Public Board Meeting 02/25/2025

001I have one on my schedule today that I already made. I have one that I made a time from 9 15 to 10 15 by then. So before we get started this evening, I would like to do just a big thank you. This is the instrumental band or program from Marie G. Faring. I had the opportunity to visit this school last week and meet the director and the pride that emanated from his face was only surpassed by the glitter of the trophies in their cabinet. This band has won in local competitions, state competitions, national competitions, and they have done so against incredibly resourced other schools from other school districts, but they have been the winner. And I am just incredibly proud that they are here with us tonight. A number of people, young people asked

002me if you are a high school band or an alumni band because of the quality of your music. So if everybody could just join me in giving a round of applause for our young people from Marie G. Farrin. And a big thank you to Mr. Javon Myers for his tireless dedication to his young people. Board Chair. Thank you so much, Dr. Santelises. We'll hear a little bit more from them coming up in just a little bit, but I just want to thank everybody tonight for coming out here to Digital Harbor and joining the board. It's our pleasure for the opportunity to be in community more to take and leave North Avenue and be... here in one of our great city schools and to get to see more and more of our community and have the

003opportunity for that participation. A couple of procedural things I'm going to do this evening before we chat more with the community. So I'd like to welcome everybody to the February 25th board meeting of the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners. For our folks who are online, if you have not done so, please mute your phone. Anyone who does not mute their phone may be muted by the call moderator or removed from the call. Additionally, if you're not a board member or the CEO and our staff, please turn off your video. I'll now read a roll call of the board to identify who is present. Please identify yourself first before speaking for the record. Vice Chair Parker? Vice Chair Parker, present. Thank you. Commissioner Ames-Messenger? Ames-Messenger, present. Thank you. Commissioner Coy? Commissioner Coy, present. Thank you.

004Commissioner Esposito? Commissioner Esposito, present. Thank you. Commissioner Kenyatta-Bey? Commissioner Kenyatta-Bey, present. Thank you. Commissioner Muhammad. Commissioner Muhammad, present. Thank you. Commissioner Redding-Lallinger. Commissioner Redding-Lallinger, present. Thank you. Commissioner Rooks. Commissioner Rooks, present. Thank you. Commissioner Slater-Harrington. Commissioner Slater-Harrington, present. Thank you. Welcome, welcome, welcome. And I am also present. Is there a motion to reopen the meeting? So moved Esposito. Thank you Commissioner Esposito. Is there a second? Second Kenyatta Bay. Excellent thank you. All in favor? Vice Chair Parker? Yes. Commissioner Ames-Messenger? Yes. Commissioner Coy? Yes. Commissioner Esposito? Yes. Commissioner Kenyatta Bay? Yes. Commissioner Muhammad? Yes. Commissioner Redding-Lollinger? Yes. Commissioner Rooks? Yes. Commissioner Slater-Harrington? Yes. Awesome and I am in favor. This motion passes. In recognition of the JROTC from Carver Vocational High School, we'll join us for the presentation of colors this evening. So once again, we'd

005like to thank our band from Marie Garnett Fairling Elementary School for their tremendous performance this evening, as well as the color guard from Carver Vocational High School. Is there a motion to approve the prior open session summaries? so move that's the zino thank you commissioner esposito is there a second second ames messenger thank you commissioner ames messenger all in favor vice chair parker yes commissioner ames messenger yes commissioner coy yes commissioner esposito yes commissioner kenyatta bay yes thank you commissioner muhammad yes commissioner redding lollinger yes thank you commissioner rooks yes thank you commissioner rooks uh commissioner slater harrington Yes. Thank you. And I'm also in favor. This motion passes. Is there a motion to approve the closed session summaries? Motion. Rooks. Thank you, Commissioner Rooks. Is there a second? Ames-Messinger, second. Thank you, Commissioner Ames-Messinger.

006All in favor? Vice Chair Parker? Yes. Commissioner Ames-Messinger? Yes. Commissioner Coy? Yes. Commissioner Esposito? Yes. Thank you. Commissioner Kenyatta-Bay? Yes. Commissioner Muhammad? Yes. Commissioner Redding-Wallinger? Yes. Thank you, Commissioner Rooks. Yes. Commissioner Slater-Harrington. Yes. Thank you and I'm in favor. This motion passes. So once again I want to thank everybody for joining us this evening here at Digital Harbor High School. I especially want to thank Principal Jackson for welcoming us here this evening, the Digital Harbor staff for all of the accommodations, our AV team over at City Schools headquarters, and the Board Office for organizing this off-site meeting. The Board appreciates the opportunities when we can engage with the public like these in this meeting as it helps our work. to come alive. We want to make sure we create those opportunities to be as accessible

007as possible in the board's work. Before we get started with our procedural set, I want to make sure that we hear from three different individuals tonight. So I'd first like to welcome Principal Jackson to the front here to provide a couple of opening and framing remarks for us tonight. Hello everyone. Good evening. Can you hear me okay? All right, well, I would like to welcome you all to Digital Harbor. It's an honor and a pleasure to have not just the Board of School Commissioners here, but also folks from other schools to see, you know, the great things that we have going on here. Digital Harbor is a wonderful place of over 1,400 students from all kinds of backgrounds. We've done lots of phenomenal things over the last few years. We've increased our MCAP scores by

00827%. We've reduced our suspensions. We are increasing our daily attendance, reducing our chronic absenteeism. And we're just doing all of the things that students... need in order to be successful. We are giving students amazing experiences here from local to international travel, college tours. We have lots of pathways. We have five academic pathways for our students. In addition, we also have fine arts, a fine arts pathway, an advanced math pathway. So we just are working very diligently to give students opportunities to become global citizens and to learn, grow, and develop as young people and be productive citizens of this great city. Again, I want to thank everyone for coming today, for being here, and hopefully my students were great ambassadors and hosts to you all. And just thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, and thank

009you so much for all the students for the warm welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We have two of our board commissioners who have taught here at Digital Harbor who have deep roots in the community. So both Commissioner Muhammad and Commissioner Coy. And so I want to give both of our two commissioners an opportunity to provide just a couple of grounding remarks that will help just to set the stage. So let me start with Commissioner Muhammad for just a couple of opening remarks. Thank you. Thank you, Chair. Just want to give. honor to the first school that I started my career in Baltimore City Schools as a school social worker. The opportunity to learn in a place like Digital Harper. on how to advocate for the least of us was one that stays with

010me today and allowed me to be commissioner that I am today. So I want to thank you all of Digital Harbor, those that were here with me at the time, which I recently found out myself and Commissioner Coy were here at the same time. And thank you for the opportunity to share tonight. Thank you, Commissioner Muhammad. Commissioner Coy? Yeah, and I'll just add, you know, this work is personal, with personal connections for all of us in different ways. And most often, those personal connections are in the background and informed, but are not so visible, or not always made visible. So I welcome this point of personal privilege. And just to reflect for a minute, that all of us come to this work with our lifetime of experiences, and countless unseen hours of care, concern, commitment.

011My wife would often make fun of me when I worked here because I would leave out in the morning with a bowl of hot oatmeal in a Tupperware container and sometimes she would swing by in the afternoon and find me eating that now cold oatmeal. Needless to say, I was much thinner back then and had a lot more hair too. But all of this to say that education, you know, the care, the concern, the commitment that I put into this space here into our students. um you know and thinking about all of you and i see a number of other folks whether it's mr turner who's also here at the school or dr swinton buck who is the principal as well you know so many others that we could go around the room and everyone

012could name their connections but you know the the good laughs the challenges the hard days the fun times and most importantly the many names and faces of our students each of whom carries with them a hope for their future and how we show up here matters uh and i learned that here in this room and to paraphrase a saying that no one cares how much you know until they know how much you care is something that i learned here uh in my time and so in everything that we do my hope and intention that i bring to this work is that we carry forward how it is personal for us uh and that that informs the work that we do however uncomfortable It may require us to be along the way for the deep and

013lasting progress that we and so many others want for our students. Thank you. Awesome. Thank you so much, Commissioner Coye. I appreciate that. Thank you, Commissioner Muhammad. I'm excited just to offer a couple of additional remarks. I just want to make sure our community is aware of just some calendaring, and we're going to talk about kind of two sets of calendaring tonight. So I'm going to start on the top end of the meeting, and then later in the evening, we're going to talk about a couple of different ways in which the community can continue to be involved in our work. And so right now this is budget season for Baltimore City Public Schools and this is an opportunity for each and every voice in our system to be heard about how the board should consider

014the ways in which the system leverages the really precious resources that we have to serve each and every child here in the city. We've held, and I'm going to say we, Dr. Santelises and her staff have taken the lead on hosting several meetings on the budget. This has given an opportunity for students, parents, and multilingual learners and families to hear about the district spending plans coming up for school year 25-26. We're appreciative of the feedback that we've received because that's going to be received by the board once we have that full budget. And now it's our opportunity to expand the reach a little bit further in terms of our community partners who can engage in that conversation. So from February 20th until March 14th, our community partners can speak alongside their students, families, and staff

015about the direction of the school budget. For us, it's vitally important that everyone affected by the budget makes their voices heard. And the board needs your help to ensure that we look at opportunities for each and every one of our learners, for each and every one of our school buildings, for each and every one of our families to ensure that there's a high quality education taking place inside of all of our buildings. To get involved, we ask that you check with your school leader. and your schools, sorry, the school itself will provide a little bit more information and on the board's website will provide more information about the budget session coming up. To shift back into the matters at hand tonight with our board business, I want to ask my board colleagues if there is

016a motion to approve the appeals and hearings. I'll move that, Sposito. Thank you, Commissioner Sposito. Is there a second? AIMS Messenger second. Thank you Commissioner Aims Messenger. All in favor Vice Chair Parker? Yes. Commissioner Aims Messenger? Yes. Commissioner Coy? Yes. Commissioner Esposito? Yes. Commissioner Kenyatta-Bey? Yes. Thank you Commissioner Muhammad? Yes. Thank you Commissioner Redding-Lollinger? Yes. Commissioner Slater-Harrington? Yes. Thank you and I am also in favor. This motion passes. I will now review the consent agenda. Board colleagues, please let me know if you'd like an item removed and state your question for staff. 6.01, the supplemental appropriation for the district building consolidation plan one phase. Item 6.02, the supplemental appropriation for Patterson parking expansion and collaborative space enclosure. 6.03, the supplemental appropriation DCS building controls and monitoring. Item 6.04, school year 25-26. Please, Paul. I'll pull

0176.04. Let me finish and acknowledge. Let me just read this one second. School year 25-26 and school year 26-27 district calendar. I just want to acknowledge the very first poll that I got, which was Vice Chair Parker. Item 6.05, 21st Century Annual Report. Item 13.01, Airtek Refrigeration and Mechanical Contractors. Item 13.02, Premier Inc. U.S. Foods. Item 14.01, Software and Maintenance Support. Item 14.02, Software and Maintenance Support. It's a separate item. Item 15.01, our Fire Alarm Installation, Inspection, Repair, and Preventative Maintenance. Item 15.02, Bronner Contracting Company Incorporated. Item 16.01, tuition reimbursement. I will now move to public comment so and for a public who's joining us tonight we separate public comment a couple of different ways we want to make sure that our recognized groups have an opportunity to provide some general comments first before we

018open it up for public comment this evening actually before we move to public comment just want to acknowledge that councilman Zach Blanchard has joined us this is his particular um region in the city councilman blanchard has deep connections here to gentle harbor high school actually and i want to welcome them up to the podium just to provide a couple of remarks uh for us this evening thank you so much mr chair um i actually thought it would just be like the board and me so uh i apologize i did not spend as much time preparing the speech as i as i should have But yeah, as as Chair Sally mentioned, is that I think most of the board members know I've coached football at Digital Harbor High School for the last three years. So I'm

