticipation of of of new hires in terms of the projection that you guys

078have um that that number and that jump in salary and jump in budget. So um that's just a is a natural jump that happens annually or is it an anticipation of new hires given the new students? No. So, so the new hires, you know, we're limited on on what new hires we can bring, right? Um, and that is of course based on funding. We we I think that even a even a zero gain will be a win a win when we look at what's going on around us, right? But, uh, the the salaries, uh, to your point, um, let me look at where the salaries go. So for example, if you look at the actuals of uh if you look at page 11 um on the salaries um you look at the 2024 actuals which

079goes from is it has a 165 million uh for 2025 budget 186 million was budgeted. Um so that's a jump of 20 million. Uh, of course when we talk about salaries, we're talking about all types of of compensation, uh, some bonuses perhaps, some uh, stipens, those kind of things. Um, so that jump from 24 to 25 went up by 20 million. Um, for next year is going up by 8 million, 7 million. Um so it is not it is not out of you know it's not out of this world. Um when you consider that for every 1% for example our biggest uh union is the teachers union for every 1% in their salary incre if we increase it by 1% each percent would be about $1.5 million right so okay um so you know so

080you can you can deduct from there that $1.5 million uh based on uh 1% um the It adds up fairly quickly. Yeah. Thank you guys. Yes, sir. Anybody else? I have a couple of just quick um you mentioned or uh the memorandum of understanding with the city and you said that you're in the process of bundling it up. It needed a little more than that. Like is there a process to continue negotiating with the city? Do are we are we going to have a newou at some point with them? Um that was that yeah that was a big part of the conversation that's um yeah the the the chairwoman knows that I would love to have a new memorandum because she was part of the meeting that we had with the folks at the department

081of education and the department of revenue. Um, and I got the bad news that the memorandum of understanding doesn't need to be updated. Okay. It just needs to be clarify. Yeah, we need we I think uh, Miss Mueller, um, as far as that goes, I think it's a matter more of of accounting for the right things. And, and, you know, I'll use the word transparency, right? And that's that's where we're at right now. Trying to get that transparency so that we know so we can be on the same page at least. Correct. We Yes. I mean there is a cost of doing business. Um for this budget here we kept that number if you remember in the last one in the first edition it was a $4.3 million. And this one here we have um

082back to the original the seminance last year. I'm sorry. Back. Yeah. We went back to that. Yeah. went back. We went back, you know, almost a couple million dollars. That's appreciated. But for next year, at least we'll be on the same page even if we don't change the document. We we'll do our best. Okay. And um this this may be a long shot, but we we will be in the new buildings next year, fiscal year. So, are there any identified savings or efficiencies in the budget on that or are we I mean I'm assuming we do have to spend more in terms of furniture and Yep. So, all of those costs Donna is here and she's works with every subcommittee. Uh all of that has been ordered and those dollars come through the Massachusetts school

083building. Okay. So all that is part of that mass of60 million for one school another 130 for the other all incorporated but in terms of maintenance and just running the beast the the operation of the building do we expect same yeah so so our facilities department is getting a bump in their in in their allocation right I mean it's expected and and with that also um if you look at at the budget and finance right when it comes to things like electricity, heating fuel that has increased those kind of things. We we increased it by by you know about a million dollars. Uh not only because of those buildings but because the way we were doing it before was not the way that we should have should have been handling that business. But um so

084we have the you know we have that increase as far as uh utilities go and then the budget for um facilities was also increased uh all with the goal of of maintaining the buildings the older buildings maintaining them the way that they are right now. And second um for the new buildings to um to be in the in top shape. And I know you all met with with some folks about maintenance. So, good evening uh members of the board. I'll add also that for some of the positions too, the increase of some of the positions were accounted for, we we planned for those for that early and as we heard from today's presentation, the positions, you know, that were allocated that, you know, those are we're those we're keeping those. Um but also interestingly enough

085in terms of electricity we we just took a tour of the Oliver um building yesterday and you know every day we learned something new right so we were going with the team and in terms of the electricity the entire building will be electricity but um the interesting part is that every outlet it's um time um it's managed by time so we can um it will shut off automatically so it will be costsaving so if we're plugging in we're leaving our you or the cell phone charger plugged in or Chromebooks or computers plugged in shut them down. We can actually yes program it so it can shut down after a certain time so it's not generating electricity. So I think you know in terms of you know the cost savings or seeing some savings I think

086there are some measures with you know into the build that will probably help mitigate some of that but I mean it's a new building there they're you know they're 21st century with a lot of um uh you know the LED and all the you know cost savings cost savings um that comes with with the new builds. That's great. Thank you. I just wanted to mention that I know that last year all of you in your in your wisdom uh because I remember watching the meeting at the city council they asked how come you have 12 new custodians those 12 new custodians for those new buildings were in this year's budget I noticed too um and they been going through the trainings that they need to know on how to service those buildings. So those positions

087have already been incorporated into the budget and they move on to the next year's budget. So yes, all of the movement around of facilities and buildings, all of that has been calculated all within this budget. So we feel very confident that we have a firm budget. Uh all the changes, all the move, uh everything is incorporated that we can think of. Thank you. Last thing I'll say is just on the spending overview. I I would love to know if 64.5% of the you know of of the budget is going to salaries. Is that within the range you know that other districts are spending on their teachers? Yes. Yes. Salary salaries are always when you put in salaries and benefits in any given district is going to be between 75 and 83 82%. So you know

088that doesn't change uh you know much that that that range. and and even you know when we do budgeting right we really all things remaining the same we have an amount of teachers that is comparable to cities like us right so we don't have less teachers than you know the other cities so we have that and and their salaries are we we have we do have competitive salaries here um that's great contrary to popular belief but but uh Um um you know that adds up that adds up. That's that's just a good measure in terms of that's where I was going. It's like okay are we paying you know are we spending the amount that we should be spending in salaries and it sounds like we're within the it's not uncommon for 80% of of

089an operation to be in and salaries. Thank you. Anything further madam chair? Any other questions to I I got a uh two very quick ones. Um I I think that there was an attempt last year, if I remember correctly, by the city to say, "Hey, can we pay some of um what the city owes the school system in kind." And it looks like to me like we need every penny possible. And I don't know if you guys ready for that, but I just I just want to put it out there that I know that was something that came up last year. Um but the other question financially that I have is do we give more money to charters and other type of schools than any other school because that's that that was a big amount

