BOE Public Session 2 19 2020

001[Music] god we pray to administer that which is just in all educational policies being ever mindful of your guidance stirs to action with love wisdom and understanding i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all welcome to this meeting the board of education this meeting is being live is being televised live on aacps tv and live streamed on the internet general information and protocols for the meeting are posted on the sign by the doorway as you enter the room so please make sure you read those if you have not done so already item 2.03 is approval of the minutes okay consensus thank you establish of a gender agenda or establish agenda order any

002requests consensus for the agenda to stand we're good okay uh recognitions we have none today um and next is school and community highlights miss alby good evening thank you for giving me the opportunity to provide a smile update tonight i want to begin by reminding everyone that the smob student forum is taking place on march 12th in the suburna park high school cafeteria from 6 to 8 p.m it is an opportunity for any aacps student to voice their concerns to myself and my fellow board members since our last meeting i visited chesapeake science point middle and high schools i want to thank principal jefferson for allowing me to do so and two students who are juniors twiva and ruffy who gave me a wonderful tour of their building i also participated in mabes day on

003capitol hill where i advocated for more federal funding and i'm particularly glad that i got to speak to senator ben cardin about his equity policy that mirrors the goals set by maryland's kerwin commission but at the federal level also i want to inform everyone that the smob nomination period for the 2020 2021 school year is now open i encourage all eligible students to apply by march 5th at 4 pm i want to give a special congrats to the annapolis high school varsity boys basketball team for being named the year's county champions i couldn't be prouder to be a panther and finally as we move into a very important night for the board of education as we discuss the budget i ask my colleagues to keep two things in mind firstly to remain efficient and timely

004and second to continuously consider the impact tonight's decisions will make on first and foremost our students as i know i intend to do this tonight thank you thank you very much miss alvi miss antwine miss hummer and miss shaw hi miss antoine thank you president corkadel good evening everyone for my school and community highlights i had so many i had to write them down this is as i was very humbled i if you notice at the last meeting i left early and it was because of a special recognition that the county executive and the county council were kind enough to to give me so i want to very humbly thank the county executive county executive pittman the county council and dr carl snowden for your recent recognition of me during the annual few of the

005mini awards ceremony i sincerely thank all of the families and communities who put construct who continuously put constructive pressure on me to represent the best interest of our students in district 1 and all of our students in anne arundel county i thank my fellow board members dr lotto teachers students and the entire anne arundel county public school system for your continuous support i sincerely cannot do any of this without you guys so thank you i also attended the public forum on the initiative to close the opportunity gap and i want to commend the leadership and the and those supporting this initiative it was not only well organized but we were able to introduce some recommendations that i think will greatly influence the future stance of our school system and the opportunities that our students have

006access to and then so i'm continuing the reading tour thank you dr lotto and and and miss friend um and miss baden as well you all have been very gracious to um support me in this reading tour but i gotta tell you hilltop elementary school you rock every time i visit you all the the weather is inclement and it's either lots of snow on the ground or lots of rain coming down and you're always cheerful and and very welcoming so i thank you for the opportunity to read to your first and second graders then for black history month i since been elected i felt like i should if i'm invited should go to all of the black history programs that i'm invited to well last year i guess not as many people knew me and

007so i didn't get invited to a lot of those programs this year though i was invited to several of them and i thank everyone for your invitations for one specific one i want to thank the annapolis high school black history club and miss ellis for your invitation to the board for your black history program um the the you all captured the true essence of why we do the black history month the black history recognitions and the emphasis to how black history has shaped america so thank you for that finally yesterday we're starting our board town town hall meetings next week but prior to that i had set up community forums that i've tied entitled conversations with candace you like that too so um and and it has so far been very successful people have been

008very open specifically yesterday though i i met a young lady miss armani jack jackson at bowie state who gave me some incredible inspiration when i was meant to inspire her so thank you all for your support in that and i plan to continue these forums if you have ideas or subject matters just please let me know and that's it thank you miss antwine um miss hummer and then michelle hi miss hummer so last week i attended the c-cac which is the special education citizens advisory council and they had a special presentation on teaching reading and helping your children at home learn to read and it was a great turnout a wonderful presentation i want to encourage all parents to come when they have special speakers often at their meetings that and the information they're sharing

009is not just beneficial to those who who have children with special needs but really for all parents but if you are a parent of children with special needs ccac is an amazing resource for you to have to network with other parents who are going through some of the same things and we have our wonderful partners for success who work with parents to help them navigate the special education process so if you haven't been to a c-cac meeting before i highly encourage you to come out thank you miss summer miss schallham i also attended the presentation of the the status of the joint initiative to um close the opportunity gap and i thought it was fabulous and i thank everyone for putting that on and i found we there was breakout sessions on on various topics

010i was in the one on curriculum and i just thought it was spectacular the voices in that room were wonderful and uh and and i think i hope that the committee members got a lot out of our breakout as i did i wanted to say that i also got invited to go to annapolis high school's event uh for black history month uh that took place on saturday and i was uh really devastated to have missed that and so i apologize to that club and um yeah because i really wanted to be there but my family needed me so um and they come first i'm a mom first so um but uh but please you know don't let that deter you from future invites because i really really want to support and that's what i wanted

011to say thank you thank you miss schallheim policy committee update mr live [Music] thank you madam president today the policy committee met and we reviewed quite extensively policy bk if you recall from our last meeting we referred it from first reader back to the policy committee and uh policy bk now titled board ethics and professional standards will come back for first reader at our march 4th meeting thank you sir budget committee update miss ellis thank you just real briefly we met today at 5 30 and we just worked through um finalizing the the documents that contain proposed amendments and um we worked through the procedure of how we're going to operate tonight and i'll be sharing that all with you briefly excellent thank you so very much uh next is our crass report sir freezer

012good evening president corcodell vice president ellis members of the board and dr alato my name is parity cherry and i'm the cross secretary of education student member of the board election season events are underway smob information night was held at annapolis high school on february 12th the nomination period has opened and will conclude at march 5th at 4 pm the first two of the smob candidate campaign clinics will be held on february 26th at arundel high school at 6 30 pm for interested students all smob applications are due to the office of leadership by 4 pm on march 12th on february 6 we had our middle school general assembly called making a difference through student advocacy we welcomed about 195 students from 18 middle schools students attended sessions on public speaking using social media for

013digital advocacy and a guide to the hook line and sinker advocacy method we would like to thank county council chairwoman allison pickard and vice chairwoman sarah lacey they spoke to students about advocacy and what it means to be a leader on saturday february 8th 21 aacps students had the opportunity to attend the mask legislative session at frederick high school students attended breakout sessions took stances on current legislation and voted for the two finalists for the maryland state student member on the board congratulations to the two final candidates noreen badwie and from baltimore county and jason wu from montgomery county their names will be forwarded to governor hogan where one will be appointed for the 2020-21 school year official ballots have been sent to schools to ratify the changes made to our constitution krask added three

014new appointed positions a mental health liaison an outreach coordinator and a third middle school voting member changes can be viewed on our website in addition to a link for students to post comments or questions ballots are due back by march 6. we know that the budget season can be a busy time and crass appreciates all the effort for increased funding in english language learning staff transportation staff for efficiency and school counselors we are particularly in support of the additional counseling staff because the crafts platform advocates for increased accessibility and availability for school counselors and supporting equal opportunities for access to all resources for students finally we would like to advise high school students that the anne arundel county board of elections has been busy registering students to vote during lunch periods at our high schools

015they will be at glen burnie high school on february 24th and meade high school on february 26th to register students to vote students must see 16 hold a valid maryland id such as a license or learner's permit and know the last four digits of their social security number krask is looking forward to the small leadership forum being held from 6 to 8 pm on thursday march 12th in the severna park high school cafeteria we hope to see many aacps student leaders there i appreciate the time to give you an update about what's happening in cross and thank you for your continued support of student voice and acps thank you excellent uh pt a report good evening board members good evening dr arlato my name is regina riley and i am the vice president for the

016anne arundel county council of ptas unfortunately our president couldn't be here this evening i have a few updates to share our scholarship applications have come to a close the scholarship board will be meeting to review all applications the awards are to be used by students towards tuition and books at a higher institution of education of their choice this year the anne arundel county council of ptas will be celebrating our families from all around anne arundel county with a family fun day it's free admission for all one of the items we're doing is we're collecting cans for the maryland food bank so we'd like everybody to bring as many cans as they can because we want to do a mile of cans we will have an award ceremony for our volunteers and also our reflection winners

017we have a silent auction to support our scholarship fund food trucks games mobile escape room a stage area where schools will be performing a dj crafts fire trucks free books in our reading room the list goes on and on we have many organizations coming so we ask that you please help us and attend it's april 25th 2020 at old mill high school in millersville our next board meeting will be on march 9th at 5 30 here at the board of education thank you for this opportunity thank you thank you very much i look forward to seeing a mile of food for for a worthy cause i can just imagine how many cans that is i hope everybody steps up for it uh next is public comment anyone wishing to speak on an item not on

018today's agenda may offer testimony during this public comment portion of the meeting speakers are allotted three minutes each and may not allocate their time to others a tone will sound when the time is expired the board asks the comments remain civil and appropriate for the various audiences that may be watching or viewing this meeting student specific and personnel matters are confidential and cannot be discussed in this forum it is not the board's general practice to engage in question and answer sessions with speakers for the record please give your name before speaking and handouts should be given to the board assistant as a special note for tonight public testimony on the superintendent's recommended fiscal 2021 operating and capital budgets was already taken at the board of education's public hearings that was held on january the 9th

019and january the 27th accordingly no public testimony on the recommendation will be taken this evening if amendments are offered by board members and we do have them on the ready and organized public comments will be taken on the content of those specific amendments only as always written testimony is accepted and encouraged currently i have no one signed up for public testimony any seeing no motion in the audience we're going to move along item 4.01 classroom furniture these are consent items of awards of contracts we have a motion to bundle and a second any comment to that okay miss hal do we have consensus on this we're good okay seeing consensus on on a motion to bundle um items 4.01 i'll just read them out is classroom furniture 4.02 grass mowing and storm water device maintenance

0204.03 large kitchen equipment uh and through 4.05 and then 4.06 is walkie talkies and accessories um do we have a motion uh i'm sorry dr alato uh your recommendation please yes madam president i recommend the board approve the contracts as listed on today's agenda 4.01 through 4.06 okay we have a motion in a second any comment commentary any public comment seeing none miss hal please call roll miss miss ellis miss schoelheim aye ms antoine aye mr gilland aye mr leib miss hummer aye ms corcodale aye motion passes eight zero okay great let me get to my next next item is 5.01 administrative personnel appointments dr alato there are none there is for uh board uh approval there is one for uh information for the board thank you very much sir okay seeing no additional comments

021to that um item 5.02 is items of legislation yes sir and i do believe we have staff mm-hmm okay okay so yes we are being very efficient this morning that's right [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] okay okay i'm gonna turn this over first to miss ortiz if she wanted to highlight additional new information and give us an update i know we've had a very busy session so before we get started i just want to continue to extend gratitude to you and your staff and to all the members who are pitching in and going the extra mark this is a very busy season as you can well imagine i've never seen so much legislation on one item in my entire life so major kudos this is a lot to follow so with that said um i'll let you

022uh let you roll uh for the record jeanette ortiz legislative policy council thank you so much for your kind words it has been a crazy session lots of bills lots of education bills um and we just had introduction deadlines and all kinds of things so there will be more coming your way at the next meeting there were no bills this meeting for uh that required to vote but i'd be happy to answer any questions any on any legislation looks like we do have a couple questions we have michelle heim miss ellis and miss hammer miss shalhan good evening i would like to echo the gratitude because i know this is busy yeah i have a question for you about a bill that was we were previously in support of that has since had amendments house

023bill 287 are we where do we stand on that with regard to the amendments which i know can you speak to that a little bit for you remind me of the uh the um the one that was supposed to be the mundane one that to change our annual meeting from july to december but then there was all the that followed that yeah so right so um there's house bill and a senate bill um that would have um aligned the annual meeting date of the board to coincide with the fact that we're moving towards a fully elected school board so it would be in december and that was a request of the board and so the um house had hearing on the legislation both the house bill and the senate cross file and the sponsors of

024the bill added additional amendments to the legislation that would also also talked about the election of a president of the board and so the language states that the president and vice president shall be selected at the annual meeting they shall serve a term of one year um and that was voted out of committee i'm sorry out of the delegation unanimously um i believe it was friday or perhaps the friday before there's a lot going on so things are kind of the days are blurring for me so i apologize and so what happened is um we did submit testimony supporting the actually miss corcodel i believe uh spoke to the original bill as drafted yes and then the amendments were introduced after the fact um and we submitted testimony to the um to the two committees

025the senate committee and the house committee on the bill as drafted and so what typically um and then the delegation voted on it so now what happened since um there are amendments the house bill i don't believe has moved forward the senate bill did get voted out either thursday or friday from the senate and so it'll cross over to the house and so if the board you know has the same position we would submit the position if there's a different position at that time it would be appropriate now that the bill has been amended um my issue with it was the was that the the the officers were going to be from the quote selected from the elected officers and that the student member was no longer would no longer be able to be elected

026was that your understanding of that so the language says um the president the vice president will be um selected from the elected members of the board um and so typically i will say that the board has not weighed in on legislation dealing with the actual structure of the board like when we went towards elected um board we didn't weigh in on any of that and so that's been sort of the what the the board has chosen to do in the past this bill would fall under that um and that was under the advice of previous board council um it did pass unanimously out of the house delegation the legislation as amended that means a lot to the committees i will say that and the senate bill did pass unanimously out of the senate thank you

027very much okay miss ellis was that it michelle hunt was that the only question you had yeah yes i think so thank you thank you ms ellis thank you um i just wonder if you could give us a little update snippet on blueprint for maryland's future i know there was a big hearing um i know there's lots of opinions about it i know we're we're presenting amendments um are you getting it can you just give us a brief update you know are you getting a sense of how people are feeling yeah so i had the pleasure of spending my presidents stay in the joint hearing room of the general assembly with dozens and dozens of other folks for the hearing of the what we call the blueprint bill or other folks refers to the kerwin

028commission bill and so all four standing committees assigned to the legislation were there all of their members so it's the senate budget and taxation committee senate education health and environmental affairs committee house ways and means committee and house appropriations committee so they started off the hearing with a presentation by brick kerwin who is the chair of the commission and rachel heiss who's department of legislative services staff who's been working on this for years and is really the resident expert on education for the department of legislative services there were lots of questions you know the bill was just introduced less than two weeks ago and it's 199 pages of a lot of information so i'm sure a lot of folks had not gone through it i have gone through the bill as some of my colleagues

029here have as well and there's a lot there's a lot in there and so while we support the overall sort of the mission of the kerwin commission and the original goal we do have some concerns some preliminary things that stuck out to us and i kind of identified it briefly in the legislative exhibit related to implementation dates for example we think that you know the school systems would need some more time to be able to implement some things also accountability was a huge conversation on monday it seems like a lot of folks questioning it hadn't actually read the bill because there's a lot of accountability in the bill and so well we obviously support accountability and we understand that it's important when you're talking about this level of education funding our concern is the overlap

030for existing accountability and so what we want is a better clarification about these other accountability bodies that are being created in this legislation and how they coincide with existing like the state board of education the maryland state department of education the attorney i'm sorry the inspector general that's been was created after last year's legislation the governor has his own body et cetera et cetera and so we've asked for clarification and that you know we had just some concerns with some program management with uh some of the pre-k requirements that would require to man require the school systems to manage private entities for but does not provide funding for that management and so those are some of the things i mean i will say that the chairs of the committees reiterated numerous times that there will

031be amendments the speaker of the house and the senate president both also reiterated that they understand that there will be amendments i've been working with my colleagues in the maryland association of boards of education the public school superintendents association of maryland to come up with good amendments also msa the maryland state education association on things that we all kind of agree upon there was a work group this evening unfortunately i had policy committee and was unable to attend but i will be circling back with my colleagues tomorrow and friday to get a better understanding of where they're moving with the bill you know i anticipate lots of amendments for sure maybe some more technical ones and maybe some substantive ones and as my colleagues and i keep going back and sifting through the bill we

032might have some more specific things that you know again that either they align or they don't align with our legislative program and our positions already stated and so obviously for the things that align great for the things that jonah line we will certainly um call them out and i just want to mention that miss hummer was there with me been great gave great testimony on the legislation and raised some of the concerns that mabe also has on the legislation consistent with our concerns thank you miss hummer and then miss antoine yes i'll just reiterate that we i spent six hours of president's day um listening to testimony they had 130 people sign up to testify and every one of them was in support of the main goals of of the blueprint legislation but there were

033very um there were very good there was very good feedback about how to improve the bill and make it so we are all for accountability but if there's duplication between things we want the money from kerwin to go to the classroom and actually be meeting being used for students and some of the accountability measures that duplicate each other that's going to be money that's going to be spent on duplication rather than on the students so it was encouraging to hear so many people from so many different groups and organizations that were voicing some of the same thing some of the same suggestions for how we could make the bill better um as we came along from the from the state pta to um individual parents that spoke up it was really um exciting to see

034how many people were vested in this bill and had really studied it carefully and really wanted to have a say in making it as strong as it can be to help our kids so it was a long day but it was worth it to hear everything and i was glad to be able to to add in our piece that was there too my question is on on page 22 of our legislation hb 1234 county boards of education student transportation vehicles this is something i'm actually very excited to see something we've been trying to talk about that would there be a way that we would not have to transport all of our children in full-size school buses for instance some of our homeless children or some of our special needs students who go to non-public placements

035and this is a bill that looks like it may have that potential so i just wanted to get some clarification on there it states that here that they could use a vehicle other than a type 1 or type 2 school vehicle does it limit what other type of vehicle we could use so my recollection of the bill a note then i've read lots of bills in the last week but my recollection of that doesn't specify that i don't know if mr novich recalls something differently but it does provide school systems the flexibility and specifically mentions you know homeless students foster care students special education students for us to be able to use something other than like a school bus and i know we have instances where it might just be one student and that one

036bus stop that might go to a different placement on public placement or something to that nature and so it would provide flexibility certainly alex czech new chief operating officer it would provide that additional flexibility we're seeking some clarification i think much to your point uh today type one and type two school buses are permitted as well as you know where uh taxi cabs are a permitted vehicle um what is explicitly uh prohibited is the use of uh of either vehicles that look like uh minivans or what you and i might call karate vans there's got a 12 person 15 person kind of vans they are actually explicitly prohibited so this while it provides some loosening it actually doesn't repeal that other piece of it so we're looking for some the transportation directors have been in

037contact with msd as well to say in the end what would this look like i think we all would like to have some additional flexibility some other alternatives and it's important to a location like anne arundel county it's even far more important to some of our smaller counties in the far eastern and western reaches of the state so it's an item of a lot of collective interest and we want to get it right well i know this is having this kind of alternative transportation is one of the recommendations from the transportation consultants report as well that we'd like to have it's a little disappointing to hear that as of right now it doesn't include that we could use those fans because that could be a real possibility but are there any restrictions listed in the

038bill about which students could be transported in an alternative thing or yes there's a prescriptive list of classifications of students that would be eligible for alternative transportation means okay so that but they're but it's fairly long it's a pretty long list okay so it would be open to have because you know for many of our students right it's not most cost benefit to have one student that's riding a bus and also they're not as fast or easy to navigate if you're going into baltimore city to a special school or something so to have an alternative it might be a more comfortable method of transportation as well for some of our students to have so i don't know if this will move forward but i was thrilled to see it and i'm glad that we're going

039to be supporting that and i hope that this will gain momentum to move forward so thank you thank you thank you miss hummer miss antoine thank you so i know the week has been rough i i was with you on some of it um not all of it including president's day and it sounds like you guys have fun um but i did have some questions about some of the the some of the bills that are being introduced that we opposed wanted more clarification on our position in terms of opposing uh the first one is on page five um so it looks to me like there are plans for other counties to get a regional um career and techno technical education center and we oppose that and what i'm based on what i'm reading we opposed

040it because there's a risk of us not getting the type of funding we may be able to get if they introduce this could you help me better understand that please yes and that's correct so this is a perennial bill that's come before us a few years now we've always opposed it and so i mean obviously we support cte for students and students around the state however the way this bill is drafted it would be funded through public school construction dollars that are currently already identified for existing projects and so it would um the funding would be used from that money and so that money would you know there would be less money to fund our projects and other school system uh projects and so we oppose you know any time there's less money going towards

041our um you know school construction dollars or for education funding and things of that nature so for those reasons it's not like a separate dedicated funding source for this it would be from the existing program so that's problematic got it okay thank you for that welcome and then on page eight the instruction in print and cursive handwriting as a mom who had to teach her son cursive and her her penmanship is horrible i i'm always for um instruction on how to do that properly in terms of print and cursive handwriting in our schools but we opposed that as well and i just didn't quite understand the stance on why uh yeah so this is another perennial bill that's come a few years now and so we oppose curriculum mandates and so if you know school

042systems want to have cursive writing in their curriculum they can do that now they don't need a law to require them to do it they have the flexibility to do it so it's not so much based on the uh you know the merit or the substance it's just a curriculum mandate and so um you know maeve and and other school systems um typically oppose these mandates understood so our opposition is not to have it in schools our opposition is the autonomy that we have as a independent school system to be able to say what we have in our curriculum correct all right so then on page 12 at the bottom talks about therapy dogs and in some of my school visits i have been introduced to therapy dogs and they seem to be right in

043line with the need of the students that are having those dogs at that time now i have not been introduced to a litter of dogs at one school right it may be one dog that all the students rely on for comfort or otherwise i saw here that we we opposed that as well even though we have introduced some dogs in our system um and it seems to be working so i wanted to just as with the other clarifications if you can help me understand the opposition yeah thank you because you're not the only one that had questions about it so we have service dogs that we allow in our schools and that's aligned with state and federal requirements and so this creates a separate category of an actual therapy dog but there's no actual certification

044for therapy dogs and so it really leaves open to interpretation what is the therapy does this is so we currently um follow state federal requirements on service animals and so this is something different and it's kind of like a loose terminology utilized for dogs and so because it's not clearly defined because there's no existing certification we could run into some issues with having disruptive animals and you know if you have people saying like oh well this is a therapy dog we would really have no way to say well it's not whereas with service animals there's you know that's certified there's processes these animals are trained specifically to provide the unique services of their owners understood so so in the cases that i've encountered in the schools it's the school providing that service to those students

045so that so that legally and and in terms of management we have that direct control so the opposition is not for not having that type of support in the schools the opposition is for the the um the possible logistics and other concerns that come come along with animals that may not be covered by law exactly okay yes um oh here it is so then finally um on page 13 it talks about a notification to parents once there's suspicion of of a sexual assault and this has come up earlier in the year before our board some of the protocol behind these actions we opposed that that bill as well it indicates that by the closest business day a parent should be notified of whatever the concern is so as i'm reading here we're we are indicating

046that we want to be able to first get sound information before moving out to the parent so if you could please expound shop that opposition yeah so that's exactly right so it's not that we oppose notifying parents you know we want to notify parents of any situation relating to their children particularly something as a problematic sexual uh behavior and we do follow all state you know mandated reporting laws um and regulations and you know we are very we provide training to our all of our staff on on that issue in particular so the concern with this legislation it's very prescriptive it requires a school to report to the parent as you mentioned close of business day so for example if we had a situation that happened 15 minutes before school ended and it's an allegation

047you know the school administration won't have sufficient time by close of business or may not have sufficient time by close of business to gather the correct information to ensure that we're providing parents guardians families correct information the last thing we would want to do is to prematurely give out information and have false allegations or things of that nature out there so we want to ensure that we are responsibly reporting um to to parents guardians families of such behaviors and don't want to feel like rush like we have this deadline and then we don't have sufficient information that we may find out with further investigation it was actually incorrect right and so that's our opposition to legislation and the maryland association of boards of education also opposes it for the same reasons yes ma'am thank you

048very much okay you're welcome i'm sorry i did have one more question uh with the blueprint i know testimony was that president's day but there's a window before the final decision is is made could we as the board of education introduce more um more information concerning that or what we done on monday yeah no so monday was a one of the very first steps as i mentioned there was a work group held by the appropriations committee in the house today and there will be more work group meetings to try to um figure out amendments and so what we've done is um you know i've been working very closely with matt stansky and some of my other colleagues to put together our preliminary concerns and reaching out to our colleagues from around the state and maeve

049and pazzam to kind of figure out you know what do we all agree upon because obviously there's power in numbers and when you have mabe and pazan behind something as well and msca that helps and there's a lot of agreement on things and so that's going to be part of the work group process very similar to the maryland safe to learn act from two years ago that i was very involved in helping craft amendments with my colleagues to make it more workable for school systems and so that'll be so yes we will definitely have a seat at the table and any issues and concerns that arise we'll be able to to vocalize them to leadership and hopefully have the amendments introduced and accepted to address the concerns you're welcome anything else miss andre you're good