019extremely biased towards this school specifically. Also very proud to have coached on the first playoff victory in the history of Digital Harbor this past year. So but besides that, so I had a really great for folks who don't know me. So I took office. on December 5th so so new to the city council and I had a great intro meeting with Dr. Santelises and her chief of staff Alison Perkins-Cohens about a month ago and we I sat down and said okay so do I talk first or do you talk first she's like well you can go first I said okay so you know the five things I just wanted to hear what the city's working on I want to learn more about absenteeism And with the school with city schools doing around that I wanted

020to learn more about school based violence intervention program and safe passage and how that's been incorporated in. I want to hear more about middle school sports and the improvements are being made. There are investments in vocational training and apprenticeship programs, and I also want to talk about digital harbor. She said, well, actually four of those things are like four of our major priorities that we're working on. And obviously digital is a little unique of an ask of a conversation, so it was really great. introductory conversation. We was able to have some follow-up meetings with on on multiple aspects of that with the folks at City Schools who are are working those specific areas. Particularly at a really really great meeting with the leadership of the CTE program and everything that's being done in that regard

021was a great learning opportunity for me but also something that you know is having knocked a lot of doors on the campaign over the past year, knowing how much that, you know, so many of our families care about preparing our young people, not just for college, but also for careers after high school. And in having those... having those opportunity opportunities meaningfully available to them is something that I got a lot of feedback on over the campaign. It was something that I heard and said, hey, I'm going to I don't know what exactly that means to support this, but I'm going to figure out how to support it. But seeing the improvements that city schools is making that regard was was particularly cool to me. I'll talk, I think, briefly about I want to make kind

022of a note about blueprint investment. things in light of recent events. And then I'll talk maybe a little very briefly philosophically about something to maybe keep in mind. With the, you know, so when the governor's folks gave, you know, their brief to the local electeds before they had announced, it was about a day or so before they announced their official budget, and they talked about bending a curve, right? And they talked about these types of ways that you know we're not we're not slowing the blueprint but we are um you know making it make sense financially for us at this time right hey you know it sounded it made made logical sense i think as someone who is looking is responsible for helping the city you know with its own budget right like we have

023to make our own budget in um and we've got some restraints coming up. Like I get the challenges there and there's, you're always going to have to cut things that you don't want to cut. But then, you know, I started to hear the really important counter argument for that. The first one came from the council president's own legislative director, who is, I'm sure most of y'all know, has this really deep understanding of education, particularly in the schools that have been historically underfunded. And she raised that to me first. You know, I've heard the public testimony in these public conversations, and then I also appreciate City Schools leadership coming to the Council on Monday to reiterate this point. And I am. I think I'm buying hook line and sinker the argument of like right now when

024we look at what's happening in city schools with our performance and reading with comparing how things are looking not just across the state but across nationwide what we're looking at where how we are performing even compared to the pandemic in a lot of situations how we're performing on absenteeism which is another Another one of those things that I heard a lot about on the campaign trail as a concern, and that makes sense. You know, it's like the investment is working in Baltimore City and now is not the time. Like we have there's a very real challenge. It is a very real three billion dollar deficit that the state has to come up with. And I'm you know, I don't I don't envy that position that they're in. but the key point of now is not

025the time to cut this investment away from city schools. You know, I was on Sunday, I was up at Poly Western's auditorium to watch the dance symposium. I think we had, I think it's six high schools from across the city. I believe both Digital and Forest Park are in their first year of the program. So got to see that right in that that is growing in the involvement in that is growing. They had an elementary school who put on, you know, really, really, pretty good performance there. I was also, you know, within our own district up and up. Then I was at Furman Templeton a couple weeks ago watching the Lego robotics team. A bunch of elementary school students do things that I I don't know how they know how to do those things, but

026it's really pretty cool stuff. You know, my own experience as a football coach at Digital, what, three, so my first year coaching, we had 37 boys in the program, Varsity and JV. You know, this past year we had, you know, roughly about 75. I mean, these are like, these are just really meaningful. These are really meaningful things. And the investment that we're making in our young people, it's paying off and it's not surprising, but just kind of philosophically, the one aspect from my like coach's lens of why I, you know, I encourage. the school board to keep finding ways to support these types of, whether it's vocational training or extracurriculars or sports, especially this investment in middle schools, is that I think with our young people, it's so important that we give them opportunities to

027make the people that they care about proud of them in public, right? Whether it is... You know and and sometimes that's you know with some kids that's grades and it's not always gonna be the case for everybody we all know that um but you know whether it's success on the softball field or success in you know being able to you know watching on on Sunday the The dance teams out there performing and in front of a really pretty packed at tournament polywestern, which is about close to this size of an auditorium or whether it's playing in a band, like all these, all these ways, I mean, whether it's learning how to be a, you know, a brick mason, like the whole spectrum of stuff that allows our young people to make the people they care

028about proud of them, whether that's their families, whether that's their neighborhoods, whether that's their teachers and their coaches, like that, I think that is kind of the mechanism when we see like, Hey, like. kids who are involved in this type of stuff, they come to school more. Hey, their grades are higher. Hey, they perform better after high school, right? Like all these types of things. And I just think that's something that is like, that's an important part of good neighborhoods. Like a good city is to have a lot of that going on. So I appreciate all the investment that's being made there. You know, I know less than all of y'all do about what this budgetary outlook looks like. You know, it's still pending and whatnot, but. But I encourage the board to continue to

029find ways to make these investments. And I appreciate you guys letting me ramble for a minute. So thank you. Thank you so much, Councilman Blanchard. The vice chair and I had an opportunity to meet with Councilman Blanchard pretty early in his tenure. And one of the things that we appreciate very much is his strong advocacy for young people, helping to ground us in not only his experience, but in the experience of all of our young people in a way in which we don't always have an opportunity to see in our roles here. And so the other thing I really appreciate is that Councilman Blanchard is a fierce advocate of what the future can be for all Baltimoreans. And so. Thank you so much for taking the time to come not only tonight but also to

030engage with all of us here. So thank you, thank you, thank you. I'd like to welcome Nathan Farrell from the Baltimore Teachers Union for public comment this evening. Turn it on. Good evening. Good evening commissioners and Dr. Santelises, Nathan Farrell, Spanish teacher, external assignment at the BTU. I want to start by thanking the CEO, city school staff, and the dozens of BTU members and the hundreds of city school students for your presence in Annapolis the past few weeks. And folks have been advocating for better transportation, for fully funded schools, and certainly the councilman's comments are echoing that. And I appreciate the councilman's comments and we look forward to the city council and the mayor, of course, going above and beyond the minimum maintenance of effort in funding city schools. That would be really great, particularly

031in these times. So I really appreciate everyone's work on that. Tonight, the BTU is providing public comment on the following issues. Increasing multilingual staff in key offices. Policy JICJ, also known as cell phone policy. and the AFT code of ethical international recruitment and employment of teachers. So the BTU calls for the district to prioritize increasing multilingual staff in key offices such as student enrollment, choice and transfer, family engagement. These offices play critical roles to supporting school leaders, instructional staff, and most importantly our students and families. And an increase in staff is warranted and is key to improve attendance and academic outcomes for multilingual learners. The guidance the BTU is sharing this evening regarding the first reader of policy JICJ is based on feedback from our membership of teachers, clinicians, PSRPs. We do this via meeting

032surveys and ongoing conversations. And BTU members overwhelmingly seek changes to the status quo of student cell phone use in schools. There's a great amount of fear that the enforcement challenges will fall on classroom instructional staff taking attention off of academics. And so teachers face huge difficulties. in enforcing cell phone policies due to a lack of administrative support. inconsistent implementation and student defiance. And the piloted approaches across city schools that are happening right now, the ones that are working best are those that have swift and certain consequences. And while a teacher may be the initial staff member who witnesses the cell phone violation, schools with successful pilots rely on other staff to confiscate the device and implement the consequence. Sometimes these staff members are part of a climate and culture team, but most successful schools rely

033on administrators to enforce policy and implement consequences. The district really must ensure that there's adequate administrative support of our school leaders and that it's provided to teachers as well. Teachers in PSRPs support a differentiated approach to grade level device collection. So we're talking about K through five, six through eight, nine through 12. But this is the limit to the variation that any staff really want to see. So as a whole, our members oppose school-based alternative methods, right? Do not support a process that allows schools to amend a device policy through reviews by the school's office. This reduces transparency, it removes clarity from staff on the ground. A standardized policy makes it easier for administrators to provide consistent support and resources to all schools. Uniform policies for cell phones ensure that all students of a common

034grade level, regardless of the school, are subject to the same rules and consequences. And this is particularly important in city schools as students often transfer from one school to another. And so removing school-based optionality creates a single clear policy. It's easier for students. it's easier for parents for staff to understand and follow and it allows for more consistent and supportive oversight from the board and central office staff lastly we definitely do not want to create any sort of perverse incentives for students to or for schools to compete with enrollment based on a cell phone policy um overall the strongest support exists for centralized collection systems and we really appreciate city schools for adopting our feedback in this uh version of the of the policy central collection as a default method right central collection is a

035default method for collecting and storing devices and To efficiently handle the collection and distribution of phones, some schools are paying staff, sometimes it's a hall monitor, a PSRP, to work slightly longer hours to assist with this policy. And we really appreciate that City Schools agrees that devices should be confiscated by authorized searchers, which does not include teachers. If students are found with an unauthorized device, an administrator should implement the consequence. And so we look forward to the work you all are doing with this policy. Lastly, the BTU is calling on the Board to immediately adopt the AFT Code of Ethical International Recruitment and Employment of Teachers in order to stop the exploitation and harm caused to our international educators from unscrupulous brokers and traffickers. Our international students who arrived this year, particularly the folks from

036Ghana and Kenya, are facing threatening letters, collections notices, demands from lawyers, shame tactics to pay as much as $13,000 this year. These are not visa sponsors. These are not city schools, H-1B immigration attorneys. These groups do not provide a service to our educators. They are predatory agencies that profit from the lack of guardrails that exist. by this school district and our international educators are experiencing harm. So we appreciate you all adopting that code. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Farrow. We appreciate it very much. I will now turn it over to Dr. Juckins for our general public comment. Thank you. Our first public comment is going to require our interpreters. I'll let you slide over. It is from Karina Flores, active parent at Wolf Street, Patterson and Commodore Johnson Rogers. The agenda topic is school cell

037phone policy. This will be a video and we'll have our interpreter. Good evening. I think it's fine, right? Okay. I'm the Spanish interpreter and I'm going to be interpreting for you the video that the parent of the students have basically put together in Spanish. in just a moment to sync our technology. Do you want it to keep going? I can do this continuously. I just got to be able to hear. Do you want us to play and then pause? Or do you want it to just continuously play? It's fine. OK. Go ahead and continuously play to be sure. foreign can help them. I bet we have a lot of the video already. translated myself so I can just read you on your page and maybe just towards the end I can put on my headphones

038and do the rest because I didn't have time to translate everything so basically the her name is lady Flores she is a mother of three students ages 18 14 and 16 the purpose of the video of this mother today is to share with you the importance for these students to be able to have a telephone with them in the schools at all times because it's very important that they can communicate with me or with another person in the case that they need something important in these moments that we're living right now with someone's anguish with the situation that we have in the schools as well as the immigration situation it's very important for us as parents to be able to communicate with our children in case they need us for something for me it's very

039important also that The telephones can also be a distraction for the students. So I do believe that maybe there could be a system that when the students get into the schools that these telephones can be given to a teacher or given to the office with the principal for them to know via distraction during the days that they are in the school. I believe that there is a lot of information on the internet that these children may or may not have. access to, but with the computers that they are given in the school, I think is better. They don't need the telephones at all times, but it is imperative that they have the phones in case they need to communicate with us. You can just play them. Do you want to play the last piece? Patricia,

040go ahead and play. Once again, it's very important for my children to have the telephone with them because they do travel by bus. And obviously, the moment that they come into the school, once they finish with the class, that their telephone should be kept back to them. And do this through all the classes that they have during the day. For me, it's very important that my children have their telephone because once again, we are exposed, Hispanic community right now, we're exposed to so many things right now that I want to feel that it's safe for my children and for me to have communication with them. And I do thank you very much for letting me share my concerns and the ideas that I have with the telephone use in the school system. Thank you. You're