090of money that we also provide and I know there's a certain amount you have to because of whatever but like is that something that that because of responsibility that we give a more amount than maybe other cities do? Uh we don't actually give more amount than any other cities. We give the amount of what the calculated formula is for our pupil expenditure because we have three charter schools in the city. Lawrence family. Yeah. Uh community day and Phoenix Academy. what they have for students. Uh for example, in K to8 we have somewhere around 2200 Maria would you say total students about 2400 students. Calculate that times 24,000 that'll get you your number plus uh the the Phoenix Academy which probably has about 125 students. So, every community that has a charter school, same process um

091off their um Terry sheet, the charter tuition is calculated and it's deducted from the community's net school spending and it gets sent to charter schools. So, ours happens to be um that 42 million times three like times. No, no, that's total. It's 49 million. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I meant. I'm sorry. 49 total for uh the three charter schools. Yeah, that's what I meant. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Dolores. Well, I was going to say something. I someone told me that on one of the new schools that they find out that there was no parking. Whoever told you that told you the truth. Told me the truth. They didn't lie to you. And then what? And then we pray. What are you going to do? Well, um I send Odanas to the city council and then the

092residents of of the Oliver School and the pray. No, they come and they do welga. they come before the city council and they organize and they get upset and um it is a challenge that we have and we have tried to be very transparent with the city with everyone involved. You have I I Where was I? Was I sleeping when this No, we don't normally think about those things when we're talking about building. Well, but I mean it took us so long to finally get these two schools built. Remember, we've been at this for over 10 years. I I was perplexed. I was like, "What's wrong with me? How come I was not aware of this?" Well, to give them a little bit of of uh credit, they did put 25 slots underneath the garage

093at the new Ley school. Correct. Superintendent, a really good question, um Dr. Kaf. So, you know, we have the two new schools. The Oliver school um was never intended to have parking, although several during the planning stages, right? There were several locations that were um presented to the city of Lawrence for potential location to build the school um including the exist the existing location and it was determined that based on the location and the need um that the the school should be should stay there, should be built there. However, because of the capacity and because of the population, um there's there was just not feasible for the project um to identify any at least within the build to identify parking. Um so we knew from the beginning that the Oliver School would not have any

094parking uh as part of the project. For the Lehey um the build is a little bit different. um the Lehey originally didn't have except for maybe same 20 or so spots. So that's the same thing that the new Lehey will have. It's about 25 um parking spaces that will be on the side of um not Urban but Bruce Street, I believe. So, you know, we have been, you know, in full transparency and as the superintendent alluded, we have been um aggressively having conversations with the city um trying to, you know, figure out um opportunities or ways in which uh we can't um find some solutions. Um and still a lot of conversation is happening and a lot more conversation that we hope to have some real concrete um next steps for when we start the

095school year next year. Odonis, I just had a thought. Has anyone approached the owners of the 101 building on Amesbury Street? It's that when you come down Abury Street, it's that blue and white building on the left. Oh, yeah. No, I I know which build in fact um chairwoman Mariano. So, we have explored u we have met with um city departments including the planning department um and others um on the city. Like I said, it has been a seven-month um long process in terms of coming to the table and having conversations around what's available uh what what can we you know what can the city what can we do to work together to mitigate um including the parking meters right then you know not only it's the the the constraint of parking but then the

096city also implemented parking meters in locations where there were never parking meters before. So that also then lessened um the available parking spaces um that folks around the north common or the old high school were able to access. So a lot of conversation still pending with the city. So maybe um come our June meeting you could come back with um what's happened so far in preparation for the new schools opening. Sure. We'll be happy to provide an update. Thank you. If you don't mind, I'd like to go back to the budget. Um, any further questions on the budget, Zoomers? [Music] Good. Oh, no question. Go ahead, Alene. She said no question. No question. What? She said no question. You said no question. All right. Um, I'd like to entertain a motion that the LAE approve

097the FY2026 budget version number two with adjustments discussed this evening for a total of 37 million26,144. Could I have a motion, please? So move. Thank you, Maria. Second. Second. Thank you. Um, any further questions? I'm going to just remind the board to make sure all your questions have been answered this evening. This is the version, excuse me, that will go to the city council. Okay. Hearing none. Maria, please call the role. Yes. Yes. Motion passes. I want to thank you, Mr. Cabera, for all you've done to um answer all our questions and provide information for us. Thank you, Chairwoman. and for the last four months of your life. Please. Yeah. Thank you, Jayce. Thank you, uh, Madam Chair, members of the board for that vote. All right. The next item on our agenda is the

098facilities rental and Odonis will come up and explain what we have at this stage of the game. We're still renting. Yeah. Trying to our busiest time of the year. Superintendent. Good evening. Um Odonis Hernandez again, chief of operations. We um do have one rental that we're presenting to you tonight. It's uh for Radicals USA. It's a dance um company and they're looking to do their dance recital on June 26 at the Gilmet School Auditorium from 8 from 8 to 10. So, it's kind of like an all day because they'll come in, rehearse, and then they'll do the show. and we present this to you with a favorable recommendation for approval. Thank you, Adonis. I'll entertain a motion to approve the facilities rental at the Gilmet School for a dance recital. Um, could I have a

099motion, please? So, move. Thank you, Maria. Second. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? Hearing none, Maria, please call the role. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Can Can we say thank you for coming to the meeting? Next on next on the agenda is the approval of the minutes of the uh board uh on April 9th. I'll entertain a motion. So moved. Any omissions or corrections? I I'm not sure, but I I thought I need a second. I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. I I just have a quick question. Second. I I have a I think Mayor Deñena wasn't at the meeting in April. Was he not present in the meeting in April? I was here. Well, I move. I'm sorry. I didn't March. Was it March? It was March. All right. Apologies then. So, I would just double