050okay kind of sort of kind of said yeah so well this happens like every every meeting from here till march so no i just stopped and it just part of my head because we talked about it earlier so if we want to reach out to some of the delegates for some of these some of these bills directly uh i for example there was there's a controversial bill uh with douglas at this point in time if or should we work with you first do you um dr lotto i'm trying to figure out the appropriate protocol between my advocacy as a citizen and my advocacy as uh on the board i i would like to be able to talk to for example with the uh with delegates sob to better understand so that when i come back

051here i'll be able to make a better decision on the board as well so so the i guess the question would be when these come up would it be better that that we work with you all first and then move on to the delegates so that we're kind of speaking with one voice or um should we continue our outreach individually okay i i'll take a stab at that answer actually [Laughter] because well of course anything that we can do to move our legislative stuff through and so yes board members do meet with them i would just normally i say if i'm there as a member or they're officially helping us and if i'm there officially helping us i usually do try to get with jeanette or like julie does the maid connection you know along

052with melissa and so um i'm usually giving them a heads up and if i'm going as a member i just make sure that every person that i'm speaking to understands that i'm there as an individual resident or i am there as an individual board member but not representing the whole board that's really the only rules of engagement but clearly it it's greatly appreciated because when we can coordinate with miss ortiz she can give you some of that in information knowing going in before meeting or you know you may not be the wiser that they've already negotiated out your concern so that would save you some time too um type of thing um but that that's pretty much how helpful thank you michelle that's what i've been doing but my my in this particular case um

053the it it some concerns were raised uh that we didn't consider before we put in our position on that particular bill and so i wanted to go back directly to the uh in this case delegate saw to get more understanding of his position as we move as as the bill moves forward but i also want to be able to work with um dr lotto and his staff in doing that so that we speak the same voice so thank you very much for that update and if i could just add yes please you know definitely reach out let me know if you're meeting with delegates and senators on legislation that's helpful to me because sometimes i get like oh i was meeting with your board member and i'm like oh okay you know i have no

054idea what the conversation was about so it's helpful to me and when i'm communicating with them and the only thing i would just point out which i know everybody's aware of if you're meeting with them and it's a position the board has a position on legislation board members would not be able to go and have an opposing position on the legislation contrary to what the board has already determined that's the only thing but yes and you know if you have questions or just need some insight i will say that delegate saab's bill hospital 535 had the um delegation hearing last friday and i spoke on behalf of the school system that bill was in at the last meetings legislative exhibit and they had the hearing in the committee today there was lots of opposition from

055various organizations from around the state at the bill hearing i submitted written testimony and so you know i've as always we always offer to work with our legislators and i always ask them if you have ideas or you have thoughts please reach out to us because we can help inform sort of their decision and whether to draft legislation or how to draft legislation and you know as i invited him and other members of delegation you can come visit our schools and see our programs and see what we're already doing um because they may not be aware of that thank you excellent now good thank you for bringing up miss antwine because that is something that you know definitely gets a little gray area um miss halvey so i had a question about a bill that

056was put in for the baltimore county delegation about increasing the voting rights for their student member on the board do you just have a status update on whatever you know happened with that bill if you know so i don't but i can definitely get back to you i will say though that the frederick i want to say frederick county frederick county because i was i wasn't able to go today because we had so much going on here but i was watching the bill hearings online and um i believe it was frederick county that had similar um bill being heard today in ways and means delegation as we all know we're you're the only you know we're the only school system where the student member has full voting rights and so over the years different school

057systems have tried to increase the voting rights of their student members as well and so frederick has done in baltimore county this year but i can go back to you okay thank you you're welcome thank you um seeing no more comments from board members seeing no mo motion any comments of public seeing no movement um item five dot oh doctor yes you're very good thank you miss ortiz um 5.01 no i'm sorry 5.03 mayo elementary school third party project playground equipment thank you um we have no presentation okay dr alato yes ma'am president i recommend board approval of the mayo elementary school third party project playground equipment so moved second okay we have a movement in a second i just want to say that i know that for both mayo and the upcoming one which

058is shipley's choice uh shipley's choice i just so happened to be in a community meeting quite a few years ago i think uh going back uh i believe probably about about four four and a half years ago when the pto president had asked shipley's choice hoa to give her a hand in in fundraising and i know mayo elementary equally worked very hard these are hard projects for the community but i do also recognize the the proud ownership that the communities also have when they have this opportunity it's truly an enterprise level fundraising and um the benefit that it serves our students by having it is absolutely outstanding so i would just wanted to give an extra shout out to the pto of both mayo and shipley's choice elementary because they have done a fabulous job

059in getting this uh getting their school the playground equipment that they need and obviously the help of staff and and maneuvering through that and getting the best equipment possible thank you so much uh stewart crawford um so we have we do have a couple comments coming in so we have miss albee uh miss ellis and miss antoine missalvi so i just want to express my excitement for this project because one of the first constituents i ever responded to as um smob was a fourth grader at mayo elementary school who reached out to me and said that she really wanted a playground so i'm super excited that this is going through a special congrats to her on on her hard work on fundraising for this awesome project thank you miss avi miss ellis first of all

060i just have to echo the kudos to the pto's this is this is amazing work when this gets done when people when people fundraise like this and they see a need for their students and they make it happen can you talk a little bit about the process when when a pto does this do they they come to you and say we want a playground how much is this going to cost are they helping the design how does that yes would they um put in a major amount of work request saying that they would like to add some playground equipment we share with them our standards and what meets our playground safety standards and sometimes they have some equipment that you know they would like to have and we go through whether you know we can

061meet it or not and most of the time you know we work together well they do a great job fundraising they work well with us once that is done they provide us the documentation the letter from the pto supported by the principal and then we bring it to the board for approval and then we help them assist them with uh the purchase and getting it built okay wonderful thank you it's so exciting yes absolutely agree on that one miss antoine so i just wanted to make a motion that we bundled 503 and 504 but i see dr alado was stepped out so i take that back uh because he would have to make the recommendation for 504. okay um sure but yeah i didn't even see he was uh gone now that's okay because we're

062just gonna it won't take very long and my comments i already made for the both i think you know for both projects these are great you know when public private partnerships get together because government can't do it all and so these are great examples of how we're able to work so closely i don't see any more comments from board members anything buddy from the audience that would like to say a word or two about this project seeing no motion miss hell please call roll miss alby hi miss ellis michelle heim aye ms antwine aye mr gilliland aye aye mr lein aye ms hummer aye ms kwerkido aye motion passes eight zero okay um our next item is 5.04 shipley's choice elementary third party project and we have the recommendation general i was listening i know

063you were the president i recommend the board approve the shipley's choice elementary school third party project also playground equipment okay we have unanimous in second um i see no comments any uh any members of the audience seeing no motion miss hal please call roll miss alby miss ellis aye ms shawhan aye ms antoine aye mr gilland aye mr leib miss hummer aye ms corco motion passes 8-0 all right okay um next up is um the big item of the night all right 6.01 the superintendent's recommended fiscal year 2021 capital budget and six-year plan [Applause] good evening um before we begin with budgets i did want to just say a couple notes on budget night tonight tonight we will hopefully be striking the budget firing any complications we do of course have a plan b date

064um for that and with that in mind i do want to express um large considerations of gratitude to all the staff and to all the board members who participated in this process it's an undertaking it's a giant budget with giant budget books and that's just the summary pages so i know that the staff works hard i um on weekends and on evenings and first things in the mornings they made sure that we got ample information for all of our questions up here as they were provided and up to literally the minutes leading up to our meeting tonight crunching numbers and making sure that all the amendments are in that it's appropriate and by our members and that they are well represented so for that congratulations i think that's a victory in and of itself because

065here we are ready to take our votes this evening our budget chair and the budget committee have worked very hard in preparing this in a manner that is flows well and freely and so with that in mind i'm going to take a back seat to the actual amendments in and of themselves in the management to miss ellis and will reserve myself outside of individual comments as a member tonight to parliamentary procedure as uh should anything unique come up so with that in mind i believe uh um alex and dr alato you guys are up for starters before i get my recommendation for the capital budget and then discussion and then of course we'll move on to the operating budget i would like to thank you for your comments of thanks to the team um it

066is an incredible amount of work uh that is almost year-round now i think they take about two weeks off in july um but uh it's in terms of budget so i want to thank you've got alex and lisa seaman crawford sitting before you much of the executive team and senior staff do a lot of work in building the budget but i also need to recognize mr stansky and his fab four would you all stand up please they are amazing [Applause] madam president i recommend board approval of the 214 million 892 000 capital budget and six-year plan and any approved adjustments thank you sir uh again for the record alex chuck nova chief operating officer lucy crawford director of facilities and we are here to uh present the fy21 capital budget as well as the six-year

067capital improvement plan the exhibit before you is a replica of the exhibit that was presented as part of the superintendent's budget introduction in december absent any amendments that may be undertaken tonight there is no difference between the document that lays before you at the moment and the one you saw in december and with that we are prepared to undertake any questions or amendments you may have first i think we need a core motion of the board and am willing to entertain as such second okay we have an emotion and a second for the superintendent's recommended capital budget and i believe we have a couple checked in amendments miss ellis if you would mind taking we do i first i have to take a moment um i did speak briefly giving an update on the budget

068committee but as committee chair i've been very involved in sort of collecting information as board members so that just so the public knows the the board members do not work together in unison in developing their ideas or their amendments or anything like that so the budget committee sort of is able to serve as a gathering place and we've worked closely with the staff and we provided we kept feeding questions to the staff because we get this in december i believe we got it a little light reading over the holidays but um always as we're trying to carefully consider what adjustments may need to be made in the best interest of our students we begin to gather information and we've been firing off questions now for a couple of months to mr chuck novich and his

069staff and um the questions a lot of times we'll get responses and it leads to more questions and so we keep firing back and um you guys have been remarkable in responding and being very prompt with your responses and i know how hard you guys are working and i just want to give you my thanks all of you um so as i said we worked through some um procedure um during the budget committee meeting so i'm going to explain that all now um so currently before us is the capital budget once we finish with the capital budget we're going to i'm going to introduce some amendments that have been developed by various board members we will i will first read through the entire list of amendments so that everyone is able to see what's what's

070on the table what's going to be on the table because one amendment may affect another amendment for some board member and they they need to be able to consider all of that and so for the public to be able to see what the board members are considering we want to make sure you all um are are aware of what the proposed amendments are that are coming so i'm going to read once through the list of amendments and then i will go back and introduce one amendment at a time and one amendment at a time will be on the table for someone to move and discuss and vote on and then we move to the next amendment when we finish with the amendments we still have to vote um on the entire budget as amended if

071it is amended and once that happens assuming we do pass a capital budget this evening we will break very briefly for staff to make any adjustments to the figures and then that i'm sorry that is when we will vote on the capital budget so once the staff brings back those numbers we will look at sort of the final budget that we are proposing to pass and then we will vote on it um and then we'll move on to the operating budget and follow the same procedure so if everyone's clear on that oh and one more thing to note once the amendments have been introduced there they will be made available online for anyone who wants to follow along and i will give you that information as soon as i'm done reading the amendments so for

072the fiscal year 21 capital budget the following three amendments are being proposed amendment 1 decrease 1 million fifty thousand dollars of local county funding to the superintendents recommended fiscal year 2021 fiscal year to 2023 capital budget line items titled security related upgrades to result in a two million three hundred thousand dollar total request for each of this specified fiscal years the impact of this amendment it reduces the fiscal years 2021 to 2023 capital budget recommendations by one million four hundred fifty thousand dollars amendment two provide a capital investment of forty thousand dollars to preserve the historic structure on the goshen farm property the impact it increases the fiscal y year 2021 capital budget recommendation by forty thousand dollars amendment three add an additional eight hundred thousand dollars in local county funding to the superintendent's recommended

073fiscal year 21 capital budget line item titled ps military installation grant to result in a four million eight hundred thousand dollar total request the impact it increases fiscal year 20 2021 capital budget recommendation by eight hundred thousand dollars and now that the amendments have been introduced for those in the audience and watching at home the proposed capital budget amendments i just read can be found online at www.aacps.org slash f y 2 1 capital amendments c a p i t a l a m e n d m e n t s hopefully everyone got that who needs it and with that we will now introduce reintroduce amendment one decrease one million four hundred fifty thousand dollars of local county funding to the superintendent's recommended fiscal year to 2023 capital budget line items titled security related upgrades

074to result in a two million three hundred thousand dollar total request for each of the specified fiscal years the impact again reduces fiscal years 2021 to 2023 capital budget recommendations by one million four hundred fifty thousand dollars do we have a motion we have a motion and a second mr luck thank you madam president this amendment is submitted to align aacps school facilities design efforts with the recently identified best practices for school system entrance for your door security technologies as identified by our office of school security the aacps facilities division and the johns hopkins applied physics laboratory's comprehensive report on school technology has developed for the u s department of justice as you will recall in december 2019 our board voted to increase the physical security posture of school entrance foyers in new construction schools

075by including bullet resistant glass and construction plans after close consultation and collaboration with the anne arundel county police department and with due deference to their well-known tactical and operational procedures regarding school security it has determined been determined that the use of more appropriate code compliant and law enforcement community endorsed best practice door technologies for school entrance for your door security protection will achieve our goal of increasing the physical security posture of school entrance four years thank you see no more comments from members any comments from public seeing none miss hal please call rob miss albee miss ellis hi miss uh shawnheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilliland no mr live aye miss hummer aye and miss corkado aye motion passes seven one amendment as a matter of fact um i i think we're all clear

076because there was no it wasn't really discussion it was just supported but um we will re-read the amendment before we vote on it um from here on out in case there are any changes um amendment two provide a capital investment of forty thousand dollars to preserve the historic structure on the goshen farm property the impact it increases fiscal year 2021 capital budget recommendation by forty thousand dollars so moved we have a motion and a second uh looks like we do have a couple notes of discussion ms schollheim and then miss hummer michelle hunt thank you so for the benefit of not only my colleagues up here but the audience and those watching at home uh goshen farm is a property that's been owned by anne arundel county public schools for quite some time and i

077just want to tell you all a little bit about why i am proposing this amendment so the the use of the land can be traced back to 1663 and the farm house that resides that's on the property the structure on the property was built sometime in the late 1780s it was first listed on the tax records in 1798 over time that the farm was a working farm from the 1800s census we can see that nine slaves also lived on the property lore has it that those who own the property during the 1812 war could could watch those events going up the river the the property has exchanged hands you know multiple times over the years including a relative rumored to be related to alexander graham bell a dr morris leon radoff purchased it in and

078he was at that time the maryland state archivist they the the property has a variety of farms on it now and and has uh you know over years lots of different uses you know plants a victory garden during world war ii in 1967 the board of education anne arundel county board of ed approached him to buy 30 acres of his land for an elementary school he had the house put on the maryland register of historic properties in the sometime between the late 60s and the mid 70s initially that property was for a junior high school but as we all know now there are two middle schools reside on a property separate from that and that land has not yet been needed as a school because it sits on the edge of the peninsula it will

079likely not be needed for a school in the future and so the the rationale for this is to preserve a historic structure that structure is in desperate need of repair that structure is on the maryland register of historic places and it's a very important part of the history of the cape sinclair of the broadneck peninsula and anne arundel county and it's one of the few examples left of a colonial farm in the county and so every time it rains my heart breaks a little bit more because i've gone to the property with several of my colleagues and so i know what a state that house is in this would provide a one-time capital investment to stabilize that property and preserve it for educational purposes for our students for generations to come and i hope my

080colleagues will support this amendment thank you michelle thank you miss hummer yes goshen farm is is a wonderful treasure in anne arundel county and very grateful to the goshen farm preservation society that works that and it does give a benefit to our students however we have an existing contract with the goshen farm preservation society that charges them zero dollars in rent and in return the society shall fund plan design construct maintain restore and provide all services and materials as needed on the premises so if the society would like to renegotiate the terms of the existing contract they may formally request that of the board but until then we should not be considering considering violating the terms of an existing contract grants to non-profits are not the role of the board we another property that we

081own that has a similar lease is maryland hall which our students use all the time however we have never provided grants to maryland hall to improve that property they have gone to the state and to the county and gotten extensive work the society is actually appearing before the state the county delegation on friday to seek a grant for this very work and i hope they are successful that and encourage them to also seek a grant from the county to do that but providing such grants to non-profits is not the role of the board and we need to honor the existing contract that we have with this organization thank you miss hummer miss antwine and then um final comment with mrs schulhan thank you it's my understanding that that that current contract has not been up

082for any type of negotiation in nearly five to ten years and and there was nothing that i was able to find to say when it would be back before us to negotiate so us being proactive in supporting what has been described as a historical treasure would not would not be necessarily arbitrarily giving money against a contract but introducing money to preserve the treasure that's there i am specifically um in support of this particular amendment because of the black history that is there as well that it it is um it was recommended to us that much of what was there in that area was built by um slaves and has been preserved since so um i support i support that i also support figuring out how we can bring the contract back before us so that

083we can support them further thank you miss antoine mishalheim and then miss ellis i'll go after miss ellis thank you i did have an opportunity to visit this treasure that we have um i understand miss hummer's concerns but i'm concerned if our tenant is that what we call them that their organization that has that is currently using the land if they are unable to um to do what is needed to secure this the historic structure on that property i'm still concerned about that structure that's on aacps property and i tell you that that land is a tremendous learning environment for our students um i i do want to commend gaussian farm for the beautiful gardens i do know one of those gardens is specifically dedicated to the slaves who work the land there and that

084truly is an important piece of history there so i understand the concern with with providing funds to a non-profit and that that's not what we're here to do but i'm concerned about the historic structure that we could lose and then there's nothing to be done thank you miss ellis and lastly miss johan i just really want to encourage my colleagues to support this again that building was was built in the late 1780s and if that building falls to the ground which again is on the maryland uh register of historic places then it's just a pretty piece of land we need to do more to be proactive this is not the same as maryland hall this is a very unique situation involving a historic structure and i i just encourage my colleagues to support this place

085casey no more comments um any public comments to this seeing no motion in the audience miss hal please call miss alvey miss ellis we're going to hold on the roll call because we do want to try to read each amendment prior to roll call um so my apologies yeah that's my bust so there were no changes amendment to provide a capital investment was there someone who wanted to speak i did not see any met like oh okay oh there's a hand okay okay yeah i didn't think it was up beforehand yes sarah you may um speak on the amendment exclusively i want to thank you for even considering this amendment uh true we have a lease in place we would love to renegotiate it however the house is in such a state of disrepair and

086i look at it from a different perspective we have helped support educational programming for several thousand students over the last five six seven years we work with the environmental literacy program you all have seen our five years of annual reports to allow that house to become the centerpiece of the goshen farm educational center is a minor investment for us to continue to work without cost to the board of education to support educational programs in at least five schools thank you for your consideration would you ocean farm preservation society we have about 10 members here sir i've got a question yes sir what other fundraising attempts have been made we do five fundraisers a year um we do two open houses we do got a java and jazz coming up march 8th at the community center

087we have kayak raffle we have a harvest pasta dinner at gloria dei church on college parkway so we do five or six fundraisers a year and for those of you who work with non-profits you know the amount of work that takes and part of that that expense is getting set aside we've passed a bylaw that 15 of all of our proceeds are going to go into a house restoration fund however when you're you're only bringing in 30 35 000 a year it's going to take us forever to get the funds we need and and and dana shalheim is right the house is is in a is it a tipping point that if something isn't done we will lose an amazing historic resource but also an educational resource because we already are planning architectural art and

088other kinds of activities that can go in the renovated building thank you very much any other questions thank you very much sir okay um uh reread of the amendment prior to roll call please amendment two provide a capital investment of forty thousand dollars to preserve the historic structure on the goshen farm property impact increases fiscal year 2021 capital budget recommendation by forty thousand dollars how please call roll miss alby miss ellis aye mr granite miss schallheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilliland no mr leye miss hummer miss corkado nay uh three six motion fails miss ellis amendment three add an additional eight hundred thousand dollars in local county funding to the superintendent's recommended fiscal year 21 capital budget line item titled ps military installation grant to result in a four million eight hundred thousand dollar

089total request impact increases fiscal year twenty one capital budget recommendation by eight hundred thousand we have a motion and a second for amendment number three mr live this amendment is being submitted to comply with the recent federal grant funding match requirements as calculus is calculated and specified by the department of defense office of economic adjustment oea in support of advancing the proposed capital construction project at meade high school which is funded solely by federal dollars provided through the office of economic adjustment thank you thank you sir we do have one more question mr grant so mr live does that mean that this amendment does not pass that we will forego eight hundred thousand dollars of federal money is that the implication of what you're saying sorry if i might die so that is our our

090match we will forego in excess of 90 million dollars worth of federal money if we don't boost our local match by eight hundred thousand dollars oh i see so it you lose the entire thing if yes ah thank you that puts in perspective okay thank you uh seeing no more questions from the board any uh public comments seeing no emotion from the audience miss ellis please state prior to roll call what we are voting on add an additional 800 000 in local county funding to the superintendent's recommended fiscal year 21 capital budget line item titled ps military installation grant to result in a four million eight hundred thousand total request impact increases fiscal year twenty one capital budget recommended by eight hundred thousand dollars missile please call roll miss alby miss ellis aye mr grandin

091aye ms schollheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilliland mr live miss hammer miss corkado motion passes 9-0 okay we are going to uh do we have any other amendments to present by the board members i don't see any lights on seeing none we are now going to the board is now going to stand at ease while the final calculations can be created for the final vote counts [Music] my [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] aye mr gilliland aye mr lime miss hummer miss corcodell aye motion passes nine 9-0 okay great we are now moving on to the sick item 6.02 yes sir i'm just going back to something you know a little backtracking it's come to my attention that goshen farms the folks they've they're submitting a bond

092bill this year to the state to support their efforts to try and preserve our property uh and mr biandi is going to forward me a copy of their bill i'd like to make a motion to this board that uh we vote tonight to support their efforts and indicate to the state delegation that as the owners of the property we appreciate and support their efforts to maintain this tremendous educational asset in our county absolutely okay we have a motion and a second uh do we have any board comments seeing none on this motion and second any comments from the audience seeing no movement miss hal please call roll and if mr live you could please repeat uh your motion just for the benefit since we didn't have any comment on it i just thought we would

093remove the patients submit submit testimony in support of the goshen farm foundation's efforts to obtain state matching money for the improvement of the goshen farm property michelle please call row miss alvey aye ms ellis aye mr granin miss shawheim hi miss antwine aye mr gilliland aye mr leib aye ms hummer aye ms corcodell aye motion passes nine 9-0 thank you sir excellent suggestion okay item 6.02 the superintendent's recommended fiscal year 2021 operating budget and we're going to start off with dr alato i recommend board approval of the 1 billion 355 1 355 one thousand six hundred eighteen operating budget and any approved adjustments yes you did okay we um sir any comments that you would like to make leading into this yes thank you uh for the record alex shaknovich chief operating officer oh man

094stanske director of financial operations so as is usual and customary our norm at this time is to bring the board up to date and speed regarding developments that occurred since the submission of dr aladdi's budget as you as you know just by basis of time we really uh wrap up the work on dr alado's budget in late late november early december so that it can be introduced to the board dr lotto did that this year on december 18 2019 since that time two rather large developments have occurred one is the governor has remitted his budget recommendation to the general assembly so that's one uh stake in the ground and the second thing is that we've been able to firm up uh some developments with respect to the kerwin funding and the blueprint funding the culmination

095of those have generated some revisions to the revenue estimates so we'd like to begin tonight by bringing the board up to speed again with those revenue adjustments the pluses and minuses to close the gap in time between december 18 2019 and now february 19 2020. so in terms of uh federal funding on the federal front the initial recommendation from the superintendent and unrestricted funding had a 600 000 year-over-year increase that remains the same there was a change in the unrestricted funding from the state we while we did grow enrollment our wealth indices grew at a rate faster than was originally assumed in everybody's modeling as you know because of the inverse proportionality of state unrestricted funding to wealth that resulted in a reduction of funding from what we had originally assumed so from in the

096unrestricted operating budget category we will be receiving four million six hundred and forty seven thousand six hundred thirty one dollars less than we originally anticipated as has been our custom and norm when we have a reduction in the unrestricted portion of the state's budget that results in a dollar for dollar exact match increase to the request of the local county government so that the unrestricted budget delivered by the superintendent recommended by the superintendent can remain balanced and therefore the budget that's before you is depicting an increase request of the county government of four million six hundred forty seven thousand dollars six hundred thirty one again that's a match there's no change to either the local funding or the fund balance so the bottom line in the unrestricted category remains exactly as the board saw it