041welcome. And we're working through when we have Spanish interpretation, so we'll continue to work on that. Before we cut the video, just to honor that we have... Should we play the rest of it? Yes, please. Patricia, if you can, play the rest of the video, especially for folks who are Spanish-speaking, they can hear it. The directors decide a specific place in the classroom where the students can leave their phones in what they receive in class, since I am also a mother, I am aware that the phone is a distraction for the boys. So it is good for me that they have their devices at school and on the street, since my children travel by bus. With measures, with measures that when entering the classrooms to receive the class, they are left in a certain place

042and when they finish the class, they take their phone and go back to the other classroom and with the same method, that only when receiving the class, they leave the phone in a certain area. For me it is important that my children have their phones because we are exposed to many things as Hispanic people. All right, thank you. Our next public comment is from Cortina Barnes, involved parent and Park Heights community member. Agenda topic will be cell phone policy, and this will be an email that's read. Hello, my name is Cortina Barnes and I'm a proud parent of two wonderful young men. As a mother, my top priority is the safety and well-being of my children. Like any loving parent, I want to be connected with them throughout the day, especially when they are at

043school. In today's world, communication is more important than ever, and having access to a cell phone can provide a crucial lifeline for students and their families. I'm writing to emphasize the importance of allowing children to have cell phones in school. Emergencies can happen. at any time and in those critical moments i need my boys to feel safe thank you missus next public comment is from paris campbell engaged parent at park heights academy active community member agenda topic will be school cell phone policy this will also be an email that is read My name is Paris Campbell. I'm writing to express my strong support for allowing students to keep their cell phones in school. While I understand concerns about distractions, I believe that with proper guidelines, cell phones can serve as valuable tools for learning, safety,

044and communication. The goal should not be to ban phones entirely, but to implement structured policies that ensure they are used appropriately while still allowing students access when needed. First and foremost, phones are essential for safety and communication. In emergencies, students must be able to contact their families and parents deserve the reassurance that they can reach their children if necessary. We have seen time and time again that in unexpected situations such as severe weather, lockdowns, or personal emergencies, having a phone can make all the difference. In critical moments, access to a cell phone can provide immediate contact with emergency services or loved ones, ensuring safety and timely communication. Additionally, allowing phones in schools can help teach responsibility. In today's world, technology is unavoidable. And rather than eliminating it from classrooms, we should focus on teaching students

045how to manage their devices responsibly. Learning how to balance phone usage with schoolwork is an important skill that will serve students well beyond their academic years, preparing them for college and the workforce where technology plays a significant role. I believe that a balanced approach is the best solution. Instead of a complete ban, we should consider structured policies such as teacher-managed phone collection during specific periods or designated times for phone use after completing assignments. This would ensure that students remain engaged in their education while still having access to their phones when appropriate. Let's equip our students with the tools they need to succeed, not just academically, but in the real world. By setting clear expectations and boundaries, we can maintain a focused learning environment while still prioritizing student safety and communication. Thank you for your time

046and consideration, Mrs. Campbell. Next, Public Comment is Patrice Tramiel, active school parent at Dorothy Heights and community member. Agenda topic, school cell phone policy. This will be a video. Greetings, my name is Patrice Tramiel and I am the parent of students who attend Baltimore City Public Schools. I recently reviewed the cell phone policy that will be implemented for the 25th and 26th school year and I must say that I am in complete disagreement with the guidelines listed in this policy. I have recently experienced how schools notify parents of potentially dangerous or even outright dangerous events that may have taken place in a school building thoroughly underwhelmed. Not only was I notified late, but when I called the following day to speak to someone, I got no answer. My child couldn't notify me because her phone

047is taken at the beginning of the day and she doesn't get it back until the school day is over. I'm a parent, so trust me, I do know that phones can be a major distraction. But I do feel as though students should be allowed to keep them on their person throughout the school day or silent and that guidelines should be put in place that includes that option. I also think that parents should be in these discussions and present in these spaces where policies are being decided on for our children. We should have a say in the rules and regulations the board wants to put in place, as well as what steps should be taken when they are violated. Parents have a voice, and we would like them to be heard in those spaces as well.

048Thank you. Thank you. Our next public comment is from Rodney Houston, Involved Parent at Empowerment Academy, Community Member, Agenda Topic, School Cell Phone Policy. This will also be an email that's read. Hello, my name is Rodney Houston and I'm the proud parent of two children at Empowerment Academy. My oldest child is preparing to start high school next year. And while this should be an exciting milestone for our family, our enthusiasm has been overshadowed by concerns regarding the new cell phone policy. I fully understand the reasoning behind wanting to limit distractions and... something's covering it the misuse of cell phones in the classroom however I am deeply concerned about the way this policy will impact both student safety and personal accountability for their belongings as a parent I want to know that if an emergency arises

049my child will have a way to reach me or emergency services if cell phones are locked away how can the school ensure that they will be distributed quickly and in an orderly manner when they are most needed Emergencies are unpredictable and every second counts. Furthermore, in schools that have implemented similar policies, there have been troubling reports of phones being misplaced or even stolen. If students are required to surrender their devices, who will be responsible for ensuring they are returned to the rightful owner? What safeguards will be in place to prevent theft or loss? These are critical concerns that must be addressed before moving forward with any new rules regarding cell phone access. While I support efforts to create a focused learning environment, I strongly believe that a balanced approach is necessary, one that prioritizes both

050education and student safety. There are alternative solutions such as requiring phones to be silenced and stored in secured pouches that remain with students rather than fully confiscating them. I urge the board to reconsider and delay any decision on this policy until a clear and effective plan is established to ensure accountability for students' phones, as well as a safe and practical procedure for emergencies. The safety and well-being of our children should always come first. Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration, Mr. Houston. Next, public comment is from Danny Medley, Berea community member, agenda topic, school cell phone policy. This will also be an email read. Greetings, my name is Dani Medley. I want to address my concern that I have about the new cell phone policy being implemented. I understand that cell phones are distractions

051and impact social media and the impact that social media has on our students. Sometimes problems or violence can come out of certain interactions between students of different schools due to interactions that occur over social media. Limiting access to the cell phone distraction may help keep the students on task, so I agree something needs to be done. However, the problem I would have is taking the cell phones all together, even to lock them in a locker, until the end of the day. class is questionable. If something happens and the teacher is caught outside of the classroom and she has the key to the little locker that the cell phones are in, what will happen? If the students are not able to inform administrators or the authorities of their whereabouts. We have been blessed not to have

052mass shootings in our school systems in Baltimore City, but we have had plenty of students bring firearms to school. So we're not that far off of that possibility of a mass shooting or shootout. Children being able to call their loved ones or call 911 just that they'll know what's going on has been very impactful in some of those mass shootings. I would like to know that there's a medium to cell phone usage as far as safety goes. Maybe the phones being placed in black pouches, which means that the students cannot see their phones and the phones are required to be placed on silent or do not disturb mode inside of the pouch would be a suggestion. But to fully take the phone away wouldn't be safe. It's one of those things where a strong medium

053has to come into play. What will protocol look like in an emergency shutdown? Will there be an emergency phone put inside of the classrooms? I just hope that all scenarios are being considered when finalizing the cell phone policy so that our children can get educated, but they can also be safe. Thank you, Mrs. Medley. Next public comment is Bilal Ali. Topic is school schedule. Commenting in person. And it's also from the Muslim Community Cultural Center. And Bilal Ali, feel free to come forward. Yeah, come on up. And you'll have three minutes when you start. Yeah. First of all, good evening. Good evening. Welcome. I'd like to thank the commissioners for... considering this very important topic. As we all understand that every major holiday has a day off associated with it, except the Muslims. I know

054now that we're getting pushback from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue about DEI. diversity, equity, and inclusion. I think it was sent a strong message about diversity that it can't be just majority all and at the exclusion of other religious organizations. I think that the work that the commissioners are doing is very important. And I think that it will send a strong message, not just for the Muslim community per se, but every community that feels marginalized in society that you matter too. And I don't want to take all my time because I have the imam of the Muslim Culture Center that probably want to share a few words too. Good afternoon. I'd like to thank you for allowing us to come before you. I think Bilal has encapsulated what the community. I would just like to, we have

055parents here from the Muslim community, we have grandparents here from the Muslim community, and we have students here, and I would just like to ask them to stand. All of you from the Muslim community. And they are generally concerned. My father used to say, if it ain't written, it ain't so. And so we'd like to have it written on the calendar for Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha. Thank you very much for allowing us to come before you. Thank you. You're good. Thank you. Our next public comment will be... From Dr. Walter Gill, retired professor and teacher and a topic Islamic holidays and will be commenting in person. Dr. Gill, go ahead and come forward and you also have three minutes. Good evening, good evening, good evening. My name is Dr. Walter Gill and I'm a

056product of Baltimore Public Schools having graduated from Baltimore City College in 1955. I am here to give testimony in support of recognizing Id El Fitra, celebrated at the end of Ramadan, and Id El Adha, the festival of sacrifice, which also marks the end of the pilgrimage, be recognized as Islamic holidays by the Baltimore City Board of School Commissioners. It's important that Islamic holidays be respected and recognized during the school year as Christian and Jewish holidays are during the school year. All the three religions of Abraham, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the latter is the most criticized and least understood. For example, Islam is the world's fastest growing major religion, according to the Pew Research Center. As an educator, I understand the reality of trying to reach the greatest number of students during the school day. Teachers

057need to be with their students as much as possible during the school day, which includes before school, between classes, lunch, and after school. Therefore, I do not support the closing of school for either in holiday. And then I guess you're going to stay there the whole week. So we just want to ask anybody who's online joining us virtually to make sure that your phone is muted, that it does impact us in our ability to have public comment go forward. So thank you. Please. We want to make sure that your comments weren't lost. So if you wouldn't mind repeating that, that would be very helpful for the audience. Teachers need to be with their students as much as possible during the school day, which includes before school, between classes, lunch, and after school. Therefore, I do

058not support the closing of school for either end holiday. I would respectfully ask of the school commissioners to consider giving students who practice Islam an excused absence for both end holidays. and an opportunity to make up any missed work or tests. I'll also ask you to consider putting both kids on the school calendar. In summary, education is about respect. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, the secret of education is in respecting the people. So one might ask, how does recognizing such a small demographic religious group reflect respect for students? It shows that you care about the least, the underserved, the neglected, and students pay attention to everybody being served or not served. Once students know you care about them across the board, real learning will occur. Please consider respecting and recognizing the holidays as stated earlier for

059students who practice Islam. and for the religion of Islam. Please consider. Please consider. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comment. Thank you. Our next public comment is from Candice Abdul-Rahim, also commenting in person. If Candice Abdul-Rahim is here and would like to come forward. There are many ways to teach and many things that need to be taught. I am an educator. I'm a Muslim. I'm a former JHU professor, former Blum mentor for Baltimore City. I've held several positions in Baltimore City, wrote curriculum, ran the new teachers institute in this building, Alhamdulillah. And I wanted to talk about Baltimore City Public Schools being a safe place. Baltimore City Public Schools is a public place. and a public place should be for all people who inhabit it, a safe space. But a safe space needs

060to be an inclusive space. And an inclusive space needs to be an equitable space. For Muslim children in BCPSS schools, it is neither equitable or inclusive. And that is not because of you all sitting here. It is because of a system and a legacy that we have inherited. If it is unequal, if it's inequitable, that means it can never be safe for them. Safe means that you are not othered. Safe means that you receive no harm. And there is inherent harm if things are not equitable. Now, I heard someone say that, you know, and I really respect their opinion, but the fact that... we have to understand that we exist on many levels. Yes, teachers need to be with students. Yes, we need more student time, but we know that there is allocated time and