100check. That's all. All right. Any other questions? Maria, please call the role. [Music] I am saying I wasn't in the Yes. Next, we have the minutes from the budget hearing that was held on April 9th. Mo could I entertain a motion, please? Motion to approve. A small one. Second. Thank you. Any further discussion? Alen, do you have something to say? No. Sorry about that. Okay. Hearing none. Maria, please call the role. [Music] Yes. [Music] Yes. Yes. Okay. At this time, I'd like to turn the meeting over to the superintendent for his reports. Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board. Um, I would ask um for the members of the board to allow me to um change up uh the report only because we have uh Dr. Pena on Zoom and uh two or three

101of her teachers are here. Um if you recall, um we had Dr. Pena come and present the professional development immersion program of approximately 10 teachers that we had go and uh visit the Dominican Republic. uh that happened during our April vacation and at the time that we presented to the board we asked Dr. Pena uh to come back and report as to the experience that they had and to give a quick overview of uh that um experience. So I'd like to call on um Dr. Pena. She's on Zoom. Suzanne, if you can put her up and take it away. I think she's going to introduce a couple of me a couple of the members of our faculty that uh went on the professional development immersion program also. Dr. Pena, can you hear us? She's looking

102for Yes, I can. Good evening everyone. We're just interested in the temperature right now where you're at. Say that again. We're just interested in the temperature where you're at. Where are you, by the way? We've never know. Oh, I'm I'm so sorry. Say that one more time. Where are you located today? Where are we located now? Yes. I just Yeah, I just flew into Miami. [Music] [Laughter] Um, so you're you're all invited for a Cuban sandwich in Miami. Okay, take it away. You have uh members of your team here. Thank you. I'm going to just share my screen and um going to just give a little uh foundational conversation overview to frame what our educators will share in a moment. Um but thank you for having us back this evening to our members of the

103Lawrence Alliance for Education and our colleagues in the Zoom room and in the physical room. I know it's a a long evening and we appreciate you um being here with us to hear about our program. Um if you remember in that meeting we talked about an immersion program. I'm going to kind of jump a little ahead. Um that was focused on culturally responsive teaching. Um, Jen Perry started that conversation in March at the last meeting we were at, looking at the DESIE requirements that were changing and how DESIE and LPS were intentionally integrating this framework of culture responsive teaching in our resources as well as in our evaluation rubrics, not just sprinkling the terms, but again really intentionally changing how we do things. And so we build a program around that using funds of knowledge.

104We wanted to learn from students through immersions, from families because they come, our students and their families are just this rich cultural and intellectual resources that we can learn from to really teach better in the classroom to teach foreign to our students. And so we went on a journey to do that. So before the journey, we presented when we were in the pre-trip phase. So, our teachers didn't just get on a plane and go to Dominican Republic and and uh tour learn uh the culture. We prepared. We talked to students. We met with families. We learned from them. We looked at our teacher identities. We analyzed our biases and what our students needed in the classroom. And then we went on the journey together to really um try to learn as much as possible to

105impact change in the classroom. So, a quick overview of what we did. Um, we um entered the Dominican Republic through Sto. Domingo and our trip was really about cultural immersions, time in the schools, learning the curriculum, understanding the educational structure, learning where we can bridge any gaps or make connections between the two systems because uh the US is the US and every other country it's every other country. And so we got to make sure that we understand where our students are coming from and that we can teach and help them connect to where we are in the curriculum. So um as part of that we came in through Sto Domingo. We started with a lot of the history, the history of the music, the history of the food, religion. We went before Christopher Columbus. We

106were looking at tyenos and um that rich history that we don't talk enough about in terms of Dominican Republic that we can bring back to our students. Then we made our way to LaGa, Santiago, Tenades where we really immersed ourselves in the schools. We learned the curriculum of the country. We looked at how directors disseminate that curriculum to educators. We sat in classrooms. We met with teachers. We even uh taught some students ourselves and sat in groups with them. We um outside of the schools, we did community walks. We um spoke with families in the communities. We ate lunch in their homes. We really immerse ourselves to gain the most that we could out of this. And then we continue our way to Puerto Plata where we continue our learning and a lot of that

107was more on the um exports. So we did look at tobac tobacco companies. We um and the cigar factories in Puerto Plata. We looked um at rum and tourism. We also learned about chocolate which is another big export and we did that in Sto. Domingo actually, but it's across the country. So, we really um took advantage and went from the south to the north to learn as much as we could to wrap everything around in terms of our classes. Um we curated just a few pictures. Um I promise you have a lot of great content on social media. There'll be a great YouTube episode coming out, but I know you're probably wondering what did this look like? And so here's one where we're looking at the report card and we're looking at how grades are

108analyzed and the communications. We're looking at curriculum. We're looking at their new longer day and their separation of the grade levels. Things have changed over there which impacts the students who are transitioning over now. So they divided the 12th grades into two sixth grade school systems and they work in cycles, threeear cycles. So we really uh looked at all of that. um working with curriculum specialists. We learned about support services um schools that do have access to psychologists, how do they work with students on the autism spectrum, what special education services do they have? We try to understand all that as well as social emotional. I know Hana might uh be there in the audience still, but we looked a lot of the social emotional support for our students um working with the schools and

109what they were doing. We looked at classrooms. We sat in classes to understand the structure of the day, to understand how students learn in a traditional Dominican Republic school and really get a good sense of the day-to-day there. Um, sometimes we taught as well. And so here we're one of us, Jana actually is reading to the students and working with the students. And then we all got to do that. We all got to participate in small group activities. We got to do shares with students. we got to um support um student activities. Um the theme in this school was on conserving the planet, taking care of your planet and that was across all grade levels. And so here with the little ones um creating their own planets and just uh teaching those lessons and so

110and working with the schools and really understanding how education works there by not just learning the curriculum but then the application all the way to through all the different levels. Um, so just a few more photos before I transition over to our educators. Um, besides the schools, we also worked with a few nonprofits and one of them was the Pedro Martinez Foundation, which is also President Lauren. And so we were we appreciated this opportunity and looked at schools as community hubs or centers. And so here is their dentistry room where they provide that service. here is the kitchen where um they teach people who are good in the kitchen at home to turn that into a skill set and to be able to sell um entrepreneurship, sell what they make. So looking at the family