097with the adjustment to balancing act adjustment between state and county so on the unrestricted side the uh general fund request year-over-year increase the 77 million nine hundred ninety thousand two hundred and three dollars on the restricted side of the ledger there have been some changes as well from all sources on restricted grants we are actually going to experience at the stage a 501 843 000 dollar increase so that's going to be an increase of 5 and 1 500 1 843 000 uh dollars or 843 there's going to be no change to the restricted internal service fund for health care and there's going to be a modest decrease for the special revenue fund for food nutrition services of 151 770 dollars you take all of those adjustments into account in our base budget that's being recommended

098by the superintendent before any amendments are entertained is an increase of three hundred fifty thousand one hundred forty dollars over that what was originally recommended back in december and on a percentile basis uh the superintendent's recommendation uh back in december was a 6.67 percent increase uh the resulting adjustments have led us to a point where we're now at a six point six nine so six point six seven percent up to six point six nine percent year-over-year increase from all funding sources there have been no changes at all on the expense analysis side again absent any amendments so we will not go through that because that is exactly as was presented back in december and with that we're prepared to entertain any questions and or amendments okay see no questions on the general introduction thank you

099very much sir and thank you once again for following that i know those are those are moving targets some of our numbers and i'm sure they're going to change at least once or twice more before um they even hit to the council so uh with that being stated um i'm going to turn this over to miss ellis thank you so for the fiscal year 2021 operating budget we have received the budget committee has received a total of 26 proposed amendments and for any newcomers um we're doing pretty well compared to last year okay a third or less slightly under a third alrighty so let's get going amendment one decrease the proposed general fund supplies and materials budget by 2 million four hundred forty seven thousand eight hundred five dollars to forty four million four hundred

100seventy thousand two hundred twenty four dollars the impact it reduces the fiscal year twenty one operating budget recommendation by two million four hundred forty seven thousand eight hundred five dollars amendment two reduce the number of additional teachers for class size reduction contained in the superintendent's recommendation from 124 to 68 the impact it reduces fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by four million three hundred five thousand two hundred eighty dollars amendment three restore all years of experience that were docked from any employee upon hiring impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 2 800 7152 amendment 4 add an additional 1 percent cola for all aacps employees to the superintendent's proposed compensation package impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget by seven million two hundred twenty five thousand five hundred thirty seven dollars amendment five

101add 2.2 million to superintendent's recommendation to be used for teacher recruitment and retention retention funds would be used to introduce incentives for teachers beyond cola closing equity pay gaps recruitment funds would be used to recruit more classroom teachers which addresses capacity concerns due to aggressive student enrollment growth and overcrowding in our schools increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by two million two hundred thousand dollars amendment six add three additional commit community ambassadors impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 66 hundred sixty three dollars amendment seven an additional one million dollars to the superintendent's recommendation to meet ongoing special need special education needs including funding for the following specialized instruction instruction in physical education vocational education speech language services occupational therapy physical therapy assistive technology counseling increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation

102by 1 million dollars amendment 8 add 10 additional special education teachers to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 768 amendment 9 add 10 additional special education teaching assistance to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases fiscal year twenty one operating budget recommendation by four hundred thousand dollars amendment ten add five additional special education teachers five special education teacher assistants and one social worker for a self-contained diploma bound program at southern high to replace an existing non-public partnership program impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget buy four hundred four hundred nineteen thousand nine hundred fifty two dollars amendment eleven add nine additional special education teachers twelve special education teacher assistants and 11 permanent substitutes to support the developmental center programs ruth parker eason marley glenn and central special schools impact increases the

103budget by recommended budget by 1 million six hundred eleven thousand nine hundred twenty dollars amendment twelve add fifteen additional school counselors to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases recommended budget by one million five hundred forty eight thousand six hundred dollars amendment thirteen add six additional school counselors to the superintendent's recommendation including two that are designated to middle school impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 619 440. add four additional social workers to the superintendent's recommendation increases recommended budget by four hundred thirty four thousand three hundred twenty dollars amendment fifteen add three additional school psychologists to the superintendent's recommendation increases operating budget recommendation by three hundred fifty nine thousand three hundred forty dollars amendment sixteen add two additional assistant principles to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases recommendation by 266 thousand five hundred sixty dollars amendment

104seventeen add two additional bilingual facilitators to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases the recommended budget by one hundred thirty eight thousand five hundred sixty dollars amendment eighteen add two additional bilingual teaching assistance to the superintendent's recommendation increases recommended budget by eighty thousand dollars amendment nineteen add three additional middle school teachers for class size reduction to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases the recommend budget by two hundred thirty thousand six hundred forty dollars amendment twenty add ten additional permanent substitutes to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases recommendation by four hundred thousand dollars amendment 21 add one college and career counselor to each of the following schools glenn bernie mead and north county high schools increases operating budget recommendation by hundred 309 dollars amendment twenty two add one million dollars for the expansion of the global community citizenship curriculum models

105to the middle and elementary levels funding would be used for introduction of curriculum studies on modification of the global community citizenship course of learning at the middle school and elementary school levels materials and supplies student self exploration and collaborative discussions of events traditions cultures and circumstances that shape views behaviors and individual goals professional development value learning to streamline or eliminate episodes of bullying hate bias and discrimination fostering enhancing and maintaining trust relationships between students and staff that promotes considerations for safety diversity and inclusion in our schools impact increases operating budget recommendation by 1 million dollars amendment 23 initiate annual funding to gaussian farm for equipment equipment storage fuel and funding for equipment repairs to maintain the grounds leased by the goshen farm preservation society as well as access road needed to safely allow aecps students

106and faculty to attend educational support programs requested by the faculty increases the operating budget recommendation by twenty thousand dollars amendment twenty four add a one hundred fourteen thousand four hundred twenty six dollars to allow live streaming of all future board of education hearings and workshops increases budget recommendation by one hundred fourteen thousand four hundred twenty six and amendment 25 add 570 375 dollars to allow all high schools and middle schools to have an activity bus once per week impact increases fiscal year 21 recommendation by 570 375 dollars and finally amendment 26 double the number of stem seats available in clusters that have capacity for additional students without recourse to portable classrooms impact increases recommended budget by six hundred twenty seven thousand six hundred ninety dollars for those in the audience and watching at home the

107proposed operating budget amendments i just read can be found now online at www.aacp f y operating amendments and now we'll get back to beginning alrighty amendment one decrease the proposed general funds supplies and materials budget by two million four hundred forty seven thousand eight hundred five dollars to forty four million four hundred seventy thousand two hundred twenty four dollars impact reduces fiscal year 2021 operating budget recommendation by two million four hundred forty seven thousand eight hundred five dollars we have a motion and a second annie and miss ellis sorry i've been talking a while but i'm about to talk a bit more and if you forgive me i'm going to i have to take a moment to make a statement that's going to be very important to what i'm proposing i would like to start

108by commending the staff through throughout aecps for the hard work each of you do to enhance the lives of our students this goes to our teachers guidance counselors secretaries custodians substitutes and teaching assistants various support staff and certainly our administration i never question what is in the heart of any of our staff as i have seen on a regular basis how much our students mean to staff at every level of our school system i consider the budget to be one of the most important responsibilities of this board we have a responsibility to our students to seek funding for every student need we also have a responsibility to the students and taxpayers of anne arundel county to ensure that funds that we receive are spent responsibly and efficiently and that they are truly being used to

109the direct benefit of our students education should we ask for every dollar that we know is needed or do we prioritize the needs to ensure the greatest needs are met first we were presented an overview of county funds from staff from county executive stuart pittman's office just a few weeks ago it was made clear that this year is not last year and that we can expect cuts to be made from the requested budget and i want i want to follow that by by thanking everyone that was involved in last year's budget county executive pittman certainly our county council this board and ecps for working together for our students we also know that dr arlato carefully considered his request knowing there are limits to what the county will be able to provide for this board to

110significantly increase the superintendent's request would put us in a position of having the priorities determined by the county rather than this board i firmly believe that each of us was put here whether elected or appointed to make up the body that is to determine the priorities of this school system therefore i have carefully combed through the superintendent's recommended budget for fiscal year 21 as well as previous year's budgets and financial statements as well as state data to see if there are places we could slow down our spending in favor of our highest priorities this evening i will i'm presenting this amendment to decrease the budget request from the superintendent's recommendation i will present a clear explanation of the budget history that goes into this amendment let me be clear these are not cuts to spending

111they are reducing the increase it is my wish in the upcoming years to find places we can actually begin to cut spending but i do not want to cut into areas without a careful and clear purpose for the cuts again by cuts i don't mean we should spend less on education i mean we need to ensure that the dollars are going directly for the students where they are most needed this year we learned much about how to improve our transportation system that i believe will lead to savings with greatly enhanced efficiency we are in the process of going through an internal audit that or a performance audit that i hope will find other areas for improvement on top of that i believe that if we begin to shift from a somewhat rigid approach to management

112that includes excessive testing and reporting that is a burden on our students and teachers there will begin to be a shift from work that is taking place here on river road in favor of enhanced learning in the classroom according to the msde financial data anne arundel county is number seven out of 24 school districts in spending on administration despite being number 16 in per pupil spending in that same year this is not meant to be disparaging against our administration in any way this is simply a philosophical difference in educational practices that this board will need to begin exploring as we listen to teachers students and parents i look forward to further discussion as this could have a huge impact on staffing in our schools our retention efforts and of course student achievement that being said

113amendment number one miss howell sorry let's see this one okay thank you the most recent selected financial data on the msde website indicates that despite being number 16 on per-pupil spending in that report now i believe we're even lower on that list among the 24 maryland school districts anne arundel county is number one in spending on textbooks and instructional supplies the superintendent's recommended budget for fiscal year 21 requests an increase of four million nine hundred forty four thousand six hundred twenty three dollars which is 11.8 percent above last year's budget student enrollment rose two percent last year so i took those figures i took last year's budget i added two percent for student enrollment i added 2.3 percent for this consumer price ins index for non-food or energy items and then i added all supplies

114and materials listed in the program enhancement section of the superintendent's recommended budget and by doing that i came up with a figure of increasing the budget by two million four hundred forty seven thousand eight hundred five dollars instead of the eleven point eight percent of um which equates to four million nine hundred forty four thousand six hundred twenty three dollars this proposed amendment to me is an extremely conservative cut from the superintendent's request as it does not nothing to reduce spending on supplies and materials just seeks to slow down the increased spending in this category again anne arundel county is number one in maryland in spending in this category and i'm very very focused on some really important priorities that i know many of these board members have um teachers guidance counselors to name a

115few thank you miss ellis we do have one more than one ms hummer first and then miss antoine before i say something i do have a couple of questions for mr shaknovich how much of the proposed increase in this category for supplies and materials pertains to the opening of crofton high school around four hundred thousand dollars and how much of this proposed increase in supplies materials connects with the priority in the budget to expand the triple e program to the additional four clusters over five hundred thousand over five hundred thousand so that's a million dollars right there that would is an increase for different things that are opening next year i know in the past three years the over the past three years the school system has made a concentrated effort to reduce the number

116of fees and other out-of-pocket costs for our families so we've gradually been reducing lab fees or art fees for classrooms correct and we've enhanced that this covers more of those materials we've also been um those of us with elementary students and those of us with many elementary students one time know how long those supply lists used to be and i would be asked to bring in 25 boxes of of tissues and we realize that is really a burden for many of our families so part of this enhancement is to increase the those supplies so that students aren't having to parents aren't having to provide those but also teachers don't feel as more things are being hopefully being provided in the classroom so teachers don't feel that they also have to impact that so i have

117concerns about how this increase will impact students in the classroom anytime i see a reduction or an increase i want to know the impact and this is a big number but it doesn't tell me specifically what we will have to cut what we will not be able to do if we cut it by two and a half million dollars it doesn't take into account what potential financial impact this could have on parents and teachers when we decrease supply budgets teachers feel compelled to provide more classroom resources from their own pockets aacps has made a concerted effort over the past few years to decrease the supply list so that nobody is feeling they have to provide the necessities such as tissues and hand sanitizers we don't want to be one of those school systems you hear

118of in the news that are requesting students bring in reams of copy paper because there isn't enough money for supplies teachers have quite enough to worry about and a lack of tissues in january should not be one of them while studying expenditures and looking ways for save is always commendable large undefined cuts have the potential to negatively impact the students learning and adding financial stress to teachers and parents so i am all for fiscal responsibility and for us taking a deeper in-depth dive of this category and getting more detailed information from staff and seeing how we compare and what are the differences between us and other counties but there is not enough information here for me to support this without knowing what real impact this could have on our teachers our students and our parents

119and so i cannot support this amendment thank you very much miss hummer miss antoine michelle heim and then mr grant and ms antoine so i i have a question for you first mr shaknovic does supplies and material include instructional material like books you know textbooks workbooks manuals trade books reference material library books uh pretty much everything that's used in a school house that's either in print or in digital format as well okay and then miss ellis the supplies and materials reduction in the increase based on on what you just shared you considered there were considerations beyond what the basic needs of the school system would be so then that that reduction would be maybe from other department you recommended that come from other departments outside of basic supplies materials for education i i recommend that

120the needs in the classroom are met by increasing last year's budget in step with the enrollment growth and adding additional cost for the most recent cpi which was 2.3 percent and also adding in all of the program enhancements that i found in the back of the book that included crofton high school and triple e so again i'm not cutting any specific funds i'm trying to keep this on level because again we are anne arundel county number one in the state and spending in this category and so i trust our superintendent to determine i i we can't even say cuts not asking him to cut spending i'm just keeping spending in line with where we were last year in other words we're still going to be spending 44 million 300 five hundred 435 five dollars on

121supplies and materials which is significantly more than last year it's two million four hundred eighty two uh sorry no i'm sorry it's i i don't have the figure in front of me it's i'm decreasing the recommended increase i'm not cutting supplies thank you um are you good miss antoine did you have anything okay all right miss schoelheim then mr granny ms scholheim um i just want to thank miss ellis for this amendment um we have a responsibility to our students but we also have responsibility of the taxpayers of this county four of us were elected up here to represent um four of us were elected on a ballot that our voters voted on in in november of 2018 to represent various districts of this county and and um and uh and i definitely don't want

122to cut anything that's going to affect students but i definitely agree with slowing the growth of this category in accordance with our enrollment and program enhancements that are all listed in the back of the book which include crofton and tripoli thank you michelle hi mr grannon uh miscella is just in your defense at both figures actually the amount of your decrease and the amount that would still be increased are both 2.447 million so it's almost exactly half that's why it's a little bit hard to follow but so your your math is good um i have a question for mr shaknovich the superintendent's um requested increase in this category is a is about 4.9 million do you have an estimate of what it was last budget cycle what the request was from the superintendent in this

123category and what was actually obtained even directionally well so so here's um here's the the trend so the board the public the superintendent have directed us on a journey to eliminate fees not require charges for required courses increase materials of instruction so by way of example back in 2019 we purposefully eliminated fees associated with coursework in high schools so there was a purposeful bump up to that in addition to enrollment increase uh consumer cost increases and programmatic enhancements in 20 we eliminated supply fees for middle schools and then eliminated all fees from environmental ed programs at all grade levels in the 21 year we're increasing supply and material budgets for elementary schools purposely to reduce the size of the annual lists that our teachers are sending home with parents as well as we've heard from

124teachers in a bargaining unit representing the teachers that the hundred dollars per year figure that is provided to them as a reimbursement in terms of their out-of-pocket expenditures is insufficient and so i think strategically the trend has been to again put more materials of instruction in the schoolhouse put more at the discretion of the principal and the leadership committees and the curricular committees within each school to eliminate fees that are charged to parents directly over and above their tax dollars that they already pay directly and then also to supply enhanced transportation to programs and cut down the supply lists that are going home to teachers so it has been going up part of it for the very reasons so miss ellis has up there so that has occurred over the last three years purposefully but

125we have been on a very deliberate journey to eliminate um i won't call them nuisance fees but some others have used that phrase to me so eliminate fees supply and out-of-pocket costs or the the heavy burden of out-of-pocket costs in a part of our educators i don't have an exact number without going to get the last two years before you're very sharp so i'm going to assume that i was not articulate in the way that i asked that question because that's all very helpful one thing i'll note in response to what you said which again very helpful is that those feet cuts in high school and middle school already baked into this and would have been taken to account would be reflected in the the 4.3 percent increase that ms ellis has for student enrollment

126and cpi and then obviously the separate one for program enhancements what i'm asking is just directionally this is about a 4.9 million request in this category obviously usually most categories are not even close to satisfied by what comes back from the county account what i'm saying is directionally in the last budget cycle do you have a sense of how much the county council approved for an increase in this category even percentage-wise so again no no i don't they fully funded absent a very few so they the county council funded in excess of 96 something percent of the budget so they funded almost the entire request that pertains to supplies and materials there were no no cut substantive cuts that were made by the county council in this last cycle that would have affected this programmatic

127area at all okay thank you okay um ms did you have a final comment to make are you good uh yeah final comment um i just want to be clear that we have a whole lot of important priorities and i do consider this to be a modest reduction in the increase i don't want to call it a cut it's not a cut so i i just want to remind everyone we have some i read 26 amendments we have some really high priority items that i think are important to a lot of us and i think we should be determining what our priorities are by allowing some funds to focus in other areas like perhaps guidance counselors psychologists mr granny yeah just one less comment i'll say not only based on what i've seen tonight um

128but also what i've seen from ms ellis in the budget committee i actually think you know in four plus years that i've been here this is one of the more thoughtful detailed kind of drilled down amendments that i've seen come from board member with regard to a proposed line item in the superintendent's request i think it's reasonable to bake in a 2 student enrollment increase i think it's reasonable to bake in a 2.3 percent cpi increase and then to have on top of that a whole separate category of over six hundred thousand dollars for the program enhancements which is actually higher than the number than mr shaknovich said for uh for tripoli and uh for crofton so that captures both of them there um so i i intend to support this uh seeing no more

129comments from board members any comments from the public seeing no motion um miss ellis please reread the amendment prior to roll call got it it's good amendment one decrease the proposed general fund supplies and materials budget by two million four hundred forty seven thousand eight hundred five dollars to 44 million two hundred twenty 470 dollars the impact it reduces the fiscal year twenty one operating budget recommendation by two million four hundred forty seven thousand eight hundred five dollars miss hal please call roll miss alby miss ellis aye mr granin aye ms shaw himself aye ms antoine nay mr gilliland no mr lyde miss hummer and miss crocodile nay uh three in the affirmative and six in i'm sorry yes that's correct three in the affirmative and six and the negative motion fails here it is

130okay okay amendment two reduce the number of additional teachers for class size reduction contained in the superintendent's recommendation from 124 to 68. the impact it reduces the fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 4 million 305 280 dollars so moved we have a motion and a second for amendment number two comments um introduction miss ellis thank you so i'll take this moment to remind board members that since we have read into the record all of the proposed amendments for this evening unless anything new comes up there were only two amendments that recommended decreasing the superintendent's request yet there's 24 additional amendments requesting an increase in the superintendent's recommendation i also want to remind everyone that i made a very heartfelt statement about our priorities and class size reduction is a huge priority but i want

131to point out some numbers miss howell thank you oh is that the one i sent you no not that one sorry you remove that thanks alrighty so i'm gonna transparency [Laughter] would have been much better to have that so i'm just going to go with it i hope you guys can follow along with the numbers in fiscal year 19 the board approved 5 000 an increase of i'm sorry no the board approved 5717.1 ftes teachers um this was more than the actual from fiscal year 18. in fiscal year 20 the board approved 5 and it ended up uh teachers and it ended up being three 331.5 more than the actual teachers of teachers for the year of fiscal year 19. the fiscal year 21 superintendent's recommended budget recommends 6234 teachers that's 301 more than the

132previous year and that number is probably going to that difference is probably going to increase once we get the actuals for fiscal year 20. so we sat in some board meetings this year and heard a lot about our challenges with hiring teachers and i know going well into the first semester we still had a lot of openings i asked we had a presentation just a few weeks ago on recruitment efforts and i asked is there any reason to expect that the market is changing and that we're going to have an easier time hiring teachers this year than last year that there's a there's going to be a greater pull of well qualified teachers and the answer was no so um sorry i'm reading last year additional teachers requested by the superintendent in the program enhancement

133section of the budget book totaled 155 teachers so in other words additional teachers in the program enhancements superintendent requested 155 teachers last year and we struggled to hire that many well qualified teachers this year the superintendent recommends an additional 268 teachers in the program enhancement section 124 of which are for class size reduction we have an additional burden for hiring this year because if we do expand triple e assuming this budget passes and it's in there and 18 additional teachers for the new high school i believe we need to be realistic about how many positions we can fill with quality teachers this year class size reduction is an important let me say extremely important priority without a doubt but should we tie up funds for an overly ambitious goal of hiring even more additional teachers

134than we attempted to do last year under the current market for teachers the recommended budget before us requests 113 more additional teachers for program enhancements than last year i propose we split that number in half this would mean we would still budget for hiring 57 more additional teachers than was requested last year i believe this is a modest cut under the curt current circumstances leaving us ahead of last year and allowing us to focus on more achievable and equally important goals such as hiring more guidance counselors and student mental health support staff as well as addressing uh teacher retention because that's one thing we can control more than we can control the market of available teachers to hire is keeping our teachers so i would like to see a modest cut i believe to the

135number of teachers being requested which gives us a good chunk of money to work with on these other efforts so i hope and i see miss hal as i've been reading i see you found so hopefully everyone is now able to follow along with the numbers um to see where where i was coming from what numbers i was using and i hope to get everyone's support thank you miss ellis miss alvey and then miss antwine and then miss hummer missalvi so while i appreciate all the work that miss ellis put into crunching the numbers and explaining to us really her argument that she's provided i'm going to kind of do my job here as the student representative and speak to the importance of small class sizes i know that there's no way that i could

136be sitting here if it wasn't for the teachers who noticed me in a classroom and taught me that i had the potential to do the things that i'm doing here so the smaller the class size the less students there are in a class and the more attention each individual teacher can give to those students so when i walk into a class and have a bad day my teacher can now notice that i'm having a bad day and ask me if i'm doing okay so to me having more teachers to focus on class size reduction is the first step in making sure that we have mentally stable and sound students because the teachers are often the first to notice when a kid is not doing well um so for that reason i will be voting against

137this amendment but i think it's an important consideration consideration excuse me for my rest of the rest of the board members to consider thank you miss aldi miss antoine miss hummer and then miss shohei miss antoine thank you president corkdale vice president ellis i i wish we had talked a bit about this amendment prior to it being presented here because based on the rationale you shared i concur in part but it is still a a reduction and it still contributes to in my opinion to overcrowding in the classroom when we don't have enough teachers um i do understand introducing ambitious goals that we can't meet and paying for and having money there with no no um recruitment values to to prove that we're able to meet that um i just do not want to risk

138us i would you owe me about my southern cliches but it is better to have and i want than to want and not have and i truly believe we need these teachers in the classroom thank you miss antwine miss hummer miss schallheim and then mr granny miss hummer um miss alvey but everything i was going to say very very articulately and eloquently i just want to add in that my five years on the board the most common request i have heard aside from increased employee compensation is to reduce class sizes students want lower class sizes parents want lower class sizes teachers want lower class sizes and if we are prioritizing the relationship and the social emotional health of our students we have to continue to make this a priority and be aggressive in our attempts

139to hire the teachers in order to reach that goal thank you miss hummer michelle heim then mr grant and michelle hun okay um thank you i um i'm a parent too and and of course i believe in smaller class sizes i looked at this from a different perspective i pulled up kaffirs that's the comprehensive uh annual uh financial report these are actual numbers of uh they're audited after a um uh a particular um fiscal year and so it shows you know what the original request was in the 15 categories including instructional salaries and wages what the final amount was and then what we actually spent and what the delta was so i i looked at this to come up with my thoughts on this one um because it i think these numbers are important to

140note so in 2016 there was a i mean for lack of a better word a turnover rate of 2.3 percent in 2017 1.6 in 2018 1.1 and 20 19.7 and so there is a little bit of wiggle room because there's you know we can run all day long but are they here you know we're a net importer of teachers and we try very hard and i commend the efforts of the hr department in fact the entire staff to be frank but there's a little bit of room where there's there's some that we can't these numbers tell me that we can't necessarily fill all those spots in any given year and so then there's money on the table that we might have wanted to use elsewhere for you know student mental health and for any other