061then there is engaged time. There is instructional time. And our students are learning when they are in class and not in class. And as someone said, they're learning what we say and what we don't say about what we do and what we don't do. Islam, as someone said, is the fastest growing religion. There are some estimate 15,000 Muslims in the city. And you would not know us by our names. You will not know us by our clothing. You will not know us by anything other than the profession of our faith. And you won't know that. And I have worked in these schools in a couple of years. It'll be five decades. I've been retired for a few years. And what I want to say to you from the bottom of my heart is that I

062have watched students and have said, why didn't you come to eat? Well, my teacher said they were given a review that day. How do you mandate that? The teacher said there was going to be a test that day. I can remember being on staff and having perfect attendance and the principal saying, oh, this year we're going to give an award for perfect attendance for the staff. It's going to be a monetary award. Thank you. I had perfect attendance. That is time. Thank you so much. Except for one day, and that one day was the day of my Eid. So what I want to say to you. As someone who has taught at four Baltimore City Schools and has served as an administrator at five. Can we ask you to close? I'm closing. Yeah, just go

063ahead and finish one sentence. I'm closing. In fact, can I have this? My husband is on here. But I just wanted to say that inequity is inherently harmful, that we have to understand what this is doing to the kids psychologically. This is my concern. I ask, I implore you to really consider putting it on the calendar. I'm really not even, I'm happy that we get a wellness day, but I think it has to go further. Children need to see that everyone's beliefs and faith are respected. And with that, I want to thank you for giving me the time. So I apologize for going over, but I hope that what I have said was heard with your heart and not just your ears. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next public comment is from Malik

064Jones commenting in person. Technically, no, but. You would like to cede your time? That's fine. I just wanted to say I have lived this. We have children, grandchildren. I have worked with Baltimore City. And I'm looking at the faces. And just imagine if your child had a different religion and felt othered. I know what that feels like. My children graduated from Baltimore City Public Schools. We had grandchildren here. His son carried the ball for Evanston and won the championship that year. Alhamdulillah. We are invested. We came back into the city. We were living in the county. We came back into the city because I believe so strongly in Baltimore City Public Schools. But we want you to believe in us also and believe in our children. And that's enough. I think you all get the

065gist of what I'm saying. Thank you very much, and I appreciate the extra time. That is our last public comment. All right. Thank you so much. And I want to thank all of our community members for coming out tonight, whether virtually, video, or recognized groups, and other folks who joined us tonight for public comment. The public comment is really important to the board to ensure that we understand the range of opinions out there. on policies and other matters so we do really take those seriously in our deliberations and considerations as well as i'll speak on behalf of dr santelises i know her team also considers that in the implementation of the work that she's charged with and overseeing based upon public comment before we get to our full consent agenda are there any additional items

066members would like to pull from the consent agenda hearing none i'd like to return to item Number 6.04 that was pulled by Vice Chair Parker. Parker? Yes, it was pulled because I would like to move to amend the calendar that has been put forth. Thank you. I'll entertain your amendment. I move to direct the staff to amend the proposed Baltimore City Schools 2025-26 school calendar. to A, designate October 2nd, 2025 and March 20th, 2026 as wellness days when schools will be closed so staff and students can engage in wellness and self-care activities, consistent with Boyle policy ADF. wellness nutrition and physical activities and board policy ica school calendar b add two days to the end of the school year in june 2026 and c bring the revised calendar back to the board for a final

067vote at our next board meeting Thank you, Vice Chair Parker. Before we take a vote, I want to make sure that the board has an opportunity to provide a comment on the motion that's put forward on the floor this evening. I'd like to make a comment, please. I'm coming straight to it. I think we have... Actually, Commissioner, let me interrupt you right quick. Let me see if there's a second for the motion, and I can take comment for that. Is there a second for the motion that's on the floor? was that because i said second thank you commissioner esposito now we can proceed i'm so sorry go ahead okay um what we have uh put forward here in this motion is a chance to um take a stand at a prime time in our history

068um i teach uh esau and i spend a lot of time with dealing with the outsidedness of our Islamic students. They feel as though they're standing outside and there's not the support. And so we stand at a time here in this country, in this world, where inclusion is the strongest stand you can make. When I look at this calendar right now as it is proposed, is the same playlist over and over again. It's time to move forward. It's time to make our stand. It's time to say that we are going to include our total community and we're not going to be able to turn back and say, why? Why are they at my door when we turn down the opportunity to shut the door? I agree with the motion and I just wanted to put

069my thoughts out there. I'm greatly moved by it. I'm greatly moved by our community who came out to stand for it. A community that has at times been totally neglected, totally overlooked. but yet been one of the strongest supporters and the most stable families that are present in our system. I thank you for the work that you've done as families, as a community, and as a group that actually cares about our future. Thank you, Commissioner Kenyatta-Bey. Are there any additional comments or questions? Commissioner Redding-Wallinger. Yes, thank you for the opportunity and I wanted to also second the appreciation for folks who come out and make that made their voices heard tonight. I want to acknowledge that there are a lot of things that the board needs to weigh and that the staff needs to weigh

070when considering an academic calendar. There are a lot of things that have gone into it behind the scenes. I appreciate members of this board working hard behind the scenes to come to some sort of resolution here. That being said, I will be voting in favor of this motion. I'm in agreement with it. But I wanted to comment on something that came up in the public testimony, because I think it's very important for people to know that people of all faiths and all religions always have the right to use an excused absence on days in which you are observing a religious holiday. So I just want to make that clear, no matter how this vote goes, no matter what days we recognize as days away from school, that you always have the right to have your

071absence excused. And in addition to that, something that City Schools does is for major holidays, name them observance days and what that means is there shouldn't be any major academic activities there shouldn't be tests there shouldn't be reviews for for tests on days like that and so bring that to teachers attentions and principals attention if that is happening because we set those observance days specifically if a student misses a day we don't want them to to fall behind so i just wanted to say that for the record and make sure folks know you always have that right Thank you, Commissioner Ray Lollinger. Those were very important points there. Any additional comments from the board this evening before we vote? Yes. As this has been a call to action from our community as a whole, not

072just the Muslim community. The call to action to our board last year, we heard from our students, we heard from our parents alike, that the issue of equity is not always equitable and tonight as you did last year you made sure that this board and our district hears you loud and clear that there's more to be done not just here and i appreciate the effort with regards to the calendar but there's more to be done across the board to make sure that the voices of all communities are represented. One of those ways is through our calendar. So tonight, I will agree to vote on this amendment. But with this agreeance, I will publicly make the commitment that this amendment will be the amendment of this year, and there will be another next year. There will

073be another that recognizes that when we ask for equity, equity has to be across the board. We cannot give a little to the efforts of you all when you are asking for what's worth. Your worth is that you come. your families, and you assure that your children are present and excellent students. Our responsibility to you, to your students, is that we recognize your holidays, not just your holiday. So I make the commitment that this is the first amendment to assure that you have a E on our schedule. But I ask you for your patience because there will be another. and your support will continue to be needed, not just with regards to the schedule, but with regards to assuring that your equity is equitable. Thank you. Thank you. Any additional comments this evening? Thank you.

074Given that the motion is on the floor and there's a second, I would now like to take a roll call vote. All in favor, Vice Chair Parker. yes thank you commissioner ames messenger yes thank you commissioner coy yes thank you commissioner esposito yes thank you commissioner kenyatta bay yes thank you commissioner muhammad yes thank you commissioner parker oh i'm sorry we have yes again i'm sorry we have you on here twice commissioner redding lollinger yes thank you commissioner rooks yes thank you commissioner slater harrington Yes. Thank you. I am also in favor. That motion passes unanimously. Before we move forward, I just want to remind the public that this is not a vote on the final calendar. The motion does require city schools to bring back an amended calendar. It gives the city school system

075are included. The board will review the calendar as per the motion at our next public board meeting. So thank you. The board is also, if there's any clarification on the amendment, the public is welcome to reach out to the board office for clarification on what will come before the board on March 11th. For our remaining commit, I'm sorry, pardon me, is there a motion to approve the remaining consent agenda? So moved, Ms. Sposito. Thank you, Commissioner Sposito. Is there a second? Second, Mr. Adebayo. Lots of enthusiasm. I'll take Commissioner Ames-Messenger. Vice Chair Barker. yes thank you commissioner ames messenger yes thank you commissioner coy yes thank you commissioner esposito yes thank you commissioner kenyatta bay yes thank you commissioner muhammad yes thank you commissioner redding wallinger yes thank you commissioner rooks yes thank you commissioner

076slater harrington yes Thank you, and I am also in favor that motion passes unanimously. I'd like to thank our entire board for their time and commitment this evening on our consent agenda. Now I'd like to turn it over to Dr. Santelises for her comments to guide us through this next portion. Great, thank you so much, Chair. I'm going to switch my comments and actually begin with introducing some young people because I want them to get back home and be able to get their homework done and maintain a spirit and record of excellence. Yes, you can chuckle. But it is my pleasure really to introduce several members of my CEO student cabinet. I'm going to ask them to come forward. Shailen Kasen, Justin Lyles, Penelope McFarland, Elia McLean, Zaira Chikas-Guzman, Kalkadin Mentesot. And Kalkadin, I'm sorry,

077I'm always messing up your name, darling. You've got to help me. who have prepared a presentation on the impact of the district's investment in extracurricular resources. And I want to make something clear that these young people went deep in charge. I want to say thank you to Haley Tilt. Chris Battaglia is not here, Chief Tina Ike Hubbard, just for their support of these students. But these students took a charge. I wanted to know what young people felt about the investments that we were making in the expansion of extracurricular activities. And I will tell you, and I'm not ashamed to say it, that they're... research on this issue, their presentation of their data and their findings actually put them in a place where I think I told them their work actually was higher than some of

078the adults who put presentations together for me. They did an absolutely fabulous job. They are here tonight to present their work, not my work, no one else's. And I just want to thank them. um not only for their diligence in really wanting to represent the feedback from young people across the city but i can't say again just the excellence of their work and so it's my pleasure to introduce the young people who tonight will be presenting um their findings thank you all please Good evening, everyone. It's my pleasure to be here on behalf of the CEO of Student Cabinet tonight. So to quickly introduce us again, we're 10 student leaders across city schools. We're the CEO's connection to student voice. We've had two major driving research questions. In spring 2024, it was seeing the impact

079of investment in extracurricular resources in city schools. And in fall 2024, it was seeing if club fairs and peer-to-peer resource were effective ways to kickstart additional student organizations. During last year's research, we conducted a survey and found that while students were aware of existing clubs at their school, they weren't exactly aware of how to start their own clubs. Additionally, we found that most students, most of our respondents were not aware of how to start their own student organizations and not feel equipped with the knowledge to. So, Dr. West tasked us to increase students' access to extracurricular activities. So, we funded SGA-led club fairs with grants to prepare students on how to join or found a student organization. We also created an interactive multimedia toolkit that empowers students to form their own organizations. So back in

080September the CEO student cabinet received nine applicants from high schools all over Baltimore City and we approved all nine applicants for the $800 club fair grant. The schools that applied there that got their application back to us on time received the grant fund plans, the project templates to support planning, the multimedia toolkits, and the pre-survey and the student pre-survey. I'm going to have you just, I want to make sure everybody in the room can hear you and especially our families at home. So, thank you. November through early January, the schools hosted their club, their student led club fairs. And then in later January, we analyzed the pre and post, pre and post fair data to determine the impact of the club fair grant initiative. To help SJs host successful club fairs, they received a toolkit

081consisting of a board game with interactive components such as videos made by other student leaders for them to distribute to their student body in order to help and assist them throughout the process of starting their own clubs. Additionally, SJs also received project and budget planning tools and templates in order to assist them within that portion of the project. Lastly, students... students and SGA's received pre and post surveys to distribute to their student body in order for us to gather and analyze data and information that you'll hear about. After we administered surveys in October through January, we noticed not only an increase in students' awareness of clubs, but also how to start their own club. A number of students who knew about clubs at their school grew by over 20%, but the biggest change we saw

