001[Music] so [Music] do [Music] i think the november 4th board of education meeting is now in session please rise for the invocation oh god we pray to administer that which is just in all educational policies being ever mindful of your guidance stir us to action with love wisdom and understanding before we do the pledge i just wanted to say that a week from today is veterans day and it's a day where we honor those who have served and are serving our country it's a day that stirs great patriotism and pride and this morning we are privileged to have with us a group of students who i have no doubt are some of our future leaders in our country our state and our nation and who may one day serve in our nation's military here to
002present the colors and lead us in the pledge of allegiance are cadets from the annapolis high school njrotc program i would ask the cadets to remain in place after the pledge so the board can take a photo with you colors 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 dr frank and mrs richie if you all can just kind of he's a little closer okay everybody here we go wait [Music] i just want to thank commander jack eggleston who leads the program and the cadets chris amaya jackson cole anna hegelson cameron martin and nick zethan who took the time to be with us this morning we're extremely proud of every one of them the next
003item on the agenda is item 2.03 approval of the minutes do i have a motion to approve the minutes all those in favor motion passes eight zero zero item 2.04 established agenda order and the agenda stands as published item 2.05 are recognitions and today we will recognize the lakeshore and sovereign park elementary schools for receiving their 2015 national blue ribbon awards good morning president corbilak members of the board and dr alato i am janine robinson the very proud regional assistant superintendent of the severna park and glen burnie clusters and on behalf of my colleague kate gilbert the regional assistant superintendent for north county and chesapeake i have the pleasure of introducing you to two incredible schools this morning before i move forward i would like to invite president corbin dr arlato and members of the
004board to come forward so earlier this year our school system stood brightly in the national spotlight as one of the few in the country with multiple national blue ribbon schools severna park and lakeshore elementary schools were two of six public schools in maryland to earn the national award and we are the only school system in the state with multiple winners national blue ribbon schools are awarded based on one of two criteria the ability of schools with at least 40 percent of their students from disadvantaged backgrounds to dramatically improve student performance to high levels on state tests or schools whose students regardless of background rank among their state's highest performing schools on state assessments at severna park more than 98 percent of students scored proficient or advanced on msa math and reading in 2014 at lake
005shore more than 96 percent of students scored proficient or advanced on the reading msa in 2014 and 93 percent did so in math both schools as you can probably guess have incredibly supportive communities and ptas that go to great lengths to support students teachers and the school as a whole as we know parental involvement is a critical ingredient to student success members of both school staffs will represent their schools next week at the national celebration of blue ribbon schools today however it is our turn as students parents and staff members first from severna park and then from lakeshore come forward please join me in congratulating them for their the outstanding job they do every day [Applause] surgery congratulations oh [Laughter] three okay [Applause] oh congratulations [Laughter] foreign great [Applause] thank you our next item is
0062.06 educator of the month mrs birch thank you school psychologists are uniquely qualified members of school teams that support students ability to learn and teachers ability to teach school psychologists partner with families teachers and administrators to create learning environments that strengthen connections between home school and the community in other words school psychologists connect the dots in honor of school psychology awareness week november through 13th the theme of which is connect the dots and thrive the board of education is honored to recognize a school psychologist who has made a significant impression on the students and families within the south river community dr kelly anderson serves as an integral part of the student services team coordinating mental health services for students who need assistance with their learning she has implemented south river high school's participation in active
007minds a national group devoted to addressing stigma associated with mental health issues among high school and college students as chair of the office of psychological services professional development committee kelly has provided multiple training experiences for psychologists and social workers to learn counseling and consultation practices she has also successfully written and secured grants from the maryland school psychologists association dr anderson has a gift of translating difficult psychological concepts into meaningful sets of recommendations and directions which are clear and parent-friendly her keen sense of wit knowledge and talents are packaged together to define a professional whose words are highly respected kelly anderson is a remarkable school psychologist who embodies genuine passion and enthusiasm for her work with aacps she has been instrumental in helping our school system grapple with issues related to student threats by providing learning
008opportunities for school counselors social workers psychologists nurses pupil personnel workers and administrators she understands that each of these professions play an important role in helping teens to respond to difficult situations and conflict in a healthy way her contributions in the area of threat determination are remarkable kelly anderson you are the perfect role model who demonstrates that continuous learning results in extraordinary and energized work performance your leadership strengths are magnified by your honest and caring approach you embody the leadership traits that organizations are always seeking in employees such as dedication honesty integrity perseverance and soft skills aacps is truly blessed to have you as a member of the student services team and the board is pleased to honor you as educator of the month for november 2015. congratulations and would you please join me up front
009[Applause] how did we get you here today i am shocked i am never surprised and i had no idea i thought i was coming to present on some information so they did some psychological check on you and i fancy myself to be the best but clearly i'm not because i am stunned all right so what i have for you is a certificate and a bell with your name on it and who joined you today so my significant other um nathaniel sparr a navy man who actually does color guard so i was thinking i had some questions for him later about color guard that was here today maybe he saw them out in there and my dear friend and colleague william law a social worker from glendale regional okay and of course dr schwartz who probably
010played a hand in this and i had no idea and nick silvestri and will myers now i'm putting some pieces together it's all starting to make sense and next week we're going to be honoring all of you so yeah wonderful well thank you congratulations thank you and thank you so much for all that you do for all of us truly a surprise and an honor i very much appreciate it thank you very much [Applause] and we'll be taking more pictures at the break item 2.07 is the employee of the month mrs pickard in a perfect world in anne arundel county public schools when an amazing employee is assigned to two schools the board would like to wave its magic wand and clone the employee so that each school could reap 100 percent of the benefits
011of the employee's excellent work product such as the case with mr george guthrie technical support technician serving both arnold and belvedere elementary schools once the word got out last january that principals of both schools planned on nominating george for employee of the month there was an overwhelming enthusiasm and support of the nomination so much that teacher after teacher asked if they could provide personal input to the nomination form so mr guthrie the board would like to share with you this morning just what some of those teachers had to say about their favorite technology support technician george is always willing to go that extra mile and to see that things work right he is the hardest working lab tech i have ever met fantastic i have such confidence in him that i have if i ever
012need anything not only is he unveil is he available but he is so quick to whatever to get to whatever i need george is a great partner he keeps me informed on all the latest technology news so i can relay it to other teachers on the day he is at his other school mr guthrie is a very effective tech but more importantly he is patient and a wise teacher of technology my experience with george is that he always finds the time to fix assist and educate me on any i.t issue that i have ever had he is an empathetic to teachers technology needs and takes all the time in the world to help tutor the teacher so we have a complete understanding of the process he doesn't waste a single minute of his work time
013george is known throughout both arnold and belvedere for his kindness patience and willingness to help staff and students george guthrie you are an amazing problem solver you will work tirelessly until you find the solution for any given problem in addition to your technical know-how you are kind considerate and approachable you have the ability to make everyone feel comfortable with technology without making anyone feel challenged your positive outlook on life is contagious and you are an incredible asset to arnold and belvedere elementary schools so for these reasons and more the board of education is honored to recognize you employee of the month for november 2015. congratulations and please join me up front [Applause] good morning so congratulations how did we get you here today never believe a word mr ben eric today [Applause] he uh told