111academy or parent academy side of things and this is the tutoring center where they also offer um afterchool programming for students. And this is the site where they're building their new educational complex in Sto. Domingo. Um, so by part by learning from them on the community side as well, we were able to get that wraparound look of education and how nonprofits come in to support the educational journey. So that's a little bit of uh what we did just framing the conversation. Who you really want to hear from our fabulous educators. They're there working with students now. um they experienced the culture, the warmth, the pride, the resilience, and the deep commitment to education and family out there um in the Dominican Republic and have brought this back. So, I'm going to call each person one

112at a time to speak um and then please um I don't know if because I can't see the stage, I'm thinking that the best thing I should do is just stop after this piece and after each person and just see if you have any questions before I move to our first educator slashpresenter. I think we're okay. Okay, we can move on. So, our first. Yep. Yeah. Perfect. First, we have Briana Johnson. I'm just going to turn it over to her. She's going to talk about what she learned from the experience. Good evening, everyone. Um, as Jackie stated, I'm Brianna Johnson. Um, I feel very honored to be able to share what I'll call an excerpt of what I learned. Um, because I need a lot more than a few minutes to truly share um, everything

113that I took home with me. Um, so first I want to start with a little bit of like why I chose to go on this journey. Um, I come from California and I'm was very immersed in more Mexican, Central American culture. M I came to the east coast and I definitely felt out of place and like I struggled to make connections with my students who are from the Dominican, Puerto Rico, um an areas I wasn't familiar with. So when this opportunity came up, I was like this is the perfect way for me to actually deepen my understanding and actually like walk the streets and eat the food and experience the culture and the richness of the country the majority of my students come from. Um so going from that um my first impressions from the

114moment we arrived in Dominican Republic we were immersed in a vibrant energy and I mean starting from the airport um the warmth of the people was immediate. Um the streets uh were filled with vendors and you could hear music that was prominent in the ambiance. Um the locals flock to the streets to enjoy like the fresh air. Um, and it was really apparent that like everything is like from the heart. Um, and I really feel like this impression and this vibrancy kind of set the tone for the rest of the trip for all of us. Um, and so, um, now I'm going to break it into kind of the educational side that I saw and then kind of the socioeconomic piece. Um, so visiting the schools in the Dominican Republic really offered a profound and

115personal window into the educational experiences that many of my students and their families have gone through and experienced. Um, I did witness, you know, overcrowded classrooms, outdated materials. Um, but that didn't hinder the experiences that the students were receiving. Um and within that the passions that the educators held for their students for education for um just a holistic approach to education was really heartwarming to see that it doesn't take a lot of money to give a an everlasting experience in school. Um now with that the holistic piece there's lunches provided. Um that's part of also trying to ensure that there are higher attendance rates and students are coming to school to get food and like spend their days there. Um there are also aspects where they're required to have psychologists but unfortunately due to various

116aspects that's not always possible. So even though it's a requirement it's not always being held to full fruition. Um some important points. Um there's definitely a strong cultural belief in education and as that being a pathway to opportunity. Um whether I spoke with locals or people within the schools or vendors um on the streets, it was a common theme that I en encountered. Um also the discipline practices emphasized more of like a structure and care approach as opposed to a punishment approach. Um so it was very about speaking to the whole child and not punishing a child for their choices or their behaviors. Um and that literacy and environmental awareness were very strongly emphasized in the curriculum. Um and then looking at the university system just real quick. It's interesting that there are financial opportunities

117provided to students who want to go to public universities, but once they graduate, finding a job is very difficult unless you are properly connected. And so this just made me think about how our students and families are maybe driven to come here to maybe seek other opportunities and they're coming here with these degrees and this experience but they're never able to really put that into practice even though they put all of this effort into it. Um then kind of jump into the socioeconomic piece. Um so while the Dominican Republic is rich in beauty and cultural pride um my emerging experience also revealed the socioeconomic challenges that do persist um so particularly in the rural areas um but yet amidst like these hardships I saw such emotional strength perseverance and this pride within the community um

118that was not affected by this um community members made the most of what they had and demonstrated unwavering sense of dignity and hope. This contrast between material poverty and like a spiritual richness really helped me better understand the resilience of a lot of my families and students and kind of reflect on how we um typically in the United States kind of view materialism as like a form of success when that doesn't always equate to success in other places. Um yeah, and just that ability to thrive and making anything out of nothing. Um seeing people with little stands on the side of the road selling coffee in front of their house. Um just finding any type of means to bring income into their homes. Um I just felt that that was very empowering. Um what I

119learned in all was that fundamentally I feel the way that I view my students and my families has drastically shifted. Um it has taught me that cultural context is very essential uh not just to understanding the student behavior but to truly reaching them as learners and individuals. I no longer simply know my students um as like Dominican. I've seen where they've come from. I've shared meals in their communities and I've listened to the stories of people who come from those communities and I feel so much more deeply connected to my students. Um it was very powerful also coming back and having staff members and parents and students be like, "I saw you. I saw you on Facebook. My mom showed you. You were in my town. That's where or you were where my grandma lives."

120And the fact that I didn't even have to make those connections. Just by me making this effort, students and families and other staff members were able to make those connections. And it brought them such joy, which then brought me more joy um and really solidified the purpose of this program and the purpose of this experience. um to bring this culture back to our schools and provide our students and families with the best experiences possible. Um because I know it's kind of running over but just kind of looking ahead ahead. Um I really want to push to bring more cultural pieces into our curriculum. Although our curriculum itself may not contain those, I want to challenge myself to find those connections and find those alternate activities or videos or stories. Um, and also create spaces where

121my students can be storytellers and share their history, their culture, um, what they know about their country, what they love about their country. um if what we're learning has any connections to their experiences and their life um and their families. Um so just my final thoughts um this trip truly changed me not only as a person but as an educator. It deepened my empathy, sharpened my cultural awareness and renewed my commitment to honoring the whole child. Um students are more than just test scores and curriculum. They are people with backgrounds and wealth of knowledge and emotions and so much to contribute to our communities. Um, and really seeing that like this isn't just about travel, this experience. It's about listening deeply, honoring lived experiences and growing in ways that make our classrooms and our communities