082was only 13% of students knew how to start their own club. But after the club fairs, almost 60% had that knowledge. We had students respond to open-ended questions as well, where they said that factors like teacher and peer support helped them start their own clubs. We additionally asked SGA's to collect pictures from different schools to highlight the student engagement and the success of these events. They gathered pictures from Mervo, Coppin Academy, and Digital Harbor where we are right now. In conclusion, we find that club fairs are an effective way to engage Baltimore City Public School students, that the supplementary toolkits at club fairs enhance student knowledge of how to start their own clubs, and though our club fairs were generally successful, future club fairs will definitely benefit from more administrative support. We recommend that club

083fairs be organized by all Baltimore City Public Schools with active SGAs. We also recommend that our club fair toolkits be provided to all schools holding club fairs and that city schools leadership make it clear to school leaders that club fairs and other student-led activities are a priority. Furthermore, future efforts should target more supports towards elementary and middle school students. Thank you for hearing us out tonight. It was a pleasure being here. Thank you all. Are there any questions from the board? You all can stay here just in case there are a couple of questions from the board. Commissioner Cork? Just more of a comment than a question, but as one who is a former teacher who sponsored a number of student clubs, just how always... It was interesting with one of the clubs I remember,

084they really just needed the room. And I loved seeing how strong and organized the students were about their club and the type of leadership that that fosters, work that you all are doing to spread awareness of how students can do so. That's real leadership and leadership in action. it's infectious and in such a positive way builds the self-confidence of all of our young people that they can start and do what they care about so thank you for that work thank you i have a quick logistical question i appreciated your methodology looking at So you're proposing for like this increased rollout of toolkits elementary through high school? Is there kind of things that you would need in state meetings differently looking at younger audiences? were all people who you initially rolled out were all high school

085and middle school students or were there elementary schools as well? Okay, so we had some applicants that were from elementary and middle schools but a lot of their applications didn't go through well because of like lack of communication or lack of support or just like some things happened and they couldn't you know get their application in. So most of our risk like post-survey data came from high school students. We would just need more like adult leadership when it comes to like elementary, middle school students because you know they need more guidance than high school students and SGA's. Quick follow-up on that is that when you say more administrative support is that coming at the school level and ideally a teacher or is that administrative from the office? That's coming within the schools like administrative support

086like like principals and things like that because we had some issues with principals not being communicated with SGA's when it came to like the application process. Well, I want to thank you all again. Excellent work. Thanks for coming to present this evening. And I look forward to your guidance and feedback on other issues. So thank you all. Thank you so much for all your support. if i may interject i just want to say the opportunity to hear from our young people about what matters most and and their ways in which they can help influence the work transpiring city schools is inspirational to me so i really thank you guys all for coming tonight and providing this information so thank you thank you thank you Thank you chair and I will continue this evening and again

087the young people got us off to a great start I am pleased this evening to share good news around or about the continued progress of our schools and students as described in the National Assessment of Educational Progress and the Education Recovery Scorecard. And some of our public might not necessarily know about the Education Scorecard, but it combines the NAEP results with state test results and really portrays district level changes in achievement for an estimated 35 million grade three through eight students students between 2019 and 2024. What you'll see on slide one is that city schools showed greater improvement than Maryland and the country on the latest education recovery scorecard. It was my pleasure to precede another group of amazing young people last week in Annapolis as we shared that city school students have the second

088largest growth in reading nationally. since 2022 among large urban school districts. We are also one of five urban school districts that are performing better in reading now than before the pandemic. and then you'll also see on this particular chart that Baltimore City is very much an outlier when it comes to the percentage of our young people living in concentrated poverty but what you'll see is that we showed the second largest growth in readings in the state of Maryland since 2022 and are only one of two districts in Maryland performing better now than before the pandemic. Also our students were among the nation's leaders in math recovery scoring in the top 25 percent of growth of large urban school districts nationwide. Now we clearly have a long way to go. in terms of making sure that

089we have high achievement for all of the young people in Baltimore City. But I want to take this time to just acknowledge that like all school districts across the country, the disruption of the pandemic was substantial, was profound. But we here in Baltimore City have made key investments to improve our literacy results. including high quality instructional materials, more literacy coaches, expanded science of reading, professional learning opportunities, and an increased emphasis on writing across all grade levels and in all content areas. And in math, we will implement new high quality instructional materials. This year in 32 schools, we'll be adding more next year with more math leads and coaches and really continuing our emphasis on Algebra I access and success across the district and through partnerships. These efforts reflect our commitment to steady, sustainable, and frankly

090substantial growth that really yields measurable progress. for our young people. I want to thank all of the educators, school leaders. central office support team that have been in schools helping our schools with everything from data to instructional practices again we have a ways to go but what we are seeing now is that our growth is not only going in the right direction but it is substantial and it is notable it was it felt very good and there's lots of pictures some little birdie told me that there's a tick tock of me floating through the stratosphere and yes my children were thoroughly embarrassed going to school with that video being public but i will tell you i will do a hundred tick tock videos for the opportunity to share the work that our young people our

091educators our school leaders are doing to make sure that we are on the move and we are moving closer to our goal so this really is congratulations to the entire city school district again more work to do but kudos on that and then this morning msde released graduation results for 23 24 school year And what you'll see in those results is that we are having our overall growth was indeed modest. A number of our high schools, though, really did see significant gains and really drove the increase to 71%. this past school year. I want to point out that notably our multilingual learners increased by 13 percentage points over the previous year and our Hispanic and Latino students increased by 11 percentage points. So that is significant one year gain as we get our landscape analysis

092back that will give us even more information about how to serve our multilingual learners and their families. This is good news that our focus is having results and we We're in a good position to move further. Our five-year graduation rate increased to 74% and that's our highest rate since 2020. So again, we're on the right path. I want to thank Cabinet for attending the winter graduation ceremony last Saturday. where we really welcomed and congratulated 149 winter graduates and their families. I know there were some board members there as well, so thank you to the board members who attended. And this continued progress. reflects our investments in credit recovery, support for ninth grade, career coaching, and dedicated post-secondary success teams. And it would be remiss of me to be sitting here at Digital Harbor High School

093and frankly... not point out that this high school was one of the high schools that actually generated some of the highest increase. So they've increased 10 percentage points over the last two years in their graduation rate here at Digital Harbor. So they are just one example of where we need to go. So with that, I will turn it back to you. chair sally but just again a big thank you to the city schools community for the hard work we're doing let's take a pat on the back and then roll up our sleeves and get back to work all right thank you everybody chair thank you so much dr santelises and so i just want to thank um commissioner kenyatta bay who had an opportunity to attend the winter graduation and for representing the board there

094to celebrate the achievements of our young folks who graduate in that winter ceremony It gives our young people who do not go through the May graduation an opportunity to be recognized for those achievements. And so that's really critically important. I also just want to follow up a little bit on the results that Dr. Santelises shared. These provide really important indicators for all of our schools. We are so thankful for the commitment of our educators, our families, our students for their commitment to education here in the city and helping us to understand how. much further we need to take the torch and so we really do take um really great note of those results and that is one of the most important things that the board can do but we can't do that alone and we

095recognize the important work that happens with our staff here at city schools as well as all the exceptional work that transpires inside of our classrooms so thank you to our educators our families our students I'd like us to move forward in the agenda to item 9.01, which is a compliance report on family and community engagement. This presentation is going to be led by Chief Tina Huyck Hubbard, Monique Sims, and Vanessa Stone to take us through. Good evening, commissioners. Tonight we have our compliance report for KCA, our family community engagement policy. It'll be done not in a report, but in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. I am Tina Huyck Hubbard, Chief of Communications Engagement and Enrollment. With me here is Vanessa Stone, Director of Family Engagement, and Monique Sims, our new Community Engagement Director. As

096many of you know, we announced the retirement of Chris Battaglia in a recent board meeting. And with Chris's transition, I didn't feel it was fair to make Monique come up and do the presentation. So I'm doing the community engagement portion for us this evening. As a reminder, this is about board priority four. The city schools will effectively engage all stakeholders, including parents, families, and caregivers in their children's education. This slide here represents our engagement office structure and key focus areas, including the work of our family and community engagement and the ombudsman's teams. Our call to actions for all three teams is to reconnect families to the academic success of their children. I'm now going to go into the community engagement section. I just want to flag that I'm going to do this section pretty quickly

097because you've recently had presentations on community schools and partners and volunteers. I'm going to yield a little bit more extra time to Vanessa Stone. It does not mean that my team isn't well represented in this presentation. I just want to, in the honor of time, sort of streamline some of the conversation. So first community engagement priority areas. There are four of them in that in that realm of work. The community department engagement department is comprised of four teams, community schools, partners and volunteers, neighborhood relations and outreach, and youth engagement. We acknowledge that the board just heard a full update on the revision to policy ADH for community schools. So this is just a high level overview or summary of the community schools work of this reporting period. There are 159 schools and programs at the

098district and 154 of them are community schools. As a reminder, our coordinators reported more than 3,000 partnerships last year and leveraged more than $15 million in resources for our schools. This year we're offering professional development to community school coordinators to help them use a collective impact framework for their community school partner meetings. Our community schools team is also focusing on quality implementation. This includes having each community school complete a three-year implementation plan that aligns with school performance plans and other school goals. As we work to operationalize the evaluation recommendations made by AIR, or the American Institutes of Research, we are creating a dashboard that will attract key performance indicators, including the state's community school evaluation metrics for all community schools and the district. The work of Partnerships and Volunteers team is about supporting the process

099for schools and partners to connect around the needs and match resources. This work is facilitated through the district's PIE portal or Partners in Education portal, the centralized platform for managing partner, volunteer, and donor relationships. A key aspect of the work is partner and volunteer engagement and capacity building, as well as hosting quarterly convenings as a way to maintain communication and engagement with our partners. For this school year, the team is also working to enhance supports that help partners navigate the district and engage with department content owners to better align partnership opportunities with schools and the district. For our community engagement and outreach team, here's a slide with highlights about the recent outreach we've done in the past school year. Some highlights include our CEO community conversations, faith-based and community association supports to schools, connections to

100city agencies and supports, and the City Schools On-the-Go Bus, where we bring district department leads and academic resources to the community. This year, we're continuing to focus on building relationships by expanding community connections to more neighborhoods and community organizations. We are also increasing opportunities for district departments to conduct their own community-based outreach. For youth engagement, you just had one fantastic example of our youth and our student CEO cabinet. Just quick highlights this slide provides. Our youth ambassador program, we had 17 citywide youth ambassador groups representing 20 schools and 44 products at the school level that the students developed, which impacted over 1,100 students. And a CEO student cabinet, as you heard, brought 10 students together across city schools, middle and high, and met quarterly with the CEOs. to organize a youth participatory research model. This

101slide shows a snapshot of all the work done by our SGA and ASCBC last year to present. You can see all the wonderful work they have completed, including increasing the number of SGAs, increasing the number of students participating in general assemblies, and increasing the number of students, Baltimore City students, represented at the ASCBC election. Our youth engagement next steps include expanding SGA's more to more middle schools where we are in all high schools now as you can see above. And we want to increase the number of our city school students who are participating in the Maryland Association of Student Councils and have strong Baltimore City representation at the state. With that, I'll turn it over to Vanessa to talk about family engagement specifically. Okay. Thank you, Chief. Good evening, Commissioners and Drs. Santelises. Family engagement,

102which drives our work. Our work is grounded in Dr. Karen Knapp's School Capacity Building Framework for school partnerships. School capacity is building the knowledge and skills of stakeholders and staff to create and sustain effective homeschool partnerships linked to student learning. Here are the three focus areas for our team and our family engagement priority areas. Our first priority... is family engagement-linked to learning. This past school year, we took the time to tier our schools. This has allowed us to provide targeted supports that help enhance family engagement based on their specific needs. And you can see how many schools are in each tier on the slide. Some highlights from last year, our office deeply values and works hard to support our multilingual families. This year, we prioritize building the capacity of school-based staff. to create welcoming and