014me i was gonna present something to the board and i'm very honored to be here shocked to be here and very grateful to the dog here and arnold community as well as all the other people i serve now i actually left those two schools because i wanted to move closer to home so i left them i love them dearly they're both over there and now at glendale and woodside and enjoying that as well so thank you we have a lovely certificate thank you wonderful thank you again everybody [Applause] item 2.08 volunteer of the month mrs nelly even before her children were school age our volunteer of the month was advocating for their school with a big picture community perspective while this dedication to the larger community continues this extraordinary volunteer also serves as an in-school
015volunteer and pta leader today the board of education is proud to honor ms kerry pets of arnold elementary school as our november volunteer of the month years ago kerry began attending local development school board and cac meetings to report back to the school's pta and parent base she successfully spearheaded efforts to install new sidewalks and crosswalks to enhance safety for children walking to arnold elementary school since that success carey served on the arnold school building feasibility study team whose final recommendation was that the arnold elementary facility be completely rebuilt when follow-through was in doubt kerry rallied the arnold community and presented undisputable data to convince the anne arundel county public school board of this necessity according to fellow parent molly harding the school board's change of heart would never have happened if not for kerry's
016leadership over the past two years and her depth uh of knowledge of this complex process even while pursuing the feasibility study behind the scenes kerry still made time for in-person volunteering as pta president and attending school improvement meetings where she's been a key contributor to developing ways to improve academic success for students of the free and reduced meals program thanks in no small part to carry there are now enrichment programs such as reading buddies and homework to help to assist these students carrie is cert currently serving as the parent volunteer coordinator at arnold elementary utilizing her talent for identifying a person's interests and gifts to encourage them to participate in and develop new programs such as the successful hero boys running club that aided over 30 boys in training for their first 5k and a
017beautiful mediation garden built by a mom who is a master gardener it is through her deep connection to the families at arnold and the relationship with staff that their confidence and programs carry supports that the whole community has benefited not surprisingly carrie petz was a finalist for the 2015 msde parent involvement matters award she is currently serving on the superintendent's parent involvement advisor committee committee and is currently a leadership development institute participant thank you for your service carrie would you please come forward with great appreciation i would like to present this volunteer of the month certificate [Applause] this is my community all right thank you so much and on behalf of the board i'd like to present you with a certificate in this bill and uh uh how did you get you what did they
018do to lie to get you here i'm supposed to be speaking oh you're on community partnerships yes oh well so i'm sure you can you can really speak to that and uh who's here with you today i see you apparently my whole posse oh my god stand up our pta president and lots of my crew my family and my parents and my kids ironically wow oh well thank you for coming and thank you as well thank you shauna cough and i see her yeah there she is thank you thank you so much [Applause] the next item on the agenda is 2.09 school and community highlights mrs hummer um yes um i had several great opportunities this past month um last week miss pickard and i went with dr arlatto and miss pedrick and went and
019toured ruth eason and marley glenn's um special education centers and just amazing things going on there the dedication the love that those teachers have for their students and the innovative ideas and techniques that they're using are just very impressive at both schools i was glad to get a chance to see them both firsthand i also attended at annapolis high school they presented a new documentary called beyond measure which was looking at different ways of assessing children and assessing students rather than just standardized tests and i came away from it very encouraged because all the things they highlighted in this documentary are things that anne arundel county public schools are already doing um project-based learning and um our magnet programs and stem things and watching the things that were highlighted in that documentary we are well
020on the way down the path for that and it left me feeling like we are just as i thought on the cutting edge of um educational innovations within the within education and so i was glad to be a part of that and i also got to yesterday i went to monarch global academy and stood out with their pta giving out donuts and um and coffee and dancing and karaoke to welcome the parents in the morning and if you ever go out there donna o'shea the principal there can do some mean karaoke and but we did ray bibo was not tearing it up too much he was singing a little but we didn't quite get to see his dance moves so maybe next time so but dr frank as a engineer i had that wonderful opportunity
021with other members of the school board to go to these programs at cat north and cat south and i must say as my own limited experience in doing a little electrical work and heating hvac as they call it and other things that need to be done at home if you have an opportunity or a need to have someone work on your home i hope they've gone to cat north or cat south because it's a fantastic opportunity for those students and you if you live in the community to take advantage of what they've learned last night we also several of us had the chance to go to the maca learning center in gambrils for our first board outreach of the school year and we just had a wonderful time sharing a meal with them and talking
022about concerns and issues in their community and we're looking forward to our next outreach during black history month sometime in february weather permitting the next item on the agenda is 2.10 the cac report and i don't believe we have a cac report today and then 2.11 is the piac report good morning president corbin vice president natalie superintendent arlatto um my name is carol streeter i'm members of the board i apologize for that my name is carol streeter and i'm the president of the parent involvement advisory council we had our first meeting a little over a month ago and we're very excited to welcome new members to the organization and thank you superintendent arlatta for coming and sharing your insight to our group it definitely means a lot to us to be able to hear what's
023going on one of the main things that we focus on in the council is how to get more parents involved you know in the school system and the way to do that through the communities is to make sure that we are aware of what's going on in the school system that matters to them one way to get people excited and wanting to come help our schools is to find what talks to them so what we did in our first meeting is we actually just did a brainstorming session and in that session we just asked everybody there you know what are you hearing in the community what's happening what do they care about and we just did a whiteboard session and we came up with a list and we have six items on our list of
024what we're going to focus on this year one is the school calendar development seems like a really easy thing but as you know as i hear more and more about it it's not an easy thing and it's really important for us to understand so that we can take that out into the community and we can you know dispel you know some of the thoughts that you know people have another thing is transportation um you know that's interesting it's important people are curious about bus stop locations bus stop supervision you know also when you talk about the school start time the whole bus you know the bus software that we have all of that is information that we would like to get so we can take that back out into the community curriculum it's a large
025item to put on there but we're specifically talking about a couple years ago um stem six seven stem seven eight math came in play we'd like to see you know where is that now how did how is that working for everybody and then maybe even link in the new k1 and what's going to roll out so that people are aware of what's coming and then mental health that's such a big big part of the community and what our kids are going through when you can look at it from the school start time some of the other items that we have in gender identity issues anxiety stress and what's in the curriculum to help our kids with that so just trying to so that we understand what's going on and then communication boy i'm so involved
026in everything that happens in the school yet i now have a high schooler for the first time this year and i i can't even figure out all of the different systems to use so fortunately she's my easy one she has it all under control but my son's in middle school and he's not so if we can help get that information to the parents then get that out into the community i think that will help as well and if we can give feedback you know what's working for us and what's not working for us and then the final thing on our agenda which is always important is funding you know what how is the budget put together because there's so many times that you know i'm sitting at a football game or at a band thing
027and i hear people complaining and if we have that information and we know how it's done we can get that out there and help maybe keep some phone calls down for you all so we're really excited about this year you know 2015 2016 looking forward to a good year last year the weather wasn't kind to us so we had to cancel two of our meetings so we're hopeful that the weather is kind to us and we'll be able to have all these because we want all this information thank you you we're going to take a short break for some pictures and we'll be back for public participation [Music] so [Music] anyways [Music] yes so apparently [Music] so [Music] so [Music] yes [Music] we'll now move on to the public comment portion of the meeting anyone