141number of topics that are going to come up tonight and so that's kind of what i based my opinion on of this amendment and i'll be supporting it just based on you know the actual numbers and the the facts of what we were what we've asked for and what we were able to achieve in previous years and you know these numbers aren't these numbers don't lie these are actual audited numbers from the previous fiscal year so that's what i base my um opinion of this uh of this amendment on so thank you thank you michelle hi mr granite and mr live mr madam i have a a couple of comments here so i'll try to keep them from meandering first i wanted to just at that highest level kind of uh of generality say that

142only two out of the 26 amendments tonight and i'm glad there's 26 and not 86 or so like last year only two out of the 26 proposed reductions so just for that i want to commend ms ellis for making some thoughtful suggestions to reduce the budget in certain categories i think that my ultimate goal and it's not going to be a surprise to anyone is to have this body be the body that passes the budget that's closest to the budget that's actually implemented not to send it out into the ether and kind of hope and pray that it comes back in in some form that we can live with so i want to say with the exception of last year my recollection for this category in particular of adding teachers for class size reduction is

143about in it you know it could be vary by you know uh 10 or 20 whatever but it's about on the order of what we see here of the 120 ftes and each time the board supported that or even added to it and said how necessary it was because class sizes are too big and i think some of them are i certainly agree with that i'm a parent of two children elementary school i have very serious personal and practical concerns about class size but then when the budget came back through the whole political cycle every single member of the board i think but me voted to pass the budget and and commended what a great budget it was and how we taken all these great strides that does not work for me and it should

144not work for this board it shouldn't work for you we are the ones that should be controlling this budget and that's why when this does come back from the county council if this doesn't pass tonight ms ellis we will have another opportunity to address that because we are going to be the final ones to touch this budget i want to say that but this is exactly the kind of thing that you all should not only hope for but expect from your board members to take a look at what the superintendent puts out and make tough choices not say okay well we're just going to me to it or add to it and then send it out and then have other folks like the county executive and the county council members make the tough choices we're

145the ones that are closest to the education system we're the ones that deal with us all the time we're the ones that say that we're the specialists in this area we should be making the final determination not other public officials and i do want to say that last year obviously was an outlier and that as i understand it it's been made abundantly clear unequivocally clear from the county executive and his staff that there's not going to be the level of uh increase that there was last year and that we need to take account of that so i want i want to commend ms ellis for taking into account those those real fiscal realities and trying to look for something that could possibly be adjusted and to say okay well we wanted to hire all these

146teachers last year but we actually had trouble filling those spots that's a very reasonable that's a very reasonable way to look at it so especially in the context of all 24 of these other amendments seeking increases i i i'm gonna as someone who wants smaller class sizes i want i want this to be abundantly clear in case i get criticized for this i want smaller class sizes but increasing by 68 helps us get smaller class sizes sending out a number that's much larger than that and then having the county executive or the county council make a determination of well where exactly do where should we get that that's not what i want i want this board to decide that and for all those reasons i am going to support this amendment so um i i

147will tell you um this one i i'm probably not going to decide my vote until it says my name on it and i've been struggling with it because if we do go back to last year i had proposed nine amendments of cuts two of them made it and the rest of them didn't have enough support and had to be withdrawn and none of them affected the classroom directly so i do laud the coming around of wanting to do cuts because i basically took that approach last year i had about six million dollars in and six million dollars out got too supported and the rest had to withdraw because there was no interest when we got down the road so i do applaud this and under any other circumstance i would be voting for both amen

148one in amendment two but i would have rather them be not directly affecting the classroom and having gone through the exercise last year i did recognize that yes we could make other adjustments in other places with other non-essential personnel that may make operations a little bit more struggled but i would rather struggle here in this building than struggling out into our schools directly and uh you were right there is a recognition this year in particular that you know our fire our police our schools are struggling to find positions but if we don't make the money available then we will never know if we're filling them or not i am very for spending what we know we should be spending this year that we know is accomplishable so there are going to be amendments coming through

149that i just don't think we're ready to to fund yet for that same reason but as as we're standing right now i my struggle with this is because of my personal commitment to the classroom the classroom resources and i just wish that we could have come up with these several million dollars looking at the non-classroom essentials so i'm not quite sure where i'm going to be at yet with it but i just wanted to make that statement out to the public that yes i am a balanced person but i also recognize the will of my board and chose to take a pass this year because i do believe that the council and the county executive will be shaving that down but i do think that those are their decisions to make in part as it

150relates to my classrooms so um i just wanted to uh make that little statement there but oh finally probably one of the most important things though is that i got to say i didn't do all of this homework i did a lot of homework on mine but these numbers and the historical gestures put in here i think is definitely worthy of continued conversations on this and i will say that whether or not i vote for this tonight come next year taking a look at those numbers in advance to see what adjustments we do need to make thereafter i will definitely be uh right alongside miss ellis on that to ensure that we are spending um prudently i'm i'm just not sure if i'm convinced that cutting this number in half that that's a huge number

151and we have amendments to actually increase this and i think one of them was mine so thank you very much miss ellis once again okay wearing now back to the regular hat i have mr leib and then miss ellis will conclude thank you madam president i'm going back to 1996 1995 in fact when i was hired by the board of education uh we've had class size reduction efforts year in and year out some years you make some progress other years you don't but it's something that has been a constant siren not only in the school system but i heard it when i was on the staff of the county executive for another nine years so this is an issue that's not going to go away it's an issue that affects us every year so i

152think you got to look at this line in particular from a much larger context there are years when you get next to nothing and there are other years when you get more than what you think you're going to get so you know putting that on context this is not something to trifle with or to start to cut in my opinion additionally i agree with miss corgadel that you know last year i also submitted quite a few numbers of amendments that reduced budget line items i did that in order to balance out things i may have wanted to do in the classroom they were not successful and cuts of this nature that have an effect on the classroom and whether we want to admit it or not this will have an effect in the classroom those

153are things that i cannot support thank you mr live miss ellis um did you want to round out thank you i i can't speak on this without reiterating again and again smaller class sizes are extremely important without a doubt i'm just going to address a few a few comments that were made um one is the wish that we could find the spending elsewhere or the the savings elsewhere i don't believe that will happen until this board shifts the educational philosophy like i mentioned earlier and that is something we absolutely need to explore so again looking forward our performance audit and we need to look at how much we should have going on here on river road and how much of that we should put in the hands of our principals and vice principals and teachers

154in the schools and then i think we'll go a long way with class size reduction it was mentioned should we pass the budget with all of the requested additional teachers and we can look at how that plays out and give it a look next year that's what i'm doing this year i looked at how it played out last year and i know that there are savings to be had here for these 24 other priorities several of which i think are really important but here's one i really want to point out again i want smaller class sizes this request for this year i believe is overly ambitious and my hr management background tells me that putting this money towards retention will go further to reduce class sizes if we use it to retain our current teachers

155because currently we bleed them out and and fill them in i just i really think again we have some really important priorities none of them is greater than class size reduction but we have to be realistic about what we are going to achieve with the budget that we pass and i have no doubt that we can hire 15 additional guidance counselors like that and boy do we really need them um as well as many of these other amendments um so i i will leave it at that i just i it's really important to me that no one paints the picture that i don't recognize the class size is important because it's extremely important thank you very much miss ellis i don't see any more comments from board members do we have any testimony from the

156audience yes sir mr silkworth please uh state your name officially my name is robert silkworth a 48-year veteran teacher i have to say um the testimony that i've heard that resonated with me so far about this subject was from our student member from my standpoint my philosophy is about caring for students it's about the building of relationships i go back to 1972 brooklyn park high school i taught classes with 43 45 students we have classes today i think that are as large the reason her testimony resonated with me because she talked about that relationship piece between her as a student and the teacher with all due respect i think we should keep the recommendation because the more teachers that we can get to be able to lower the class sizes so that teachers will have

157a better shot at building the relationship piece between themselves and their students the better chance we're going to be able to do so many things the better chance they're going to have for a great education they'll be able to achieve their potential and we'll be able to close some of the gaps that we have thank you mr silkworth and yes we do have another jenna dennis sullivan i'm from north county high school i i absolutely agree with you melissa i'll be the first one to tell you i think you have to do a a cost-benefit analysis of what's happening right now and what's going to happen right now is that you're going to have teachers leaving because they're not getting paid on the steps that they're they're going to be put on and because of

158that you can wish for as much as you want but the reality is those wishes are going to go away pretty soon because you're going to see other teachers leaving you're going to see people having another mass exodus out to howard county because you're not paying your teachers properly there are over 600 teachers that are not on the proper step right now that are five step five four to five steps behind and so with that in mind you have to make that decision you're gonna lose your veteran teachers not your first year teachers your veteran teachers think about that when you're making that decision and this is responsible this is this is a responsible way of doing it and if you want to get get the help and support for the uh the kids for

159uh with uh uh with counseling that is i'm always gonna be for that and uh you're you're you're uh you did resonate with me too i want small class sizes but i do not want to see any more veteran teachers leave thank you mr granted did you have a comment for the public for the public testimony to make actually in response to the public testimony in particular that of uh mr silkworth and his um references to what ms alby said mr shaknovich so if if the proposal is 124 and ms ellis is suggesting an amendment to 68 that's just over or so i would call it 51 52 of of what the superintendent has asked for with the exception of last year put last year aside can you give us a general sense directionally for

160the two or three cycles prior to that what percentage of additional teachers for class size reduction that the county council actually approved based on what the superintendent requested just just roughly directionally sure so we always break up our teacher requests into essentially two buckets there's one for the mathematical tread water number which is computed based on the year-over-year enrollment growth that has traditionally but not always but traditionally been funded the second component is then to make the inroads to the amount of classes that we have that are over our prescribed student teacher ratio that is that is almost a balancing number in many years on the part of the county when they do have to make reductions we computed the amount of teachers amount of classrooms that are over our guidelines in terms of two

161student-teacher ratio and we last year the superintendent and his testimony he reiterated it again wanted to basically get back to a a break-even point over a four-year time period and so we last year requested a quarter of that class size reduction number and we received we actually received 109 out of the 100 right number here we received 109 out of 124 that requested last year in prior and again that was an outsized year in other years it has been less so they've traditionally first tried to fill the teachers for enrollment number and then they look to this area as the next funding elements so we have been getting them into better years um there were unfortunately in the tougher economic years uh there were years actually when we got zero teachers at all and yet

162we grew you know 1200 students 1300 students but got zero teachers so we've sort of created this backlog that we've amassed through the the tighter years and now as things have recovered we're trying to dig our way back out of the hole and that's what this kind of represents okay but does it sound right to you that with the exception of last year so if you take into account the budgets i've been exposed to so if you take out last year i've been exposed to three before that and so in the two or three before last year again just directionally is it about accurate to say that the final budget came out at about half of what was requested in this category um under the shoe administration would have been half half or more but

163certainly not 90 plus percent okay thank you yes okay um we don't have any more questions or comments from the members ms ellis please read the amendment one more time prior to calling roll reduce the number of additional teachers for class size reduction contained in the superintendent's recommendation from 124 to 68. impact reduces fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 4 305 280. i'll please call roll miss alvey miss ellis i have to say it again i want smaller class sizes but i gotta be smart aye mr grandin yeah i also want smaller class sizes and i want the but i want the board of education to be the final arbiter of how many additional teachers we should have for class size so with an eye toward us doing that in a final meeting after

164the budget comes out of the county council i am for now going to vote in support of this amendment aye ms schulheim i also want smaller class sizes but i look at the history of the audited numbers and it tells me that there's room for this so i miss antwine nay mr gilliland no mr leib miss hummer hey miss crocodile okay motion fails three six we gotta go faster guys okay guys these were probably the mo the more complicated of of all so i think we should be uh able to get a good groove going on here with the these remainder ones um so we are on amendment number three let's go uh amendment three restore all years of experience that were docked from any employee upon hiring impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget

165recommendation by two million eight hundred seven thousand one hundred fifty two so we have a motion and a second and we do have one two comments three comments okay we're lighting up here michelle hi mr grannon and miss hummer miss scholheim thank you in years past newly hired unit one employees were docked between one and three experience steps this practice started in the in fiscal year 2010 as a way to create equity between employees whose steps were just frozen and new employees at the time two parties aacps and tac agreed to these terms for new hires over time the practice decreased and today we no longer dock any experience steps for new hires contracts are renegotiated every year i don't believe for a second that the terms of any contract can't be renegotiated including this

166now very inequitable situation what started as a move to create equity is no longer equitable frozen steps are being restored but we have yet to resolve this issue it is the board's responsibility to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars at the same time we are still bleeding out teachers to other jurisdictions we all know that retention costs less retention is less costly than recruitment and making these teachers whole by paying them in accordance with the years of experience should be part of our retention strategy no one signed away their ability to negotiate a better contract once economic conditions improved they've improved we're restoring steps and we should fix this issue once and for all nationwide it was once common practice to pay women 70 cents on the dollar to men that delta is much smaller

167today so we can't and definitely punish our now veteran teachers who joined us during lean times we've become a training ground for amazing teachers just to see them leave for better paying jobs nearby where compensation is aligned with their experience that is not a good use of taxpayer money according to the teacher recruitment and workforce diversity report we receive teachers with six to twenty years of experience represented thirty six percent of turnover last year another thirty five point six percent of our turnover were teachers with one to five years of experience teachers leave us for lots and lots of reasons but one of them is to teach elsewhere one reason why 74.2 percent of teachers of the teachers that left our county last year could be due to our previous practice of docking experience steps

168a practice that was in place until last year i urge my colleagues to do what is right and stop holding our veteran teachers pay hostage remember the reason this started was to create equity between new hires and existing employees whose steps at that time were frozen we are restoring frozen steps and we should pay all teachers and according to their years of experience thank you thank you mr alheim mr granite and miss hummer mr grannon i just wanted to say that was a very thoughtful um bit of context from miss scholheim which i appreciate um i do say with utmost respect on this item and several others here that there's already been a lot of ventilation of these issues and so that everyone in this room can see this process through at a reasonable pace

169and not go until thursday like we did last year i'm going to move to call the question ms hall please call roll on a calling of the question ms alby miss ellis i just i would like to move her along i got to say now i'm sorry can you repeat nay sorry mr granny all right michelle heim all right miss antwine aye mr gilliland all right mr lyden miss hummer and miss crocodile aye motion passes six three the point of one could we have a point of order may i ask a question mr miss corcoran yes miss homer um i called the question but you had already called my name to speak that i would be you had said michelle hi mr grant and miss hummer and the question was called before i was given

170an opportunity to speak i'm going to defer to mr grannon if um but technically now once the once the question is called this is the order that i'm receiving it in out of courtesy to members as well as our production guys but typically if the question is called if we had six lights still lit um and i called out their order i do not believe we could go back and it was uh calling the question however what was the final vote i think we have to have a super majority for that in which case i believe the motion failed mr burns what was the vote six three six to three is the vote yeah um we got the super majority sixth in the affirmative three in the negative and now it so that does qualify

171okay i'm just verifying there unfortunately ms hummer i'm gonna have to decline because i i want to do this evenly equally for everyone so but i do take your point um and uh wanted to clarify that um okay let's call roll on the vote please pull the comment uh uh yes please reread public comment uh no when a calling of the question occurs no public comment is permitted yeah that's that's why it's a super majority because it shuts everybody down um always thank you miss ellis amendment three restore all years of experience that were docked from any employee upon hiring impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by two million eight hundred seven thousand one hundred fifty two miss alby [Music] miss ellis aye mr granin yeah before i vote i just wanna make

172it abundantly clear to every all my colleagues and to the public that i'm not trying to shut anyone down this is i think in fairness we can say this is a very well trot issue it's been discussed people understand it i'm trying to make it actually the whole process be transparent so that everybody can see this group to conclusion and to the extent that people don't have their minds made up on these issues i think that will come out in the votes here i don't think we would have gotten six votes to shut down and call the question if there were still people who were largely undecided or had a lot of factual questions or needed a lot of additional testimony and i'm going to vote may miss schallheim aye ms antoine aye mr gilliland

173no mr leib miss hummer miss curcado nay motion fails 3-6 amendment number four miss ellis amendment 4 an additional 1 cola for all aacps employees to the superintendent's proposed compensation package impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by seven million two hundred twenty five thousand five hundred thirty seven dollars so move okay we have a motion and a second for amendment number four and we do have miss hummer i believe this is here your origin the superintendent's proposed budget includes one step for all eligible employees a backstep for all eligible employees from fiscal year 2012 and a two percent cola it's important for the public and employees to understand that any compensation request in the budget is a placeholder it is detailed out in specifics in order to provide an exact dollar amount but

174it is a pool of money that the bargaining units can propose and negotiate to be allocated in whatever way their members feel is best in the past some bargaining units have negotiated all compensation in the form of a step while others chose to use their part of the pool to provide all of its members with a cola that is the benefit of collective bargaining the priorities of individual employee groups can be addressed i'm proposing to add a one percent cola to the compensation pool this amount added to the superintendent's proposal provides a pool of money that will be large enough or very nearly large enough to meet the priorities that we have heard the various bargaining unions advocate for publicly if this amendment along with the superintendent's proposal are fully funded each unit will be

175able to come to negotiations and either agree to using the compensation exactly as delineated here or they can propose other disbursements that reflect the wishes of their members but with an additional one percent cola the pool will be increased enough to allow for many if not all of the requests we hear from our employees to be fulfilled i urge my fellow board members to support this amendment thank you miss hummer we have miss ellis mr grannon and miss shaw hi miss ellis thank you um i'm i'm just wondering is there any reason not to put the wording on this amendment to be the equivalent of a one percent cola so that it doesn't imply that the board's will is for it to be used as a one percent cola i i understand and we all

176understand but for it to be reflected on the record that this is what the board is voting for it's i i don't know that necessarily there's a difference it's still part of the pool that can be negotiated anyone it is a one percent it's calculated to be a one percent cola for across all the all the employees to have there and it but it does not just like anything the superintendent has proposed it does not have to be used that way that will be totally in negotiations right like i said we understand how that works but if the wording of the amendment that then goes on record if it said the equivalent of a one percent cola then that that implies to everyone that it's not the will of the board that it be used

177as a cost a cola means cost of living right mr shaknovich does does it does it impact it if we say the equivalent of a one percent cola it it doesn't and i don't want to sound trite but in the end it's all subject to negotiation so whether you add that word or don't add the word uh we'll we'll see if it's trying to say an equivalent it would be going to accept the friends oh yeah that's fine as long as it's not making a difference and what's what's being offered correct okay yeah okay so it it it do we have consensus on this yes okay we have consensus on the friendly amendment to edit um with equivalency mr grantham uh yes madam president i moved that uh we go directly to any public testimony

178on this matter do we have a second yeah okay um miss hal call roll on move to public comment do we don't have to vote for republicans no no no we're just going to just go do it all right my name is dennis because the audio doesn't pick up that it's still you again thank you my name is dennis sullivan from north county high school i'm 1 000 behind this i just give you a little history of what uh we've been coming here for probably five years uh advocating for this um this would be a big way to uh to really solve this this problem um and i know you guys all know the problem i've probably talked to every single one of you either personally or sent you an email and i really do

179think that this does go a long way um and what i really uh the only question i always had is whether or not parents wanted to uh have this too and so last week i i went and put out a petition with a couple of my friends and they basically came back with 800 signatures that also agree with this amendment to fix this this only took about 25 days to get 800 people i want to uh submit this to you guys if you don't mind um so you guys can read it over i it spans across the entire county uh it was done by a group called paige the parents addressing the achievement gap that uh really want and they believe that teachers are going to be important to this uh this community um i

180really really appreciate all your hard work i know you guys don't get paid enough to deal with all these problems and i can definitely definitely totally get it because i feel like i'm not getting paid enough right now either so uh thank you very much um i please please vote for this um it will help save teachers from leaving it will help it will help the community it will help your schools thank you thank you sir good evening russell leone president of teachers association and elementary school teacher um what dennis is saying is 100 correct um this will go a long way to fixing those gaps that we have and that have been existing for many years that we've been trying to get out of and the the simple fact that this also is for

181all employees is huge because we stand with our our fellow unions in sayak and ael and nafsny because this is what's right we need to make sure that our people are taken care of so that we are not losing them to other counties and this will go along to way to make that happen thank you thank you sir hi uh aaron lorenz teacher at annapolis high school board of ed candidate in district six i just want to echo what my colleagues have said this will go a long way towards retention and that will contribute then later on to when we can get to lowering class sizes we want the best people in there but as someone who did have several years docked from experience when i came in this means a lot and i know

182it means even more to people whose steps were frozen before i got here and as we've been struggling to try to make up this gap this is this would be a huge step so i urge you all to support it thank you thank you ma'am mr silkworth uh robert self-worth north county and i'm also a board of ed candidate in the election for district two i didn't mention that earlier i have to tell you folks this is absolutely marvelous over the course of my career in orlando county public schools has treated me extremely well when it comes to salary i have never lost anything there may have been a year or two when in fact no one cut anything but there are so many of our teachers that are so dedicated like mr sullivan here

183who absolutely have been hurt so much financially by whatever has transpired this is a huge step in doing what our county executive said that he wants to do to help make our young teachers whole so ladies and gentlemen i urge you please vote for this amendment thank you sir ma'am hello my name is lisa bates and um i'm the chesapeake bay middle school and essay executive board hello dr valado ncx stands with everybody else for this amendment thank you ma'am okay um public testimony aside uh can we please get a restatement particularly because we did do a tech minor technical edit to it miss ellis please um and someone help me maybe word smith if we need to but an in addition [Music] add the equivalent of a one of an additional one percent cola

184for all aacps employees to the superintendent's proposed compensation package the impact it increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 7 thirty 225 dollars miss hell please call roll miss alvey miss ellis mr grannon oh i'm sorry miss schollheim aye ms uh miss antwine i mr gilliland aye mr leib miss hummer mr granny nick miss corker aye motion passes eight 8-1 amendment 5 [Music] add 2.2 million to the superintendent's recommendation to be used for teacher recruitment and retention retention funds would be used to introduce incentives for teachers beyond cola closing equity pay gaps recruit recruitment funds would be used to recruit more classroom teachers which addresses capacity concerns due to aggressive student and enrollment growth and overcrowding in our schools the impacted increases of fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 2 million two hundred

185thousand dollars we have a motion and a second on amendment number five i'm not seeing any comments um so let's uh roll with the uh public testimony oh i'm very sorry oh okay [Laughter] i'm caught up so i i would respectfully uh request that we come back to this specific amendment considering that uh minutemen for passed that change changes his number greatly uh uh okay um we can uh [Music] so we can table the amendment and it did you want us to stand at ease for a minute um for yourself or well i i think i can multitask and and if if mr novice and and and his team can um identify what that cost would be i'm going to send a text over to to um you don't and if you can get it

186out to them and they can get the info back to me please so that i can update the proposal okay so why does this number change because of four i don't i don't understand that uh so well it it regardless mr shaknovich just said it doesn't okay well i re if the member wants to adjust their amendment i'm happy to hold it um he's the one that's going to do the adjustment he just said it's not going to change so so as i'll i'll share publicly the the intention of this motion was to address the um retention and recruitment in our school system so my plan is to readjust the 2.2 mil since we have approved 7.2 million dollars in consideration of the overarching budget although the 2.2 mill is well under 1 percent of

187dr lotto's recommendation i still want to adjust the numbers and then revise okay so um we have a request to hold the amendment let's go on to amendment number six and and miss um antoine we'll get to that that will become that we'll take that on after amendment number 26 which i believe is the last declared one so i'll let you get started working with those folks and let's move on to amendment number six amendment six add three additional community ambassadors impact increases fiscal year twenty one operating budget recommendation by sixty six thousand eight hundred sixty three dollars okay we have a motion in a second i do not see any lights lit so um public comment seeing no movement um miss howell please call roll miss albee miss ellis aye mr grannon nay miss

188shawlheim miss antwine aye mr gilliland no mr live miss hummer aye and miss corcodell aye motion passes seven two okay amendment number seven miss ellis add an additional one million dollars to the superintendent's recommendation to meet ongoing special education needs including funding for the following specialized instruction instruction and physical education vocational education speech language services occupational therapy physical therapy assistive technology counseling impact it increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 1 million dollars second we have a motion and a second and we do have comment miss antwine so bear with me i'm trying to send you a text and and do this at the same time but let me address this quickly so that we can move forward um miss antoine um if you could get your mic a little closer um if there

189haven't been i'm very sorry about milwaukee all means all sound stewardship ready set launch that is the strategy that was adopted by the board for our entire school system over the past year and some a few months i have been able to not only assess our funding responsibilities but also the needs of our school system one area that came up consistently was the area of special education therefore i am respectfully recommending an additional one one million dollars to the superintendent's recommendation to meet ongoing special education needs to fund special and specialized instruction instruction in physical education vocational education speech language services occupational therapy physical therapy assisted assistive technology and special education counseling anne arundel county public schools consistently develops based on the needs of our students in special education we are also though in need