103inclusive environments for all of our families. One key initiative was our professional development over the phone interpretation. By equipping staff with these skills, we are strengthening family school partnerships and ensuring that all families feel valued, supported, and heard. I'd also like to highlight two key resources that support our multilingual families. The first one is the over the phone interpretation. This service enables clear effective communication with families who speak languages other than English. The second key resource that I would like to highlight are the multilingual boxes. As shown in the graphic to the right, these boxes are designed to help schools better communicate with our multilingual families. Each of these boxes includes a pocket talk device, language access codes, and AXI language codes to access translation services. This month we will be distributing these boxes to

104schools and also providing training to school-based staff. You can see the different events that we have held the last year and this year. Each offered or will offer families the opportunity to engage in activities linked to learning. I would like to highlight two events specifically. During math night we had over 1,400 families register. For it, despite the messy weather, that evening, nearly 800 families still attended this event. And I would certainly like to thank our math team for their collaboration in making that math night. such a success. Also the other district learning event that I would like to highlight is our special education resource fair. I would like to thank Principal Moore at the William S. Baer School for her team's collaboration in making this special education fair a wonderful experience. This event provided valuable

105resources for our families across the district. This slide highlights school-based learning events. Using Title I dollars, we cultivated a list of partners and activities that schools could choose from to improve the execution of their school-based events. This year, we had over 180 applications submitted as compared to last year where we only had a little over 50. We are certainly committed to maximizing the available resources and recognize the need for creative, cost-effective ways to support schools in hosting meaningful learning events. Our second priority is decision-making and advocacy. All of our schools have identified chairs for their student family community councils. We provide quarterly training sessions for these chairs. We also provide technical assistance to the student family community councils in supporting the principal selection process and carrying out their duties in support of the school. You

106have already heard presentations about stakeholder engagement. Our office is also responsible for executing the POSSE polling and family engagement survey through Panorama. And as you can see, the activity in both of these surveys on this slide. Also, we will hold this until the end, but if the board has any suggestions on how we can increase participation responses, that would be great. For budget engagement, we also use possible text polling to gather feedback from families regarding the school level budget engagement process, receiving over 6,000 responses. Additionally, we conducted trainings for principals at learning networks. We collaborated with a dedicated team of high school students, which I was really excited about. If you haven't seen it already, our budget engagement video. And we also developed a robust language access toolkit for school leaders to better engage our

107multilingual families. Our third priority is family and staff capacity building. And again, these are just key bodies of work of family engagement, the key bodies of work. As you can see to the right, the purpose of our family cafes. And we also shifted from using an external vendor and we've created a really great toolkit to share with schools so that they are able to host their own family cafes to also engage families. Our FACE fellowship offers the opportunity for schools, for school teams to build knowledge and skills needed to sustain effective homeschool partnerships that support and enhance student learning. So far we've had a total of 84 schools that have engaged in our FACE fellowship work. We are thrilled, absolutely we're excited to announce the launch of our family university platform this year. With a

108renewed focus, we are prioritizing co-designing with families, ensuring that they have the resources needed to support their children at home. Our workshops are created by families for families and will take place in neighborhoods across the cities. Here's an outline of the family engagement. family engagement, professional development activities that we have provided or will provide to staff. We have collaborative systematic PDArc with the Office of Achievement and Accountability. I want to thank Heather and Mona for their work with us. In years past, we've relied on external vendors to do this work, and we have now built the capacity of our team to lead this work. And we have adopted a policy, the policy in 2021, and this policy in 2021, and we are continuing to implement the activities required by the policy. And this year we

109are working on the implementation rubric and the school level self-assessment of their family engagement practices. So thank you for allowing us time to share our bodies of work. Some of the most important work that the district can do. So thank you so much for sharing that. I want to open this up for my board colleagues who may have questions, discussion, comments on anything that was shared here. I would say commend you for your work and I'm proud of really the intentionality which you've brought the capacity into house. I got to participate in one of the student face or one of the school cohorts and looking at how do you really think about not just engagement but really focusing on engagement and student achievement and one of the facts that they had shared kind of in

110framing that conversation is that uh 90 of families think that their student is on grade level and like how is that really like jumping in and looking at how do you bring partners and the school can really leverage to use this as a two-way street and communication with families about how students are growing and that that is the connection to student achievement um and just really appreciate the thoughtfulness of your office and being strategic with that work um and that You are very much fighting fires on all fronts currently, and I know that that we ask a lot of you, but I did have gotten to see some of that work firsthand. I think even just looking forward to our next presentation around. Around cell phone and device usage and just as a board member

111it is really helpful to be able to fit at tables with students and be able to talk to student government leaders inside buildings as we're around just the pipelines that you are bringing in developing student voice to be able to share for themselves what is meaningful and helpful. I've really really appreciated that and it's been. useful in decision making for me as I as I sit here, but I think also for students is there. They're building their own spaces so well done specifically on those two initiatives. Thank you, Commissioner. Messenger anything additional? It's just wonderful to see a policy that comes before the board, how it's being implemented, where it's growing, and where it can go. So thank you guys all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We went through that pretty quickly. The whole

112presentation will be on board docs if folks want to dig into the data we had on the slide. It's very important data. So we do encourage everybody to do that. And that will be the same for the upcoming presentation too. More detail found in those uploaded presentations. Thank you. Thank you. So as we welcome our next presenter, this is item 9.02. I'd like to welcome Kelvin Moore, our W chief of schools and Seema Shawn Nelson, who's our special assistant to present on policy JICJ, which is the student use of portable electronic devices. As they're getting settled, I want to acknowledge firsthand that this is a policy that has been not without a lot of work, a lot of work in city schools to really think very thoughtfully about a policy that needs to be put

113in place to really ensure that there are safeguards, guardrails, and opportunities for our young people to maximize learning. This is, we appreciate the work that has been brought to the policy committee for review. and the schools that participated in our pilots. And so I just want to lift up really quickly the schools that have both our parents, our teachers, our young people who have all provided numerous thoughts. And so just a special thank you. And I do apologize if I miss anybody, but the Beachfield Elementary, Baltimore School for the Arts, Baltimore City College, Collington Square, Digital Harbor here, Dr. Nathan A. Pitts, Ashburton, Garrett Heights, Glenmount, Hamden. Harlem Park, Hazelwood, Highlandtown, Hollow Bird, Laurel Park, Mount Washington, North Bend, Reginald F. Lewis, Robert W. Coleman, Rosemont, the Beller Edison School, Thomas Jefferson, Vanguard, Vivian T.,

114Thomas Medical Arts, Western High School, and Westport Academy. And so what we see in the pilot and represented in the work really is cross-sector, right? It looks at a number of our schools out there at all different levels that had an opportunity to pilot out. and to really help shape the policy. So I want to thank those school leaders and their communities for their participation. And I'll turn it over to this team and also welcome our chief of schools who's here at the table. Good evening, commissioners, Dr. Santelises, city school staff, public who's joining us online and in person this evening. My name is Stacey Tose. I'm the chief of schools and I'm joined this evening by deputy chief of schools, Kelvin Moore. Seema Shah Nelson, who's the special assistant to the CEO, and Dr.

115Ben Mosley, who is the principal of Glenmont Elementary Middle. This evening, they'll be giving you updates on the cell phone free school pilot and proposed provisions to JICJ, portable electronic communications devices. So this team is small but mighty, but they represent a larger group that has been working tirelessly to support this pilot. So I just want to give them a shout out the Office of Legal Counsel, academics, communications, schools. And then also we want to make sure that we're thinking the school leaders, the staff in the schools who are engaging in this pilot. And then lastly, we also appreciate the feedback that we received this evening and from everyone who has given us feedback so far. So without further ado, I'm going to pass it over to Deputy Chief Kelvin Moore. Good afternoon everyone. So

116commissioners, Dr. Santelises, staff, and public, we thank you for allowing us this time and space. So first we want to just start with how this connects to our board's strategic priorities. We know that directly this connects to priorities one, four, and seven, which are around instruction, engagement, and equity. And so as we go throughout tonight, you will hear... our intentionality and making sure that we pay close attention to those board strategic priorities. So why are we revising policy JICJ? We know that there is a number of research out that supports positive impacts of limiting cell phones at schools. In particular, we know that it reduces distractions for our students. It improves the student focus and allows for our students to have engagement during class. In particular, we also know that there's a huge number of

117implications that this has on a positive school climate. which is inclusive of allowing for fewer disruptions from a behavioral standpoint and allowing for more face-to-face time for our students to interact in a positive manner. We also know that the excessive and overuse of social media has direct impact on our students social emotional well-being. We know that that directly correlates to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem in some cases, self-harm, and suicidal ideations, as well as it impacts the whole school climate by the exacerbation of things such as fights, pranks, as well as we know that cyberbullying is a huge component of misuse of social media and its impact on school climate. um so uh hi everybody i am dima sean nelson i'm special assistant to the ceo and i'm so glad to be here to present uh

118jicj um but before i um get to the pilot um this is just a really quick reminder about city schools lawsuits against social media um platforms that were filed in 2023 and we are one of over 500 districts along with 35 states including the state of maryland that's participating in this litigation So the cell phone free pilot. This past August, Dr. Santelises challenged school leaders to pilot cell phone free policies at their schools. We want to be very intentional. We really want to be careful that we are learning from our schools and our communities about what is impactful and what are the best practices that we want to see reflected in a district-wide policy. So as Deputy Chief Moore presents the revisions as we get to them after the pilot update, you'll see those best

119practices called out throughout the presentation. So this is just a brief overview of the pilot. You'll see that there are 25 pilot schools. Most are elementary, middle. We do have six high schools and all but one school has at least partially implemented their policy. Each school has designed their policy and the practices that they're using for restricting students' cell phone use. Some are using yonder pouches, which are like locking pouches that students carry with them. and then there's a device to unlock them. The majority of schools are using either a classroom collection system in which a teacher collects and secures student phones, or a central collection system in which phones are stored in some central location, like before class and returned at the end of the school day. And most schools are also incorporating some

120sort of incentive system where students receive non-phone rewards as a positive reinforcement for complying with the policy. So as part of our mid-year reporting, we have asked staff at the 25 pilot schools to complete surveys about how they are experiencing the school's cell phone-free policy. And we received 200 responses from staff members at 20 pilot schools. And this is what they're saying about how they think students are impacted. You'll see that the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. About half think that student mental health has improved. Seventy-five percent have seen an increase in student performance. Two-thirds report better academic performance and less conflict between students. And we also asked about how staff themselves are feeling impacted by the policy. And we're really excited about these very encouraging responses. So large majorities, you'll see 76% and 70%

121respectively, are seeing fewer conflicts and they have better relationships with students. And most importantly and wonderfully, nearly 70% are experiencing these changes with improved mental health. mental health and job satisfaction. So going into the pilot, we knew that teachers were going to experience it differently, the classroom differently, the school differently, but we were really blown away about just how widespread and how impactful the policy has been. So we, of course, asked our students. We have... survey responses from 1049 students from 18 pilot schools and to be completely transparent 62 percent of students that do have concerns about the policy at their school but you'll also see here that the majority of students are experiencing positive changes this year both in academics by focusing more learning more easily seeing their grades improve and in wholeness which

122we know is so critical to student success half of students say that there's less drama and fighting, and like that, they are all experiencing this with improved mental health. And of course, we reached out to parents and caregivers in partnership with the family engagement team that just presented with a two-question POSIP poll that we sent out via text. And the first question was about what changes they've seen in their students. And I thought this was fantastic. We're talking about sixth through twelfth graders, and 20% of these parents are saying that their kids are actually telling them more about their school day. I think that's really amazing to me. We also asked parents what they thought was the most important thing that we address and we see reflected in a districtwide policy. And that was, and

123I think you heard this earlier, it is about having making sure that there are really clear guidelines about communication with students, between students and parents in the case of emergencies, which you'll see as we go on, we have really thought deeply about and tried to be very intentional about addressing explicitly in our policy revisions. And before we get to that, we have our superstar principal, Bosley, who is here as our pilot principal from Glendale, who I'm hoping we can hear a few words about how his school has experienced. Good evening, everyone. I'm far from a rock star. I wish that I was, but I'm humbled to be in front of you today. This is a pilot that us principals or many of us principals have been asking for for a long time. And just to