028wishing to speak on an item not on today's agenda may offer testimony during the public comment portion of the meeting speakers will be allotted three minutes each and the board asks that comments remain civil and appropriate for the various audiences that may be watching or viewing the meeting student specific and personnel matters are confidential and cannot be discussed in this forum this time is intended for speakers to voice their opinion and not necessarily ask a question and answer period speakers may pose questions but answers will be counted toward the three-minute allotment for the record please give your name before speaking and handouts should be given to the board assistant i'll call the first six people we have matthew nolte lisa van buskirk jeff mccrees craven ingles chris leach and bill jones good morning board of
029education and dr alato as you know i'm lisa van buskirk here representing start school later and the sleep deprived students in anne arundel county two weeks ago you had great advice at your start times workshop what are you doing with that information as the clock ticks the teens continue to lose sleep that they will never recover dr olado and his staff are surely working on the budget for the 2016-2017 school year how will your intention to start to adjust start times next year be incorporated into that budget will the transportation software be ready anne arundel county is not the only school system struggling at the start time issue over 80 percent of american high schools start before 8 30 a.m closer to home other counties across maryland are looking to anne arundel county to see
030how we proceed in particular i know that baltimore and harford counties are following us closely so members of the board you have the opportunity to not just improve the lives of 80 000 anne arundel county students but also tens of thousands more across the state by demonstrating clear and effective leadership on this issue i'd like to read to you a quote from a board of education member cindy kirsch in york county virginia which has the earliest start time in virginia at 7 20. they are also considering change we can implement all kinds of academic programs and spend all kinds of money to help our students achieve success but if students are sleeping in class who are wasting resources i believe a later start time would benefit all students but i know some families and students
031like the early diminished dismissal time which would be delayed with a later start time as we begin the exploration of later start times we need to provide open and transparent communication with all stakeholders we need to educate the community about the reasons to support later start times and we need to listen from the community so we know what problems could result from a scheduled change i believe if we take our time and work with stakeholders we can find a solution that will help our students and improve their health and academic achievement this is leadership from a board of education member similar in fairfax change was possible because of leadership at multiple levels it took leadership from the board of education to pass a resolution outline the expectation of safe and healthy hours it took leadership
032from the superintendent to accept the board's decree and instruct her staff on the priority of this issue to her and took leadership from mr plattenberg to coordinate not just transportation issues for the change but to work across other departments in the schools to implement it correctly the ann arnold county board of education can demonstrate the same kind of leadership you need your students need you to clarify your parameters for healthy hours they need one or more of you to step forward as the primary leader and champion of the severed who will it be next the bob must turn his eyes to aacps to def identify leaders and champions for this issue i urge the board to impress upon dr alato so that he may oppress upon his staff how important healthy and safe school hours
033are to all of you at the next level the board must find someone within the aacps willing to work across divisional brownies see council from other jurisdictions implement lesson learns think throughout the box solutions and leave the necessary community engagement effort exhausted students and families are looking to the board and aacps for leadership on assess on this issue who of you will answer their plea thank you hello hello my name is matthew nolte and i'm a 16 year old boy i attend old mill high school and i am currently in the 11th grade among the many things that i identify as identify as a transgender man this year has been particularly difficult for me though i no longer live with my mother as i consider our relationship emotionally harmful to me now that i live
034with my father full time i attend old mill even though i have found my first year old mill to be quite wonderful a few things have been holding me back from my happiness the main one being my birth name because of this because of this fact that my mother still has primary custody over me i am not yet able to legally change my name when i am at school this name that was assigned to me at birth follows me everywhere from my grades which i'm quite proud of to the attendance list that is called out every day i feel that i can no longer bear hearing this name every day so i have come to you with a proposal i propose that a preferred name box be added to the student file that overrides the
035legal name on simple school documents such as grade sheets report cards office 365 parent connect teacher role etc this box would only be used in special circum circumstances such as my own doing this would prevent me as well as many other transgender students from experiencing gender dysphoria which by definition is a state of unease or generalized dissatisfaction with life specifically relating to one's gender it is common for me to feel gender dysphoria when i am reminded of the parts of my past or present that i do not identify with i truly hope that we you will take my proposal proposal into consideration as it would alleviate my emotional pain that i feel in school as well as the emotional pain that many other transgender students feel every day thank you matthew thank you for sharing
036um these are some issues regarding transgender that we are wrestling with they're new for us as a as a large school system and one of the things i'd like to do is invite you to join some of our conversations before you leave would you touch base with dr gail cicero she's waving her hand get you if you'd be willing to share your contact information and and maybe you can help us out with some of these issues and another thing is uh i'm not a transgender i am a transgender person that is the proper use of the word just fyi i get it all the time actually there have been administrators at my school that have pointed at me called me he she it so it's quite a quite a problem hi good morning i'm jeff
037mcrees i'm the proud parent of five public school students i'm also a member and the former chair of the annapolis education commission and the co-chair this year along with the acting state school superintendent of the state of maryland statewide parent engagement council i'm here today to respectfully ask the board to redirect excess monies in the aacps general fund and to use them during this school year 2015-2016 to immediately restore financial incentives for teachers who work in high poverty schools the so-called challenge schools we think we found a win-win-win proposal that benefits our teachers our schools and our students as you heard the board meeting two weeks ago there's been widespread teacher and parent concern over terminating grants and other pays to teachers in schools of poverty these are teachers who are in the front lines
038of our quest to erase achievement gaps they face tremendous challenges challenges with parent involvement challenges with resources challenges with discipline challenges with kids who arrive in their classrooms hungry it's in these schools that we desperately desperately need to encourage our best and brightest teachers over the past 10 years in annapolis we've seen firsthand that financial incentives work no one can fully compensate these teachers for the extra challenges but these teachers this year have suffered reductions in their pay some as you heard last week as much as 17 percent this is wrong no teacher should ever see a pay reduction at any time especially those who are working in the most challenged schools to erase achievement gaps earlier this week the annapolis education commission passed a resolution that reads we support the immediate restoration of incentive
039pays for county teachers who work in high poverty schools so how do we propose to pay for it well working with county councilman chris trumbauer and the county auditor we think we found a solution according to the last audited figures there exists 3.6 million dollars in excess monies in the aacps general fund these funds we understand are not otherwise committed and with an addendum to the negotiated 2015-2016 agreement with the teachers unions uh we could restore the lost funds so that no teachers in our most challenged schools would see a pay-in decrease and i draw your attention to the handout from chris trumbauer and teresa sutherland that i hope has made it to you in conclusion on behalf of the annapolis education commission and the citizens of our capital city please direct the excess monies
040in the aacps general fund to restore in senate pay to our teachers and our schools of poverty it's a win-win-win proposal for everyone thank you good morning i'm craven ingles and i'm the president of the annapolis high school ptsa on october 14th the ptsa unanimously passed a resolution to support the continuation of the challenged school stipends and retention bonuses for high poverty schools we believe that these measures are imperative to supporting the excellent and passionate teachers at annapolis high school who worked tireless tirelessly to close the achievement gap a consequence of federal legislation such as the no child left behind act and more recently race to the top and common core state standards has been a heightened awareness among educators in the general public of the statistical gaps in achievement between white students and most
041students of color the achievement gap is tightly correlated with poverty housing and socioeconomic conditions during the october 21st board of education meeting anthony alston stated during the closing the achievement gap presentation we are not where we want to be the anne arundel county public school system has grown by more than 6 000 students in the last 10 years the hispanic population has tripled farm students have increased by 75 percent and we have approximately 1 300 homeless students in the county on october 26th the mayor of annapolis mike penalty's penned an essay about annapolis there's no place like our city annapolis has earned numerous accolades and best of designations one of the best state capitals to live in our main street being listed in the top five most romantic main streets in the country i wonder