190of not only meeting the demands of those the the stu those students needs but we're also in need to sustain them and to be ahead of advancements in order that we meet future needs as well this amendment provides for additional sustainment and and those anticipated future needs this includes staffing needs especially for specialized counseling occupational therapy and dedicated one-on-one assistance additional funding supports advancements for physical therapy and education it will also support the acquisition of assistive technologies for sophisticated rehabilitation and adaptive aid for our students convenience in daily living and lifestyles all of this supports construction constructive educational growth and independence for our students with disabilities needing special education finally these funds can be used for additional family support direct engagement and outreach thank you miss antwine um dr alato um yes ma'am uh thank

191you mad president miss antoine could you so that we can make sure we get the budget numbers correctly um the amendment does not include any staffing specifically in these areas you just mentioned that in your comments could you share with us because that's in a as you know we have to ask for staffing different than we ask for monies right we have to keep those separate so can you tell us where you see the staffing in these areas so i i understood um in my research and requests from you and your staff that one of the underlying needs for the school system was manpower and i i believe if we have the money there in overarching special education we can contribute to that manpower if to include those staffing needs so are you recommending now

192that that be a separate amendment yes ma'am we have to ask for ftes we have to ask for the staffing separately than money we just can't have a we can't get the county council to approve a bucket of money to be spent in various ways and take money from that to buy staffing we have to get the staffing approved in advance in particular areas okay so then i i would then amend that to exclude the staffing needs because you have already identified your your specific staffing needs for that okay question answered miss ellis thank you so i i was about to make it the recommendation there are some staffing amendments um that could support what what you're looking to do with this amendment i i would guess um i'm trying to understand i i i

193know you read you know an explanation but i'm still a little uncertain as to where this money will go if it's not for staff so i i did hear something about technology um but what are we buying with the one million dollars to help our special needs special education so so excluding the staffing needs there are still needs for specialized instruction that doesn't necessarily mean a staff person but the the updated the updates that are needed in specialized instruction that go towards special education instruction and physical education vocational education speech language services when we especially when we choose to outsource that support it will go towards occupational therapy physical therapy the assistive technology and the advancements that are available to us for that and if if we are to exclude staffing because we're requesting counselors

194i will remove counseling from that request okay so um you said specialized instruction you're not talking about the actual staff you're talking about the training of not only the training but it was my understanding especially after visiting many of our schools it is there in our special education i guess box of need in terms of instruction many of our our teachers our staff and otherwise come out of pocket in order to meet the needs to successfully support the educational needs of these students so when we talk about the instructional needs we talk about trying to augment through our sources the support to those that are already sacrificing out-of-pocket okay and i think this might be a question for dr elato but some of these other things like occupational therapy physical therapy how would the money

195be spent for something like that it's not so it's not we'd it's not to hire the staff for those things um are you able to so i'm um sort of hearing this for the first time so i'm going to think on the fly and i would say that if the monies were there in whatever way shape or form in areas of speech language services occupational therapy and physical therapy while we while we have some of those folks on staff we also have contracts with outside vendors so that could be contractual money to increase services in those areas as needed and then um again thinking out loud that would then reduce the need for those that are in-house that are part of our staff and be freed up to do some other things and and do

196more work with students does that make sense well can i ask would it be more beneficial if it were a an fte i'm trying to like in in your eyes for aecps would it be better if it was an occupational therapist or is it better for it to be funds to contract for those services that's uh that's a good question i um one i don't i want to tread lightly because this is miss antwines and i don't know from exactly where she's coming on this so i don't i want to tread lightly but we certainly could take any monies that were available and use those in contracted services in these areas because these are certainly areas of need that our students with ieps will always need and so it certainly could lighten the load of

197by with contractors um in these areas could lighten the load of our of our staff okay and miss antwine i am i'm not trying to change or i'm trying to understand for myself so i can get there you know um how the money will be spent so that's why i asked about the so ftes i i sincerely understand it was my understanding when i discussed this um over several months of of investigative reporting i guess you you can say trying to make an informed amendment i gathered uh information from the superintendent from mr shaknovitz and his team as well as going directly to some of these schools to see those needs if if worst case scenario we don't we are unable to get those ftes we will still have funds to augment the support that

198we need and this allows that thank you very much okay seeing no more members do we have any public testimony we do have one public testimony miss oaks india oaks hillsmeer elementary school and board of education candidate for district six i will make this super short and this applies to every amendment connected to special education i have looked at these budgets for years now and year in and year out the superintendent has asked for more teachers and support for special education because our school system has been on the verge if not in actual non-compliance of federal regulations related to special education and quite frankly i do not want to keep seeing minimal increases each year just to avoid non-compliance our students in special education deserve the high quality and challenging education that other students get

199and that will not happen if all we are doing is treading water with how we address their needs thank you miss oaks seeing no one else in the uh in the room miss ellis please restate the amendment prior to vote amendment 7 add an additional 1 million to the superintendent's recommendation to meet ongoing special education needs including funding for the following specialized instruction instruction and physical education vocational education speech language services occupational therapy physical therapy assistive technology counseling impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by one million dollars i think wasn't the counseling part excised so so i i did amend it to take the counseling off because their request for counselors okay um okay so are we all under the understanding that it is as was recently just read minus counseling yes yes

200excellent okay minus removal of one of one bullet point miss hell please call roll miss alvey miss ellis i mr grandin nay miss scholheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilliland mr leib miss hummer miss crocodile nay motion fails three six amendment number eight miss ellis amendment eight add ten additional special education teachers to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases fiscal year one operating budget recommendation by seven hundred sixty eight thousand eight hundred so moves second we have a motion and a second seeing no comment from the board members public testimony seeing no motion in the audience miss hal please call roll oh well because we only read it once without comment i think we're good on that miss ellis mr grannon nate miss schollheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilliland mr leib no miss hummer no

201miss corcodell nay motion fails three six limit number nine miss ellis add ten additional special education teaching assistance to the superintendent's recommendation so moves second we have a motion in a second my apologies impact increases operating budget by four hundred thousand second okay seeing no comments from members any comments from the audience seeing no movement there miss hell please call roll miss albee miss ellis mr grannon nate miss scholheim aye ms antwine i mr gilliland mr leib no miss hummer miss corcodell nay motion fails three six amendment number ten miss ellis add five additional special education teachers five special education teacher assistants and one social worker for a self-contained diploma bound program at southern high to replace an existing non-public partnership program impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 419 952. okay motion

202and second i am going to speak as a member on this this is for uh as many board members have heard for the kennedy krieger's closing at southern high school this will create an environment for which we can continue the work that we are already doing with those students in-house recognizing that not all of them would be able to matriculate into alternative programs and um so that is uh that was the request being made for this one um i have miss hummer and mr grannon miss hummer yes i just want to say that i am thrilled to see this in here the kennedy krieger program that we've had at southern high serves a a a special niche for some of our students and i know everyone was disappointed when kenny grieger decided to end their

203programs in their public schools not just in anne arundel county but in other places and so that we will continue this and give this opportunity especially where in the southern part of our county first so that some of our students down there wouldn't have to travel farther to get the services they need and we could continue this so i wholeheartedly support um us taking over and keeping this program intact thank you miss hummer mr grannon miss antwine and miss shaw hi mr grandma so this is just a point of uh information i guess i'm seeking the information from from you president corcodell as the movement but i'll also take any information from uh anybody else in terms of what are the special needs of these students and then also the second part of the question

204is is this basically a head for head replacement of the people that were had been providing the support before so although i kind of know the plain english answers to that i'm going to defer to staff so we can get specificity um in in better interaction dr alado or alex sure we'll start so we've as uh as was alluded to we've had a long-standing program with a non-public provider uh that non-public provider uh depending on the year and year out and i was educating somewhere between 16 to 24 students depends on how many students are eligible these are special education iep students but uh one of the unique variables are they are diploma bound so they are diploma-bound iep special education students and they're also provided with field experiences job shadowing internships etc to augment

205their instruction they do take core classes because again they're matriculating towards a diploma and then they are integrated with the rest of the building for as many specials as absolutely possible thank you michelle batten these students are diploma bound they are in a self-contained classroom and we do look for opportunities when we can include them in the comprehensive classroom dependent on their individual education plan so what what would happen to them if this amendment did not pass we would most likely um that would be per their iep would most likely be putting them in a non-public placement and and so we've cost model that our per student tuition essentially in non-public placements that are off-premises which would be the the likely outcome here is much more per student one of the reasons that the program

206at kennedy krieger was successful and in our building was that we were essentially getting rent abatement so we were not being charged a facility fee and also our transportation costs were not as great as we're transporting them uh the youngsters from the southern region to southern high school as opposed to transporting them up to baltimore or the other kennedy krieger facility so there's a pretty good offset you'll see that again mr uh granted there's 11 positions here but 419 thousand dollars because we're crediting the offsets in not paying the non-public tuition not uh not the extended transportation costs etc so we're netting the program down from the existing to the proposed so in fairness to president corkeyville then although this is for purposes of this budget styled as an amendment to increase when you actually

207look at it it's actually a cost savings compared to what we would be exposed to because all of these students obviously will have to be educated by law we'd have to be sending them out to something that would cost more so this is styled as an increase but it's actually a decrease that's absolutely correct great thank you you're welcome mr granite miss antoine and michelle hunt so um so the the program that kennedy krieger offered was only at southern high it wasn't at any of our other schools in the area frey it was it was unique because we had an opportunity at southern where we had space and capacity uh we also had a student population that could avail themselves of their and we had a very good partner that was willing to work with

208us at that location they simply made the business decision that they are no longer going to be doing these extension service programs they're going to sort of retrench back into their core facilities which are up in the baltimore region and and students that meet this this type of need from anywhere in our system will be able to take advantage of this program is just located at southern heights yes absolutely thank you okay michelle i just wanted to say that i'll definitely be supporting this amendment i was sad to hear that the kennedy krieger program um was no longer going to exist at southern high school and and how heartbreaking that must be for the parents and especially the students and so you know in the absence of that continuing i see this as a wonderful

209opportunity to continue to do the very best we can for their students so i will be voting yes on this thank you michonne miss alvi um just for clarification uh the same implications will be applied to this the next amendment correct no no they're coming they are for separate intents um never mind but coming in last okay miss ellis uh just quick question since this was operated by another entity is there is there a training mechanism is there going to be i mean how are we going to implement this yes our special education team is prepared to provide that training okay thanks thank you seeing no more comments from members do we have we do have motion in the audience thank you i'm joanna tobin a parent at annapolis high and also a candidate for

210board of education district six uh i would like to urge the board to pass this amendment i happen to come from a family that has dealt with this particular niche of special ed it's very complex these are very bright students with very complex learning disabilities and that is a hard area to find services for to my knowledge this really was the only place in our school system that provided this kind of education possibility for students i should say my own brother dealt with this he is now a 20-plus year fabulous middle school english teacher in chesterfield county virginia but my parents literally gave up their retirement to send him to the lab school for two years in d.c so you need to understand how important this is and these kids have often been traumatized because

211they're hard to diagnose they don't fit the usual categories and most of them have been bounced around a lot and they are super smart and that makes it harder so i just want to thank you for bringing this amendment i express gratitude to you for recognizing how difficult this is for the families who have been part of this program and to urge you to support it so thank you very much thank you ma'am okay um if we could reread the amendment since we had some discussion uh prior to vote and five additional special education teachers five special education teacher assistants and one social worker for a self-contained diploma bound program at southern high to replace an existing non-public partnership program impact increases operating budget recommendation by 419 952 miss out miss alby miss ellis mr

212granin all right miss shawlheim aye miss antwine aye mr gilliland aye mr leib miss hummer miss quirketa aye motion passes 9-0 amendment number 11 miss ellis and nine additional special education teachers 12 special education teacher assistants and 11 permanent substitutes to support the developmental center programs ruth parker eason marley glenn and central special schools increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by 1 611 920. okay miss hummer yes um i'm thrilled to see this increase for our special centers especially the permanent substitutes back in my early days of when i got into teaching i originally started as a substitute and i would substitute at some of the special centers and they would call me every day because many substitutes will not substitute at special centers because they don't feel qualified or overwhelmed by the needs

213of many of the students so they were always that's going back 30 years working very hard to try to find substitutes for their teachers so to have permanent substitutes there that can help assist the staff is just crucial so i'm going to very gladly support this amendment okay sean obviously i support increasing um special education teachers because while amendments eight and nine failed i voted for both that would have been ten special education teachers ten special education assistants and so i'm just asking for some clarification especially in light of last year shouldn't we leave the the placement of special education teachers teaching assistants and permanent subs uh isn't that under the superintendent's purview to decide where those those that staff goes i remember distinctly last year several amendments that were sort of rather prescriptive x

214number of whatever to to fill a specific pot and in almost every case last year we decided that that that that is really up to dr alato to decide so i'm just i'm just a little confused so this was an amendment um that was working in conjunction with the superintendent and alex um in to identify the needs these are the needs of the programs these are where programs are housed and so in this particular case this is based on discussions to advance some of the needs and the wishes of the superintendent and his staff so i will defer any details of that over but that is why they were included right so so we just had his recommended budget come to us in december so why weren't they included in the recommended budget we just

215got two months ago just just i would like to finish because i i put the amendment in um but um and most certainly i would like dr lauder to comment in but i'll just point out just like we had additional teachers in on the kennedy krieger there have been additional needs that have been identified as being beneficial to add into the budget and so um i've the i've been working with the staff on that and hence we have our amendment that came in that's as simple as that so in the um i think it's a great question michelle heim and for clarification in the budget that is before you there is a line for specialty special education staffing in specialty sites so some of the staffing that we believe we need is included in that

216and that's what i released in december those were our best numbers at the time we've continued to study the staffing in special education across the system not only at the specialty sites but at our individual satellite locations as well and as we are studying that you even heard in some of the public testimony the need of for staffing from staff at some of the specialty sites they stood before you at the microphone and shared some of that in the public testimony as you all were considering the budget so we just don't put the budget out and then stop thinking about it we're continuing to think about and growing so we've gotten to the point that since we're at this point in time we thought we could add an amendment i met with uh um with

217the board president and with her agreement she agreed to put it in that these are areas and i do appreciate your comment that all right staffing should be the responsibility of the of the superintendent the superintendent staff so i very much appreciate that comment you saying that publicly um i could tell you the this is where a certain need is and this is where this specific staffing would go this is incredibly helpful and i'm i'm grateful for your clarification on that because i i think that it's obvious i support this i voted for all the other amendments related to special education i will be supporting this one too i just needed to hear the clarification from you dr aletta thank you okay miss antoine and mr granny miss antoine so i when i first got

218this amendment of course i gave it a complete thumbs up because as i shared earlier i have been at least a central special and seen the aggressive need that is there plus our public testimony that has come back to us parents that talk to us the students that that i am witnessing need additional support my concern at this point though is because the other amendments in special education have not passed that what do we do about the other schools that have those same needs if this should pass and and we get funding for that how what is the plan then to support those needs with these additional teachers if they're only going to going to be at um the um specialized program schools so i think i can help with that miss antwine so in

219the superintendent's budget it was put forth on the 18th of december there were 32.8 special educators that were assigned to our birth to 21 program staffing needs so those are special educators out in most of our comprehensive schools in addition to that there was a request for an additional 19.5 positions that are at our specialty sites which are our regional programs some of which are these three but some of them could be like at glendale elementary school or at chesapeake bay middle or high school so we have other regionalized places so this this is in addition to the 32.8 special educators for our birth 21 program and in addition to the 19.4 special educators already assigned to our original programs if that helps yes ma'am okay um mr grandma but uh mr shaknovich unlike the

220last amendment i guess i have a two-part question this is this is not the amendment that's proposed in amendment 11 is not to address a program that is going away nor is it a only a kind of purported increase that's going to save us money someplace else this is just a re this is just an increase so it's not a cost savings and ultimate cost savings associated with this number so in general your answer is yes however these students once again are students that if we cannot service appropriately under our roof our candidates for non-public but this here is not specifically designed to create that type of exchange it can prevent additional students from going to non-publics but by funding this i am not proffering to you that i am explicitly going to be able

221to cut my existing non-profit i mean non-public uh expenditures right and i think it'd be fair to say that with your level of expertise if you're not able to quantify it then that's not it's not a direct implication of this correct that's what i said at the margins it's a possibility but your direct answer is no it's not specifically designed to be a targeted offset which differs than the one we discussed earlier got it yes sir michelle heim you had additional comments okay um but could it be like i know that we there's several groups of students that we we have identified that we can't serve as well as we would like could this money although going to our special centers could it be targeted to whittling down the non-public placement costs again it could

222at the margins yes it could either prevent potentially a youngster that we're currently servicing in-house from from transitioning to a non-public or at the margin there may be some additional non-public students that could come back capacity is an issue at the at the three regional centers if if you've been through uh ruth parker or marley glenn or central special i mean the it's not it's not like a traditional uh state-rated capacity kind of environment there are some space constraints much of it attributed just to the to the amount of either equip adaptive equipment or mobility uh assistive equipment etc so it takes a lot more square footage so there are some logistical implications of taking on more students again that's why i'm couching my my comments to mr grant and to you to say at

223the margins yes but i know there are limits to that because of some of the constraints largely space constraints that we have well i i know that i mean i'm obviously i've voted for all the other special amendment special education amendments i'm going to vote for this one too and i just hope there's some intentionality to to trying to whittle down that number where we can you know if this goes through us the county executive and the county council like i i would love to see ultimately our non-profit non-public placement number in terms of tuition and also in terms of transportation expenses go go down and so as would we that that is a clear and we we stand right beside you and that's a that's a that's an ongoing yearly monthly daily conversation with

224the team particularly special ed team as they are looking for ways right it's it's so individualized it's per student conversation that's why it's an iep right so it's it's a per student conversation saying can we support the needs of that student and we want that answer always to be yes sometimes that answer is no and we have to look outside and work with the parents about outside agencies but we're always looking for ways can we support those students needs inside our schools and we always want that to be yes that's not always the case wonderful yeah thank you all for this thank you okay seeing no more comments from members do we have any um comments yes sir mr silberth again robert silkworth north county high school i look at this amendment and i think

225about what i know about our special ed population our special kids these kids have the same dreams the same aspirations as all of our children do they just have some extremely severe problems and it's amazing that they're able to do what they what they do i had the honor many of you know i'm an announcer at north county high school i had the honor recently uh to you know when you win a state title uh you get a state championship banner and it goes up in the gym that's a big moment and i had to honor recently our unified tennis team i believe it was they want a state title and i know many of those kids i mean one of those kids is in a wheelchair and he's fighting for his life he was

226there he also was there when it's time to bowl folks they had the same dreams the same aspirations i look at that place and say i don't care what that price is these kids are special and we need to make sure that we give them whatever we can to help them out so please vote for that thank you sir seeing no more testimony um in there um miss ellis could you please read one more time amendment 11 add nine additional special education teachers 12 special education teacher assistants and 11 permanent substitutes to support the developmental center programs ruth parker easton marley glenn and central special schools impact increases operating budget recommendation by one point um one million six hundred eleven thousand nine hundred twenty dollars let's help please call bro ms sally miss ellis mr

227grannon nick miss schallheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilland i'm very proud to vote eye on this but if there was any doubt mr silkworth your testimony made it very clear that this is the right thing to do so very proudly i mr leib miss hummer miss corkado aye motion passes eight one miss ellis amendment number two amendment twelve uh excuse me one moment amendment twelve add fifteen additional school counselors to the superintendent's recommendation impact increases operating budget recommendation by one million five hundred forty eight thousand six six hundred dollars some moves we have a motion in a second miss ellis i will speak to this one um as everyone is now well aware i combed through the budget extensively and looked for places we could redirect our money our funding to our priorities and

228to me this is one of our biggest priorities um i i don't know now what's realistic 15 additional school counselors again if this passes the budget this summer i think we'll hire those counselors like that and they will be put to work and very well um very very much needed um that being said i know there's a following amendment for six additional school counselors and considering where we're headed with this budget that may be more more realistic at this point so um i'm welcome i welcome any other comment mr grantham uh mr shakanovich how many additional counselors did dr alato seek in his budget um nine additional uh i'm sorry yeah nine point zero additional school counselors were including dr lauda's recommendation in december okay so i just want to take an opportunity to say

229this um to whatever extent it's uh it's not clear um i'm sure we could use more school counselors and um i'm sure dr alato put a lot of thought into his recommendation of nine and weighing different priorities based on his long experience and knowledge of this particular school system and with all due respect miss ellis who i lauded earlier for her kind of deep understanding of the budget and her scrutiny of these line items and everything built into this proposal was the idea that she was going to get offsetting cuts someplace else those cuts did not happen so i just want to explain to everybody on this one as on many i don't think that we don't need more counselors i don't think it would be a benefit to students but we have to make

230choices and we do not have infinite resources so when i vote against this i don't want the the perception to be that i don't think we need school counselors what i think is that we have a very experienced educational specialist who sat down and made these tough choices and the only way that the 1.5 million or 1.54 million that was going to be earmarked for this was that there was going to be an offsetting cut someplace else that cut has not happened and then we're still going into a cycle where every indicator is that we're not even going to be able to meet the needs that dr alato asked for in the first place so just want to make it clear i'm sure we need more counselors i hope we get the nine that dr

231alato asks for the indications are we may not so that's why i'm going to vote against 15 additional counselors not because i don't think there's a need but it's a need that has to be weighed against all the other needs that we have in keeping this ship afloat and doing the best job that we can for our students thank you sir miss ellis mr chuck are you are you able to share how many counselors we need in order to fall into the recommended caseload of 250 students per counselor uh it was in one of the seven right rounded questions so if we would go back and find it for you okay um we can start looking and maybe can discuss i mean really that's we did calculate it for you as i recall i yeah

232i recall that too i didn't um oh here we go um i'm sorry 36 at the elementary level 36 more 36 more at the elementary level we would need five 19 at the high school level am i reading that correctly and five at the middle and five at the middle school level that's 60. 60 more you're pretty good and excessive yes sir so wow i'm sorry i don't want to take up people's time but i have to make a point here and that's the mental health of our students and guidance counselors are not psychologists is is true but they are that resource for students that that person that students can go to they are the person that helps the student along and um these shortages are very concerning to me and i i'm a bit

233frustrated that we don't have more money to work with now to address this concern um but i i i don't disagree with what mr grannon said i'm just well then i i have to express my frustration i just want to add to that in some i hope somewhat thoughtful way is if the metric that leads to the number that we need 60 more counselors maybe that's not the right metric if there's a metric that leads to such an outsized disproportionate number beyond what dr alato is seeking which is nine this amendment is only fifteen that would only be twenty four that's one third base a little bit more than one third of sixty so maybe that's not the right metric maybe that's some pollyanna metric that is not what we should be using to guide

234these decisions where did that come from yeah the national counseling association recommends 250 students for one guidance counselor we have counselors with 700 800 right i'm not trying to be glib about this but you know there's some recommendation out there that you know i should drink eight glasses of water a day i mean that's not exactly what should happen for every single person we have to use metrics that make sense we have to use metrics that we can work with well i i think 200 personally i think 250 makes sense i that's a lot of kids for one gun then you should accept the friendly amendment to make this 60. that's what we should do miss antoine i like to call the question please do we have consensus on that okay good um miss hell

235please call the roll miss alby miss ellis nay mr granny nay miss shawheim hi miss antwine this is uncalled in question no you guys did it no no no we consensus um okay so i'm certainly voting for additional counselors so that's a yes okay mr gilliland no mr leib miss hummer miss corcodale nay motion fails seven two two seven sorry i thought amendment 13 add six additional school counselors to the superintendent's recommendation including two that are designated to middle school impact increases fiscal year 21 operating budget recommendation by six hundred nineteen thousand four hundred forty dollars you don't have a second second you don't have a motion okay we have a motion and we have a second and um miss schulheim was first i didn't see you push your button you got to push your

236button sean um i just have a point of clarification this goes back to the previous comment i made where and also to last year where um we're we're recommending that this to add to the superintendent's recommendation but we should also respect his purview of being able to decide where exactly those counselors go and so i'm hopeful for a friendly amendment just to say add six additional guidance counselors i will take this recommendation i will take your friendly amendment um miss hal please strike uh let's read state i'll restate the amendment 13. add six additional school counselors to the superintendent's recommendation period thank you okay seeing no further questions or comments from the dias do we have any public comments seeing no public comments ms howell please call roll miss alvey miss ellis aye mr grannon

237i'm going to vote in a moment but i do want to say that i i think it is entirely appropriate for members of the board on matters that require a majority of the board to act to make specific allocation suggestions such as in in this context including two that are designated middle school i understand that's no longer part of this but i just wanted to be clear for the record that i think that's completely appropriate especially because it's not the kind of thing that's happening all the time we got to take this in context somebody sat down and put some thought into why these two should be specifically allocated for middle school so i'm gonna i'm gonna vote against this but i also think it is entirely appropriate for this board to be making specific