122more inclusive, compassionate, and affirming. We teach better when we know better. And this experience has reminded me just how important it is to see, hear, and celebrate each student, their families, and everyone that comes along with them for who they truly are. Thank you so much. Nice. Thank you. I'll pause for questions and um and as you think of any questions if you have any we will transition now to talk about what happens next both at the school level classroom school uh level and then district level in terms of coaching for their teachers. Um I have a question but I I actually want to hear that part of it because I actually may answer uh the question. I'm interested in sort of the day-to-day now that someone like Briana has gone through a trip and

123now is coming back to teach in terms of our curriculum and um thinking over all of our kids. So, but you may answer it now with with what you're presenting. Oh, wonderful. Yeah. And then please keep asking more questions if if we don't answer that or you have deeper questions around that once our next two speakers present, definitely ask away. Um, but the what's next and and we just got back a couple weeks ago. So, we're thinking through the big changes, but I'm going to turn over to Suzanne. She's gonna show Leah. Leah um uh recorded herself talking about what they're already planning for what's next in the classroom and at her school with a couple of her colleagues from this experience. Hi, my name is Leah Banks Bruno. I am an eighth grade math

124teacher and special education teacher at Spark Academy. Um, and I've been reflecting a lot since we returned from the trip on how I can take these knowledge, the knowledge that I got and the experiences I had and actually put it into action in my school. Um, and I think there's a couple different levels to this, but in the immediiacy, um, the folks that I went on the trip with, Emily and Will, and I have been working and talking with our principal about how we can change orientation for teachers next year, um, and professional development to sort of educate some teachers who are unfamiliar with Dominican culture or some teachers who maybe are Dominican, have grown up there, but are unfamiliar with the Dominican schools on some of the things that we saw and experienced. In

125my eyes, this would look like a professional development series where people are receiving the information that they need. Um, again, we're not overexlaining to people who already know, but we also need to make sure that a lot of our educators have a base level knowledge of where a majority of our students and families are coming from. So, a big thing that I would like to change in my school is education around Dominican culture and then also just a brief overview on the experience in schooling that a lot of our students receive. um we saw a lot of positives and a lot of differences in how the students learn. And specifically as a newcomer teacher, I think it's important that I continue to work with our language learners and our students who are just arriving and

126the teachers who see them to make sure they understand some of the cultural differences students might be experiencing coming directly into the classroom. Um another big thing that we want to do is ensure that we are providing family nights and structures that feel authentic to our community. Um, we saw that the Pedro Martinez Foundation was really a cornerstone and a foundation of their community. Um, and that people really respond to that, right? They want there to be somewhere that they go um, in order to receive services. They want to trust that they know that when they go there, it is a place where they will receive good information, good support and all that stuff. And I would like to see our schools because they are part of the community. Um I am looking at houses

127right now from where I sit like we are very much nestled right in the neighborhood and I would like parents um family members and everybody to feel like this is a place like a free and open place where there's an exchange of information ideas and resources. Um the final thing that I'll say is that this has really highlighted a need for me um for collaboration across the district between educators. Um, and so I really do hope that one big takeaway from this trip will be the increased collaboration between educators in Lawrence. Um, so that we can make sure that we're all serving our students the best. Thank you for taking the time to listen and thanks again for all your support with the trip. Sounds good. Thank you. Um, and so Leah share a little

128bit about what they're already looking and planning to do in her school. And this is just the beginning of the planning component. Um, and now we have Flor who's in the room physically to talk more districtwide in terms of coaching for other educators as an ML coach at LPS. Wow, we have a live body. Yes, in person. Excuse me if I get nervous. Um, so piggybacking on my name is Florenia Den. I am the expert educator for the ML department at the district level. So, uh, I'm going to piggy back on what Leah said, that importance of collaboration. And I gotta say this initiative couldn't have been as meaningful if I wasn't uh with in a bus most of the time with such great collaborators that were so reflective in all the learnings and being

129open-minded and willing to tackle anything that was thrown at us. Um so I got to say first and for all the collaboration is such an important piece. So with this um I we're in the beginning stages of planning but I do have um a plan for my coaching and PDS that uh that's my main responsibility for the district. So in my coaching I want to start a focus area with this culturally responsive practices where in the first stage we build awareness. First we have to check our biases, right? Um uh we need like we can do things like the implicit bias uh test that IAT the Harvard's made. That's a good place to start just to start thinking about our own biases. We can start with cultural snap uh snapshot sharings and thinking about what

130assumptions we make of different cultures. uh the danger of a single story that's available on tech talk and then the cultural iceberg that we teach in SEI as well that teach that we can uh have a discussion about surface and deep culture aspects. So that's where I want to start with the people I coach first building awareness stage one then stage two and then knowing our students um building relationships by asking the questions hey what do you like to eat what do you do and just letting students know that that what they have to share is interesting to us so we can start building that relationship. Uh we also want to do student and parent surveys that talks a little bit more or ask questions about their cultures uh their needs, their wants, um and

131where they're coming from. Another things that I want to create for the district is cultural resources like cultural briefs and uh books that are easily available for all teachers. I know in the past when I get a new student I have to go buy a book about that specific culture that maybe I don't know a lot about. So like as educators were so busy it would be nice to have a library of all these resources. So I'm currently working on those um cultural resources available to make it available for everyone. Uh I also I'm not sure what's happened to the home visits initiative but that was such a great way to get to know our parents in a deeper way and I want to keep promoting that and adding an additional piece to the home

132visits that has to do then then we sit down and we collaborate and we reflect on what we are seeing. Okay. Uh and then through those home visits, I want to empower our parents to feel like an asset to our community to feel that they have something to share. They can teach us how to make mangoo. They can teach us how to d. They can teach her whatever they want to. But empowering them then they don't have this feeling of I'm a burden. No, I'm an asset. I have something to share and teach you. So that's stage two in my little plan here that I'm drafting. And the last part is definitely um making curriculum and planning more culturally responsive through first of all now that we've built all all this knowledge of our students

133and built awareness of our biases. Now we can start um including some familiar cultural references in our um in our lessons which I know I'm Dominican so I can do this in and out as I am teaching. So now if we can build this in everyone then we are able to do it more. We don't have to do so much work to try to include those references. You're going to work smarter instead of harder. Um then also including more um planning, more collaborative learning where students are doing more collaboration, more talking because we know our cultures definitely are very strong on that oral ple piece. Sometimes not so much in the reading and writing, but we love our stories. We love to uh sit around our grandparents and have them tell us stories. And that's