042what designation the city of annapolis or the state capital of maryland would receive if its achievement gap statistics staggering numbers of children receiving free and reduced meal vouchers were brought to light impacting and closing the achievement gap is essential to the continued growth and prosperity of our city and our county if our most needy students are not prepared for life after high school the entire population of our beloved city suffers we cannot risk sliding backwards with so much at stake the teachers that commit themselves every day to change lives and contribute to our community deserve to be compensated for the unique challenges they take on in closing the annapolis high school ptsa supports the annapolis education commission and its proposal to use some excess monies in its general fund to restore incentive pay to teachers
043in challenged schools these teachers are needed in high poverty schools to prevent a widening of the achievement gap these teachers have suffered a reduction in their paychecks this year some as much as 17 percent this was unexpected it's wrong no teacher should see their paycheck shrink and it makes more difficult the job of closing the achievement gap thank you very much for your time um hello thank you for providing this form my name is chris leach and i'm a parent of annapolis high school senior i'm debbie richie may remember me as a frequent speaker of the board meetings when my children first enrolled in adorama county public school 15 years ago not as much advocacy from the annapolis feeder system back then so i had to take up that role um times have changed as
044demonstrated by the two polished speakers that preceded me and that you know my apologies for not being as prepared but i felt i had to sort of correct um something from the last time i testified um just a little history i was fortunate enough to have the support in my family that i was able to work part-time enabling me to volunteer in my children's school i've been a treasurer president of a pta or a club organization for all but two of those 15 years i've spent a great number of hours volunteering in animal county public schools i currently am the sports boosters treasurer the anne arundel county kind of pta treasurer and prom breakfast chair while working full time so i mean my participation in middle and elementary school was substantially more i spent a
045lot of time in the annapolis cluster schools i'm here today as i plan on being here at every subsequent meeting for the rest of the school year to highlight the dedication of the teachers at the annapolis cluster specifically annapolis high school teachers in a high poverty school have so many more challenges that just don't exist in the regular schools you know from a call to families to send supplies in with students to assistance needed for volunteering that is something that just doesn't exist in high poverty schools and i want to sort of straighten out a narrative it's not for lack of you know our parents not wanting to for those that again it's it either transportation issues um you know i through a fundraiser had to develop product into robinwood one time at the elementary
046school so i ran into a parent of family with small children the father was going to his second job so you know they they have an incredible amount of challenges and it's not for lack of wanting to help but it's just that they just don't have the resources too um the one thing i wanted to say as i sort of made a comment or a joke at the last time i testified um i do fully support the teachers with um their worked rule i have a senior so i know that it compact me but i see their dedication day in and day out from you know i testified for mr gandhi who's my daughter's ap physics teacher to um mrs o'neill who's the class rep for that class i mean they spent countless hours um
047just helping out all of the children you know mr chang who it's an incredible combination he's the ib higher level math teacher which is from what i've heard is more rigorous than the abbc calc and he's also a jv football coach you know and his poor daughter that um had to attend all the lacrosse games you know i've seen him in the stands i mean this is the dedication of all of the teachers um so i you know i just wanted to straighten that out and just let you know that um you know from somebody that spent countless hours there that you know they do too thank you good morning president corbilike dr arlatto members of the board my name is bill jones i'm the executive director of the teachers association of anne arundel county
048and the chief negotiator for the teachers association of anne arundel county and all the employees in bargaining one which is who we represent i'm here to talk for just a minute about negotiations i have a concern about the timeliness and i'm not pointing fingers at the board it's a problem both parties face i also want to comment how easy it was to be the last one in line i don't have to worry about who i follow last person standing would be me makes it convenient and easy we have deadlines in our collective bargaining agreement that are there to prevent a situation that happens almost every time we negotiate so i'm here not to find fault but here to practice a fair notices fair play type of uh practice we have we're announcing this in the
049state in the month of november we don't have a printed contract we won't have a printed contract for probably another month at a minimum and that's if we put it on the fast track we would be probably fortunate to have a print a contract before the first semester is over and in six months after that the contract will be obsolete and outdated we've already had our first session for fy17 uh introductory no proposals passed we have another one coming up later on this month and there will be either in that one or the one after that we close the door for new proposals we both anticipate very scarce resources coming from the county executive's office again and we both anticipate that causing some difficulty in reaching agreement the more scant the resources the more difficult
050you we're going to have coming to a voluntary settlement the more difficulty we have coming to a voluntary settlement the more likely we'll have to make use of the impasse process and the mandatory mediation yet again so those deadlines are becoming important it's not an advantage to either party to have negotiations from one fiscal year intersecting overlapping with another one we've already had fy16 overlap with fy17 we don't want to see f517 overlapping with fy18s negotiations so fair notice being fair play we have negotiated procedures agreed to by both parties that both parties have been very flexible with the first deadline is a non-compensation items were supposed to be done by december 31st on all other items were supposed to be done by march 31st i'm here to inform you and the board chief negotiator
051who is either in the room or listening in her office and something they already heard in our introductory session you cannot expect that type of flexibility this year we're going to honor our deadlines we're going to get through the process and if impasse is required at the end of it will be at impasse during the fiscal year and for the fiscal year that we're negotiating on not intersecting and not having impasse after the next fiscal year has already begun thank you i have one other card shira levy is there anyone else that would like to address the board at this time good morning my name is shira levy i'm the president of the school psychologists association of anne arundel county um i'm here today with some positive news and i have some of my coworkers
052accompanying me i'm a school psychologist at meade high school and seven oaks elementary school i have danielle rogers school psychologist at mary moss at j albert adams academy nancy davidson school psychologist at north county high school we're on the executive board of the school psychology association also nick sylvestre our resource psychologist barbara schwartz our coordinator of psychological services and everyone knows kelly anderson who got the educator of the award a month month award today so actually almost a year ago today i was standing here testifying in front of you to advocate for additional school psychology positions um and as we heard from kelly's amazing speech earlier just the importance of school psychologists and the role that we play in the school system of helping our students access social emotional skills in order to remain resilient
053and to grow so today we're actually here in gratitude for you and president korbelack if we could come down to accept an award we have made for you the board of education it says with gratitude this recognition is presented by the anne arundel county public schools school psychologist to the anne arundel county board of education for their support of children's mental health wellness and achievement and we just are so grateful for you with the support of our positions and changing the 210 day employees back to 12 months so thank you very much [Applause] you guys lined up perfect here we go thank you so thank you everybody this is birch i have a question a follow-up question from some of the testimony for the superintendent we had a lot of testimony asking us to do
054something different than has already been done for this year's contract and i guess i have some process questions if if that's all right um we were asked to amend the contract and i don't know that there's really a process in place for us to do that so i guess that's my first question and the other question i have is i just i want to make sure tac is the only one that can negotiate on behalf of the teachers is that correct that's correct okay so other parties can't come in and say we want you to do this for teachers tac has to ask us to do things well certainly people can advocate for teachers right absolutely but when it comes to negotiating salary work hours work year those sorts of things that all has to