238recommendations like that mr scholheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilland aye mr leib miss hummer hey miss corcodeau aye motion passes six three it is now um 11 o'clock so i just want it or just after so i wanted to pause real quick before we introduce the next amendment to check in with everyone and see if we feel like we are going to pass this budget hopefully before midnight um because last year we were here until 2 a.m and for that reason we built in an additional day to resolve this budget if necessary so i think at this time i mean i personally before we vote would like to get done this evening but i also hope that everyone is going to move very i i don't want to stifle um any um necessary thoughtful

239discussion but i i hope we're going to be able to move quickly i don't want to keep staff till 2 a.m either what no i have something decided like this um okay we heard we were just miss ellis was bringing up a matter of process and so um i don't believe uh well i guess we could if there's additional comments that are to the contrary as miss scholheim is nodding her head then we will need to make a mo uh a motion and a second and go into a vote as to whether or not to conclude prior to adoption or not so i move that we proceed until the budget is adopted barring any excessive things that may arise that may conclude us to need to go to tomorrow night second okay miss shalheim i

240respectfully disagree and here's why last year at 1 30 in the morning we were a singular vote away from adding at that moment it was going to be an additional 10 million dollars to teacher compensation we all put a lot of time and effort and thought into crafting our amendments and those discussions deserve us to be awake enough to have them and not rush it and not plow through and so as much as i miss my family and want to be home tomorrow night i respectfully disagree and think we should be fresh for this discussion tomorrow uh night and cease this for tonight miss antwine so it was my understanding that we would continue it on the 20th but wouldn't do it the night of what what's this the the backup plan is if we

241don't spend another hour talking about this of course would be that we conclude tonight um we will take a pause after we get through we're over halfway and we don't have too many more amendments and so the idea would be that we would conclude um tonight and the second night was set aside for weather because remember we had the weather event last year and was also if someone had proposed an amendment or amendments had changed that it required additional number crunching that would require the carryover and then lastly is that everybody would spend an hour talking about every amendment and get us into the two o'clock in the morning which i still don't think we would be at personally but that is where that is why it was held back um over to the 20th

242to include that as a uh placeholder date right i understood the date i just understood that we would continue it the next day and not necessarily tomorrow night well it would be an evening yeah okay and evening um and i'm not even sure that everybody will be able to make it so okay it's been on our approved thing for a year okay mr lab called question i just did that yep she just okay if we don't have any other comments here and we're good with this miss howe um please call vote on a motion to proceed uh to conclusion of budget tonight if at all possible miss alvey miss ellis aye mr grandin aye michelle heim just for clarification voting to continue to continue um nay because i want everyone's amendment to get the respect

243and the time it deserves and not feel pressured by colleagues to rush sunday miss antwine aye mr gilland aye mr leib miss hammer miss corcodeaux motion passes 7-2 okay barring any extreme things we were going to continue um if you could um read amendment number 14 miss ellis add four additional social workers to the superintendent's recommendation increases operating budget recommendation by four hundred thirty four thousand three hundred twenty dollars we got a motion in a second any comments seeing none any um testimony from public seeing none miss hell please call roll miss alvey miss ellis nay mr granny nate miss scholheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilland no mr leib miss hummer miss corcodel although it was my original amendment i'm going to say no motion motion fails 2-7 amendment 15 add three additional school

244psychologists to the superintendent's recommendation increases up operating budget recommendation by 359 340 dollars we have a motion a second any comments from members seeing none um any comments from public seeing no motion in the audience uh miss hal please call roll miss alvey miss ellis no mr grannon nate miss schallheim aye ms antoine aye mr gilland no mr live amendment 16 ms ellis add two additional assistant principles to the superintendent's recommendation increases operating budget recommendation by two hundred six sixty six thousand five hundred sixty so i i did want to is the author of this just to make one brief comment and that is that um you know as as we proceed i look at um at this one and amendment 16 and then coming up in amendment 17 and 18 accordingly that this is

245part of what i know will have the greatest immediate impact on addressing bullying hate bias and closing that gap um i think of all the positions in addition to our teachers our assistant principals are that first line of defense for bullying i know that from personal experience from dealing with my some of my children's past experiences and um so this is near and dear to my heart to have the additional assistant principals and i think it would go a long way also to help further our superintendent's goals and missions and i think it's a modest amount that could have a very large impact as we continue to get strived to get assistant principals in every school that has still not happened okay we have a motion in a second um seeing no additional comments do

246we have additional comments from the audience seeing no motion miss hal please call the roll miss albee miss ellis no mr granite miss motion fails 4-5 amendment 17 add to additional violent bilingual facilitators to the superintendent's recommendation increases operating budget recommendation by hundred 138 dollars so i'll just say on this one out of all the things that we're doing for all the groups to make their experience better there was um there's very little being done to address our ells as it relates to priorities and such and for me this is a very big priority our family's ability to continue to interact with the staff with the teachers combined with our students abilities to interact as they continue to integrate and become more familiar with our language is very important and i believe missasso would be

247probably would have scolded me for not adding like quadrupling the number but recognizing that we are in a modest budget year and also recognizing that very very few times our board has an opportunity to support this group and this is one way i think that we can definitely do it it's what we heard in the formerly known as achievement gap now opportunity gap group as one of the biggest people who are challenged in our entire school system that transcends many of our other minority categories so once again i would just encourage to consider the exception to the reductions and uh stabilization of the budget in this particular case because i think we're going to get a lot more bang for our buck um with this allocation okay we have a motion in a second michelle

248heim and then miss anne twine and then mr grant and miss schulhan just a point of clarification don't we have to move in second before we dive into our comments i thought it apparently i didn't okay i just you know just just for i saw to follow the same rules pointing out my transgression ms schalheim thank you very much well i mean if we're following parliamentary rules you motion you second and then you discuss so i just thought i would raise that maybe at this late hour that's why that was overlooked um of course i'm gonna support this as i have the lion's share of the other amendments tonight okay miss antoine um thank you president crocodile i move that if we could i move that we bundle amendment 17 and 18 environment on them

249at the same time since that you had the same premise for both i'm willing to accept that um and and second your motion to bundle um so we are now um we are now discussing whether or not to bundle these two amendments specifically we're no longer talking about the amendment 17 we are now on a motion to bundle 17 and 18. it looks like we do have some comments mr granny on the bundle yeah so i i i don't think the motion to bundle takes precedence over all other business um so it it is germane to it so i think it would be covered i'm not seeing darren in my corner here uh for a second i believe it would be germaine because it is asking for additional i'm happy for for sake of efficiency

250then i'll make both my comments i'll make the first comment is i think at this point talking about the bundling is going to take more time than it actually saves so i don't think we should do that but i had a substantive point on this thing about the bilingual facilitators mr shaknow weighing all the same considerations that president corcodel very eloquently addressed as well as the constraints that we have to deal with in the school system how many well as two questions how many additional bilingual facilitators did dr alato request in his budget and how many do we currently have there's two is the addition is the request in the superintendent's budget two additional and 22 existing ftes prior to the addition of the two to superintendent recommended and anything we're talking about this evening

251so doc so currently there's 22 yes full-time dr alato sought an additional two which will bring to 24 and this amendment would take it to 26. yes sir thank you okay okay um seeing no further comments um i believe we have a motion on the table an amendment to the amendment by miss antwine to bundle this and and add in basically the amendment is to add was that was that motion seconded yes it was yes it was um so if you could please uh call roll this is on the motion to bundle 17 and 18. yes miss antoine's basically miss antoine's um amendment to 17 was to add 18. which everybody knows miss salvia another way miss ellis mr granite miss motion passes 5'4 okay so we now have um i'll restate the amendment um

252the the if you're i'm sorry miss ellis can you please uh restate the amendment uh the the new version of the event as a amendment as amendments as amended so is this to be read like one amendment amendment 17 add two additional bilingual facilitators and two additional bilingual teaching assistants to the superintendent's recommendation increases the recommendation by 560. missile please call roll i'm sorry i forgot to ask for public testimony do we have public testimony on this i don't see any motion missile please call miss alvey nay because i was in support of the teaching assistants but not the facilitators miss ellis i was in support of one not the other nay mr granite hearing my probably say this i i have to move that we unbundle these so people can vote their conscience on

253on how they want so you can vote it down i move to unbundle them i i have to i have to agree with mr grant if you guys as part of the discussion that should have come out should have come out and she did make the point that both of these were related and and so so she agreed to second the amendment right and i'm making i'm making undo that action hold on hold on let's get a rule of order here um this is pretty simple i agree with what mr grannon is saying and we could still proceed with amendment 18 as such or they could get both reintroduced separately um but right now we do have to follow through with our roll call and i i hear what you're saying mr graham um so

254you are up for vote uh nate miss schallheim aye ms antwine aye mr gilland aye mr lein aye ms hummer aye ms corcodell aye motion passes six three okay so that took care of that problem um okay amendment 19 um add three additional middle school teachers for class size reduction to the superintendent's recommendation increases operating budget recommendation by two hundred thirty thousand six hundred forty dollars as the author i was going to move to withdraw since we've already discussed class size reduction and and made our decisions on that i do think that this would be kind of uh redundant to say the least alrighty okay we've got a motion a second to withdraw do we have consensus to withdraw here okay consensus is withdraw amendment 20 add 10 additional permanent substitutes to the superintendent's recommendation

255increases operating budget recommendation by 400 thousand dollars we have a motion and a second mr gilliland thank you madam president the hours late just very brief question would the hiring of 10 permanent substitutes save money when it comes to paying the daily rate for for substitute teachers uh the answer to that is no because the permanent subs would be eligible for um the suite of benefits that a daily sub would not be able to avail themselves so we would not save money with this amendment no but it but it's a coverage issue i think you've heard hr and the superintendent and others talk about the the difficulty to get adequate sub coverage which occurs almost on a on a daily basis and is exasperated around you know friday mondays holidays etc so this is what

256i think that will help make some inroads into but it's not a money-saving uh strategy okay per se okay just a quick question mr chef knowledge how many additional permanent substitutes did dr alat request the superintendent's request was for five additional positions so this this would double that and how how many are on the rolls currently 52. ps152 10 was twice five but anyway 52. what 52 are currently authorized got it i'm saying this is okay okay seeing no more comments from members do we have any comments from audience seeing none uh please oh we got it okay good evening russell leone president teachers association so i will tell you on my school visits one of the number one things i'm hearing this year is substitutes the need for substitutes is is at a crisis

257level in our county and if not daily some at least weekly teachers are being asked to cover other classes simply because they can't get substitutes in so i would support this permanent substitute amendment thank you okay seeing no additional comments thank you mr leone um miss powell please call roll miss alby miss ellis aye mr granin ms heim all right because when we combine classes due to lack of coverage our class sizes balloon so i miss antwine i mr gilliland aye mr leib amendment number 21 miss ellis add one college and career counselor to each of the following schools glenn bernie mead and north county high schools impact increases operating budget recommendation by three hundred nine thousand seven hundred twenty dollars we have a motion and a second um miss antwine or i'm sorry i

258miss all the followed by miss antoine it's solving all right so as a maker of the motion i'll do my best at this hour to explain um what my thought process was so to specify first the college and career counselor is different than a general counselor their duties are specific to providing resources to do with college and career counseling so whether that's coordinating with colleges to come into the school and speak to students setting up opportunities with our cat north and cat south programs things of that nature and this kind of position has already been piloted at southern high school and as dr arlotto has explained to me it's doing wonderful there and it's a great resource for the students and the reason why i've specifically allotted these positions if they are to go through

259for glen burnie mead and north county high schools are because those are our top three challenge schools so based on the number of farm students they have and other factors dr alado identified them to be the top three schools in need of support and i think college and career counseling is a very positive way to elevate the students who are struggling in those schools and they all three of those schools also have a high number of minority students and as a nation we're looking to elevate those students and get them into college and career in uh you know a sustainable and prepared manner so that's why i propose this amendment and i ask for support from my colleagues thank you miss alvey miss antwine and mr grant and miss antoine so so my question would

260be i i i appreciate um ms alvi your what you're doing here but i have a concern about there's indications that there are no college and career counselors at those schools currently no there are currently no college and career counselors they're just general guidance counselors that also take part in being a college and career counselor so having a particular position would alleviate the load of the other counselors to focus on um things like mental health and other issues that occur with students on a day-to-day basis so dr alado could you share the difference between them traditionally i understood that part of being the guidance counselor was college and career support right so we using the term school counselor the school counselor is responsible for all of those things the school counselor is responsible for scheduling

261and making sure the student has all the rights taking all the right classes so that they can graduate with their class the school counselor is responsible for the social emotional needs of their students the school counselor is responsible for helping the students in the application part and the selection identification selection application process to colleges the school counselor is responsible for students that may be going off to two-year schools four-year schools or going off to the career of the military maybe having the student have to sit and take the asvab if they're considering the military so i say all that very purposely to answer your question the school counselor is responsible for all of those things and they are spending i can tell you from experience spending more and more time counseling students with regard to

262social emotional needs and having less time to focus on as ms alvey i think is pointing out rightfully so your applications to colleges and making sure you're applying to scholarships and accessing naviance which we've now purchased for all of the high school students so it is a really broad brush that school counselors have to have to undertake i think what ms alvey is is offers proffering here is to have somebody identified and trained at each of our high schools along the way that can focus specifically on college crew i don't think it would take the place of the other your school council that's assigned to you based on your alphabet based on your your name but it would be an additional resource that could focus specifically on those issues and would not be assigned a

263core group of students based on alphabet that they would be responsible for does that meet the need okay thank you yes ma'am let me also that this position does not yet exist we are piloting it there is no job description so we would build a job description do hire people do training and again this is a i think this is a good way for us to start we started at southern with some private donations a donor came to us and said they wanted to do something sort of special at southern and we came up with this idea of us college and career counselor this might be a nice way to extend it i would also add if i'm not mistaken that this is built into kerwin funds we will see this into the future in

264the next 10 years we'll be or the next seven years be responsible for building college career counselors through their cte umbrella is that correct required to do so okay require that's a better word right there's there's thank you there's a phase in period there's a phase imperative or unfunded mandate sorry i'm sorry well we haven't quite gotten there but yeah we haven't gotten there yet so my last question on that one if the um county does not support this there's still that need there well those will will we utilize the counselors that we have on board or their plans to utilize the counselors we have on board just to have their jobs be specified in the work that they do be specified in just college and career counseling at this time no okay no ma'am

265thank you mr grantham okay i i'm inclined to support this um i think that ms alvey's comments are particularly impactful coming from where she sits in this i do have one question for uh dr arlatto and i also want to kind of footnote to me this is this is different than some of the other categories that we've just voted on where you know dr alato sat and weighed all the numbers and weighed the priorities and said oh we need x number of new ftes for this category and then there was an amendment to make that 2x to me this is exactly the kind of thing that where the board has its its most and best impact is not taking the numbers that dr alado has and just increasing them but thoughtfully adding in places where

266for whatever reason he he he didn't initially so this is exactly what i think the board should be doing and i commend ms alvey for doing it if i could just ask dr lotto to give if if possible any specifics any measurable results that have come out of the pilot program at southern high school i can't i don't have any metrics to share with you from what i what i have is just anecdotal from talking with the um the previous principal that started the program and it's just anecdotal the number of students that are coming in they they actually set aside a room on the main hallway across from the main office that is a college and career center for lack of better terms um at southern and so they've put a couple of computer

267terminals in there and made and put some comfortable seating where they can bring colleges in they're bringing in um career folks to do brown bag lunch sessions during lunch hour with the students at southern so they're using it in a um in a in a really unique and i think purposeful way but i don't have any metrics to say how many students that college career center person saw which i think what you're getting at how many did they see during the course of the year i don't have that number but i certainly can can talk because i ask that they keep those numbers i certainly can find out so the one follow-up comment that i'll have and this is not something that i'm going to say is a friendly amendment or anything it doesn't have

268a fiscal impact and i'm going to support this by the way i have made up my mind as i've sat here and thought about it and heard your additional comments but if this passes at these three schools this provides an opportunity for us to try to measure some specific benefits that come out of it even if it's collecting anecdotal things like somebody got a scholarship because they you know got help to apply for something that they never would have you know so it's not just students getting into school where they otherwise wouldn't have but maybe getting scholarships and you know stuff like that so okay mr gilliland thank you madam president if i could just echo what mr grannon said um certainly there's the college uh pathway but then we're seeing a lot of movement

269as it relates uh to the apprenticeship programs throughout the state that's coming out of the maryland department of labor and i think this just corresponds very well to that so i'm looking forward to voting eye on this one okay miss antoine i will add one final thing to what you did what you shared here miss alvi was the fact that at those schools which are many of the students are in district one one of the main concerns once they go over um once they graduate and move into college is that they felt like they were not adequate adequately prepared for the college experiences that they had and i believe we had that additional resource as described it would tremendously help these students especially when it comes to scholarship applications and preparing them overall for for

270their college and career choices so thank you for that ms alvi salvi and just to add to what you're talking about that was also a consideration when i proposed this amendment um that phenomenon is called the imposter syndrome and it's something that some of my friends have experienced so providing these resources earlier on in high school will help avoid um them being diagnosed with that when they when they get into college thank you okay seeing no more comments any comments from public seeing no motion movement miss ellis please reread the amendment add one college and career counselor to each of the following schools glenn bernie mead and nor and north county high schools increase his operating budget recommendation by three hundred nine thousand seven hundred twenty dollars missile please call miss albee aye miss ellis

271aye mr grandin aye ms shawheim i didn't comment before but very enthusiastic eye miss antwine aye mr gilland aye mr lein aye ms hummer aye ms corcodell aye motion passes 9-0 miss ellis amendment number 22 as we count down and 1 million for the expansion of the global community citizenship curriculum models to the middle and elementary levels funding would be used for introduction of curriculum studies on modification of the global community citizenship course of learning at the middle school and elementary school level materials and supplies students self-exploration and collaborative discussions of events traditions cultures and circumstances that shape views behaviors and individual goals professional development value learning to streamline or eliminate episodes of bullying hate bias and discrimination fostering enhancing and maintaining trust relationships between students and staff that promotes considerations for safety diversity and

272inclusion in our schools increases operating budget recommendation by one million dollars we we have emotions so moves second okay we have a motion and a second miss alvey okay sorry miss antwine for a while you were the only one lit so miss antoine thank you um in consideration of the late hour i was i will summarize my justification for this every week since about october we get an incident report of hate and bias we have the most recent unrest and citations report that came to us from the police department and i understand that we currently have 35 students who have performed so in a way so atrocious that they're being considered for being expelled from school i truly believe that a concept like global citizenship should start early in life i believe that it will

273will um support many of the students in in their decision making and their in their understanding of the world around them so aacps introduced the global citizenship course to our high schools and it has been quite successful i have seen the positive effects of such a course when northeast high school opened its doors to me to let me sit in their gcc class the educational models and the unique communication applications within the course have supported more student collaboration rather than student conflict the work and outcomes of this course placed anne arundel county public schools in the grand position afforded to out of the box forward thinking for solutions to ongoing problems plaguing our school system this includes acts of hate and violence bullying racial insensitivities and closed mindsets this amendment will expand these learning models

274to our middle and elementary school school students there there will need to be additional research and adjustments to modify this program to our younger learners still learning to be a global citizen with cognitive awareness can be implemented very early in a child's life such education helps our students make more positive choices and prepares them to handle the world around them this amendment is less than 1.1 percent of the superintendent's current uh budget recommendation thank you very much um dr allatto um but before we get to the other members i believe you had a a point of information you wanted to share before we proceed i just want to share um you believe there's 35 students that are pending up for expulsion right now that number is zero for us um we do have we do

275have students that are up for extended suspension based on the number of things that they've been involved which i think you're referring to but right now there are none that are up for expulsion so that that's definitely changed since monday thank you for since our meeting monday okay uh let's proceed we have miss alvey miss ellis and mr grant and miss halvey so while i agree with the intent of this amendment i'm a little hesitant to support it only because i'm not sure that the global community citizenship course is applicable at the middle and elementary school level and i know that from my school visits and from speaking to staff we are working on implementing other strategies to create those community environments at the middle and elementary level um so by eliminating limiting the amendment

276to global community citizenship it limits the overall intent of the motion to say that very similar structures or almost exact structures should be implemented so i don't know if that's exactly what you were going for but that was my interpretation and that's why i'm a little hesitant to to give my support thank you um ms ellis thank you um so i went on some school visits recently and i i this really struck me it happened in the same day i believe i was with dr arlatto and we visited arundel high school i was able to see part of their um sit-in on part of their gcc class and later that day we went i want to say it was i can't remember if it was four seasons or watch out all that day while chapel

277and interestingly in the in the class at arundel they were doing um a lesson or a discussion on students making a difference in society whether it be their local community or or something greater they were doing that same lesson it was fascinating actually in in the elementary classroom i believe maybe it was fourth grade and so the point i want to make is while i agree we can't structure a class that is identical to gcc into elementary school i i don't know about middle school probably not quite yet but i agree that we need to tackle these issues in elementary school and middle school 100 percent agree but i i think that can be done maybe with a little training of if it's not going on in all of our classrooms but um i i

278don't think it needs additional staff or you know it just needs to happen in the classrooms as it's as i saw it happening now thank you miss ellis mr granny yeah this is a question for uh dr alato or any uh anyone that he delegates this question to for elementary school students if such a course were um created what would that displace that they already have as part of their curriculum so thank you for the question that's a great question um uh i haven't really thought very deeply i'm really sort of hearing about this amendment now what we're talking about the elementary level is time so as opposed to at the high school level or middle school level it replaces a specific course would it take the place of english or history or pe at

279the elementary level it's really about time so there's time set aside for math there's time set aside for movement there's time set aside for um reading and english language arts and the like so um you if if the idea were to have to be delivering a course developmentally appropriate gcc course the elementary level without changing the structure while changing the start and end times of the you know without extending the day in the elementary level you'd be taking time from something else let me add to that if i could since my microphone is on that much of this work as miss ellis saw and many of you have seen in as you visited schools is happening at the elementary middle level you've seen community circles in the mornings you have there is second step we've

280we've implemented second step in many of the elementary schools and that will be extended to all the elementary schools and all the middle schools next year and second step is a program that focuses on building social emotional skills of students building empathy building problem solving skills and so we are implementing that's all very um developmentally appropriate at the age so the second step is delivered there's a second grade curriculum a third grade curriculum a fourth grade curriculum and so on we've begun to implement that using some of our monies from state grants school safety and state grants we've been using that money we'll be adding it now to all the elementary and the middle schools next year we have counseling groups that are going on the middle schools have their have advisory and we've built

281advisory lessons around many of these things that i think that miss antwine is is talking about and getting to that you would see in gcc without a course that's being done at the advisory level and we'll now be adding second step to that so that's just food for thought as you as you contemplate this amendment thank you um any further mr grant oh no thank you okay okay miss antwine and then miss schrolheim unless miss antwine wants to reserve to the end and i i'll reserve today okay okay miss shawhan i um i definitely applaud the spirit of this amendment i have a question though um maybe it's just the late hour maybe i didn't hear correctly but um certainly you know this list has been growing of amendments over time over days um and

282available to to to to members to add stuff and so none of this should be a surprise because this was all sort of compiled um over time and this particular one has been in there for a little while so i thought i heard that people were just seeing this for the first time and um that's just not the case because it's been it's been in the list so if i can answer so i've said that now twice um so my meaning by that is i'm si well i have seen it in writing i've had no expo i've had no conversations with board members about their amendments so i've not been able to tease out a purpose or a reason um so that i could then give any kind of recommendation so that's my point while

283i saw it in writing beginning last friday it was sent to me while i was away um and i was able to review it with staff uh this past uh uh this morning we went through it as a staff as a team um my point being that without i i've not had to i've not been able to get the nuanced pieces from individual board members about their individual men's because they've not had those conversations with me thank you for clarifying i just didn't want the like the public to be like well wait a second you know thank you for clarifying okay i'm going to i i don't have a button um but i will uh i just want to make a a point um a very brief one that i i applaud miss antoine's idea

284of expansion of it and have thought of it myself i go back however to and i actually went back when i saw this amendment come in i actually reviewed the video of the original presentation of the course and as others have indicated and inquired and received answers to my understanding i believe is affirmed that the integration of the concepts to bring a person to by the time they get to the gcc course in the ninth grade there's there's no new new there per se it's putting it in the bundle for age-appropriateness because they will have received exposure from these my personal experience is having deployed similar and substance abuse programs in the school and watching them expand i just remember some very good advice from our on the substance abuse from our nurses team and