134an important part of the Dominican culture. And hopefully we can bring that more into the classroom. Um uh when we audit materials that we are using to teach uh thinking through the whose stories are being told here and who is missing so that we can look for those extra resources and include the voices that might be missing to give our students a better uh a diverse perspective um to be uh well-rounded. And then and lastly inviting students voice in the classroom to ensure we ask them how did I make you feel valuable in this classroom? What things did I do to encourage your learning? And if we ask those questions of the students, I think we will get genuine responses that will um guide the way we are teaching them and what we do in

135the classroom. I want to invite all the coaches in our district because this is hard to do in isolation. Um, this it's a it's a lengthy plan, right? It's hard to do in isolation. So, it would be nice if we have an initiative districtwide now that you've spent all this money on us, right? districtwide on all our coaches to and uh that we in the district or that we contract out like impact coaching that one of our focus areas could be um cultural responsive practices and we can uh maybe help develop a plan like this through uh with any of all of our coaches. That's my plan. Thank you. Wow. Can I can I Dr. Pena? The board wants to ask questions. Can Can I add something? Go ahead, Dolores. Yes. I was going to

136say that one of the things that I I I used to do as part of cultural uh aspects was the whole oral history piece is to uh as part of crosscultural communication was to ask the the the children uh to ask the grandparents to tell their stories, right? And write about them. And this is a way that will help them to learn about the the cultural proud of where they come from. And instead of they thinking that they because that one of the things that I used to think was that sometimes children felt like they were not from here or they didn't feel that they were from here or from there. You see they was they were kind of in limbo. And by doing that they sort of uh were able to identify culturally speaking

137as well with with not only being part of here but also carrying that cultural um background from the family and that way it carries this pride right from from the family. As a result, it builds self-esteem. Exactly. And if you have self-esteem, you develop independence. Um and as you develop independence, you feel secure in taking risk, which is what we want our kids to do in learning and pra and and in and practicing what they've learned. So, it's a plus rather than than a less. Yeah. Thank you. I I don't know if I missed it, but how many staff members attended? Yes, we had 11 educators from LPS, mostly classroom teachers, plus um floor, our ML expert teacher coach, and we also had a data coach with us. Um and then we have one of

138those uh educators just transition to a coaching role in her institution at Spark. And so and then Hana who focus on the social emotional piece alle so 11 total but you can see how their work overlaps and reaches across different levels within the district. Thank you. Any further questions? Right. Uh so I can go back to my question now, Briana, as a a teacher in terms of your day-to-day um and what you learned. What are you bringing to your students now um that you took the strip? See how their work overlaps just across different levels within the district. Thank you. Any further questions? Um I was going to answer Edgar's uh question. Um so for me my biggest piece is actually bringing this to the other educators that I will be mentoring. Um most of

139my colleagues don't speak Spanish. So like I want to make sure that my colleagues have an understanding of how to approach students whether or not there's a language barrier and to find ways to connect to students and to use um as somebody mentioned a moment ago their stories and their experiences and things that they've been through as a way through connecting. Um, so finding ways to use visuals to share about a student's experiences, um, or using visuals to show their understanding of the content. Um, and finding multimodal ways for our students to be expressing themselves and expressing their understanding of our content. um which also includes utilizing trans languaging as an acceptable form of assessment and showing a grasp of the content that we are presenting. Um and then also just really understanding that um

140so what I noticed in classrooms was that literacy was a very big focus. And so within the first sixth grade band the first cycle which is our like first to third grade if a child has not mastered literacy skills they are actually kept back because there's a strong understanding that if a child doesn't have strong literacy skills their success is going to be minimized. And so kind of how do we find that balance of providing our students that time to process and kind of adapt and acquire those skills while also in this fast-paced um system that we have of just kind of trying to push as much as we can into a day. Um and again bringing that to my mentees and kind of understanding that their way um our newcomers their way of receiving

141education is very different than what we expect. Um students were walking around classrooms. Students didn't have to raise their hand to go to their friend's house u or their friend's desk. My apologies. So Edgar, if I wanted to come borrow your sharpener, I didn't have to raise my hand and say, "Can I please go ask Edgar for a sharpener?" It was just accepted to do so. And so bringing those connections to our educators to know our kids aren't getting up to be disrespectful is just something that culturally they are used to and is ingrained for their understanding of what an educational system is. Um and I could go on and on. Uh, but those are just some quick ways of like how we can recognize where our students come from, make those connections and kind

142of close those gaps between their educational experiences and kind of how our system works um to help them thrive and feel as successful and like welcomed as possible. Does that answer your question? Yeah, it it does. And and my friends do have to raise a hand if they want to come over my house. But um but I do appreciate uh I appreciate your what you're saying. Thank you. Any more questions? If if no other questions, Madam Chair, I just have a couple of comments. Go ahead. Um, first of all, I want to really thank the uh team, the teachers that took the time out of their schedule um to take the risk to uh go and uh immerse themselves in what their students are about. I think that uh in hearing all three uh presenters

143uh you really paid attention and came back uh reinvigorated. Um I want to say uh Briana you and I think it was Leah the second teacher uh more or less transformed. Remember we talked about a transformative um experience um and how reflective you've come back um to our coach. You have a tall task ahead of you, but I think you're up to it. Um and it really has enriched and deepened uh the work that we know that we have ahead of us for the type of student body that we have. Um, Briana, I'm going to steal two things from you because you'll see them in writing again. I'll just add to the first one. [Music] Okay. And the second one which is really really powerful and that is we teach better when we know better.