055go through we have to work through the tax leadership today okay or any of the other unions in in if it were um appropriate okay so um the board can't unilaterally decide to give more money to teachers for something unless it's in the contract correct that has to be negotiated because it's a a mandatory subject of part correct okay so just like we can't unilaterally decide to do something that would be negative for teachers we also can't do something that's positive for teachers right we can just unilaterally pay them differently nor pay a union member or selected union members additional work days okay it has to all that has to be negotiated okay so that's not something the board can do on its own it has to be done through regular negotiations correct okay and
056i also have some questions about the general fund money that has been discussed as available can you explain to me were you given access to the the paperwork that the um i guess the people that testified was that ever shared with you as to what money they were speaking of that we have general fund money available to spend no the paperwork wasn't shared with me um but i knew of there was an apparently some emails that went back and forth between several members of the community as well as mr trumbauer and um the county auditor okay and i think some of my folks had seen some of that paperwork about about a little over three million dollar surplus i don't know that we really ever have surpluses in terms of money that gets um after
057we um balance out our books at the end of the fiscal year and any monies that we didn't spend say it was we didn't hire a number of teachers or we didn't spend a money in a particular category rolls over into the next year to help pay our bills and that's what that fund balance does for us it moves forward into the next year so it's it doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't have a place to go it's just that on june 30 it didn't have a place to go on july 1st it may have had a place to go correct okay and and i also think that some of the recommendations that i heard about were to take additional money from our health care fund balance to refund these types of things and i
058mean i think we've already said that's always one-time money so it's not a good idea to be spending one-time money that our teachers themselves invested in with their premium payments um just to pay for teacher raises correct that's not something and and this is it's not new to this community it's not new to this board to talk about the health care fund balancing using it to pay other bills um we spent upwards of 150 155 million dollars a year as we're self-insured um and while there is balance left we are um uh we are we we are purposeful in having that balance so that we can pay our medical bills as they come in from our employees okay all right thank you for those clarifications because i just wanted to um be a little more
059clear on some of the things that were said earlier thank you so much yes ma'am mrs hummer um yes i think they've already slipped out but i wanted to speak to this psychologist who was here miss levy i've had personal interaction with because she was the psychologist at my children's elementary school and now she's at meade high school and we all heard about miss anderson who was named our employee of the month and that i just think the school psychologists do amazing jobs and um they are a lifeline for so many of our students and so i want to thank them and we are very grateful for all they do for us dr frank dr alato if i could ask you to clarify some things and perhaps these are not easy things to clarify but
060i thought for members of the board in the bargaining units to me this is a complicated situation because as a member of anne arundel county and as a taxpayer funds are determined by the county and by the government so to what extent uh uh as a member of the school board and superintendent of schools are we in a position to negotiate dr frank i maybe you'll have to clarify and negotiate uh what uh are are we really in a position uh to provide additional salaries if those funds are not available to us we are not right so we have just ratified a contract with our teachers association and then we're going through the process with our other bargaining units um and once that has been ratified and and uh approved by both sides that's what
061we operate on for the next year or years depending on whether it's a one year multi-year contract so we've gone through that process in terms of the teachers association i think you're referring to and so we now have a contract for this upcoming year and that spells out the salary benefits work time work year all of that is spelled out for the current year we have now as mr jones said have gone into we've begun the process this month of negotiating for yet another contract that would take place a year from now i think that clarification is useful for the public thank you very much mrs nelly to accommodate mr blake's schedule i moved to take item 4.12 out of order and take it at the beginning of the action items in a second all
062those in favor okay we will take item 4.12 we're going to begin the action items now it's the ratification of the negotiated agreement between the board of education and afscme local 1693. dr alato your recommendation sorry yes i recommend the approval of the tentative agreement between the board of education and the american federation of state county and municipal employees ask me local 1693 now you can do your presentation oh great good morning my name is melissa rawls and i am the director of employee relations to ms korbelack ms nally to dr alato and the members of the board the negotiating teams for the board of education and the american federation of state county and municipal employees local 1693 reached a tentative agreement for fiscal year 16. in brief the summary of changes as agreed upon
063by both parties include a 2 percent cola for all unit 3 employees effective july 1 2015 elimination of the challenge school stipends which consist of an assignment and amo component the amount of the assignment stipend will be credited in full and is a part of the two percent cola given to employees in addition there will be an additional day for annual leave for all unit 3 employees for fy 16. and lastly an increase will occur to the rate of tuition reimbursement for unit 3 employees additional information regarding these and other items contained in the summary of changes can be found on the aacps website i would like to also take a moment to thank corey blank blake excuse me the assistant to the executive director for afscme council 67 and chief negotiator for local 1693
064and roland johnson president of local 1693 and the negotiating teams for their dedicated effort during fy 16 negotiations together we were able to reach an agreement which supports asp askme members and their commitment to aacps students staff and community on november 1st 2015 afscme ratified this agreement as such i respectfully request your approval and ratification of the noted summary of changes thank you thank you for that uh for president corbilek vice president ali dr alado and members of the board for the record my name is corey blake i'm the assistant to the executive director of maryland public employees afscme council 67 i'm a resident of anne arundel county and i cho serve as the chief negotiator for the unit 3 employees today attended agreement which has been ratified by the union is presented for your
065consideration this agreement represents many months of hard work by dedicated members of both the union and the board's negotiating teams it represents agreements reached on issues that were thoroughly vetted and researched it represents the type of professional cooperation that can and does exist between employees in this board of education but it also represents what has become the status quo another education budget that gets gutted by the county government another year and with the in which the compensation for employees does not get fully funded another year in which the greatest resource for our students education the employees of this school system are left wanting yes board employees including the unit three employees are getting a two percent cost of living adjustment but i would be remiss if i did not point out that a large percentage
066of this increase is self-funded by the employees themselves a combination of money being shifted from the health care trust fund and money being shifted from stipends to salaries helped get us to two percent what does this mean for the average employee it means they fall farther and farther behind according to the bureau of labor statistics the employment cost index for this region from september 2014 to september 2015 increased by 2.8 percent in other words if employees raises were left entirely to the free market something you think that this county government would favor that our employees would have gotten almost a full percent higher increase in their wages over the last 10 years the cost of living in anne arundel county has increased by roughly 28 percent while employee cost of living adjustments have only increased
067by roughly 16 percent at a year-to-year basis this means that while it costs 2.7 percent more to live in this county employees are only being compensated at 60 percent of that rate year after year while the county government plays politics with the education budget this union's members and your employees and the greatest advocates for our students future fall farther and farther behind this trend is unsustainable at some point your ability to hire and retain dedicated and competent employees will hit a wall i pray that this will not happen our members pray that this not happen but maybe most importantly our students pray that this will not happen in recent days there's been no lack of media coverage concerning your ratification of bargaining agreements with other employee groups a fierce debate has erupted concerning the ability
068of this system to hire and retain not only teachers but all employees of this education system when during the course of this debate students weighed in with their concerns they were told by their government that you don't know what you're talking about don't be another dumb kid this last monday the state legislature renewed its call for the governor to release 68 million dollars in surplus money and to fully fund the public schools yesterday the governor's response was that teachers are failing at their jobs and schools are a mess i feel confident in telling you that the best way to assure that we don't have dumb kids to assure that our educators aren't failing and to assure that our buildings are clean and secure is to make sure that your bullet budgets are fully funded every