285and some of the others in dr alato's team and going through that a few years back and that was that although i was not the main person on it um in in those discussions was to give everybody a chance to work with what they have so that they can flush out the best opportunities and so i i'm kind of not inclined to put dollar value to that until the superintendent staff has gone through a whole year of it and can identify if there are any resources needed because my understanding is the whole course in and of itself has not cost come at a cost to the school system so i i guess i would not be inclined to expand the services through dollar value but rather continue to encourage and if the dollars are needed

286or the other resources are needed and we cannot find ways of adjusting ourselves in-house i would be willing to support but at this moment in time not seeing any requests come in staff and recognizing how new we are in in the pilot at the at the high school and and and right along even on back to school day miss ellis i know i saw first hand on those back to school days in particular most of the strategies that were introduced to us in the gcc was active whether i was at an elementary school in middle school or high school so i think we're going to be taking great strides in this but knowing those matrixes are going to take there's nothing that you can replace that time cannot provide and when we're talking about outcomes

287that is truly what we will have to do as painful as it is is to wait and see for some of the outcomes make the adjustments and so i look forward to continuing to work in support of of all of these programs i don't feel at this moment in time comfortable adding the dollar value as i said when the entire program to date has has not had had a fiscal impact uh to this level and has been handled in-house miss antoine thank you and thank you all all of the board members and dr lotto for your comments on this the first uh sentence says that we're going to introduce those curriculum models we have real concerns and troubles in our school systems we are getting recommendations funded or unfunded from the state local and even

288federal levels on how we could best do how we could do things differently in our school systems when it comes to some of these vulnerabilities to include as i just shared our students are making choices that i believe if we have these models up front and early for them they will make different choices and with a course that has significant successful outcomes like gcc if we know that this is a known good we can modify the curriculum to accommodate the needs and the education of our younger learners with that said i also want to point out that we have several workshops we have several initiatives such as the closing the opportunity gap initiative the gun violence initiative that executive pittman has put into place that had recommendations for us similar to what what i'm saying

289here we also have state recommendations on how to educate our students to be better in their choices as a quote unquote global citizen this is simply an opportunity for us as we did at the high school level to get in front of these concerns and problems thank you very much miss antwine um any public comment yes miss oaks hello again india oaks hillsmair elementary school and board of education candidate i would say i am in full support of incorporating the global community citizenship course throughout all schools but even that does not do justice and saying just how much i believe we need these kinds of classes at the earliest point possible with our children and i believe it should be a specific amendment to ensure this equally implemented in all schools study after study have

290shown ways that young children take notice of racial differences and that as early as preschool some children begin excluding classmates of different races from play one study talks about how people actually breathe in racism and prejudice when exposed to it every day but the opposite is also true in that elementary school teachers can support the unlearning of things like racism as would be the case with this kind of curriculum [Music] same is true with virtually every other type of bias listed in board regulation jora the more we start to talk about cultures about gender identity about homelessness about disabilities about hate crime the more we foster the positive development of every child's full identity at an early age and an understanding of what happens when those identities are attacked the more we enable our children

291to use that knowledge to disrupt the systemic racism and high rates of suicide of young and let me say that again young kids who are gay or transgender or bullied for other reasons and so i truly believe incorporating the global community citizenship course into all grade levels actually will be one of the most effective ways to build the more equitable society that we have been talking about for years and if i may just get personal in closing a few years ago my son heard about one of the constant incidents of hate crimes and said why is that still going on i thought martin luther king took care of all of that who can be the new martin luther king because i am too young to be i didn't have a clear answer for him then

292but if he said that now with this kind of curriculum i would say no jack no one is too young to be the next martin luther king thank you miss oaks i'll just say that uh jack mayne the jack may very well be one of our very next leaders that may be standing side by side with some of the greats like mr mr dr king was so um you've got a very wise wise in in thought um young man uh with you so thank you very much uh ms ellis can i ask i don't know this might be a question for dr alato or maybe just the board in general but um if we wanted something in the curriculum let's say for elementary school like cursive or or issues surrounding global citizenship and so we

293asked for that to be developed in the curriculum that could be a a board motion that is not a it's not a budget motion correct um without knowing without knowing too much the answer is yes and no i mean if it's depending on what is offered it could have budget implications if there's something that we need to purchase a curriculum or do training professional development those kinds of things that could have a cost but otherwise no it's a matter of us writing the curriculum to whatever it is handwriting or um bullying or whatever it might be and then implementing it training doing training with the teachers and then implementing in the curriculum okay i'm thinking along the lines of like when uh a couple weeks ago we had a presentation on additional or new classes

294and we voted on them i mean that wasn't we didn't consider that in the budget process you guys are working on curriculum all the time thank you ms antoine final comments i thank you for that that question and of course i could have introduced this as a standard motion however with the recommendations that are coming to us it is not okay for us to have these initiatives going on and we're unable to fund them when they're recommended especially in terms of closing our opportunity gaps especially in terms of our gun violence and our hate bias incidents that are happening it will cost us money whether it comes out of personal pockets or it comes out of our tax dollars money there it will be some future implementations and from the too late the budget that

295will have an impact whether we whether we understand that impact fully or not the reason i put the number that we did was based on numbers of my research that it has caused others to combat some of what is going on in our system and and so one million actually is a very short a very small number compared to the negative outcomes and the cost to us later if we don't address this upfront and early thank you miss antwine miss ellis could you please read the amendment one more time before we go to vote amendment 22 add one million dollars for the expansion of the global community citizenship curriculum models to the middle and elementary levels funding would be used for introduction of curriculum studies on modification of the global community citizenship course of learning

296at the middle school and elementary school levels materials and supplies student self-exploration and collab cult collaborative discussions of events traditions cultures and circumstances that shape views behaviors and individual goals professional development value learning to streamline or eliminate episodes of bullying hate bias and discrimination fostering enhancing and maintaining trust relationships between students and staff that promotes considerations for safety diversity and inclusion in our schools impact increases operation operating budget recommendation by one million dollars lasalle police call girl miss alby hey miss ellis nay mr grannon michelle heim i will always vote i for something that i think will help erase bullying hate and bias so i miss antoine aye mr gilland mr leib miss hammer um nay i understand the spirit of this but we've all we've heard again and again from staff here in presentations

297we've seen it in the classrooms many of these things are already being implemented in our pre-k and up classes we see community circles and things everywhere dr alata just shared that the second step program that specifically designed to address many of these areas is going to be implemented throughout the middle and elementary schools next year and so i think many of this is already happening we should always look for ways to enhance it but we're already in place so i'm vote no on this miss corcodeal nay mission fails seven two or two seven sorry amendment number 23 initiate annual funding to gaussian farm for equipment equipment storage fuel and funding for equipment repairs to maintain the grounds leased by gaussian farm preservation society as well as the access road needed to safely allow aacps students

298and faculty to attend educational support programs requested by the faculty impact increases operating budget recommendation by twenty thousand dollars second we have a motion in a second miss shawn so what i think i'm going to do is just read a letter we received from goshen farms preservation society back on january 27 2020. this was delivered to i believe all of us yes and also maybe well perhaps also dr aletta though i'm not entirely sure so here we go um this one was addressed to mrs corcodale dear mrs corcodel the purpose of this letter is to seek your support for the inclusion of the goshen farm preservation society in the board of education the annual board of education's annual budget the society requests twenty thousand dollars annually to be paid to the society for the equipment

299the storage required for the equipment the fuel for the equipment and repairs to the equipment needed to maintain the grounds leased by the society and the access road needed to safely allow aacps students and faculty to attend educational programs requested by the faculty the rationale for inclusion and the budget is that over the past five years the society has supported and broadened the educational experience of at least one thousand students from public and private schools at all levels from preschool to college not to mention hosting several professional development days for teacher for teachers at broad neck high school this has been something that neither the society nor the board of education envisioned when the lease was signed almost 10 years ago the historic ocean farm and educational center has become the extension of dozens of

300classrooms throughout anne arundel county public schools the society has dedicated a significant portion of twenty thousand volunteer hours over the past five years to educational program support this educational support has not been without costs the society considers its request for funds to maintain the lease property and access road a bargain for the expanded educational opportunities the society provides the anne arundel county public schools and then you know closes thank you for and thank you and events for your consideration now i realize that i'm probably uh that others might speak to the fact that the current contract states that that goshen farms is responsible for maintaining the property but i will also add that when the lease was struck 10 years ago no one no one envisioned tons of programs tons of educational programs opportunities for

301for our students opportunities from some special needs children and just the expansion and the uh all the wonderful things that go on at goshen farms i've i've visited um there like i said with some colleagues some of these educational um opportunities arose just by the mere presence of that that wonderful historic site in our county a pva student did a historical reenactment there's been lots of eagle scout projects broadneck high school students from the enclave program learning basic job skills and the list goes on and on and on we have each of us received a 45 page report on their efforts and so this is a drop in the bucket i realize that they need to um re-up their uh their their lease and their contract with us i realize that that's coming up in

302a few months this once again will help them direct the resources that they've been able to raise over a year's time to stabilizing that building that building that was created that was built in 1798 that's a historic treasure treasure and like i said when that building crumbles to the ground as we're currently letting it do then it's just a pretty piece of land so i hope that we're going to consider this i encourage my colleagues to vote for it especially in light of the fact that this uh contract renegotiation is forthcoming this was an official letter sent from the president of the goshen farms preservation society to all of us requesting in writing that we consider this so please it's it's a tiny bit of money compared to our 1.3 plus billion dollar budget and

303not even including all the stuff we've voted on in past tonight so i i encourage you to vote yes on this miss hummer mr shaknovich when is the um lease for goshen farm up to be renegotiated i believe september 15 2020. so it's coming up quickly so i'm i'm just going to stand by that i think we need to honor the existing contract and lease that we have with them and these are certainly things that can be discussed and negotiated when it comes back due in september okay seeing no more uh comments from board members any testimony seeing no motion in the audience um miss ellis please re-read prior to roll call amendment 23 initiate annual funding to gaussian farm for equipment equipment storage fuel and funding for equipment repairs to maintain the grounds leased

304by the gaussian farm preservation society as well as the access road needed to safely allow aacps students and faculty to attend educational support programs requested by faculty ms please call role impact sorry increases operating budget recommendation by twenty thousand sorry ms lv fell sleepers miscellaneous i'm sorry i have to make a quick statement i i supported the previous amendment um for this um effort because i'm very concerned about the building on that land but um with the contract coming up i i i'm gonna say nay and i look forward to revisiting that mr granin uh i'll say may and also echo that the upcoming contract uh negotiation is just a couple months miss heim i always miss antwine so i'll say i because when that contract does come up we'll still need funding and it

305needs to be in the budget to negotiate all mr gilliland no mr leib miss hummer miss quirkido nay motion fails 7-2 amendment number 24. add four hundred 114 six dollars to allow live streaming of all future board of education hearings and workshops increases operating budget recommendation by one hundred fourteen thousand four hundred twenty six dollars motion in second miss shawhan so in the name of transparency i definitely want this to occur i'm a little confused on the price because you know my demographic and myself included are kind of addicted to facebook and know that facebook live exists you just hit your button and proof away you go so i wonder a little bit about the price so i i hope that we consider being innovative in that sense and using things that are without cost

306out there i know that that's also pending a wi-fi signal or internet signal reception of some sort but um of course i want this to occur you know we have we've had some workshops and some and some hearings off site and i and i get asked every single time are these being streamed so i can watch them from the comfort of my couch instead of going down there so it's just something i think we should consider i think though we should get some understanding of why the cost is the way it is and i noticed that mr mosher is has approached so maybe you can so thanks for the record bob moser chief communications officer i would urge you not to reduce the amount in this budget in this amendment it includes a position that

307we we are we more than need our our tv production people i would put up against anybody in this state school systems municipalities anything we have have worked very hard to maintain and create a level of quality that we have we can set up a tripod and an ipad and do it that way you can certainly do that that's not the standard that we have here and so and our folks are more than stretched we in addition to the programming for a 24 7 tv channel in the last two years we've produced more than 150 off air things for curriculum for many other things but it's a position that we desperately need and we can't do without it oh okay well then i retract most of what i said before and does that mean that

308staff ie dr lotto is recommending that we add another staff person as he has with some other amendments because of things that constantly change and whatnot like do we have do we have your support on that so you so the answer is um no and yes that's all right i'm done for 12 10 a.m that's awesome yeah the answer is known yes and that i had not we have this has been an ongoing issue and the team has stretched they're here late watch watching you have other people watch them yes and so um it's something we've talked about but i did not put it in the budget we did not put it in the budget so it was no you sort of gave us an avenue with this amendment for us to say we could

309do something with this we weren't thinking about live streaming because of i mean in terms of facebooking because we could put an ipad on a tripod and you could facetime all day long if that's to your heart's content but this created an opening so there's the yes part create an opening for us to say okay well maybe if this is something the board is interested in it was a discussion i'm assuming at the budget committee that we could um find a way to add to the staff that's doing an amazing work that stretch really thin and get you something that you're looking for as a board great well i'm all about it and i do want to say that the the level of professionalism and the quality of what we put out has not gone

310unnoticed to to me as a as a board member and as a parent as a member of this community and so i am grateful for for the quality that they put out so i hadn't thought about in that way i was a little confused i am no longer confused and yes of course this was my amendment and of course i'm going to vote yes on it so i encourage you all to do the same thank you michelle i'm miss antoine and then miss ellis thank you um so i would like to offer a friendly amendment to the amendment where it works says all future board of education hearings and workshops can we expand that to say um all future board of education public meetings hearings and workshops yes of course yeah i accept that because

311we already do can we please repeat i did not hear it hear it in in the entirety of the amendment so i'm offering a friendly i'm offering a friendly amendment where the amendment would read at 140 to allow live streaming of our future board of education public meetings hearings and workshops yeah i accept that um may i i uh but some than to make mr mosher i would respectfully ask you to use extreme caution with that wording because under the wording you just suggested that would require us for example to live stream every redistricting committee hearing meeting right i think that's i i think that's i think you're better off to stick with the hearings in the workshops and we can have discussions about other stuff i i just i wouldn't want to commit us

312to that because then i think you're talking about more than one position at that point and i just i don't think you're getting there i would say those are ones we can have discussions about but trying to put it in a steadfast motion like that could get you where you don't want to go so rather than saying so you're recommending not to utilize the term public at all i would utilize the terms that are in this amendment now because this is the calendar that the board officially adopts in public session got it so i withdraw the amendment to the amendment okay i meant friendly amendment withdrawn miss ellis thank you i feel like i'm voting for a different thing than i was originally um so i'm trying to understand a little better is this a

313is this an additional position or a new position is this is this a position that exists and you're adding another one or what what would the position be no we have we have someone that we're using on contract now okay um and so we would convert that right oh so is there a savings for what we're spending on there there's somewhat of a savings but remember our our folk we would still we would still need that that person or the it's the same job right so we would convert the position we would still need the contract dollars because our folks are just stretched too thin right now as it is to be perfectly honest with you so there's not a direct offset if that's your question right thank you okay seeing no more questions from

314members do we have any comments from the public seeing no movement um it was do you want to re-state the amendment yeah so this has not been amended correct correct add 114 426 dollars to allow live streaming of all future board of education hearings and workshops increases operating budget recommendation by a hundred fourteen thousand four hundred twenty six dollars miss help please call roll miss alby miss ellis i'm sorry when we're looking at ftes this could be a guidance counselor i'm going to say nay mr grannon miss scholheim i miss antwine i mr gilliland aye mr webb miss hummer nay i would love to see this happen in the future but i think priority wise we have other things that we need to be funded first miss corcodale um this is one of uh one

315of the top topics that i hear on in interest of transparency and uh is in my wild house of that philosophy so i although i i have some agreement with miss ellis's concept of the fts i think the interest of transparency this does it unique compared and does not necessarily compete with the other interests so i'm a yes motion passes 5'4 okay amendment 25 add 573 375 to allow all high schools and middle schools to have an activity bus once per week uh increase operating budget recommendation by five hundred seventy three thousand five hundred seventy thousand three hundred seventy five dollars okay um i don't know um miss antoine uh misalvi this is yours okay this is your amendment okay got you sorry i i don't have the names uh here miss aldi um so

316i'm gonna do my best to explain again at this hour but um the purpose of this amendment was to first off consider the extensive conversations that we've had about transportation on this diocese um and i think we want to as a body always apply the goal of equity to what we do and i think the activity bus is a simple and easy way to allow access to students who don't have access to transportation to participate in after school activities and i know this says only once per week and although ideally i would love to provide all of our students with activity buses which are after school transportation all days of the week i think that for each of the schools that do not have a free period or as my school calls it a panther

317hour during the day it's necessary for students to stay after school on a designated day to make up work meet with teachers get extra help and if they don't have someone to pick them up after school then they don't have that opportunity and that's a huge gap in my opinion so to address that providing that activity bus would give them that opportunity and also for students who play sports even if you have practice five days a week that one day of the week your parents your older sibling does not have to take the responsibility of you um going uh of you being picked up from that activity so i think it alleviates some of the stresses for our families and also provides a huge opportunity academically for our students to get support in the after

318school hours thank you miss avi miss antoine mishalheim miss hummer and miss ellis miss antoine um and so i dr lotto do any of our schools currently have activity buses that they that they do on their own as part of their specified schools yes ma'am so all the middle schools have activity buses and they're supplied with funds for activity buses twice a week many of them pick tuesdays and thursdays but they can choose those days and then we have a handful we have a few of the high schools have activity buses so this would expand the expo so we're already paying for activity buses yes so this expands that to maybe an an extra day even i'm i'm assuming that's correct yes that's i think that's miss alby's intent that was to add a day

319at the high school level because the way it's worded is once per week the middle schools already have had we already provide middle schools with sufficient funding to do it twice a week some of them don't always avail themselves of that but we give the middle schools enough funding to do twice a week already so this amount only addresses the high school component because the middle schools were already covered yes ma'am so is that is it then being amended to just address the high schools is that that's what's going on i'm just going to clarify with mr shaknovich that this cost value is associated with adding activity buses one day a week to the high schools that do not have them for all 13 high schools to have this opportunity once a week and then

320the schools would have the choice as to when that one day is yes likely in all cases schools have local management good um so i i miss alvi i i'm in strong support of what you're saying in district 1 many of our students are choosing not to do enrichment programs after school programs other extra curricular activities clubs and otherwise simply because they don't have a way home and so i think this is a good measure in supporting them in making decisions that can enrich them as successful students thank you miss antoine miss shohan um so i agree with the equity piece i have some questions though about i know that not all high schools have like a panther hour or a ruin block and i want to know how many don't why that is and

321perhaps motion that that occur because that's an inequity as well so is this a budget motion or a general motion because it really it it's not dealing with the budget it would not be an amendment to her amendment would have to be a separate emotion amendment after we have dispelled of hers and and the remainder of the amendment um because it's not germaine to it what i think like like once we pass hers just like we did with goshen after we went through and and voted on it then we then mr live made a motion uh so if you would like to do that i'm i'm happy to reserve that between them yeah yeah i i i would but i i have another sort of there's another piece to that um so i i am

322tempted to support this because i believe in equity i understand the argument especially in this county where it's not all that walkable you know there's lots of construction there's windy roads with no shoulder and no sidewalks so i i get all of that i have a question about you know we have a we have a workshop coming up to talk about transportation we have 179 page report in my bag from prismatic that talks about inefficiencies and i wonder some a little i'm con i'm a little concerned about the cost because i think if we tighten our ship up with these other bits and bobs that were presented in the prismatic report maybe this money wouldn't be needed you know like so i'm tempted to support it with the with the caveat that that if we

323don't need that money as a result of what's going to happen later this spring with the transportation workshop and almost certainly motions coming out of that that i don't even know where to i don't even know where we would put that money but i just want to make us all aware of that and see this is exactly why i wanted to stop an hour and a half ago because i can't put together a sentence so um i just want us to be cognizant of that you know that once we tighten our ship as a result of having further discussions about our transportation department as a whole and and all the things that that used to cost money or used to have a price tag that no longer because of that i actually believe buses might

324actually fall out of the sky at that point and that we can fulfill this inequity piece with activity buses and maybe not have to spend that money if that makes sense that's where i'm at with that if that's okay with ms corker i had a question for um mr shaknovich if that is let's say changes are to occur after we take part in this workshop um worst case scenario we now don't ask for this money if this is to pass today is what i'm understanding so if it is i just want to understand it if it passes it's part of your official request you the board would have to vote to amend their budget uh at some subsequent date to remove this from your official request the the by county charter the board's budget has

325to be delivered to the county executive no later than march 1. if this has passed it will be in there as of march 1 because we have to comply with the law uh if you want to give the county a different budget you're going to have to reconvene and vote again to amend your fy 21 budget to remove something hypothetically so i understand concern but to me this is really important so i want my mended amendment to stand as is and i'm welcome to considering other solutions when we do have this conversation at the workshop but i only get one year here this is my one budget meeting ever so this is really important to me and i want to um hopefully um have this considered and passed i legally something tells me um you

326would be making friends with the council if you're proposing to go in and amend to a reduction between now and and their time we have uh miss ellis and miss hummer and i can't remember which order so i'll just apologize if i get it wrong miss ellis thank you um so every middle school has access basically to two twice a week uh activity buses you said they don't all use that do you know why that is no look the principal's discretion i can't comment on that at all okay um because i'm i'm addressing the equity issue that is what this was framed around so i'm trying to understand so um if if all the middle schools were to use them it wouldn't change this number okay and then you said some of our high schools

327have activity buses and how is that determined that some of them do they may access grant funding or have other means they don't receive general funding from the budget for that okay and uh finally if high schools had them twice a week would that double this number yes yes ma'am thank you um i just don't think that's a big big price for the benefit it provides um i don't know if you'd accept a friendly amendment or if you want to stick with once a week we've got our middle schools that have the opportunity to have the buses twice a week and i know high school a lot of activities like dance company or certain sports and clubs you know students would be able to accomplish that once a week can be challenging um to participate

328in activities just a thought so i'm going to reject that amendment only considering that we also requested for a lot of other things um so just to make sure that in my eyes the priorities are in line that this is a good first step in addressing that inequity thank you miss hummer so mr shaknovich realistically i know from my time one of my boys time in high school there were funds there for an activity bus they were not able to get a bus there were not buses available they weren't able to find a contractor even though they had the funds and the will and the want to do it how much of an impact i mean would we be able to actually contract and find the buses to do this so the situation described is

329a reality to schools that either try to get buses for activity buses or field trips and there's just not buses available you know given the current structure of our tiered system these activity buses would likely be running at the time that the demand for high school activity buses will probably coincide when we're still delivering elementary and middle school students home in the afternoon so there naturally would be some competition and conflict for that until we get there i don't know but i would be concerned again because of the overlap of the high school afternoon activity runs juxtaposed to elementary and middle we already provide for example through mr colt's office we provide athletic competition buses and even there sometimes we struggle to secure buses for things like away games etc we're very successful in that

330but it is a challenge to even find reliable transport without jumping through hoops to get even our our competitive varsity and jv students shuttled to some locations thank you okay seeing no more questions do we have any commentary from the public seeing no action um miss ellis please amendment 25 add 570 375 dollars to allow all high schools and middle schools to have an activity bus once per week increases operating budget recommendation by thousand three hundred seventy five dollars miss help please call roll miss alby miss ellis mr granin miss scholheim in the name of equity i however with our upcoming workshop i hope that we won't need to use this money miss antwine aye mr gilland aye mr leib motion passes 6-3 and our second to the last amendment sorry my apologies you're right

331michelle heim um there was uh we have a uh uh a tandem motion um to right because it fits in with um okay fits in with the the the inequity piece so some of our schools have panther hour and brew and block some of our schools do not so my my motion is that all schools adopt that model so that some of the uh tutoring and the meeting of clubs can occur during the school day so that's my emotion okay we have a motion in a second we have several lights here we have miss alvey miss hummer and miss antoine missalvi again so i really appreciate your motion because this is something that students have come to me and talked to me about a lot i'm making sure that we address that all students have

332an equal opportunity during the day time to access the help that they need and participate in clubs the only reason that i would ask that we hold off on this motion is because this is also a conversation that has taken place at the superintendent's teen advisory um and chesapeake science point counts as one of our high schools but because it is a charter school there are some implications in um implementing that one hour period during the day so i would be hesitant to vote on this motion without having accurate information on which schools have the panther hour what how they're working how it impacts um grades and some more statistical information in logistics before we do make that motion i'll revise my motion to all non-chartered high schools everything i've heard indicates that this is