144um that speaks volumes of what uh our faculty and staff really should focus on. Okay. So, I want to uh also congratulate and thank uh Dr. Pena for the amount of work that you put in and the team that you assembled here. The process of finding these educators was incredible. Um and and because of that process is why you had the quality of teachers that we have. Uh and speaking of quality of teachers, I know it's a prelude and I shouldn't yet, but I got a chance to talk and see some of our as access scores testing. Um you will be your jaws will fall when they come before us at the next meeting. I dare to say Lawrence public schools is probably one of the highest results in the state of Massachusetts and that

145is a tribute to the work that all of you uh have been doing and continue to do. So, congratulations and thank you and we look forward to many more opportunities to see uh you lead this district and helping our kids. So, thank you. Thank you. Just a thank you to you, Ralph, and the whole team for helping make this a possibility. um and really just allowing us as educators and as a part of this Lawrence community um uh like an insight to something that we would have normally experienced um especially at this capacity and I just feel very blessed and honored to be able to bring this back with me. So, thank you. Thank you. All right, we're getting through real quickly. I only have two other things update and I know that at our

146last board meeting, Madam Chair, I brought the the board my mid uh year evaluation and I understand that a vote is not required, but I I like I love to hear from anyone if you had a chance to review it, uh where we're headed, what I'm doing, uh what's incredible about this school district. But I want you to know that um in highlighting some of the things that I think that are really essential that I think that we've seen lots of progress is um a real commitment from the district of uh really helping our teachers and each one of our buildings really understand what the uh MTSS system is about the multi-ter system of support. um when we embrace that and we're starting to see that in several of our schools. Our principal is saying

147are saying, "Wow, they're seeing the results within our internal assessments and that's because they're able to hone in and key on what our students needs are." Okay. uh that's taking form uh the incredible talents that our students have that I highlighted a little bit on my midyear report and as a result uh the visual arts academy that we will be launching next year. Um again across my desk uh our kids are breaking every kind of accolade and record. Um I forgot which what is the Jen help me. What is the latest that our kids took away just about every award? No, in Florida just recently we saw an email all of our performance again were top tier. There was there had to be a dozen of them. The Tammy Awards. Yes, the Tammy Awards. So,

148um it is amazing. uh rightfully so that we have a performing arts academy and that takes a lot of work but I think we've done the work. Uh our autonomy framework needs some needs some work and what we're seeing and what we're seeing in the research is while we can support what autonomy is about it really doesn't jive well for multilingual learners and I think that we have to make some adjustment there. um the staff uh professional development and really understanding the the the latest with Qout that we're going to put together in our district. I've addressed some of the major challenges that we have with our ML population and that's to those life students. That's an acronym for students that are coming into our district from out of the country that have had breakage

149in education. um they're coming to us, especially the upper grade students, students coming in at seventh and eighth grade, but yet they're functioning at the second grade. The misconception that they're special ed when in fact it was they had a breakage because of the pervasive poverty from the countries that they're coming from. So, we're going to examine that and how do we intensify support services for them to give them a chance while allowing our teachers that are working with students that are on grade level to really emphasize and push those students. And I think that that's essential for our student population considering the fact that 7,800 of them are multilingual learners. Um, we're going to give our kids an exceptional opportunity to be on grade level. Research says that if we can keep a student

150on grade level par through the third grade, 95% of them will graduate from high school and and you know that. So, our expanded in in investment of putting the four-year-olds to a full day kindergarten and exposing them to that curriculum, we capture the ones that didn't make it in the first year by the second year. So, by the time they all go to first grade, they're reading on grade level and particularly if they're bilingual and particularly if they're bilingual. Um we have done an incredible job in um retaining diverse educators and not so much recruiting them on the outside but the work that's happening through our pathways program for our par profofessionals and our aspiring administrators. I showed our chairwoman the multicultural book that our par profofessionals at the University of Massachusetts l put together.

151This is an incredible, incredible book that our own, not teachers, soon-to-be teachers put together that we will distribute around our classrooms for our teachers to use. Uh, very, very proud of them. Um, last but not least, um, our parent engagement, all areas of our parent engagement have experienced an increase in parents, outdoors, people, we we average 70 to 80 people there. our uh coffees. Uh Maria helps me run those. We have across the district's parents constantly coming online with us. And our um um alpac, we had to move it from the Lawrence public library to the cafeteria at the old common because we couldn't fit them all in. The last time we were at the library, we had close to 300 families participating. So, all of those things were reflected in my progress report that

152were priorities that we put there as goals and I feel comfortable that we're in the right direction and um we should be able to finish the school year on a on a very positive note. Um last but not least, Madam Chair, uh around the district, um there we go. Um I wanted to let you know that I participated in our Special Olympics that was um last Thursday. It was a beautiful day. Our kids were rambunctious in all of the school buildings because it rained for the first three days. Try telling kids that they can't go out. So, we held but God gave us Thursday and we had 800 Special Olympic students. Okay. Uh at the South Lawrence at the high school and they had just an incredible incredible time. Um we had over a hundred

153volunteers from New Balance, one of our partners, uh that really really helped our accelerated this um this past spring, April. If you could see that um our kids were engaged in doing fun stuff within our school buildings, I think we had about 2500 of them, Jen, right all over the district during vacation. they had quality enrichment that I think is important for our kids. Um, as uh one of our guest speakers mentioned, the Pedro Martinez Foundation, um, Pedro is an incredible speaker. He was an incredible pitcher, but he's becoming an incredible motivational speaker, especially for the young population and our kids. the fact that he came and brought Tus University focusing on health. The fact that our educators went to the Dominican Republic and partnered with his foundation. Um we're having more conversations about partnerships

154and he's committed to the city of Lawrence and wants to stay within the city of Lawrence of working with our families. Um the rest of the uh places there you had the lieutenant governor come to talk to our kids at the Giltt. We had our arts presentation across the district. On that bottom you see those are our paraprofessionals that just finished their um uh a power course on route to become teachers. I think one more year we have that whole group coming up. Um we have like a 95% rate passing the classes. So they're really they're really motivated. Um and and of course um at the high school you can't keep up with them. Um, our cheerleaders won competition at Hershey Park, Pennsylvania. Um, our parent university, over 80 parents graduated from training, okay, this

155past month. Um, and our students on the bottom, I'm forgot which ones these are that the uh oh, our ninth grade students going into 10th grade choosing their pathways of what they're going to do for next year. the bottom. Um, obviously our validictorian this year is going to Brown University and Brown Brown University got a twofer. They got an exceptional academic student and they got an exceptional athlete. All right. Um, so he came, we had a nice ceremony and uh he sign he signed to a full scholarship to uh Brown University uh in the fall. Uh, we're teacher appreciation week. Um, we try to demonstrate how much we appreciate them from candy, food trucks, food, uh, food, and then more food. So, just want you to know that. Um, last things coming up. We're finishing