069year you are the authority on education in this county vetted by a dedicated and broad commission appointed by the governor and accountable to the citizens we must assure for the sake of everyone that we work together to assure that your ability to hire and retain the best possible employees is not infringed thank you i don't see any board questions or comments is there any public comment on this item okay we have a motion on the floor that's been properly made and seconded all those in favor of ratifying the agreement motion passes nine zero zero thank you thank you the next item on the agenda is 4.01 administrative personnel appointments dr aletto your recommendation i recommend the personnel listed on the attach sheet be promoted and or appointed all those in favor motion passes nine zero
070zero item 4.02 personnel dr oletto your recommendation yes ma'am i recommend the board to prove the actions are stipulated on the attached sheets all those in favor motion passes nine zero zero now we have a series of policies um the first three or third readings item 4.03 quarterly assessments code iih dr alado your recommendation yes ma'am i recommend approval of policy iih subject to final correction for style and format are there any board questions or comments are there any public comments on this item all those in favor motion passes 900. item 4.04 is the third reading the grading policy code ii dr alato your recommendation yes ma'am i recommend the approval policy i subject to final correction for style and format are there any board questions or comments dr frank thank you very much uh
071i've had an opportunity to look at this grading policy the policy allows every student to receive a minimum score of 50 percent quote if they try unquote lowering the standards for parents and students i will vote no on this mrs burch dr frank that's actually existing policy this doesn't change that am i correct yes so whether you vote yes or no that already exists i understand that i will vote no and just to clarify it's our understanding that this policy is before us today to address the quarterly assessments that we just passed and and we will right and we will be looking at this more in detail some of the other issues later that's correct okay mrs ritchie and this policy along with all the other policies that we come up are all on the
072line for uh um public comment do we receive any public comment of any sorts to this policy just related to the quarterly assessments they were sort of the comments couldn't be taken out because they talked about grading within but all roads related to quarterly assessments and the change from semester exams to quarterly assets right but as soon as you release this policy then anybody could comment on anything they wanted whether it was relevant to what we were doing or not they could make comments about that and you know and so forth so the really it had to do with this because that's what we opened it up for and i know we got we got a lot of comments on the high school assessment piece itself the quarterly assessment that policy but this policy in
073particular there weren't anybody that brought any forward any none not on the particular issue because this is very well vetted policy that we went through a lot of process um i'm you know can't remember dates are not good for me like two years ago and stuff like that we went through a whole big process with this and and so forth all right thank you is there any public comment on this item all those in favor motion passes are all there's a post motion passes 8-1 item 4.05 is high school courses taken by middle school students policy iif and dr alato your recommendations yes ma'am i recommend that the board approve policy iif subject to final correction for style and format is there any public comment on this item mrs birch since this is the last
074of the three related to this i just want to thank you all for all of your hard work on these policies and regulations and for taking into account the public input because i know there was quite a bit of public input and i know that people actually had suggestions that were helpful right so um you know just to let people know that we really do look at what they say and and take it into consideration and and make changes to to our policies and regulations based on what they say so thank you everyone for your very hard work on all of this and we very much appreciate it because i think this is a good step for us to take for the future so thank you dr alato thank you mrs burge for um for
075putting that out there this is the team that sits before you is truly amazing and to get where we are with quarterly assessments and making the adjustments and moving the school system forward this is well well over a year's worth of work and ideas and not just this team but throughout this building principals were involved teachers were involved parents were involved we even talked to a number of other counties in the work that they're doing in this area so i just again i want to reiterate thank you to this amazing team we did have a question last night when we are at our community outreach when does the quarterly assessment officially begin county-wide it officially begins countywide as stated in the palestinian regulation for the 16-17 school year thank you any other public comment or
076questions all those in favor motion passes nine zero zero thank you now we have a series of first readings new policies up for review item 4.06 is an information item work days holidays special observances policy gah thank you the school the school and family partnerships office and the division of human resources bring policy gah work days holiday special observances to you for first reading the policy was last updated november 7 1990 and the updated policy provides the scheduled holidays and observances when anne arundel county public schools and offices shall close this policy like our others will be posted on our website for 30 days for public comment we welcome any questions you have related to it mrs ritchie this um the holiday schedule always seems to be a controversial piece and so i'm i'm anticipating
077that maybe you know people may send in information and say well we want this and we want that and and so forth and i know that there is a process that we look at that first off there are certain holidays that we're dictated to by the state for instance for the um easter holiday or the easter area there we have to have the friday and the monday we have to we can't open schools that's the state has dictated that we're state agency and so therefore we're closed um veterans day is not one of those holidays that's dictated by the states and we make that decision that we're going to stay open and we do a lot of celebrations and it also provides the opportunity for a lot of uh federal parents to be able to
078come on days that maybe they wouldn't be able to come in before and that's the decision that we make through the calendar committee each year i think we have a discussion whether that's going to be one of those things so when you when you look at observations of significant dates okay let's put it that way instead of calling them holidays because veterans day is not necessarily a holiday so when we look at we have a lot of different religions in our county for which we can be thankful for and a lot of different diversity but the the fact is we have to educate students and we have certain dictates that we have certain ways we have to do we have to have so many days in school we have to have so many hours we
079can't do dates on certain things i mean there's a lot of constraints and so forth so when we're looking at holidays specifically as they relate to religions one of the things i think and correct me please if i'm wrong is that we look at the percentage of parent of teachers and students who will who have requested substitutes or will be missing on that day but that will help to lead to some of our decisions on whether to close the schools is that pretty fair to say yes okay well the reason i say that is because people will say again last night when we were at you know they were talked about eid which is a religious observance for them and so they're they're upset that the students you know we don't close schools and and
080the fact is is that it's a very small majority of people who who are muslim who represent that or any religion other than um one some of the ones we've recognized here so if that became something in our county that became a growing concern in terms of our teachers and in terms of students but we've also taken a concession that students won't be tested we won't provide any major testing on those days in in and we can do that we can work around those kind of things we can make so we won't do any high school assessments we won't do any quarterly exams on those days that we know have been recognized as holy days for for this religion or for and that's outlined on the calendar yeah so i mean so we make concessions
081that way but we can't close the school system for less than one percent of people who would be absent and they also that absent doesn't count against them correct so we we use the term a significant disruption because of attendance so if if it were deeming a significant disruption because a very high number of students were absent then we have to look at as do do we need to really make it a holiday of course any day we take out as a holiday is something that's got to be added to the front end or the back end of the calendar and that brings up its own issues which right which mr tudor can talk to at great length right so but interesting to know that in terms of observances for families that are not in
082the majority if you will to use those terms that used earlier we do want to make concessions to those students that they are excused absences that we publish that they are not testing days so the students aren't missing anything significant in school we want to work with those families in those groups as best we can on an individual basis right but i just want to make it i think because it was i think that when people understand the process when we explained the process last night it was a matter of oh okay now they know how that it wasn't just arbitrarily we didn't just arbitrarily pick a day that we were going to you know give off and to do those things and so i think that it was it's helpful to to be able