333well loved by students uh everywhere the district over so all non-chartered high schools of a second on the amended okay we have a second okay um miss hummer miss antoine and mr grannon miss hummer i'm gonna echo miss alvey that i think this is certainly something worthy of discussion and i'd love to hear more about what different schools are implementing and what they're in place but at 12 30 at night when we're discussing the budget i don't think we have all the information that would that could to make a a an informed decision i would actually instead request that dr arlatto ask that his team do a presentation for us about what kind of different plans are available in our middle schools and high schools and getting some feedback as ms alvi said the teen

334advisory has discussed this i would love to hear from students and have them come in and have that rather than us making a less informed decision or motion that we can at the middle of the night let's get all the information and hear from all the stakeholders miss antwine i i believe the motion is to implement it it didn't give a time frame and so so i bel so with that we can still request of dr alato that he brings the same presentation so we can shape the time frame for that but enrichment opportunities like this for our students especially um at at what has been described as as the challenge schools it's necessary that they have that that and i i agree with the motion thank you miss antwine mr grannon and then miss

335schallheim thank you largely for the reasons stated by ms hummer which i independently was sitting here thinking myself i i think we should do this uh with some more information and to give students an opportunity to weigh in uh with public testimony on this as to how much they love it or don't love it and i guess i would in particular you know what these are schools we're talking about these are public institutions and i'm sure there's a reason why mr shaknovich was circumspect but for us to make a fully informed decision i i think we need a little bit more information that principles discretion so i i think we need to get more information about this so i move the table this just one meeting to the next meeting um where we can get

336some or if people are concerned we can do it the next night meeting so students can come and talk about this okay i'm seeing some knotting hands i move that we table this to our next night meeting which will give the staff plenty of time to prepare for that give students an opportunity to weigh in and then we can make a fully informed decision it doesn't have a budget implication there's no reason why we need to do it at 12 40 at night second we have a motion to to hold that does supersede the existing motion debate um so with that in mind i cannot remember if it's debatable or not give me a second folks uh this is the late hour one um it is not debatable so at this time miss hal please

337call roll for a motion to table the existing motion on the table to the next night meeting to the to the next evening meeting thank you sir miss alvey aye ms ellis i have to make a statement i am the hugest proponent of this with my high school students um but i'm all for more information so i'll say aye mr grannon aye ms shawheim i'll i'll vote on this in a second i just want to say using the late hours an excuse is hilarious to me when we could have all been asleep right now and stopped at 11. so yes i understand the concern and i'm definitely point point of order that was a motion that was granted and adopted and no further comment on the motion uh to proceed shall be entertained um miss

338shawheim please proceed all right i'll rephrase i i just don't like using excuses for why we can't do something but i do agree that having students here to vocalize their um opinion of this is appropriate so i will say i that's what i was about to say miss antwine so a point of clarification we are going to on march i think 19th i think that's the date 18th to 19th we are going to have a presentation from uh the superintendent and his staff on these on on this i will call it the enrichment hour to inc and it will also allow public testimonies to include testimonies from students that's so we're tabling the motion for for that reason okay aye mr gilliland mr leib miss hummer miss corketto aye zero okay motion amendment 26 sorry

339yes please please remember 26 double the number of stem seats available in clusters that have capacity that for additional students without recourse to portable classrooms increase operating budget recommendation by six hundred twenty seven thousand six hundred ninety dollars mr grandman connection okay we have a motion mr grandma is it too late to bundle this with amendment that that's a that's a late hour joke don't worry no no no no one got it it passed 9-0 okay anyway oh no we did we did yes anyway so if i can try to muster some articulate thoughts about this i want to explain why the the wording is like it is uh for full and total transparency this motion evolved over time as i got information so basically my kids are in elementary school so i don't necessarily

340have a lot of first-hand experience with uh you know the the magnet programs in particular stem so it was going on school tours that i i learned about them and and got first-hand kind of exposure to them in fact i think you were on one of the same school tours with me where we saw the uh the stem programs at uh central middle and south river and so learning more about them and talking to the principals in particular those two schools i learned about the mechanics of at least how the stem program works and how admission to it works and how there are more students seeking admission than we have seats i also learned some of the statistics behind the the stem program and how these are some of our hardest working students and how

341they're some of our most competitive graduates as the numbers were put to me there were a hundred stem seats available for middle school students and only a hundred available for high school students i guess that's at the two different locations that have them so that got me thinking that okay well there's a need for this that's not being fully addressed by those numbers and so my request initially to mr shaknovich was to price out for this process doubling the number of stem seats county wide in with that well-intentioned thought uh the thing that came back because that that's mr shaq knows his job and his team's job is to say okay that's what you want i'm going to give you the numbers for that the numbers were significantly increased because at some schools that require

342portables that would not be required at other schools so without understanding okay well i don't know which schools those are tell me what you tell me what the numbers would be if we did it without the portables and so that's how we got to this number so the for us to double the number of stem seats without incurring the additional facilities costs for portables is 627 thousand dollars for now this amendment uh if passed in this budget cycle would double the number of stem seats at south river high school which does not require uh portables to make that happen so that got me thinking about um some of the implications of this and it's not something that we would be voting on now but if this were to pass i think there definitely would be

343those seats would be filled there's no question about that those seats would certainly be filled but one of the things that i learned in this process of the mechanics for the stem applications is you can have a very successful stem middle schooler going through getting 4-0 or i guess it under our system for higher than a 4-0 and that student after all that hard work can reapply for stem in high school and not get a seat so i'm not saying that we address this now but i do think that is something that could should be considered in the policy committee in particular if we open up additional capacity in high school and there's a logic to that to me high schools are bigger than middle schools so there should be more stem seats available in

344the high school um so that's how this came to be boarded this way for full transparency i want everyone here to know that i did not go into this with any intention of benefiting just south river high school it just so happens that south river high school is the only high school at this time that can take the additional students for stem without recourse to portables so that's how this amendment came to be i wanted to give that full explanation and i hope that you all will you all will consider it and then further down the line again it is not a budget implication but further down the line i think the policy committee would be the appropriate one to start thinking about do we do we want to think about potentially adjusting our application

345process for stem high school seats for middle schoolers that have done very very well and whatever the appropriate you know metric that we would assign to that um that's something for consideration down the road thank you miss shawheim miss shahi so i just have um just a point of clarification just so we if we do pass this that it has the intent that you wanted it it just says double the number of stem seats available in the clusters that have capacity but it doesn't specify high school versus middle school did you want it just to be the number of of high school stem seats available in the clusters that have capacity for additional students without recourse to portable classrooms so we don't touch the middle schools and would that i i don't know if that

346would affect the dollar amount or not you were speaking of high school so i was curious right so they to answer that question what i understand from mr jack novich and i again for i want this to be as transparent as possible we could have apparently this is not this was not intended to be just high schools this was intended to be at all levels the only school right now that satisfies this criteria of being able to take additional stem students without portables is south river high school so for transparency so so everything i said i'd be happy to put a parenthetical after that that says something like that um at at this time south earlier south river high school is the only school that can accommodate the additional students without recourse to portables is

347that accurate yes sir that's correct okay so then i'll take that as a friendly amendment okay if we want to add this ms howell in a parenthetical at this time south river high school is the only school with capacity for additional stem seats without recourse to portables did you get that thank you okay we got it um any other comments ms shaw him no i'm good thank you okay miss antoine miss hummer and miss ellis miss antoine so even with the amendment we're realistically just requesting more stem seats for one school in this case so as it is as it is written without the adjustment that you just made should another school by some miracle get that capacity right with the funding amount that's here be able to cover that doubling doubling that successfully so

348okay so let me uh let me dial out and then i'll dial back in so uh the opportunity exists at south river because of the redistricting activity that recently took place so over the span of four years worth of time at south river high school approximately 800 students will be will migrate over to crofton high school so the there's not an immediate doubling at south river high school the way the stem programs operate is they bring there's a hundred seats that are brought in every year in a stem program and a hundred seats graduate out so that's the steady state pattern at the high school mr grandin's proposal would have the effect of in the fy 21 year funded they would bring in a cohort of 200 students in that freshman year the year after

349that those 200 students would move to sophomore year 10th grade and then another 200 come in so they would glide in over four years because we only on board um stem students at the freshman year because they have a very specific sequence of courses so you can't just come in mid-flight and kind of catch up it just completely doesn't work now back to this there are no other schools in fy 21 within anne arundel county absent something completely happening like i couldn't even possibly imagine that could take on additional stem students without the introduction of portables mr grantham was very specific with that so i i a i don't see that happening because every school all the remaining schools would need portables and b should magic happen and some school didn't need the portables 627

350690 is not a sufficient amount of money to do that okay thank you yes ma'am miss hummer and then miss ellis miss hummer so let me start by saying i am all for expanding magnet programs i am a parent who has had children who attend or have attended four different magnet programs across the county so i know the benefits of them i know how fabulous the programs are i'd love to see them expanded i also know that every single one of our magnet programs has a waiting list i actually checked the list today because acceptances came out and actually on the waiting list at south river right now for stem there is not enough students on the waiting list that would fill to double the program at this point um i have you know as

351i do think this is something we should look toward in the future especially at south river as things happen with crofton but i think this is premature crofton high school will be opening this fall and over the next two three years we'll see the impact on space at south river and the feasibility of adding seats doubling the number of seats is a dramatic drastic expansion before we actually know what the intro enrollments trends will be we don't know if the demand for the magnet will even remain the same when the new high school opens because many students that may have gone for the magnet may instead choose to be going to the new high school i also have a concern that this amendment only proposes expanding seats at one stem high school program we have

352eight high school magnet programs as well as seven middle school ones every one of those programs has waiting lists and many of the schools have capacity to possibly increase the enrollment not necessarily doubling but adding 10 or 20 seats so why are we considering doubling at one school without even looking at the others performing visual arts bio medical allied health and international baccalaureate are also quality sought of after programs with very long waiting lists at all the schools this expansion i think is premature it doesn't comprehensively look at our entire magnet structure and i don't believe it's a priority for this fiscal year when we're opening a new high school hoping to expand triple e to all clusters and trying to aggressively lower class sizes and increase our compensation thank you miss hummer miss ellis

353thank you i'm going to ask a couple questions i know it's a lot of information on the fly so i don't know if you have it but do you know the first of all did you do you know if there's fewer students on the waiting list for south river stem right now than last year perhaps as a result of crofton happening the answer is yes we we are at a at a low point in terms of the waiting list size at this point in time versus what we would have seen you know three years ago six years ago et cetera and is there a waiting list north county i believe is the other uh stem and how does that compare much much larger than south rivers it's much larger so dr mcmahon's coming up she'll

354notice hi doctor we woke her up i'm sorry the waiting list at that well first of all the waiting list that you'd see online right now they're not your waiting list right they just came they just came out of lottery which means waiting lists have one student could be sitting on more than one waiting list right now so the waiting list we look at which tells the real true picture of how many people are waiting to get a seat in that school is the one in july and august right right just you know a good month before school starts that's the bottom line waiting list last year's south river's waiting list was at 40 at that point in time so there'd be 40 students to attend south river in those extra hundred slots that you

355would be putting in so there were there were 40 students on the left without a seat at stem for southward for south river and do you know the comparable numbers that our biggest waiting list last year was lynndale middle school there were over 100 people waiting to get into lynndale middle school still so i don't remember the exact ones otherwise but i mean those are the two you know um things go through trends right and and cycles and so the bottom line is the stem schools are absolutely sought after as are our other magnet programs but what we see over the years is a settling to some degree over time i'm sorry to keep pushing but you're do you know confidently that the the number of students on the waiting list that don't get a

356seat at north county are higher than last year i know it was higher yes last year it was higher our stem waiting list last year at the end of the year were between 40 and 70. okay and i think that's different i don't grow this year because of more people wanting to go to the new high school well we know what's true is a new school effect often has a few less students wanting to go however i don't doubt that there will be a demand at south river and then um that's my final question um sorry it's late it's it's slipped my mind i'm sorry um okay and i i i'm just gonna oh that was my other question if there's if there's a greater number of students that don't get a seat at north

357county and perhaps that grows with the opening of a new school is there a way to shift our boundaries so that because right now it feels like perhaps more students with interest have an access to the to stem if they live in a certain part of the county than the other so ultimately you can shift but it's very tricky to shift i mean we've built these these transportation hubs and where they go based on geography but also based on traffic in the morning right so right now we have a seven up five down for stem feeding everybody in the county can go to glen burnie but seven of the feeders feed up to north county and five feet down to south river to change that is not a simple movement that's overtime and crofton is

358going to add down to south river so initially while crofton may be a place that has the new school effect for a few years eventually you know crofton will feed from the beginning into south river those numbers will grow to south river stem so we'll have a seven up six down we've looked at that significantly and would not recommend right now moving the borders and who goes where based on feeders right now because remember we have although we have two major stem high schools we have three stem middle schools all right thank you mr grandma yeah i'll just reiterate in case it wasn't clear from my earlier comments that my initial request that i made to mr shaknovich was just to increase the number of stem seats county-wide without any design for a specific school

359um i do have one question for you do you have a sense of how many students go through stem in middle school but then are not able to get a seat in high school is is that the majority of the waiting list no it's an interest it's interesting it's a great question you're asking the schools are all different but what we've looked at over time and i'll give it to you for the pva just a minute just for now only because i know that went off the top of my head only 30 of the current pva students in bates middle school go on to apply to the pva at high school when they're queried about that because we have done that it's not because they didn't enjoy the program it's because that passion and interest

360it doesn't go away they just see themselves in their either annapolis high not as a pva student or in their home school and they continue with their arts in stem what's interesting is we have bolstered the stem programs all over the county in all the comprehensive high schools so you can get amazing science technology engineering math everywhere so some students to the tune of 30 to 50 percent of the students don't necessarily apply to go to the stem magnet programs okay so thank you for that um i had had another comment before i uh i passed the pass the mic um i i i guess i don't want to debate this but in response to something that um miss hummer said i i think this is my fifth time going through a budget um along

361with you and i don't recall any other prior amendments in prior years to increase the number of seats in any of the magnet programs that's an opportunity that you've had that's an opportunity that any other member up here has had based on your experience going around and seeing that this is coming from something that i saw talking to two principals saying oh you know we we you know we we have more students that want this than we than we can meet the needs for i do want to be as responsible as possible in trying to address that concern that's expressed to me again directly by school principles and that's why i was trying to modify it not to have you know huge you know facilities implications in terms of the portables what i want i

362know there's another amendment that's coming back around after this that mr jack nobody is is there a way to knowing that at this time this would only apply to south river high school is there a way that in a few moments that you could cost down this number to address the 40 or so students that that we know are on a waiting list to get seats there rather than doubling it from 100 to 200. and that that in that way my i think the motion would be tailored as precisely as possible to the specific needs that are currently existing is that something that you think you know i'm happy to so it's not a simple forty percent i understand that yeah we spent probably six or seven hours getting to your number the first time

363right so if miss dr mcmahon has enough of her academic team here to pull that thing i'll tell you what's my help can i table can i move the table my own motion to see what the best you guys can do and during our consideration of this this amendment number five that's coming back around yeah sure you you can definitely table it um we can uh why don't we present this motion and see if we can come up with a fast estimate um you know on the fly on that or a rough enough number that we're comfortable with um miss and twine correct let me know if i don't have this correct but i believe the amendment will uh read as it's written except it will be add 1.1 million um vice president ellis yes

364but i want to admit even that number because as we went through we agreed to some um the budget changed so i would like to amend it down to 500k and to only address um recruiting right um hold on let me look at the warning so only read okay so take off the retention and the second sentence yeah retention in the first sentence and the whole right got it all right i'm gonna read it and you tell me if this sounds right thank you so add to superintendent's recommendation to be used for teacher recruitment recruitment funds would be used to recruit more classroom teachers which addresses capacity concerns due to aggressive student enrollment growth and overcrowding in our schools budget recommend increases operating budget recommendation by five hundred thousand dollars thank you i need a

365motion in a second um um so moves seconds okay we got a motion in a second missing yeah i think we already went through the majority yes no worries um so as we went attention but we still fail to address recruitment based on um my research and the presentation that that we had at last meeting i believe it's important that we enhance and and support uh more of our recruiting efforts as it says in there it will certainly help with capacity issues especially if if retention somehow fails recruiting will be be a good substitute in terms of feeling those those um needs if teacher a for example has 60 students teacher b has 60 students and teacher b decides to leave then that gives you know ideally teacher a 120 students however for if we're

366recruiting actively and have the funds to be able to do that you're looking to be funny it's it's like 1am but what i what i'm saying in a in a very generalized term is that we should be just as focused on our recruitment efforts as we do retention and therefore i'm offering this amendment okay um ms ellis can you help under help us understand what the money will be spent for this is not for staff ftes so as it was pointed out earlier if we if we do the ftes in terms of recruiting you would be hiring someone to recruit right so this would actually help with the outreach that was described i understood that they there was a lot of travel and plans to change even our technological uh features to enhance recruitment efforts

367so this would be funding those those types of efforts okay i don't see any more questions from the dyess so um we are uh do we have any public comments seeing none um uh miss uh ellis can you please reread the um amendment uh amendment 5 excuse me add 500 000 to superintendents recommended recommendation to be used for teacher recruitment recruitment funds would be used to recruit more classroom teachers which addresses a capacity concerns due to aggressive student enrollment growth and overcrowding in our schools increases operating budget recommendation by 500 thousand dollars miss hal please call roll miss alvey not yet miss ellis nay mr granny i just want to explain something i think this is extremely well on time's part i think it's very responsible of her to adjust her number um downward philosophically

368i have just a concern about us passing line items you know physical line items that you know we give the number as opposed to the number being generated by the need and um i i i have a concern about that so i'm going to vote no miss miss antwine if i may my numbers are just not generated off top off the top of my head i it has been insinuated all night that some of us don't take the time to do what's necessary to make informed fiscal decisions and that's just not fair or right we are here to make informed decisions and i assure you the the amendments that i put forth they most certainly come with in-depth research physic physically mentally and otherwise and even spiritually because i pray over these uh things as

369well um so yes i did dwindle it down hoping that i could get some kind of additional information um from staff concerning the number but i do want to look down based on the information that i i already knew the concern recruiting and based on information that was has been recently shared um and and so the with all that i'm saying i to that amendment mr gilliland mr leib miss hummer miss corcodell nay motion fails one eight okay we have one more amendment to revisit um alex are you good okay um we are now releasing the hold on amendment number 26. um and mr grannon do you want to initiate the uh reintroduction of this motion uh a number tailored to the currently the numbers of 40 students so to allow us a factor of

370safety because the students can go like that and to keep math a little bit simpler um we we modeled it for 50 additional students so it's so it's not a doubling it's a 50 increase above today's numbers but it's not 100 increase so we model everything on 50 additional students coming into the ninth grade cohort so they'll have 150 seats come september of 2020 and then they'll have 150 seats in in each of the next three years so the number prior uh originally was 627 that was the original number and predicated on 50 additional seats it's 3440. i'll repeat that again 359 thousand [Music] three hundred forty thank you yes sir um based on that information um miss ellis or mr granin can you please restate the amendment add 50 stem seats available in clusters

371that have capacity for additional students without recourse deportable classrooms at this time south river high school is the only school with capacity for additional stem seats without recourse to portables increase operating budget recommendation by three hundred fifty nine thousand three hundred forty dollars okay um can we get just a re-motion in a second because it did dynamically changed okay motion and second this hummer followed by miss ellis miss hummer yes i just want to address something that mr grannon said he asked why if i was in support of explaining these that in the five years i've been on the board we hadn't done that actually we have and mr grant has been on the board too we've voted multiple times over the past couple of years to fully because at the time when we came

372on the board there was not the stem program at central middle school so we voted in multiple budgets to expand the seats there and fully implement the stem program at central middle so we have expanded the seats by um 400 students um in the past few years and so um again i would i'm going to ask again why are we looking to add seats only at south river there is more room there but there could be capacity for instance to do 20 seats at glen burnie or 15 at broadneck so we're singling out one program for expansion without looking across the board i believe this is something that should be done but done more methodically by looking at all programs and making a plan but i also believe it's not the top priority for this

373year we have other program expansions a new high school and other things that we need to focus on and that i believe this should be for another year summer miss ellis first a question this rewording of this amendment could adjust the schools that have capacity did that happen did you consider that is that the case at all no um no it's just it would not so in other words none of the others none of the other schools could make it work even at the 50 numbered set of 100 number all the they would require less portables than right original but none of the other schools could successfully onboard 50 additional students per year without installing portable classrooms at it could be as few as could be as few as two could be as many as

374at least four right just to just to accomplish the additional 50 south river is the only one that can take either the 50 or 100 number successfully without additional infrastructure costs okay thank you so i just want to make a statement uh mr grant and i greatly appreciate the spirit of what you're trying to do here i have two concerns one is um i stem i i do believe should be happening in all of our high schools and i would like to be see it expanded in that way to where it eventually maybe is not a magnet program because there is such a high interest and that there's you know even i know there's some highly specialized classes and perhaps teachers could float to touch all those high schools and make the uh be able

375to offer that um but the my big concern tonight about this amendment is um a student who applies for an auditions for the pva in theater there's there's one location for them so that therefore every student in the county has access to that program there may not be enough seats for them depending on the prime that they're auditioning for but what concerns me here is that students do not have an equal access to stem under this amendment and where we already know we have a greater need in the northern part of the county because we've heard that there's more students left on the waiting list um we we create an issue there where students have more opportunity more access in the south part of the county thank you miss ellis michelle heim okay michelle heim

376will we'll have to take a pass on that and seeing no more lights any comments from the audience seeing none um ms ellis if you could please reread the uh um amendment one more time before vote sure add 50 stem seats available in clusters that have capacity for additional students without recourse to portable classrooms at this time south river high school is the only school with capacity for additional stem seats without recourse to portables increases the operating budget recommendation by three hundred fifty nine thousand three hundred forty dollars miss how please call the roll miss alvey miss ellis mr grannon miss antoine aye mr gilliland mr leib miss hummer miss corcodell aye it is 4-4 motion fails appeared on the dice um before we completely closed out and although i traditionally do vote i'm willing

377to keep it open to contain her vote because she did come into the diocese and approach it and being that we already did that for one other member this evening as they were approaching in we can include her if she would choose if she wants to vote without comment because this is about i don't know what to do here um i want more stem but i want a more equitable approach to this but i think i want more stem [Music] by any means possible so yeah i'm going to be i'll be an eye motion passes 5'4 okay we i am going to ask any members if they have any amendments that were not already presented folks if i could just get a couple more minutes here of everybody's attention because i think there's a lot

378of discussion that's getting loud on the diocese please we're almost there please reserve for another minute are there any other amendments that were not presented to us seeing no activity okay okay just as a gentle reminder um as soon as we reconcile this we will be going into the the board will be um standing at ease while staff calculates the finer number and then we will return for the final vote as soon as that number is crunched last call okay we are good to go this board is officially standing at ease until such time the final number for the final vote has been conducted [Music] do [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] do [Music] my [Music] okay the board is back in session again

379thank you all for your patience um we do have some final numbers and in those final calculations and um gestures alex if you wouldn't mind give us our final standoff statements so starting out with the budget that was presented earlier yesterday and taken the net effect of all of the amendments that were passed so i'm going to walk you through all the different steps so all the amendments that were passed amounted to eleven million five hundred and sixteen thousand one hundred and thirty three dollars so eleven million five hundred sixteen thousand one hundred thirty three dollars worth of amendments were passed all of those amendments have to be applied to the county government line so the request of the county government has changed from approximately 57.2 million to the new number of 68 million again

38068 million seven hundred fifty four thousand zero thirty eight dollars our total year over year increase has gone from approximately 85.1 million to now 96 million 597 194 so again the year-over-year increase is 96 million five hundred ninety seven thousand one hundred ninety four on the fte basis so this is unrestricted uh general fund our original request for positions was 506.2 positions the net effect of the amendments adds an additional 58.5 ftes so the new fte request will be 560 ftes total again the new request is 564.7 ft's total on a percentile basis we begin the process at six point six nine percent year over year uh it is now the net effect of the amendments has us at seven point six zero percent so our official ask is a 7.60 percent increase and the

381number you've been waiting for the number you're going to vote on tonight is the total operating budget request so the total operating budget request um is 1 billion million thousand eight hundred ninety four dollars i'll read that again 1 billion 367 million i'm sorry 894. we turn it back over you miss ellis would you please read our final motion of the night i move that the board of education adopt the fiscal year 2021 operating budget request in the amount of 1 billion 367 million 447 894 dollars we have a motion and a second seeing no comments any public testimony seeing none miss hal please call viral miss ellis mr grannon michelle heinz aye ms antwine aye mr gilliland aye mr wibe aye ms hummer aye ms crocodile aye motion passes 8-0 okay this meeting is

382officially adjourned next meeting will occur on march the 4th at 10 am [Music] is [Music] cinco [Music] is it's is [Music]