156up our questionnaires for our families that help drive what the changes are going to be for next year. Our last duos council is going to be uh also in uh in uh this coming month and we'll be wrapping up and uh asking them to talk about what do they want to talk about for next year. Right. And obviously we have the district music concert that's uh tomorrow at 4:15 and at the common outside. Uh, and our multilingual parent meeting is going, the last one is May 21st and graduation, I believe. Maria, did we send invitations yet? Yeah, everybody knows we're at. So, I think we have probably one of the largest graduating class, close to 900 this year. Uh overall, Madame Chair, I think we've had an incredible, incredible month and we've had an incredible

157year with a lot of positive attention on what's happening um in Lawrence public schools. That's my report. I say it every time. Um excuse me. We should be shouting from the rooftops how great our kids are and how successful they are. And perfect example is one student going to an Ivy League school like Brown University on a full boat. I mean, that's amazing. Um, that's the news that we need to keep sharing with the the community. We and thank you, superintendent, for all your hard work. Any comments on the superintendent's presentation? No. Dolores briefly. I think uh uh superintendent from all this time, what would you say has been the most challenging piece for you, being patient, money, you want everything in one week. Yeah. um transitioning from a small school district to a large

158school district and knowing that so I used to drive a fast boat. Now I now I run a aircraft carrier and from the top in order to make it turn 5 degrees starboard you got to communicate with 22 individuals all the way down to the engine room. Same thing at the superintendent's office. uh from here have discussions, go back to the superintendent's office, meet with the leadership team, devise a plan, call Chris, how do we communicate, then talk to the assistant superintendent, how do we execute? So, that takes a little bit of time. Um, and and I've learned that I I need to be a little bit more patient. I I want to see the improvements right away because I think we have been, you know, shafted because as you said, Madam Chair, the the

159skills and the talents and and the teachers that we have, um it's easy when Lawrence is the fingerpointing that we're at the bottom. No longer is Lawrence at the bottom. Lawrence is the school district that they're looking at for future. And you see that with the amount of kids and families we have coming in here. Um, and it's our turn. So, I think it's important that we celebrate that. Okay. But other than that, I've uh I' I've uh reinvigorated myself. I love the work that I do. I should have moved on to retiring. They're trying to negotiate with me as I'm trying to help find someone for the near future. But in the meantime, you're not going anywhere. Okay. Strategic plan is up and running. uh the subgroups when we've met together all of them

160it's incredible the work and I and I include the parents uh the ESR team mentioned wow this is an incredible school district how parents are in tune to actually what the needs of the kids are what's going on what their aspirations are the teachers voice and and leadership so u the last piece of the puzzle madam chair I have no control of and that's a new governance board. So, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed. Well, yeah. And we'll get through. We will. We will. We're on a good good pathway here. Thank you. Um, one last presentation or brief report from Chris Mins on the policy subcommittee. Okay. Be as brief as we possibly can. uh chair uh we had a fantastic meeting on Monday. Um the chair joined uh the working group. It was

161very nice to have her there. Um we sort of re we talked about the entire process up to this point, how we got here in terms of uh the policy process to this date and we discussed sort of where we wanted it to go from here. I think the consensus was um driven to her credit by the chair that it was really important to re-engage with the subcommittee uh and that they'd be involved heavily uh in this work moving forward. So I think that is our next step is to sort of work with the board to schedule those meetings, make sure it's a time everybody can be available, make sure mask is present because they're really driving this work with us and then dive into the uh policy just sort of one section at a

162time. I believe it's A through K, so it's going to take a little time, but we we knew that from the get-go and it's uh it's sort of slow work, but you know, we think we're off to a good start. Um I do think we were hoping initially to maybe talk about a tonight a little bit. I think we're all grateful that we can't. Um but that yeah, unfortunately, we had some conflicts with both MASC and some on our end. And you really need all parties to discuss the stuff that that we're talking about in section A. It's pretty pretty dense. a lot of his legal based, some of his philosophical, but uh again, I think we'll reconvene with the subcommittees. We'll do a lot of that work there. They'll bring it to the board

163to review, ask questions, and hopefully approve. All right, Chris. So, we're hoping that for the next meeting, we should have someone here from mask with um the deputy superintendent and yourself and members of the um subcommittee that will um report on that section A which is very very important. Correct. I think to have the kind of conversation that you really want to be able to have both in the subcommittee meetings and in this space. Um, you know, you really want your experts available on both the legal side of things in terms of master general law, federal law, all those changes as well as some of the things that are unique to Lawrence that you're trying to embed in these policy work as well. I looked when I was going through those policies, it was interesting

164for me to see that some of them were written in 1995, 20 years ago. So, uh, it's about time and we need to get it right. Yeah, this was something the superintendent sort of prioritized very early, uh, was trying to get some of this stuff updated that maybe it was a little overdue. Uh, and we've been trying to push along as as efficiently as we can, but as you know, it is it's sort of granular work. Um, and we'll get there. It'll take a little time, but uh, yeah. Okay. Any questions from the board at this time? So, we're not asking any specifics yet. We'll do that after the subcommittee meets. I'm sorry, correct. Yeah, I think that's the I think that's the intent at this point. Yeah, we'll sort of reassess where we've come

165so far. I know you guys have already gotten a couple of uh sections. Uh we can discuss those in the subcommittee and then we can get into that granular work and then bring it back to the board to discuss at large and you guys all have hopefully appropriate amount of time to work up some questions and have some discussion here before you approve anything. All good. Anything else? Okay, we've come to a a point in the meeting. The Celtics at halftime were 59 to 59. So I hope when you go home we have a victory. U this concludes our meeting for tonight. The next anticipated LE meeting will be June 11th. Could I have a motion to adjourn? So move. Thank you, Maria. Second. I'll second. Okay. Thank you, Edgar. Any further discussion hearing? None.

166Maria, please call the role. Uh, yes. [Music] Yes. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. The meeting is adjourned.