083to understand the process of how that occurs and that there are you know we want to be respectful but we also have a job if you will of providing an education and the state says we have to have so many days in school and you know and right now we're dealing with do we want to come to school before labor day but that's a whole nother that's a whole other ball of wax there so we're not going to talk about that now another issue that's or another question that's arisen with our muslim community is the equity with the jewish holidays and the question about um the change in our county's composition over the the years do we have an equally significant disruption or do we have less of a significant disruption with our jewish holidays
084than we did perhaps when we first decided to offer them as holidays in closing schools versus should we be open on those days and just make those excused absences and non-testing days as well that's a question we're starting to hear from from the community and that question came up very strongly at the calendar committee as well we did not change anything as you'll see when we bring the calendar forward at the next board meeting but it it was very strong at the calendar committee they wanted one of the issues is because we have had the holidays off for a significant amount of time now we don't have that data and we also don't ask that information so we don't know the percentages of our teachers that are of that religion or our students and we
085don't know now what the percentages were at the time that we closed we were having a disruption and that's why we closed but um people are asking has it changed significantly should we still have both should we maybe only have one should we alternate like some counties do and do yom kippur one year and rosh hashanah one year or just do young all those questions come up every year and that's something that as a board you would have to make a decision at the calendar committee we did decide that for the 1617 we're going to present it to you the same way we have with those two days as off but they would like to for the 1718 to be able to discuss that and maybe make some different decisions and i just was going
086to actually in two weeks talk to you about that and see what your feelings were yeah like mrs ritchie said that once we explained the significant disruption and how it was determined that the aid holidays would be excused absences and no testing days they understood that but they wanted the equity with some of the other religions and within the calendar committee it was very much depending on where that member taught or where the parent was the their children went to school some people said to us my particular school it would be a huge disruption the percentage of our jewish faculty it would be a disruption we can tell you to our school we could we know that right now but then others said well we wouldn't even notice it at our school so it really
087we just don't have the data any longer because we have done it in such a long time so it would be hard for us to give you that while we are closing each time this is birch yeah i'm i'm thinking that the only way to to solve it is to just not close one year and see what and see what happens which sounds like a horrible idea but at the same time is that the only way to actually figure it out because these aren't things you can actually ask people and i'm thinking let's think 1718. right we have a lot going on in 1617. if we were to do that though if we were to um does that mean that we would need to do a diff the policy differently yes okay so this is
088currently the way the policies at first read unless we make some amendments through the three reading process is that we are closed during those days so we would need to change it to a may close instead of a shell close yes okay so this is something we need to be thinking about in the next several weeks yes it would be interesting to see what okay so that's that's something we need to be thinking about okay thank you and the calendar itself if we made those changes would go out for public comment as well correct so we could try to solicit some feedback that way dr frank thank you very much from everything i've heard i'm glad i'm not on the calendar committee i know this is a difficult issue and i also realize that you
089want to be sensitive to everyone's religion and on the other hand i'm not sure it's appropriate to ask individuals what is your religion so thank you very much and i hope that there's a way that we can resolve this in in the shortest amount of time possible thank you this is richie just a reminder then this policy will be online so we don't you know we're not asking you what it is but i mean to get on there and comment would be appreciated because that's a way to do a what they call a straw poll kind of thing just to kind of give us a quick idea so um i'm sorry we're gonna probably get hopefully get bombed with a bunch of people you know voting yes or no on there but that would be
090that would be helpful then as we move forward because you like you said you don't have the data so is there any public comment on this item yet okay so this will now go up on the website for public comment for 30 days yes all right thank you guys item 4.07 is a first reading as well agenda preparation and distribution code bca the communications office in partnership with the board office bring policy bca agenda preparation and distribution to you for first reading this policy was last updated october 16 1989. the updated policy provides the procedures for the development and dissemination of the agenda for each public board meeting this policy will be posted on our website for 30 days for public comment and we welcome any questions you or i welcome any questions you have
091about that this policy i don't have any board questions is there any public comment okay so that'll be up on the web for 30 days item 4.08 is a first reading board policy dissemination bfa policy bfa is here to you for first reading this policy was last updated october 16th 1989. the updated policy provides for the electronic and hard copy dissemination of board policies and accompanying regulations to the board office schools and public libraries this policy will be posted for 30 days public comment and we'll answer any questions you have related to this policy mrs ritchie and again i'm going to reach out to the public because if you read this we have to disseminate this to public libraries which means we send this to the public libraries and then somebody there has to put
092it in a book someplace and and and i think that you know our policies are all online and they're very easy to to to and we also have a book in every school that we're in and i'm not opposed to going to the library and putting them in the library i'm just thinking that in this day and age that's sort of antiquated so um you know anybody want to weigh in on that that would be great too any public comment on this item nope dr frank i'm a great user of the crofton public library however i'm not sure that i know that these policies are available in my library can you provide information to each library to let the public know that when they walk in the library this information is available if they'd like
093to see it we we send a regular memo once we have enough policies that are worth giving them to update um and we can certainly include um information that guidance provided to the public on where to find these policies we could include a line in that memo that cover memo if that is something that the board wanted i i'm sure you're doing a wonderful job i'm not sure that our libraries are understanding the need to provide the information so that when you walk in the library you know that that's available thank you any public comment okay item 4.09 is also first reading compensation and benefits of the superintendent cbc policy cbc is here to you for first reading this policy was last updated november 20th 1989. it affirms compliance with state law regarding compensation and
094benefits of the superintendent of schools for anne arundel county public schools this policy will be posted on our website for 30 days public comment and we welcome any questions you have related to it i don't have any board questions is there any public comment okay we'll move that to the website for 30 days item 4.10 is administrative organization cc the office of the superintendent brings policy cc administrative organization to you for first reading the policy was last updated september 4th 1996. this policy provides information regarding the organizational chart that is provided to the board and posted publicly on our website the policy will be posted on our website for 30 days public comment we will answer any questions you have related to this policy i don't have any board questions is there any public comment
095okay we'll move that to the internet for public comment uh the next item on the agenda is item 4.11 this is an information to action item the 2016 legislative program do i have a motion to move this from information to action all those in favor we now have an action item dr alato your recommendation yes ma'am i recommend approve the 2016 legislative program and we have a presentation brief comments it's my pleasure to bring to you our recommended 2016 legislative program while it's only november november the first day of session when the general assembly convenes will be here before you know it it is january 13 through april 11th if anyone's wondering this document provides a comprehensive overview of the board's position on topics that impact public schools and education in maryland this program serves
096many purposes during the legislative session and throughout the school year before session begins this program is sent to our elected officials to provide them with background and positions of our school system so they are aware of board stances when they are drafting amending and voting on bills during the session we use this program to advocate on your behalf when bills are filed and heard related to the topics covered in this program then throughout the year the program is utilized by staff to appropriately represent the board's position on various issues that are raised by stakeholders from time to time i'm happy to answer any questions you have related to this document is this ritchie i actually have a motion to amend the the legislative platform okay okay i move that on page 24 teachers and instructional