124be a part of something like this can be impactful. for school district. I know that many states are now looking at this type of policy throughout the country and for us to be able to pilot this at Glenmount is in just two years has made a huge impact. If you want to talk about Rockstar, I did sort of jump the gun with the district which I implemented this last year but it was to a rocky start. It was we lived and we learned and with the consistency of year two it's a much more fluent process. A lot of the distractions have minimized. The culture has become a lot better. Our students are engaged and our teachers aren't as stressed as they weren't. I'm not making as many runs to the bathrooms where the cell phones

125were being pulled out at. I'm not running outside to after school activities where people who do not attend the schools will come up to the school because of cell phone usage. So there is... a positive spin on having these types of procedures in our school. So thank you for the time tonight. So the proposed revisions that we have for policy JICJ and for the administrative regulation of JICJ-RA, one of the things to note is that we know that our students use more than just their cell phones, right? And so in our proposal, we are recommending that this includes laptops, smartwatches, headphones, earbuds, geolocation devices. And what we also note is that this does not include location tracking technology that does not receive communicate or record in particular we also would note in this portion that

126this does not include the laptops and or devices issued by city schools so i think Yes. So in our current policy, we know that it states that our students should have their devices powered off and away. And that could include them storing them in places like their purses, locker, or backpack. In our proposal, we're saying that the devices should be powered off, away, and secured. And here's what we're learning. Our pilot schools, as evident by... Dr. Mosley sitting here sharing with us is that in our schools where we're seeing consistent enforcement around clear expectations and consequences for violations, there is a more positive impact and result that is showing in those pilot schools. So we define securing devices in five ways that I'll get to in just a moment, but I think it's very important

127for us to note that we have received a large number of feedback on this policy. In fact, this policy has received more feedback than any other policy. And I would just want to give a shout out to everyone who has given us feedback because we have tried our best not only with just with the pilot school feedback with our community as well. I think it's very fitting for us to be in this space. And so one of the things that we noted from some of our conversations was this idea and notion around the defaults that we have noted. So we're acknowledging that in grades pre-K-8 that there should be a default of a central collection, all right? And in grades 9 through 12, there should be some type of student locker that is used. We

128also note that in the case that a school leader wants to do what's best for their community, they can submit a request for alternative method for securing that is aligned to one of these five areas that I will go through. Those five areas are student lockers. So in option A would be the use of student lockers across the entire school. Option B is specifically designated device locker. Option C would be around the device pouch. Many of you have been to a concert and you had to put that cell phone device away and have it unlocked when you left out. That's similar to the device pouch option. D is around the... classroom or teacher collected in a locked cabinet in the classroom option and letter E is around the arrival to school and it being centrally

129located in a locked cabinet or room. So use during the school day, student day. In particular, our current policy notes that students can use their device in grades pre-K-8 for incentives. It also notes that students in grades 9 through 12 can use it for, use their devices during lunch. But in this proposal, it would include bell-to-bell. And the provision includes us being able to make sure that students have their devices off and away at sponsored events. And we also note that school schools should not use their device for incentives so that it can remain in alignment with this policy. One of the things I will point out here is that our pilot schools report more positive results when device restrictions are implemented throughout the entire building. Again, that is a sentiment that has continued to

130be echoed in the feedback that we've received. So use for instructional purposes. So we know that our city school devices have all of the preloaded and pre-approved applications and platforms that our students need. We know that those platforms and applications have been pre-approved by the academic office. However, in the event that a teacher needs to use or would like to allow for students to use their devices for an academic purpose, they must receive principal permission for each instance that they would like for that to happen. And here we really want to pay close attention to consistency being key. So use during an emergency. So there are many safety experts that recommend that students use of cell phones during an emergency should not exist. And what we would like to do is keep in alignment with

131those recommendations. We know that There are huge safety risks that exist as a result of students having their cell phones in spaces such as lockdowns or etc. We know we want people to remain quiet or even in the misuse of it or misuse of information that is shared as a result. So we want to be able to support communication through two methods. One, we want to be able to allow for our students to use their device upon direction from a school administrator in the event of an emergency. and or a central office team member that may be responding to that school. And then we also want to make sure that schools have a plan for which they will communicate emergencies to families. And we want to make sure that that plan has been pre or

132communicated in advance on what that would look like for that school so that families are aware what they should expect in the event of emergency to ensure the accuracy and the accuracy of information that is being shared. I apologize for my glasses. All right. Communication during the student day. So at current, we want to make sure that at current this is not addressed in our policy. And we would like to make sure in our proposal that we gave space and room for ensuring that schools communicate to families a way in which this two way communication can exist. So if a family member needs to reach out to a student and needs to communicate with a student, the school needs to ensure that they have a plan and a methodology for how they will ensure that

133that communication is given in a timely manner. And we also want to allow for students to be able to communicate to their caregivers around any urgent needs that they may have and that that is allowed for either allowing them to use their phone for that purpose or allowing for it to be done through a school phone or a phone that is at the school. that they can use in a designated location. Currently, we don't want to, we do not want our staff having to use their personal devices to communicate in any way. We want those calls to families to be directed through the main office. And we also want our staff to be a model of the expectation of monitoring our personal use of cell phones. So we do have in this proposal that we

134would love for our staff to make sure that during personal, that their personal use is not. during instructional or times where they have to supervise students because we know that their focus is on our students during those times. So one of the things to note is the implementation that we would like to ensure for this policy. We plan to continue to have conversations about what the disciplinary consequences would be as well as ensuring that this is detailed in the student code of conduct. We also note that we will summarize in our family guide and our student rights and responsibility handbook information for families around what this policy will entail as well as we would like to, we're already in the process with our pilot schools of equipping them with a toolkit on how to support

135them with students who may not be willing to give up their devices. um in working through de-escalation on those interactions as well as best practices for communication with students and families as well as more information on our digital citizenship one of the things that i would like to note here is that in our pilot schools in particular there have been a large number um a large amount of our feedback around the communication that our pilot schools have given them around this area which is actually helpful for us as we continue to design how this should look as we roll it out. So of course we want to make sure that we give special consideration for our students who may need their devices. That includes our students with IEPs, 504s, multilingual learners that may need it

136for translation purposes, as well as any student that is having a medical or a need to monitor their health through an IEP, Section 504, or an individual health plan. We also note that assistive technology that can be controlled remotely may be used, but it will possibly require a parent or guardian to sign an agreement. So stakeholder engagement and feedback. So you all heard me say that we have received a large outpouring of feedback. We understand that this is a tier three revision and it has broad impact. And so it is exciting to be in this space because I feel like we are in the space where we can receive feedback because we're in the community. But we have had a number of touches and in those touches, we've received a outpouring of feedback. So you'll

137see here, I won't read this slide to you in particular, but there has been a number of opportunities for us to engage. Some of the things that I will point out is that the parent responses for our POSIT poll, we had over 540 responses. In addition, we've had 18 schools and 200 staff respond. I'm sorry, we've had 1,015 student surveys across 18 schools and 200 staff responses from over 19 schools. And we're continuing to engage with... um the community in multiple ways as you'll see in the next slide we have um meetings with our uh families um we've had engagement opportunities thank you uh commissioner rooks for the student board um opportunity as well as we have upcoming we have a meeting tomorrow with btu um as well as uh continue on it's our second

138meeting actually with btu um as well as continued engagement uh with pizzazza and um working with our FACE team to continue to have family and community engagement opportunities. So I kind of walked through some of these just now, but I think one of the things to highlight is the 64 responses that have gone directly to the board. And so you all have received at least 64 responses around policy, around the policy feedback, as well as we had over 300 responses on social media, both Facebook and Instagram around this policy. So I'll go through a bit of the summary of the feedback. Please note that there are a number of things in the appendix for you to go directly and refer to. So I will not be reading each one of them line for line. But

139what I will do is summarize with this summary of feedback by saying the majority of responses around student device use at school have been around these four areas, which are improved academic outcome, reduced distractions, improving student communication. and social skills and improve student social emotional well-being. And there have been common questions and feedback things that have existed. Those have been around our communication between schools and families, which we are constantly strengthening, as well as implementation, including resources required to support the policies and how devices will be secured. So I love this slide because these are direct quotes of feedback that we have received. And I'll just point out two in particular. One, I'll note from a parent that said, as adults, we have a hard enough time getting away from social media and apps. I

140couldn't imagine how it would have been as a 12-year-old with unlimited access to the internet. And I think that just really kind of supports this whole notion around, we want to make sure that the distraction that it may provide is not existing in our classroom spaces and that our students are able to remain focused on the academic setting. Can you go back for one second? The other one that I would like to point out here is another one from a parent which says, I think as adults who understand the distractions and addictive qualities of cell phones, we owe it to our students to create an environment which allows them to thrive and focus on the present. So here's a summary of the feedback that is in support of the proposed revision. And these are the

141different stakeholder groups that have given feedback. I won't read each of them to you directly, but I just want to point out that you see that there's a large number aligned to the previous slide that I shared. around the minimum minimization of distraction and allowing for more positive interactions with students as well as the academic and social emotional impact that it has and again in particular i'll point out this one from our btu stakeholder group the method of collecting and securing devices should be differentiated by grade band and we paid attention to that in our revision So here's a summary of some of the selected response. I mean some of the selected feedback and these are directly aligned to the purpose and scope of the policy and in particular I would just point out a

142few of these from each of these slides that I would love to lift for us and so In the interest of time, I won't read all of them, but in this case, I love the one around our pilot school students giving us feedback on how cell phones should be permitted at certain times during the school day. And one of the things that we would like to note is that the pilot schools with the most success have implemented consistent restrictions across the entire school day. And so our response, so to speak, is like we believe that the consistency is key. Here's another one that I would like to point out that from our BTU members that teachers should not be responsible for collecting and securing devices in the classroom. And to our BTU members, we heard

143you. And so we removed the classroom collection as a default method for grades pre-K-5 and proposed the revisions for central collection for pre-K-8. And on this slide, I think it's also really good to note that from our students, BTU, and employees that there was concern around additional funding that would be needed to implement. And schools participating in the pilot program have experienced success with a wide range of affordable implementation strategies. And the school's office will support schools with budget guidance on this issue. As you all know, Board, that we are currently in budget times, and we did share guidance, and our ILEDs are working closely with schools as well. So for this slide, what I would like to note is that there were concerns about the students need their cell phones to contact parents in

144the case of an emergency. And what we would like to note is that city schools take school and student safety seriously. School safety experts indicate that the devices can create a safety risk. And so that's why we have in our proposal that during an emergency, we want to make sure that the information is limited. and students use their cellular devices once a week. And on this slide, I think it's important to kind of point out both of these kind of blocks here or the box that are here that concerns that students will not be able to contact parents or guardians if they need to do so during the student day. And that students feel like, I'm sorry, feel like students need their devices because schools may not always notify parents when something happens involving their

145child. In our proposed revisions, we permit students to use their school phone or access their personal device to contact family members as needed. And on this slide, I would like to point out from our employees, some students use devices for translation purposes and the policy may prevent students from accessing the scaffold. And so to note that in our proposed revisions, we encourage schools to use the city schools issue technology for translation purposes. However, students are permitted to use their device for translation purposes as long as this is a need documented in their plan. And this is a good time that if you all have any questions, feel free to ask away. Sure. Let me kick it to Dr. Santelises. I want to say thank you first for the presentation. We really appreciate it. But let

146me kick it to Dr. Santelises first. No, I appreciate it, Chair. And I do just want to say thank you to this team, including the pilot principals who I know Principal Mowgli is representing. This was, in full transparency, kind of a kick it to... really smart people to think it through and you did that and the thoroughness I usually wait until the end but I want to I want to say now the collaboration across departments working central to schools legal the legal team was invaluable in this but just a really great example of what a pilot is supposed to be in terms of helping to inform policy so I just want to thank you all for turning on a dime but doing a really deep and thoughtful job. And you did what I asked you

147to do, and that was to make sure that we as adults could be adults for children and set boundaries, but do it in a thoughtful way that took into account the importance of stakeholder feedback. So I just want to say it was a really excellent job and hats off. Thank you. Thank you. And before I want to actually do turn it over to our policy committee chair Esposito to like just lift up a couple of things that came out of the policy committee. I also just want to echo a couple of sentiments. So when this was first brought to the policy committee, this I want to make sure the public knows just the framing that came to the board to really demonstrate the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of the approach and the consideration and the unknowns.

148and some things that the district was wrestling with on the implementation front was very transparent and very honest um that really helped us to understand like what the challenges were um and and what they look like at a number of schools but what the really opportunity for crafting strong policy can do to really lift up student achievement. So we, I just want to thank everybody on the staff for just really good, thoughtful approach and feedback. So let me turn over to Commissioner Esposito before we take comments from the board. Okay. Thank you, Chair. When you all presented to the policy committee, I know a lot of us were really appreciative that the work was rooted in research. And I really appreciate the storytelling. element of it in the community engagement that you all did to

149really help relate why we need like a supportive cell phone policy and i also appreciate you all making it very clear in the presentation what the accommodations and modifications would look like for students with disabilities and so the research that's emerging with social media and cell phones and the mental health impact is really concerning so having a policy that's informed with the work that you all have done on the ground and our efforts overall like as a district really trying to hold social media companies accountable. I just want to thank you all for also making it accessible to students at the student board meeting because I got to listen in on some of those discussions and they really had like in-depth discussions and debates and we're really going through like the pros and cons about

150um whether or not it was helpful and one of the things that they raised is that they were not happy but they know that it was what was best for them and that they would have it would have a positive impact on them when the policy is implemented and so Yeah, I just thank you all for everything that you've done. I think you've done a great job with the community engagement, and I think that it helps frame that this is not a restriction, but it's a policy that supports a growing public health concern. Thank you, Commissioner Esposito. Are there any questions or comments? Commissioner Muhammad? Thank you. I want to first highlight the importance of public health. This is a very important... And I want to start with saying that I am totally aligned. Commissioner

151Muhammad, I'm going to have you lean in just a little bit because folks online are having a hard time hearing. I'm totally aligned with the work because of the impact, the negative impact that it's had, but the positive impact that potentially it will give to our kids and our school communities. I am interested in two things. at what point will we be able to see some quantitative data around academics and looking at after a period of time what point do we start to see the positive impact in our children's schools The second piece that I really want to be able to hear about is the experience that our leaders had in starting. Because getting started is the tough period, right? I think being able to hear about that openly because it's going to support other

152leaders as we step into this. What does it look like when those parents are coming during that first month and they want and they don't have the understanding of our kids not having the access to their phones? What were the lessons learned so that other leaders across the board have access to that experience? so that they could potentially dodge some of the pitfalls that we fell into maybe in just getting it started. I'm sure that there was approach that you started with and you found out, you know, if I did this, it works a little better. So being able to hear about that and that being accessible to all of our leaders across the board, I think would be very helpful. Those are the two points. Thank you. Can I just start with the second

153one? So when we had our conversations with Pizzazza, it was suggested and we are planning to build it into our principal leadership sessions to have a panel where we could have our pilot principals share lessons learned and tips with the other principals so they can hear all of the things about. how it was to start, how it was rocky, how they made some pivots and were able to be successful. So that's something that's definitely in the works and we're excited to do that for school leaders because we know that they have the answers since they've experienced it, specifically to how to deal with parents because a part of the plan is to make sure that parents understand the why first because parents are our partners and we want to make sure that We are all

154in alignment as we roll this out. So that's the panel one. So we'll come back to you after the panel is held to give you information on that. So about the academic evidence and when we'll see that and how we'll see that. I mean, this is all new, right? Like people haven't actually been doing this that long. But we do, we did see that in Broward County they saw a 17% drop in fights from like year over year. So we see that part. And from the academic side, Dayton, Ohio says that they are also seeing math and reading test scores increase for grade sevens and 12s. since they've implemented their policy. So that's just some like early data that we can see from like the district that we've benchmarked. What we have now about the

155academics is really just what students are self-reporting and how teachers are sort of seeing what's going on. Additional questions? Commissioner Longer? Thank you. Thank you, team. Very thoughtful. I had one comment and a question. The question is around consequences for students. I wrestled with this issue when I was a school leader, and that was eight years ago, so I can't even imagine what it's like now. But one thing I did learn from my experience was that without firm consequences to back up a policy, and school leaders being at the front lines are willing to implement those policies and stand firm, policies sort of fall flat. I couldn't tell from what you presented here, I'm looking at slide 22, it says the policy includes clear disciplinary consequences, including confiscation of devices based on the student code

156of conduct. Is that... developed already the the and is there some ways in the appendix is there somewhere where we can see what the s is I'm assuming it's an escalating ladder of consequences Thank You Commissioner um so in our current policy it actually ranges all the way from level 1 to level 4 dependent on the escalation but one of the things that we plan to do as we continue to develop the toolkit is that we're we're looking at refining that as well right and making sure that the language is very clear but it does like for I can use for example I think I have one here so it says inappropriate inappropriate use of an electronic device carried worn or transported by a student can be anywhere from a level one to a level

157three currently depending on if it's coupled with anything else And so one of the things we want to do is make sure that we are making it very clear. So but right now at current, it can range anywhere from a level one to a level four. OK, I would love to as you think about it more and develop more and more, I would love to hear more about I think you mentioned you're considering changes. I also love to know how the pilot principles dealt with the consequences piece of things. The second piece is more of a common and The number one piece of feedback on the negative side, I mean, I find a lot of parents who understand this and they don't want cell phones to be a distraction to their student. They think they

158buy into the research, myself included. It's the safety piece that you talked about. And, you know, you can even say that the research demonstrates that it's actually not helpful in the case of emergency. This is an emotional thing for a parent that telling someone about some research when you know they're thinking about their kid it doesn't usually help so so That's the piece that I think deserves the most attention because because frankly, I don't know I hear about that that one the most and To me it also looks different based on what the Approach is if you've got central collection and you're saying well, you know You'll get access to the cell phone if it's granted to you an emergency You can't run to the central collection and hand out the phones. So I would

159I would love to drill down on that some more and separately from this here more about your engagement with parents on that specific piece and how you're planning to address what I think will be the number one piece of opposition to this. And, you know, otherwise people would be fully bought into. But it's something we need to think about. I think you're exactly right. I think that is sort of one of the biggest things. I'm a parent of two high school kids, and that's definitely like, that's what I think of, right? Is that what if, what if, what those what if questions that we, that we, you know, plague parents. But I think what we are finding with our pilot schools that I think is so amazing is that because, because parents are reaching their

160kids through the school, like through the central office, or the main office in the school building, they're building relationships with the school. And when parents are concerned about their kids not having access to the phone, when they show up at school and they're like, I want my kid to have their phone, they are meeting with an administrator who is actually able to explain to them and talk to them and then build that, continue to build that trust. And so we were also seeing, you know, that there's less fighting in school, that there's that staff have better relationships with students and are communicating better with them. So I think, you know, on balance and I and I, of course, like this is a very emotional thing, but I think that what we're actually seeing is that

161on balance that there are actually there's more there's even more engagement with families because families are kind of working with the school and how they're communicating with their students during the school day I didn't know if there was anything additional that was coming I saw some looks around so I didn't know if there's more we'll come back to you guys on that time yes please please please I'm sorry I was addressing staff okay um if uh willing to be the odd man out here um first of all holding back the flood is going to be sometimes push down and I deal with this on a daily basis. Okay. On to, and I want us to look very carefully how we involve the classroom teacher because then there's one more thing that the classroom teacher would

162have to be responsible for and therefore move up a line that may or may not be responsive. And I've seen it in both occasions where they are not, where there's not a responsiveness as you move up the line. The other aspect is that we live in a day and time where there's a lot of fear. And so the pushback you're going to get from parents, from those people, and I'm very pleased to see that you were looking at your... students that have special needs, the IEPs, your 504s, and your multi-language learners, you know, these people have use of sometimes programming that is not available generally as the schools push them out, you know. And so knowing how to create a balance there, I think, becomes very important. And like I said, once again, I don't

163want to throw this back down on the shoulders of teachers. Central collection points are great. But we had that same discussion many years ago when we talked about the carrying of weapons in our school. Remember, we had that discussion where, well, I have to run down here to be able to get access to a device I might need. Okay, so do we have the infrastructure becoming becomes another question to support centralized collection and readily communicate out from the school at any given point in time. These are points that I think are very, very important and it does do a lot to soothe the feelings of our community, but also Like I said at the beginning, sometimes to stand in the middle of the Red Sea does not mean that the waters are not going to

164come. So there needs to be a program in the policy of how we move forward. You know, digital education capabilities, education on digital citizenship, and how to properly, because it's coming. And no matter how many policies you write, we have to be able to be able to move forward with the progress of society. That's just my take on it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. That's a very thoughtful comment. Are there anything additional from my board colleagues this evening? Hearing none. I'd like to thank the staff for your time and presentation this evening and also invite my board colleagues as well as the public to review the presentation in depth, review the appendices because there's really important data that's in there. And I also want to thank just the public for their participation along

165with our recognized groups for the feedback that they've provided. This will be before, I'm not sure what the timeline is, but soon-ish. All right, April 8th for second reader. We'll see you then. Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to our vice chair to lead us through the balance of our evening. All right. I want to thank everyone for coming out and sitting with us as we went through our very important agenda today. It is very important to Chair Sally and I that we present a meeting for staff, families, students that is both efficient and gets us out of here so we can have a fruitful learning day the next day. So with that being said, we are going to motion towards adjournment. There's a few more things that I

166would like to do. I have a few announcements and then I'll yield to Commissioner Rooks and Commissioner Muhammad for a few announcements and then we'll get ready to close. Okay, so City Schools is offering multiple opportunities for seniors to participate in paid internships while earning elective credits. The Senior Work-Based Learning Internship course will help students gain valuable experience, build their resumes and professional networks, develop career readiness skills, and test out post-secondary plans before graduation. To learn more information about Senior Work-Based Learning Internship courses, please speak to your school leaders and visit the Baltimore City Schools website. Announcements as far as upcoming meetings. We are having a safety and wholeness committee listening tour tomorrow, Wednesday, February 26th at 5.30 until 7 p.m. Commissioner Muhammad will give us more instruction on that. We are hosting teaching and

167learning committee meeting on Tuesday, March 4th at 3.30. Our executive board meeting will be on Tuesday, March 11th, and the public meeting will follow at 530. I now turn it over to Commissioner Brooks. Thank you, Vice Chair. For tonight's remarks, I would like to announce applications are now open for candidates to be the next 2025-2026 student commissioner or an ASCBC officer. Please apply by March 20th, 2025. Middle and high school students who are passionate about student advocacy or interested in having a direct role within governance are encouraged to apply. They listen to the needs of fellow students around the city and elevate their concerns to the school board. The student commissioner votes amongst the appointed and elected commissioners on most matters presented to the board. For more information on the 2025-26 student commissioner and ASABC

168elections, please visit the ASABC website. Thank you. Commissioner Muhammad. Thank you, Vice Chair. Regarding the school board listening tour, tomorrow we will be at Colleton Square Recreation Center, which is located 1410 North Patterson Park. Doors will open up at 530. We will be focusing on safety and wholeness. So, if you are interested... If you have an opinion, if you think we can be doing something better. What if you think we're doing everything great? We invite you out tomorrow to the board listening tour. This is a part of the board's effort to be accessible with our community. And we will be making our first stop, not our last, tomorrow at Collington Square Recreation Center. See you there at 5.30. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you to all of the commissioners. Again, our staff, partners, families.

169I wish everyone a safe travel home. Is there a motion to adjourn? Motion. All right. All in favor? Yes. Aye. Any opposed or abstentions? All right. Hand none. Have a great evening.