097personnel in the introduction to add the following after teaching force which is directly impacted by the school system's ability to recruit and retain high quality teachers and educators and to add an additional bullet under ace aaacps supports enticements initiatives and other measures designed to make it easier and more affordable for teachers and other educators to purchase homes in anne arundel county thus being closer to and more involved in the communities in which they work can i get a second okay we have a second all right we have a second can i speak to the motion um you've heard me speak a lot about affordable housing i'm going to call it affordable housing instead of workforce housing because as we learned today appropriate terms are correct and so that is the appropriate term that people are
098using affordable housing um affordable housing came about like in 1974 and happened to be in like colorado in a ski resort where people who worked at the ski resorts couldn't necessarily live there because it was too expensive for them to live affordable housing can be anything from single to multi-family homes as well as rental units over the years families who have found it difficult to purchase a home located in an area they work and that's adequate for their needs this has created them to drive for affordability or drive until they qualify to own a decent home so we may work in anne arundel county but may have to live in another county because they can't find affordable homes in our county this has increased cost to our state and to our counties themselves increased in
099congestion over the tax rose over tax roads maybe not getting the taxes for that from some other places so i've i've talked a lot about telling your story so i'm going to tell you briefly my story and actually it's the story of my daughter who is a now third year teacher in anne arundel county public schools and mike all children when they graduate from college we hope they want to move out of your home and and for some of us we want them to move out of our home and so uh i i i know how much they make you know because i'm kind of involved in this and um so my thing to her talking to her was you can't spend more than one paycheck for your for your mortgage well that doesn't leave
100a whole lot in in what we have to to look forward to so we went on the trips and we are a family who was highly involved much to hersha grin we went with her to to look at homes and ultimately we ended up purchasing or she ended up purchasing we didn't purchase it she did 165 000 home it's a row home it's got three bedrooms the third bedroom i consider more of a walk-in closet the bathroom you can stand and touch one wall to the next it's extremely small and for her this is fine and for her 15 month old daughter this is fine but for a growing family or for anybody that has more than one child in in this is it's extremely small fortunately for her you know i had some old
101furniture downstairs but turned out to be really big and you know so that's in her living room so now you have like a little tiny pathway you can walk in and any of you have children know that they like to run and move around areas it's um 1024 square feet and um that's and the lot is a 3 000 square foot lot so for those of us who under because i don't understand i know because i see the house i know that it's a small little tiny house but you know um when she moved in even though they'd done the house inspection this was a foreclosure so that was why we were able to get it cheaper when she moved in after about a year there was a leak and found out we needed a
102new roof new roof cost six thousand dollars we need new windows i'm not sure how much that's going to cost the drain backed up where the septic rolls out in the thing and thank goodness my brother-in-law is a plumber and had the stuff that they were able to do the um plumbing for because of those things all added up now she did get a little break because teachers association does work with the realtor keller williams and they reduced some fees but not enough that that really made a difference so this is yeah so this is this is a major a major concern in terms of um and i tell you that because that's a real life story we walked through and we and we looked at and some of the things that we've some of
103the homes that we saw we went into one home it was really gorgeous downstairs they spent a lot of money and fixed up the downstairs walked upstairs black mold said let's go walked into another house you know freddie cougar may have lived in the basement because it was not happening down there and you know in just some of the areas now i'm not saying that you need to make affordable housing in the middle of annapolis and live on waterfront but it's something that i think that our county needs to start looking at and i'm very hopefully we'll vote to to put this piece in there so that we can advocate as well for that because not only does this teach this work for teachers but it also works towards police officers and fire department and
104what we consider service industry these are for people who work full-time and not living in poverty and this is not like section 8 housing that's not what this is about this is about ensuring we have affordable homes because even when they move out and move into an apartment which they can afford they can't afford to save and so we want people to live in anne arundel county and so we want them to live in anne arundel county we need to make it affordable for them to live in anne arundel county so i hope that the board will support this motion to amend the legislative platform thank you do we have any other comments on mrs richie's motion okay um i'd like to hear your opinion on this financial or what what do you see is
105about this motion about i think one of our interests um well let me just start by saying mrs mrs ritchie's um amendment i think supports where we are as a system anyway in recruit recruitment and retention efforts of our teachers and one of the things that we talk about in here is we want high quality teachers we know that's going to directly impact our students in the classroom so i think the message of how other ways that we can support our teachers and make sure we have the best teachers in the classroom that are not distracted by the leaky roof and everything else that we can get them in a good situation i think that aligns with the the purpose intent and spirit of this program i have a question on a different page on
106the school nutrition and health yes but she was just talking about amen or voting on the whole thing and then we can amend other ones if we need to okay is there any public comment on the amendment to the teachers and instructional personnel page okay all those in favor all those opposed motion passes 7-2 i i have a question and i don't know if you can answer it okay the items in red on school nutrition and health these foods must meet a set of new of nutrient standards including fats sodiums and calories i'm just curious where the county is or where the nutrition standards are with sugar i definitely cannot answer that question i'm sure jody rissy could but i can't um i will tell you oh she's here i would have caught her if
107i knew she was here it's on page 19. uh for the record jody overseas supervisor food and nutrition services um what we look at usda mandates what we look at nutritionally so they're the items that we listed sugars aren't pulled out separately so when we look at total calories that's part of that equation but not part of each individual item or sugars being separate as a nutrient so we're just following the usc usda usda and how they're labeling and looking up correct nutrition okay as well as msd so we look at sugar but it's a bigger component we look at calories total okay we have any other questions is there any public comment on the legislative program dr frank can you uh help uh us and maybe this is uh not a simple question but
108i would like to hope we can um provide and include the best and the brightest to come to our school system can you help us help us figure out what it's going to take so that we can get the best and the brightest to come here as an individual no but i think that there's a team of individuals that work hard on that every day so i think that that is ultimate goal of the school system i i certainly would like to hear at some time a response to that and do whatever i can to see that we accomplish that all right all those in favor of the 2016 legislative program as amended motion passes 9-0-0 thank you the next item is a review item item 5.01 a word of contracts mrs burge has a
109question for you what is baseball diamond mix so as for the record alex shacknow's chief operating officer for baseball infield mix we need to have a different type of dirt and clay product to allow the water to percolate uh down through more rapidly than what the conventional soil is so our baseball diamonds are actually dug out to a certain depth and then replaced with a soil that's that's highly prevalent and prone to producing good drainage so it doesn't wind up uh becoming a mud pit to start with and then after a rain event it also dries out much quicker so we can get back on that playable surface much quicker than we would with the native soil that would have occurred at that high school site you learned something new every day thank you very
110much mrs summer when duke's root control comes out and use there's duke's foaming root control service i want to come watch i want to see what that is i can guarantee you only do that once in your life okay the next and last items on the agenda items 6.01 to 6.02 a word of contracts this is an information to action item do i have a motion to bundle these and move them from information to action all this in paper we now have an action item dr alato your recommendation yes ma'am i recommend that the board award contracts as listed on the agenda as 6.01 and 6.02 inclusive is there any public comment on this item all those in favor motion passes 900. just a couple of announcements the next board of education meeting is an
111evening meeting wednesday november 18th at 7 p.m the next board policy committee meeting is wednesday november 11th at 1 pm and the next word budget committee meeting is wednesday the 18th at 4 30 pm mrs nelly yes i'd like to move that the board goes into closed session to discuss the appointment employment assignment promotion discipline emotion compensation removal resignation or performance evaluation of employ of appointees employees or officials over whom this public body has jurisdiction or any other personnel matter that affects one or more specific individuals to consult with council to obtain legal advice on a legal matter and to consult with staff consultants or other individuals about pending or potential litigation all those in favor all right this portion of the meeting is now adjourned [Music] you